Steam Deck handles Elden Ring with aplomb as Bandai Namco promises performance improvements

Both the Steam Deck console and the hotly anticipated adventure RPG Elden Ring were officially launched on February 25, and they have been attracting plenty of praise. However, there have been some reported issues with Elden Ring’s gameplay in regard to frame-rate drops, with the PC platform being especially problematic when it comes to casting high frame rates. But it appears the AMD-powered Steam Deck has taken these issues in its stride and can handle Elden Ring, albeit with some to-be-expected stutters.

IGN and PC Gamer have shared video clips of Elden Ring gameplay on the Steam Deck, and it is certainly clear to see some unstable frame rates, especially in PC Gamer’s clips showing a run on the beach and during a monstruous battle. While the latter source was advised by Valve to try out Proton’s VKD3D to help solve frame-rate-dropping issues (11-13 FPS drops reported with 35-40 FPS gameplay), Bandai Namco has also accepted there are some performance problems and plans to bring fixes for the game as soon as possible.

There may be some who still feel Elden Ring doesn’t run that well on the Steam Deck, but it’s worth noting a couple of things here. First, Valve’s console gives the option of playing the game on the go, and secondly the Steam Deck utilizes an AMD APU that has a GPU part with 8x RDNA2 CUs, 1-1.6 GHz clock, and 1.6 TFLOPs FP32. Compare this latter figure with the PS5 (10.2), XSX (12), and the RTX 3080 (29.7), and you realize just how well the Steam Deck and its Zen 2 chip cope, even if it is projecting graphics output to a much-smaller display.

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