Steam Deck ED Optimization

[Merlin StWahgwaan]

Sooo....
Elite Odyssey runs nearly perfectly with some tweaking of setting and fps on the Steam Deck.
And I mean nearly perfect.

Aside from some areas with unreadable text, like station consoles, the game itself plays very nicely actually, definitely past what my minimum standards for "playable" are.

I havnt had a chance just yet to copy out my exact settings, but I plan on doing that first chance I can, so that anyone else looking to use their Deck to play, can have a starting point.

But what I'm hoping for here, is for others to also post your configuration settings, and your experience so far with ED on the Steam Deck.

Any suggestions, ect are all welcome!

 

[TheTechnobear]

yeah, Ive been playing exclusively on the deck for a while now.. 200+ hours

its pretty good, main thing I found was turn OFF anti aliasing .. this makes the text much more readable.
other than that a mix of medium/low settings, and you are good to go.
I think the key thing when doing settings, is to realise.. (the obvious)...
its a small screen... so really you can make big comprises to quality settings, and you just won't see them.

(and yeah, its true, 3.8 does look sharper etc... but, I really prefer a lot of odyssey... and it is 'the future' w/ story etc,
so I just accept it, and don't look back!)

only major thing I disliked on control scheme was B+Down = gear, as I sometimes ended up boosting into the back of the station
but now with the new radial menu trackpad support on the SD is fantastic (in beta on SD).
left trackpad has things like gear, lights, night vision... right trackpad = mouse look.

apart from text, probably the only 'issue', is entering system names on the virtual keyboard can be a bit of a pita.
but its fine most of the time, and I bookmark stuff quite a lot now...
was mainly a pain, when I was flying to Colonia...where it'd be nice to have browser to copy/paste entries from other websites. (*)


what I also love about the SD, is plug it into a usb3 monitor.. and I get display/power/keyboard/mouse all on one cable.
(ok, so those limited quality settings now reveal themselves , but thats ok for me)

for sure, SD is not going to give you high res graphics...but for general accessible gameplay, its just awesome.


I think the only downside is.. for the first time in decades, Im getting back into gaming, and now want a decent PC gaming rig
anyway.. I can grab my settings/config if you want, but generally, its pretty straightforward.

----
(*) I think theoretically, you could do this on the SD...
as it could also run chrome or other windows apps in the background and switch windows, via steam button.
not sure, if you'd need to use desktop mode for this.. but even then you can create your own launchers.
(e.g. to start both elite and chrome at the same time)

 

[TheTechnobear]

btw: @frontier.... you should perhaps think about getting 'playable' status for EDO... could bring you a lot of players = $$$

main things would be:

a) default graphics settings / improved default controller mappings/
so new players get a better on-boarding experience.

b) steam input support
what would REALLY help here, is adding steam input support ... so that the controller could know about your 'modes' (on ship/in srv/on foot)
that way, we could customise radial menus etc based on your 'mode'.
this would help all ED players using steam.

c) anti aliasing..
nuff said on this elsewhere, but improvements in text readability could make this truly next level.

... but yeah, I know this is a bit of a pipe dream for ED, so focus on (a) and (b) , and you'll still lots of new players.

and... yup, surprise, surprise.... NMS is ahead, fully playable status, decent default settings, steam input support with full controller mapping.
whilst I prefer ED to NMS, its shocking the difference in QOL improvements Hello Games focus on.. even in the space of a few months.


anyway, definitely great to play EDO on SD, but with its unsupported nature, and initially 'lack lustre' default settings, its really only the die-hards going to play on deck... which is a shame, as SD is bringing lots of new players into pc gaming, who don't care that the game is a bit older.

 

[Pyrazol]

Former PS4 player here, moved to PC when the console copy portal went live! And also got Odyssey then. Got my Steam Deck that same week, so it looks like it was fate

I agree the Steam Deck runs the game super well. I played handheld the first few days and then tried it out on a TV as well (with a USB-C dongle, docking station MIA).

In general it works super well, depending on settings and what’s happening on the screen I can get up to 60 fps even But in some cases, like with the recent CG at Mackenzie Dock (with a lot of players) and in busy spots like nav beacons the framerate can sometimes slow to a crawl (~15 fps). So I’d definitely be interested in comparing settings with you guys.

 

[Merlin StWahgwaan]

Yea sorry, I dropped of the map for a few days there, lol

But the other night, I did some playing around on some settings while going between my ship in flight, SRV, and walking on a planet surface, while playing with my setting on my deck...

I've basically came to conclusion...

If I use the default graphics setting of ULTRA, and turn off Bloom, AntiAlising, and can't remember, will edit later, and leave all the deck performance stuff off;
The game runs basically fine XD
I can hold 55fps, runs about 92degrees, but yea, works fine, lol, so definitely needs to get upgraded to playable in the Deck Store, cuz yea, even ultra settings work without totally killing it.

Now, if I reduce the fps using the Decks per-game performance, and turn on half rate shading and a 30fps limit, I can drop Temps to about 70 degrees, and the game is absolutely great for exploration and I can get between 5 and 6 hours play time on battery without issue or going below 20%. Not one complaint for jumping and exploring in this condition.


