Steam Deck33 Reports
A smooth experience with the right settings, without them it's sadly unplayable. Resolution settings can only be made from the Main menu
DXVK_ASYNC=1 %command%
- Disable Frame Limit
- Screen Refresh Rate to 40 Hz
- Allow Tearing
- TPD Limit to 14 (Lowest you can get)
- With this review setting you'll sit on 22W drain on the LCD model
There are many performance issues with this game, some are that the game enters a slow motion state and you can get some stutters if you use the wrong or default settings.
I invested a couple hours testing settings until I found the perfect ones.
I tried playing with FXAA and lowering the resolution fixed to 80% but It looks too bad, some other settings are worth setting them to medium instead of all low.
Also the FSR 2 alternative makes the game look really good within the limitations of this hardware, I found this to be the best way to play and enjoy this game on the go
Keep in mind to change resolution from the MAIN MENU, or it´ll reset to default settings if you are ingame
- Motion Blur: ON (you need this)
- Borderless
- Vertical Sync: ON (you also need this)
- Dynamic Resolution Scaling: OFF ( This must be OFF or Upsampler will lock)
- Upsampler: AMD FSR 2
- Upsampler Preset: Performance
- Upsampler Sharpenning: 0% (I suspect a higher setting could affect performace, it could also introduce some pixeling, shader dots or ghosting effects which for the resolution we'll play and the size of the screen it's better to avoid)
- Texture Quality: Medium
- Shadow Quality: Low
- Texture Filtering: Low
- Ambient Oclusion: OFF
- Effects Detail: Low
- Geometry Detail: Medium
- Anti-Aliasing: TTA (Locked)
- Terrain Quality: Low
- Vegetation Detail: Low
- Post Process Quality: Low
- Lighting Quality: Low
- Depth of Field: Low
- Reflection Quality: Low
Slow motion
Cloud conflict
Once you enter the game, in the steam performance grid for the game start using the game-specific profile and set it like this. Frame rate limit 30 frames with 60Hz (if you want a smoother gameplay during online you will have to sacrifice the fps a bit but the difference it's almost non-existent) Scaling mode: fit (third button) After that, go to game settings on graphics and set it like that : MOTION BLUR: OFF (if you want, i don't like it) | COLORBLIND MODE: OFF | GAMMA CORRETION: 50% | SCREEN MODE: Fullscreen | FULLSCREEN DEVICE: 1 | SCREEN RESOLUTION: 1280X800 | VERTYCAL SYNC: ON | DYNAMIC RESOLUTION SCALING: ON | DRS TARGET: 60Hz (30Hz with this setup don't feel smooth at all) | UPSAMPLER OFF (LOCKED) | UPSAMPLER PRESET | PERFORMANCE (LOCKED) | RESOLUTION SCALE: 100% | GRAPHICS QUALITY: Costum | from here turn everything on lowest
This setup should let you play smooth NFS Unbound in story and online mode without any problems, slow motion times or crashes! I test it a long time and still work great! Also don't use any proton in proprieties, will slow the performance if so!
At times game appears to be running at slow motion, usually when a lot of things is on screen.
Occasional slow motion that resolves itself.
A couple glitches with online events but far inbetween.
Set graphics to auto and turned DRS to 30fps. Maintaines around 40fps.
Sometime I got slowdown like slow motion. Restarting the game fix the problem for a while.
Runs good enough, but occasional slow motion ruins the experiances.
Performance is good enough (stayed consistently over 30!), but the crashes are very annoying.
Other than some minor slowdown issues it works good if you set all settings to the lowest and set resolution scale to 95% with DRS
Sometimes only the EA launcher opens then the game never opens, sometimes the EA launcher has trouble syncing save data. Launching the game again usually fixes those issues and the game will open fine.
The game will sometimes slow down without dropping frames, like the speed of the game is slightly slower. It can be annoying in online races.
After a bit of trial and error I was able to mostly fix these slowdown issues by using these settings: Fullscreen Vsync: On DRS: On DRS Target: 60hz Upsampler: Off (truning this on causes weird smearing artifacts and seems to run worse than just dropping the resolution scale) Res Scale: 95% Graphics Quality: Custom - Set everything to low or off.
Steam deck performance settings: FPS Limit: 40 Allow Tearing: On (not sure why but checking this and turning on vsync in game resulted in better performance)
With these settings the slowdown was greatly reduced, but does still happen infrequently.
Played on a launch model LCD steam deck. Most of my playtime on the deck has been playing online not story.
With a quick CryoUtilities install, the game runs, but not well in my opinion. The FPS drops pretty harshly during races with other AI cars.
