Just curious what do people have in mind, when they say a game is “working great” or “perfectly”. I believe I’m in the minority, but I just can’t enjoy a game under 45 FPS, or if the resolution has to be under 720p and the UI/text is all blurry because of it. Perhaps it’s because I’m used to playing mainly on PC. Still enjoy my Steam Deck a lot though, even if it can’t keep up sometimes.
Consistent 40 FPS is the absolute minimum in most games for me. 45 FPS is pretty ideal, 60 FPS is a bonus. 30 FPS is not really enjoyable to me since I notice the low framerate too much.
Exactly this for me as well… I will add the caveat that if I had to lower the native resolution to boost performance, upscale/FSR artifacting needs to be minimal and not mess with legibility. Some games look phenomenal upscaled (like, 99% as good as native resolution) and it’s not an issue… others, not so much.
EDIT: phrasing, grammar is hard when typing I guess.
I was amazed to see how big of a difference 30 to 40 makes. It feels much closer to 60 to me. It looks “normal” to me as opposed to 60 that looks extra smooth and 30 that looks choppy.
Depends on the game. Older games and 2D games I expect 60FPS at native resolution with a lot of the graphical options enabled. Morrowind, Stardew Valley, Doom 3, etc.
Newer games I don’t mind turning down the graphical options to try and score that 45-60FPS. Cyberpunk, Jedi Fallen Order, Skyrim, etc.
I know what you were trying to say with your comment but Skyrim is about 12 years old now lol. Not quite a newer game
If you play other games from that era they play a lot better than Skyrim
I’m a simple man, no lags is all it takes with me.
Depends on the game and whether I’m playing docked on my TV or handheld.
Docked I want at least a consistent 40, but a consistent 30 on slower games like Oblivion/Skyrim isn’t awful when playing handheld.
I’m perfectly fine with 30fps, my biggest concern is battery life. At 30fps I don’t really like to see a game go much higher than 15-16w of draw. Lower is even better.
Any game in that range can be pushed harder (higher fps, higher graphics quality, etc), but at that point it’s up to the player whether they want to prioritize battery, graphics, or smoothness. If you go above that threshold there usually isn’t much room for player choice in how they want the game to run.
Yeah I don’t usually play for more than 2 hours so the battery is not really that much of a concern for me like it is for others. But my sweet spot is usually 50 fps for more demanding games considering the battery/fps ratio. I don’t like to overheat my deck unnecessarily.
