Ray tracing, UE5 and Flight Sim tested - with some stunning results.
Lowering resolution from 1080p down to 720p or 800p.
There’s more to Steam Deck, however.
Testing these features is important because it sets the baseline for how future-proof Steam Deck might be.
Getting PlayStation 4-level experiences working on a handheld is a stunning achievement but what of the future?
To be clear though, I can’t recommend Windows for Steam Deck.
Right now, there are no audio drivers either.
Hardware RT works - and surprisingly well, with caveats.
It boots, it works and it runs well.
I decided to match up my results with 4A’s Xbox Series S port.
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Not so impressive isControl: Ultimate Edition.
To get anything like a playable frame-rate, this required dropping down from 720p to 540p.
It’s the purest form of RT and also the most computationally expensive.
Path-traced Quake 2 at 60 frames per second?
Remarkably, it’s possible, albeit at a dynamic resolution of between 216p to 252p.
Again, I leaned into temporal upscaling, from 612p scaled to 720p.
Thankfully, the nature of the experience ensures that this is hardly a deal-breaker.
At this point, Control ray tracing aside, Steam Deck’s next-gen capabilities are looking quite impressive.
However, as promising as the results are, there is one exception: Unreal Engine 5.
The other big takeaway?
While Steam Deck has a 1280x800 resolution, it’s absolutely fine to run at sub-native resolutions.
The first easy win is to operate at 1280x720 - as I did for the testing in this piece.
TAAU also worked wonders in Flight Simulator and Quake 2 RTX.
So, can Steam Deck handle next generation features and workloads?
There may also be a level of developer buy-in required for best results.
