Kythas
Published
Game launches with with the "Epic" graphics preset on by default. Unless you wanna run FSR on Performance or Ultra Performance, you are better off using the "Medium" preset with Anti-Aliasing set to High and FSR off. FSR is blurry even on the Quality preset and introduces artifacts.
Medium at Native with High AA can peak above 40-50 FPS in some areas, so those looking for a 40FPS cap should be able to achieve that with the selection of graphical options available. This configuration typically sits between 15w and 20w, with 16w being the average. Spikes above 20w can occur when entering a new area.
There are some traversal and shader stutters, and this is an issue with the game itself, even on a Windows PC. Patches and the Deck's pre-cache have eased the stutters since launch, yet they still occur occasionally.
Additionally, the resolution and brightness settings are saved on the cloud. I.E. if you swap between your PC and the Deck you will have to alter these settings before playing.
In-game V-Sync works well if you are concerned about input latency. I recommend enabling it and "Allow Tearing" in the Deck's Quick Settings for a smoother experience. The in-game frame-limiter, however, has issues with frame pacing, so cap the frame rate in the Quick Settings.
Game now boots and runs without requiring any work-arounds. It is a battery and resource hog, and a bit crashy on all platforms at launch.
Fullscreen will cause the game to not boot properly unless you reset it in the settings .ini.
Keep render scale to Ultra Quality, and set every graphics settings as low as it can go, except:
Textures: High Objects: Medium AO: On Vegetation: Medium Terrain: Medium AA: On
Disable Vsync in game and cap FPS at 30 via the quick settings. Do NOT enable Fullscreen until a fix is implemented (game will not boot properly until you disable it in the config .ini).
You will get brief dips into the mid 20s when massive explosions occur, but the game is very playable at holds 30 for the majority of a playthrough.
Set GPU to 800; TDP to 10
Frame-time is a little wonky until you disable the in-game frame-limiter (set it to "Unlimited"). Game defaults to "Average" graphics preset at native resolution, and it will run a largely locked 60FPS, with rare dips into the high 50's when there's a massive amount of particle effects on screen. Set TDP to 10 and GPU to 800 for a more consistent experience that eats far less battery. Reduce to 8 and 600 for a locked 40FPS experience.
Game largely works well out of the box, though some minor graphical tweaks help stabilize the experience.
DXVK_ASYNC=1 %command%
Issues with multiplayer had less to do with the Deck, and more to do with the beta itself. Those aside, multiplayer works as well on the Deck as it does on PC.
Game works well-enough out of the box, to include the updated launcher and EAC support. Darktide's optimization is middling at best though across the board, so to get a mostly stable 30FPS I recommend using the "Low" graphics preset with FSR 2.0 set to "Balanced." Enable Sharpening and set FOV to 80 to better see distant enemies on the smaller screen. The in-game frame-limiter negatively affects frametime, so use the 30FPS cap in the Deck's quick menu, and use the in-game VSync to stablize the framerate. I tried setting a manual GPU clock, but found it negatively effects performance at all settings. This game will be a battery hog no matter how you split it. That said, with settings dialed it the game runs well and still doesn't look too bad (if a bit soft). Hopefully further performance optimizations will allow us to hit 30FPS with some better settings, or the ability to reach a steady 40FPS.
Note: I tried Proton Experimental and 7.04 and found little to no difference in performance; I opted to stick with Experimental to see if any update to it does assist in the future. Also, you don't neccessarily need the DXVK launcher option, but it does reduce stutter if you are experiencing issues with the shader cache not compiling efficiently.
Works well out of the box, to include launcher and EAC. Pre-Launch beta has server and stability issues that are platform agnostic.
DXVK_ASYNC=1 %command%
Crashes are being worked; they appear hardware agnostic.
Server stability is being worked; platform agnostic.
Update to my previous post after additional tinkering to improve visual quality and performance
Been playing this a bunch on the Deck. While we wait on further optimizations I found a comfortable configuration to stay largely at 30FPS with solid image quality (outside being in the middle of a horde, but those kill frames on my 3080 and 5900X, so hopefully further optimization improves that scenerio in the future).
Before booting up the game, add DXVK_ASYNC=1 %command% to the launch options to assist with any errant stutters.
Use Fullscreen with FSR 2.0 set to Quality and FOV set to 80. Disable VSync and use Unlimited for the frame rate. Cap to 30 with the Steam settings. Frame pacing will be ass with the in-game limiter and VSync. Enable Sharpening.
Set everything to Low in Advanced Graphics, and disable Depth of Field. Bloom is gonna be preference based, but I'd argue it helps the lower quality lighting "pop" a bit better on the Deck. Enable Skin Sub-Surface Scattering and disable Motion Blur.
Set SSR to Medium (that's as low as it goes within the menus), and turn off Lens Quality and Lens Flares. Nothing of value is lost with these off.
Here's the critical bit: set all those sliders at the bottom as low as they can go, except Scatter Density. Set this to .05, or .15 if you don't mind losing a frame or two during hordes (which will drop frames to the mid-20s regardless). These sliders have a huge impact on performance, yet are the least noticeable visually on the Deck's smaller screen.
You can run the game on the Low Preset with FSR 2.0 set to Balanced if you want an out of the box experience, but the above adds a few settings that help the final image look less soft and more modern (specifically SSR).
Hopefully further optimization will allow us to use lower settings to hit 40FPS, or set settings higher for 30FPS, but for now Darktide is a strictly 30FPS experience on the Deck with lower settings. It still looks great when you factor in the smaller screen and hardware on hand, and the drops during hordes are not dealbreakers outside the top two difficulties (and even then, those are still doable).
Long post made short; still pretty rad Darktide is playable and enjoyable on the Deck. Portable heretic purging is awesome, and fingers crossed future optimizations further improve the experience.
