Can You Play Starfield on Steam Deck or ROG Ally?

If you’re considering playing Starfield on mobile devices such as Steam Deck or ROG Ally, you might wonder if it’s possible and how well it will run. Even though the game’s requirements aren’t too demanding, the answer to this question may catch you off guard. Here’s what you know about playing Starfield on Steam Deck or ROG Ally.

Can You Play Starfield on ROG Ally or Steam Deck?

Starfield will run on both the Steam Deck and the ROG Ally with the correct drivers, but the hardware is below the recommended minimum specs, and performance may suffer. Due to this, it is not recommended to play Starfield on handheld hardware devices, including Steam Deck and ROG Ally, since the current performance of Starfield runs below the minimum PC specifications.

Here are the Minimum PC Requirements for Starfield:

• OS: Windows 10 version 21H1
• Processor: AMD Ryzen 5 2600X, Intel Core i7-6800K
• Memory: 16 GB Ram
• Graphics: AMD Radeon RX 5700, NVIDIA GeForce 1070 Ti
• DirectX: Version 12
• Storage: 125 GB available space

Note: An SSD is required to play Starfield on PC.

Related: Bethesda Breaks Silence on Starfield Cloud Gaming During Early Access

Steam Deck and Rog Ally Hardware Specifications

To understand why the Steam Deck and ROG Ally are under the PC minimum requirements for Starfield, you must understand how the hardware works. First, both devices use a custom AMD APU which includes an AMD processor and an integrated graphics solution.

The Rog Ally is powered by an AMD Ryzen Z1 Series processor. It combines the “Zen” 4 architecture with AMD RDNA 3 architecture-based graphics. The GPU equivalent would be the GTX 1650, RTX 2060, or 1050 Ti. Here are the hardware specifications of the Rog Ally:

• OS: Windows 11 Home
• Processor: AMD Ryzen Z1 Extreme Processor
• Memory: 16 GB Ram
• Graphics: 12 AMD RDNA 3 CUs

The Steam Deck uses a custom AMD APU that comprises a Zen 2 CPU and RDNA 2 GPU. The GPU equivalent would be the Nvidia GTX 1050, a mid-range graphics card that came out in late 2016. Here are the hardware specifications of the Steam Deck:

• OS: SteamOS 3.0
• Processor: Zen 2
• Memory: 16 GB
• Graphics: 8 AMD RDNA 2 CUs

While the custom AMD APU’s don’t have exact equivalents of NVIDIA and AMD hardware it is easiest to compare these to older pieces of hardware and this is why it isn’t recommended to play Starfield on Steam Deck or ROG Ally.

Author’s Note: I wrote this guide while playing Starfield on Xbox Series S.