Likely this wouldn't work for combat for most players, but I also tested reduced default graphics in game to Medium and this is where is gets real good...
On Med graphics, with bloom & antiailising off, and 60fps, game looks just about identical too on ultra! But runs a heck of alot nicer! Can basically hold 60-56fps most places, and no difference in the level of detail available vs ultra, just a much smother experience. I did not get into any combat, but yea, the game is great on the deck with only those settings.

Turn on half rate shading in the deck, and if playing on the battery, can power limit to 12 watts or even 10, and a gpu of 1200, works its just another way to temp control without much if any loss of performance, but a noticeable amount of battery increase and heat reuction....


But mostly, just default Med with a few things off, and then decide on how hot you like your device to run, and its pretty easy to get ED.O running mint.... atleast for everything outside combat, I mostly do that with my full X56 HOTAS when needed, and not on a small screen, usually my 55" TV with my Pc.


I'll try to take some screenshots and pics of my settings and performance overlay if I can get the time tonight, if not I'll get to it over the weekend....

Really just awesome and easy to disable the few things in game and apply a few in the deck to get an absolutely amazing experience for any exploration... I do really want to try going mining soon, but that's usually a whole day for me to fill my type 9, so I don't know when I'll get a chance to try that on the deck but am going to try to do it before the end of Oct XD, but im a busy CMDR irl so... lol

 

[Merlin StWahgwaan]

b) steam input support
what would REALLY help here, is adding steam input support ... so that the controller could know about your 'modes' (on ship/in srv/on foot)
that way, we could customise radial menus etc based on your 'mode'.
this would help all ED players using steam.

Not sure what you mean exactly here...

There is steam input support from what I understand.... I was able to go into my controller setting for ED in Steam, remap anything and everything to how I would prefer it to function, including remapping the rear R&L4 buttons as default mapps them to A & B which is kinda pointless when you can map them to keyboard keys like U & I and get a heck of alot more ingame options for hot-key combinations in the different modes, ship, srv, ect...


If that's not what steam input support is, then please enlighten me lol because that's what I've always believed, having the controller, xbox stadia ps4 gamepad kayboard and mouse, fully recognized and mappable in steam and then in game....

Edit: like are you trying to say the entire layout of the controller itself, should change in the different ingame modes, but in steam not just ingame? So as a bad example but an example, if using Xbox layout in Ship you want Playstation in SRV, kind of idea? Like the TouchPad could be the mouse in Ship but are the Dpad in SRV?

I mean... I could see that being helpful, but like, thats never been really possible, an Xbox controller layout isn't changed in steam to some other layout just because you changed modes in game normally, it's still an Xbox controller layout, it's the ingame mode switch and new hotkey settings ingame that change the layouts, not steam needing to change how the input works mid-game

 

[TheTechnobear]

If that's not what steam input support is, then please enlighten me lol because that's what I've always believed, having the controller, xbox stadia ps4 gamepad kayboard and mouse, fully recognized and mappable in steam and then in game....

steam input is the api supplied by valve that allows games to explicitly support controllers.
basically, the principle is to expose game 'actions' directly... rather than having to reply on mapping via analog and keyboard controls.
as I mentioned above, the main advantage is that the controller support can be some what more 'intelligent'.
e.g. it can inform the controller about modes... so in elite this would mean the controller could be setup to react differently when on foot/ship/srv (as I mentioned in post) , but as Im sure you can imagine, there are many other advantages to this approach.


of course, steam also supplied controller mapping, as does elite ... but without this 'context sensitivity' its always going to be a bit limited... esp. when using something like the steam deck (as per OP) which has so many control options.
but, for sure, the default mapping is not so bad

 

[Pyrazol]

I can hold 55fps, runs about 92degrees, but yea, works fine, lol, so definitely needs to get upgraded to playable in the Deck Store, cuz yea, even ultra settings work without totally killing it.

That is directly on the Deck, right? Not on a connected TV?

I’ve been playing on my TV these last few days mostly and yeah... just turning off Antialiasing seems to take away most of the heavy lifting. I used supersampling 0.65x to turn down the resolution as well (on my 1080p TV). I haven’t looked at heat or fps recently and it’s honestly perfectly playable. I do notice some heavy framerate issues in some places like Nav beacons still (when there is a lot going on) but in the end I suppose it doesn’t matter that much.

I'll try to take some screenshots and pics of my settings and performance overlay if I can get the time tonight, if not I'll get to it over the weekend....

That’d be great! I’ll try to do the same.

yeah, Ive been playing exclusively on the deck for a while now.. 200+ hours

its pretty good, main thing I found was turn OFF anti aliasing .. this makes the text much more readable.

Nice! Since FDEV cancelled consoles I will be playing exclusively on the SD. So... great to hear someone else is using it as a main device for Elite as well.

