Ticky
Published
-nolauncher
Crashes after completing the first mission
40fps cap
Some minor shader errors in areas
Minimum settings aren't enough to reach a stable 60fps, so 40hz cap is necessary
Plenty of small text expecting a 1080p display or higher
Controllers work in-game, menus accept controller inputs inconsistently
Small online community, you need to join Discord to find session times
Requires far too much tinkering to be worth the trouble. You get about five hours' gameplay for your trouble.
Install Wine Mono, Wine Gecko, corefonts, d3dx9, d3dcompiler_43, d3dcompiler_47 for the EA app, as described in https://github.com/kageurufu/steamdeck-tricks/blob/main/ea-app.md
Error about driver version interrupted launching the game, causing the game to think it's focused when it's not. Workaround is to not touch it, wait for the EA App to take focus back, then close the error dialog using Steam's windowing menu.
Weird windowing bug with the driver version error.
EA cloud saves don't work
Multiplayer fails to connect.
Runs great. I know this game is pretty old but it thrilled me to see this high-end 360 game running well on a portable.
Enabled 4GB RAM usage as described in PCGamingWiki
40Hz refresh. This also, weirdly, smoothed out cutscenes, which look more juddery at 60Hz. I am guessing it forces interpolation if it's not at 60?
Rockstar launcher is irritating, but you can get past it.
Runs acceptably by default but worth tinkering to get the most out of it. Graphics settings can be upped especially at 40Hz. Mods for restoring removed content, and papering over other bugs are worthwhile.
Gyromancer will fail to start unless the game can enter full-screen at 720p. I used protontricks to open winecfg and enable the "Emulate a Virtual Desktop" setting at 1280x720 resolution, which allows the game to run from Desktop mode, then I configured the game to use windowed mode (the "16:9" option in the in-game options menu) and turned the "Emulate a Virtual Desktop" setting in winecfg back off. Runs fine in Game Mode with default Proton now!
40fps cap
60fps not possible, 40fps can be mostly achieved
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
WINEDLLOVERRIDES="d3d9=n,b" %command%
Game needs Protontricks' lavfilters installed to get FMVs working (and proceed to the actual game!)
Game must be manually configured to use the gamepad; it defaults to keyboard-only. You'll need to select an input profile with arrow keys and enter/esc available initially, then switch once enabled.
ThirteenAG widescreen fix enabled (with DLL override).
Bound d-pad to left stick, as the game doesn't accept digital directional controls by default.
Minor audio problems in very long sessions, or if the system was put to sleep during a session. A restart of the game fixes it, though.
I adjusted the scaling mode to "nearest", which, while not perfect, is better than bilinear. Hoping Steam Deck gets a "sharp bilinear" mode someday to address this.
Native Linux version has broken gamepad controls, switching to Proton made it work out of the box.
Turned off in-game fps cap, enabled Steam's at 45fps
Some text is quite small, only a few pixels. Contrast is decent, so your mileage may vary, but it's largely not critical.
Genki are being pretty conservative with the Deck's default settings. My tweaks are a little too much for a satisfying 60fps lock but perfect for 45fps, and gives you fancier and sharper graphics as a treat:
- FPS Setting: unlimited
- Draw Distance: Low
- Post Processing: Medium
- Shadows: Low
- Global Illumination: Medium (Highest without engaging Lumen)
- Reflections: High (This enables the lovely Lumen reflections)
- Effects: Medium
- Shading: Low
- Texture: High
- Upscaling Quality: Native
- Anti-Aliasing Mode: FXAA
