This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/steamdeck by /u/OverlyOptimisticNerd on 2026-05-16 04:48:55+00:00.

Background:

I’m seeing a lot of variance in terms of performance claims on the sub. Since I gained early access last night by paying too much, I’ll provide some benchmarks using the in-game benchmarking tool. The goal here is to provide realistic, data-backed results rather than claims that appear outlandish.

Limitations:

Per Steve and Tim at Hardware Unboxed, the in-game benchmarking tool is a fair representation of actual gameplay, except for ray-tracing. As the benchmark takes place in an overcast scene, RT is not as demanding as it is under more sunlit conditions. As for my own observations, the benchmark is more demanding than free roaming, the latter of which I suspect is being used by the people claiming 40+ fps consistently.

Due to the above, and for the sake of my sanity, I’ll be using the in-game benchmarking tool rather than a custom or scripted test. Ray tracing won’t be tested anyway, not on this device in this game. You likely will experience better results when free roaming, but the more demanding races should mirror these results.

Methodology:

• Device used is a Steam Deck OLED LE (OLED model can be ~5% faster than LCD in some cases).
• Ran on-device at 800p while plugged in. I ran all of the lowest presets up to the high preset, and each preset at multiple levels of FSR (version 3.1.5). High was kind of pointless, but I did it anyway.
• Steam Deck was set to allow tearing. In game frame rate was set to unlimited (variable) and vertical synchronization was set to off. While I did try this, allow tearing still doesn’t work. Vsync is forced on no matter what you do. But I left the settings as-is throughout for the sake of consistency.
• Because the default settings used were TAA + no upscaling, that was one of the options that I tested. All FSR options tested were with TAA turned off.
• The game was restarted between settings changes. The Steam Deck was restarted between preset changes. The game crashed every time I finished a round of benchmarking, making this even more tedious.
• I initially recorded 1% lows, but due to how variable this was run to run, I discarded it. Because the Steam Deck is technically below the game’s official minimum specs, you’re going to see a lot of variability there.
• After I finished handheld testing, I did some docked testing, which is in the second table. This was a more limited subset at 1080p to see if FSR would have an impact here, since it clearly didn’t at 800p.

Results are below:

Notes and Conclusion:

The game didn’t seem to be resolution limited at low resolutions, meaning that FSR gave no real benefit in handheld mode. If anything, the additional overhead from FSR led to more wildly varying frame rates. Native and TAA gave the least variability, with TAA giving the best picture quality. I can see why TAA and no upscaling was the default. The 1% lows, while variable, consistently got worse with lower quality versions of FSR.

More experimentation will be needed to find the ideal mix of settings outside of presets to maximize the Steam Deck for this game. But if you’re only going to use the presets, here are my recommendations.

• Very Low - Avoid it. At a 50fps average, the dips into the low 30s are extremely jarring, and there’s a rubber-band-like effect due to the fluctuating frame rate. And if you’re going to cap to 45 to smooth it out, might as well bump to low.
• Low - Upon first boot the game was capped internally at 45fps, but subsequently hitting the defaults (Y) button switched to 90 on the OLED. I do recommend 45 as a cap, or even 40 with the overlay for a slightly more consistent experience. Attempting to cap to 35 resulted in the setting being ignored and it running at up to 40 anyway. For those extremely sensitive to stutters, cap to 30 for a mostly consistent experience.
• Medium - Not recommended. Looks better than low, sure, but even when capped to 30 the dips to 23 are quite jarring. Only choose this setting if you’re ok with a mostly-30fps experience with some dips. But it didn’t appeal to me. Entering a crowded turn at 30fps and having it hit 23 as I’m trying to maneuver made my already low-skill worse.
• High - Avoid. The average was only 2-3 lower than medium, but consistently dips into the low 20s or teens.
• Docked - 1080p with TAA looked best, FSR Balanced being most playable while still looking ok, but don’t go below that. It turns into a pixel-counting game. It’s bad. 1440p FSR Ultra Performance played similarly to 1080p Native, but looked far worse. In my case I had a VRR-capable display which made it more tolerable but, lacking that, cap at 30.

EDIT: AI usage disclaimer - I used Claude to spell/grammar check. I removed one word and discarded its other recommendations. I’d rather have my non-perfect grammar than use AI slop. This post was not written with AI, but I did throw in that em dash out of pure spite.

Formatting was done by hand using Reddit markup on Old Reddit. Tables were generated HERE.