And thanks for the antialiasing tip! The game is truly much better on SD with AA off.

what I also love about the SD, is plug it into a usb3 monitor.. and I get display/power/keyboard/mouse all on one cable.
(ok, so those limited quality settings now reveal themselves , but thats ok for me)

May I ask what monitor you are using there? I had the same hope for mine, which is a fairly new LG 4K monitor (27UP850-W) but the Deck simply won’t recognize it. I plug it in and nothing happens. My 1080p TV via HDMI (+ a USB-C dongle) works flawlessly.

 

[TheTechnobear]

when I use my monitor for ED, I tend to run on my LG 35WN75C-B (usually at 1080p iirc) ,
though, Im pretty sure the SD works on my LG 4k as well... I'll go test it again for you.
(both over usb-c)

I think when running it on a monitor, we have to bare in mind the SD is designed to really run at 720p/800,
so for many games you're going to have to dial it back a bit to get to 1080p and above.
as I mentioned above... the main 'issue' is, of course, on the SD small display lower res/fidelity really isn't an issue. (beyond text readability)
but scale it up to larger monitors ,and you'll have to 'manage expectations' a bit

I think this is the key to enjoying the Steam Deck... to rather marvel at what it IS capable of.. its not a laptop replacement after all.. nor is it that price!.
but hey... is there anything that can you can play ED so comfortably on the sofa/bus?

as for frame rates, I tended to cap it at either 30 or 40fps. (Id need to check what I have it on at the moment)
what I aim for is consistency rather that high frame rates... this also helps with battery life, think I get about 2 hours with ED.
(hence why I tend to use a mix of low/medium settings... even though you can squeeze more out if you wish)


its seems reasonably consistent fps for me... except combat zones on foot but I still find it playable.
and we all all know that even some fairly high end rigs deep there.
though I will say, I do believe in turning off the FPS display once you are 'happy'... so you don't obsess over it ...
after all, my aim is to enjoy the game... not to spend my life tuning it

 

[TheTechnobear]

May I ask what monitor you are using there? I had the same hope for mine, which is a fairly new LG 4K monitor (27UP850-W) but the Deck simply won’t recognize it. I plug it in and nothing happens. My 1080p TV via HDMI (+ a USB-C dongle) works flawlessly.

ok, so I checked on my LG 4k monitor , a LG 27UN83A-W, and it works fine. (via usb-c)
( I did need to power cycle monitor, but not sure, if that was just some thing odd going on with what it had been connected to before)


I also use the 'preview' channel on the steam deck OS ... as they are in the process of tweaking external display settings.
( I think, they are trying to improve the 'docking experience', before they release the official steam dock)
that said, Im pretty sure it was working before when I tried it a few months back - albeit not with elite.

perhaps try the preview channel, as this allows you to set resolutions for the external display, which may help you.
(in the old steam OS , I think it was fixed to the highest resolution possible on the monitor i.e .4k)

as far as I could tell, I had a 4k image... with game set to 720p, but then using the steam deck fsr to upscale it... at least I think that was what's going on...not entirely sure, as I said, this is not the monitor I usually use with the steam deck, as I prefer my larger 35" wide display, even though its not 4k

 

[Angelpichu]

I'd try it on my Deck but getting my journal files to transfer over to my main PC automatically is a pain and a half so I just remote play it from my main PC on my deck.

 

[TheTechnobear]

SD is just linux, so it be trivial to set a process that transfers files.

usually you'd use something like inotify_tools with a processing launched by systemd.
but with linux there are a lot of different options.
there are probably also 'end user' tools (with guis) available as a flatpak in desktop mode.

really just a matter of thinking about what you need/want.

btw: you can also place 'tools' (e.g. scripts) as icons on the 'gaming mode' desktop,
so you can have something you just click when you stop playing ED, to do it manually with little/no effort.


the other cool thing about linux, is its really well documented... the knowledge is out there if you search for it.

 

[Jack Winter]

FWIW, I've ran EDMC for a long time on Linux, so installing that on the Deck ought to be easy.

 

[Pyrazol]

By the way, haven’t gotten around to taking screenshots of the ED settings I’m currently running, but here is an example from a YouTuber that I thought was interesting:

Elite Dangerous should be Verified on Steam Deck.

 

[Pyrazol]

ok, so I checked on my LG 4k monitor , a LG 27UN83A-W, and it works fine. (via usb-c)
( I did need to power cycle monitor, but not sure, if that was just some thing odd going on with what it had been connected to before)


I also use the 'preview' channel on the steam deck OS ... as they are in the process of tweaking external display settings.
( I think, they are trying to improve the 'docking experience', before they release the official steam dock)
that said, Im pretty sure it was working before when I tried it a few months back - albeit not with elite.

perhaps try the preview channel, as this allows you to set resolutions for the external display, which may help you.
(in the old steam OS , I think it was fixed to the highest resolution possible on the monitor i.e .4k)

as far as I could tell, I had a 4k image... with game set to 720p, but then using the steam deck fsr to upscale it... at least I think that was what's going on...not entirely sure, as I said, this is not the monitor I usually use with the steam deck, as I prefer my larger 35" wide display, even though its not 4k

3.3.2 with the external display improvements came to stable recently so I tried it out again with my monitor. But yeah, still no dice. Event after power cycling the monitor