To this day, Elden Ring stands as one of the most beloved games of all time. The massive world it offers is nothing short of impressive. What’s perhaps even more impressive is the fact that it runs on so many platforms, from gaming PCs and next-gen consoles to PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. The most surprising console it’s able to run on is the Steam Deck, Valve’s handheld gaming device. It’s been preconfigured from launch to work perfectly with the Deck, though a massive game like this might still have some performance issues — especially for those looking to squeeze battery life out of their device. Players should be aware of the best settings for Elden Ring on the Steam Deck both inside and outside of the game itself.
Which Settings to Change for Elden Ring on Steam Deck
Rather than changing Elden Ring’s in-game settings, you should access the Performance tab on your Steam Deck to change settings related to the device. This can be accessed by pressing the button with the three dots on the right face of your Deck. From there, scroll down to the Battery icon to access Performance options. You’ll be given not much more than the Performance Overlay Level at first, but if you hit the Advanced View button, you’ll gain access to a plethora of options. Here are the most relevant options for Elden Ring:
- Use per-game profile: Allows you to affix these changes only to Elden Ring.
- Framerate Limit: Lets you change the target framerate that Elden Ring should run at. Since it’s such a massive game, you might consider turning the setting down to 30 to have a more stable experience. If you decide to alter Refresh Rate, you might prefer to bring it down to 40 or even 50 instead, especially if you use other settings to bring out the most performance you can.
- Scaling Filter: Allows you to change various scaling options. FSR is the one you’ll want to use, as it provides the greatest performance increase at the cost of overall visual quality.
These are the most useful settings to change on the Steam Deck itself. These alterations can be very impactful to performance without risking stability of the system. Of course, following the best settings for Elden Ring on PC will also help performance, but you should maximize the Deck’s Performance Overlay Level before you start messing with that. This will give you a real-time display of both the game’s performance and the Deck’s stability as you change settings. Quality settings will hit Elden Ring the hardest due to its massive level of detail, but if you’re willing to sacrifice it for performance, you might even be able to reach a stable 60 FPS!
Elden Ring is available on PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, and PC. The Steam Version of Elden Ring is Steam Deck Verified.