Needs CryoTools or game crashes constantly
Without CryoUtilities, the game crashed frequently. I couldn't play for more than a few minutes.
For me, this was not an enjoyable experience. The FPS was too low and inconsistent to be worth playing on Steam Deck. Instead, I've opted to stream this from my desktop PC when I want to play it on Steam Deck. (If set up well, theres basically no input delay and minimal/no artifacting)
The only 2 issues I found were that if u run on SD card you might actually fall off the roads and there is sometimes significant input delay
The game runs just fine for what it is, and I think it deservers a playable status on protondb
It hapens sometimes during races. Not for every race but just randomly.
It crashes if not set to low setings. Setting to low seting WITH fsr off works perfectly but sometimes it crashes. It's random, sometimes I play 1-2h strait no problems and sometimes after 15min I get acrash
I realy enjoy the game on Deck. Have not tried yet multy player.
DXVK_ASYNC=1 %command%
Used low-medium settings with FSR2. The game is a battery killer
I had to reinstall the game with Proton Experimental before it got working.
You must install CryoUtilities 2.0 and set the Swap Size to 16GB or the game will crash frequently
You will need to tinker before you can play it normaly and you need to have some patience to install the EA launcher and get it working (changing the compatibility several times). Do not change the settings while running the game, only from the main menu. But after setting GE Proton, and the Swap Size to 16GB the games runs just fine with some frame freeze for a moment every 10 minutes or so.
нужно пережить страшное окно лаунчера EA
You need to start a game in Desktop mode using Proton ver. 6.3-8 to log in in EA app
I've been unable to launch Unbound for the past 3 days, apparently due to an update to the EA app. Here's what I need to do to get it running:
- Go to Desktop mode
- Launch the game in Steam using Proton ver. 6.3-8
- Log in to the EA app
- Close the game
- Launch the game using Proton Experimental
- Now you can play the game in both Desktop mode and Gaming mode.
Game installs, EA app installs, but attempts to launch the game are met with "You don't have access." Game was completely non-functional due to 3rd party launcher. Attempted restart, signing out and back in (EA app + Steam), clearing cache, and verifying integrity with no change. Game itself may run, but I wasn't even able to get past EA.
Ліміт кадрів на оновлення частоти екрану на 40
Гра доволі непогано йде на деці. Можна досягти стабільних 40 к/с не жертвуючи графікою. Мої налаштування:
Screen res - 1152х720
V-Sync - off (ліміти ставте в деці)
Dynamic resolution scaling - off
Upsampler - off
Resolution scale - 100%
Graphics quality - custom
Texture quality - medium
Shadow quality - low
Texture filtering - high
Ambient Occlusion - off
Effects Detail - medium
Geometry detail - high
Anti-aliasing - TAA
Terrain quality - medium
Vegetation detail - low
Post process quality - medium
LIghting quality - medium
Depth of Field - medium (за смаком можна вимкнути)
Reflection quality - medium
Близько 2 годин на 40 к/с. Обмеження до 30 к/с не рекомендую, бо нічого не дає в плані життя батареї - для цього можна поставити Decky плагін PowerTools та обмежити частоту процессора до 2500 мГц, проживе десь хвилин на 20 довше.
Good graphics, stable frame rate, story mode experience good but I wouldn't recommend online.
In Online, the game slows you down even if the speedometer says you're going much faster, resulting in other players beating you in races and being easy caught by police
EA Launcher window appears on first run and you have to click on "Let's begin" to continue (used the touchscreen). Subsequent launches make the EA window appear again with no button, it disappears after a few seconds and the game starts.
Crashed once (along with the deck, had to reboot) while going into the options menu
Game runs fine on low or medium graphic settings. High or ultra are playable but suffer FPS loss / instability
Все установилось и без каких либо проблем играется при 45 кадрах на средних настройках графики.
Не смотря на то что даже сам стим указывает на то что игра не поддерживается,на практике на стим деке у меня все работает прекрасно.
After sign up on EA, in the menu, you need to push A button or enter, after that the games only looping and donde show anything
I expect it would be ready with time, but i get 40 minutes like this
DXVK_ASYNC=1 %command%
Switched to proton experiental, lowered battery to 12 watts and refresh rate to 40hz. FSR Sharpness set to 2. In game, all settings are low, motion blur on max, game refresh rate to 60hz, resolutiom of in game and steam to 1200x720p. Set in game FSR to balanced
Game requires EA app to launch, which requires internet connection on every startup.
Game is a great return to form, though it requires internet for every launch, though after that, the game will play offline after you have started it up. Try out my settings and try tinkering with them for the best experience for you. 7/10, would he a 8 or 9 if you could launch it offline, but that is mostly an EA app problem, nothing with the game itself or the deck.
