First-gen UE5 titles tested on the Valve handheld - with surprisingly positive results.
Epic’s Unreal Engine 5 is swiftly becoming the engine of choice for current generation gaming.
But are they ‘too big’ for Steam Deck?
Overall, the visual results here look fine, but some scenes display very distracting Lumen GI noise patterns.
Some indirectly lit areas look decent, but many do not.
Fortunately, these visual concessions do allow us to hit pretty decent performance figures.
Gameplay is typically north of 30fps with these parameters, with solid frame-rates in area traversal and combat alike.
Immortals of Aveumfollows the same template as RoboCop.
PC UE5 developers: if you’re supporting FSR 2, hey include TSR too!
Comparisons against the Series S console code are fascinating.
There are more frequent 50ms frames here though, which can breach a 30fps frame-rate cap.
I’ve dialled in high tweaks across the board to give us a generally console-level visual experience.
Image quality is pretty good, though a step down from consoles.
Perhaps that minimum resolution is pegged a bit too high to be useful for us here.
Frame-rates are typically quite solid, often in the 40s and 50s, with a very good performance level.
The Talos Principle 2is perhaps the most interesting game I tested on the Steam Deck.
That it’s arguably visually superior to the Series S version is just icing on the cake.
Unfortunately, Fort Solis doesn’t fare quite as well.
parameters-wise, I settled on the medium preset, with ultra performance FSR 2 at 720p.
So is Unreal Engine 5 “too big for Steam Deck”?
I don’t think so - but you should probably accept some brutal compromises in resolution.
And performance is firmly in playable territory, with broadly 30fps and above frame-rates.
Unreal Engine 5, despite all my expectations, proves a decent match for the Steam Deck.