DXVK_ASYNC=1 %command%
Lower battery to 12 Watts, changed refresh rate to 40hz, changed resolution to 720p
Switched to proton experiental, lowered battery to 12 watts and refresh rate to 40hz. FSR Sharpness set to 2. In game, all settings are low, motion blur on max, game refresh rate to 60hz, resolutiom of in game and steam to 1200x720p. Set in game FSR to balanced
A fun game, a real return to form for NFS, but poor performance and issues make it hard to recommend on Steam Deck
I chose to set a 40hz refresh rate as the game is able to hit this some of the time at medium settings with dynamic resolution scaling. Given it drops below 30 a 30fps cap might be a good choice too, but the higher cap makes it feel much more responsive. Built-in FSR is available but makes the frame delivery much choppier and the game's visuals suffer. DRS provides a smoother, and higher fidelity, experience.
EA App would not complete launching in Gaming Mode until launched in Desktop Mode at least once.
Performance is quite poor on this game in general, expect to see frame rates between 20(!) and 60 depending on the situation, regardless of graphical settings.
Game crashed for me on Steam Deck when first entering the world, was only able to continue the game by playing through that intro section on another computer, and haven't had issues since. With FSR active, switching graphics settings will usually cause the game to crash. Turn FSR off first if you plan to tinker. Game will hard lock the system for unclear reasons at times.
Like the other Frostbite-based Need for Speed titles, getting a high, stable frame rate is vital to its playability, and the performance just isn't there on Steam Deck
DXVK_ASYNC=1 %command%
If EA gets an Update the game dont start switch to Proton Experimental, then EA installer start and you can update it. I would recommend to switch back to GE.
I will write here my config with them i got 35-45frames / mid&high settings.
Motion Blur – Off | Colorblind Mode – Player Preference | Screen Mode – Fullscreen | Screen Resolution – 1152-720 | Vertical Sync – Off | Dynamic Resolution Scaling – On | Drs target - 60hz | Resolution Scale – 100% | Graphics Quality – Custom | Texture Quality – ULTRA ! | Shadow Quality – low | Texture Filtering – ULTRA ! | Ambient Occlusion – Off | Effects Detail – High | Geometry Detail – High | Anti-Aliasing – TAA | Terrain Quality – Medium | Vegetation Detail – low | Post Process Quality – Medium | Lighting Quality – High | Depth of Field – Medium | Reflection Quality – Medium |
Lock to 30 FPS, low graphic settings.
An update to my previous contribution, the game now works excellently, locking the game to 30 FPS makes this a great experience on Deck, at low graphic settings and FSR 2 enabled, makes this game look stunning and runs very well.
Everything worked, Steam purchase edition, installed to MicroSD 1tb Sandisk Ultra, no long loading from SD card about 30 secs
DXVK_ASYNC=1 %command%
There are hitches during intro scenes, loading took ages off of SD card
Random crashes during a few races, not sure if this is caused by Proton or the game itself
Enjoyable experience, can change text size and other acccessibility issues in settings. FSR option also available.
Tested on latest test build of steamOS Running the EA Play trial which its default settings force it to 30fps at high settings Changing settings to custom and setting everything to low gives you 60fps. Setting gpu limit to 700 and cpu limit 8 and locking to 40fps will allow you to get 3+ hours with smooth experience. change up the settings and set upscaler to fsr can get a better looking experience without breaking the battery stats.
gpu: 700 cpu: 7-8 40fps lock
EA play will prompt on start up and may require to authenticate or link an EA account or it will state 'Lets go' and will immediately load the game.
STEAM_COMPAT_DATA_PATH=""/home/deck/.steam/steam/steamapps/compatdata/3073228955" %command%
Above medium graphic setting crashes the game. Medium works just as fine
Capped FPS to 30 and set graphics to medium, otherwise it will crash upon playing. Works perfectly
Refresh 50Hz
Some hiccups during races and cruising in town
Some FPS drops, usually running 30-50FPS, first load time is about 5 minutes, but afterwards it is OK.
Had to change the install script to force the installation of Origin instead of the EA App by following the instructions on this Reddit post.
https://www.reddit.com/r/SteamDeck/comments/yjlmq4/ea_games_not_running_anymore_fix/
The game boots and gets to the menu just fine. Able to create your character for the story and start the intro race but will crash within seconds or to a minute of starting the race. Performs great on Deck though however, fluctuates between 30-40 FPS, lock it at 30 for a pleasant experience. Has FSR support which will be amazing.
