TECH NEWS – Steam Deck offers a roughly 30 FPS experience with Cyberpunk 2077 on low to medium settings.

Fear not, Steam Deck owners! Cyberpunk 2077 is still playable despite the steeper system requirements that come with the new 2.0 update. The German publication Computerbase tested the latest version of the game on Valve’s handheld console.

The Cyberpunk 2077 2.0 update improves the base game with several significant new features. However, the embracing of Nvidia’s DLSS 3.5 Ray Reconstruction technology is the belle of the ball, which significantly enhances the game’s appearance. Rationally, the improvements have increased the system requirements needed to run the game.

For example, an SSD is now a must, and CD Projekt Red advises consumers not to run Cyberpunk 2077 on a traditional hard drive or SD card on Steam Deck, as the lower bandwidth will likely hinder streaming of new content.

The system requirements are higher but still very reasonable. Cyberpunk 2077 only requires a quad-core processor, 6 GB of memory, 70 GB SSD and a somewhat modern graphics card with at least 6 GB of memory. Steam Deck ticks all the boxes except for the graphics. As we already know, the custom AMD Zen 2 SoC (Aerith) inside the Deck has just eight RDNA 2 compute units (CUs) available to the chip up to 1.6 GHz. But that should be fine, as the Steam Deck outputs games at 1280×800 resolution. That’s not as taxing as 1080p (1920×1080). Valve’s gaming handheld also taps into AMD’s FidelityFX Super Resolution 2 (FSR 2) technology to further improve frame rate.

What’s new in Cyberpunk 2077 on Steam Deck?

Running SteamOS 3.5 Preview, Steam Deck produced an average frame rate of around 30 FPS at medium or lower frame settings. The handheld console performed best at low settings with a balanced FSR preset. 33.2 FPS average frame rate and 25.4 FPS at 1% low.

Cyberpunk 2077 has a dedicated Steam Deck preset that strikes a balance between performance and fidelity. According to benchmarks from Computerbase, the Steam Deck preset achieved an average frame rate of 30.2 FPS and a low of 22 FPS at 1%. Results are similar to using the medium preset with a balanced FSR setting. Computerbase subjectively claims that the medium preset looks better than the Steam Deck preset.

Unfortunately, the high preset is out of reach for Steam Deck. Even FSR can’t save a gaming handheld from overwhelming graphics.

The average frame rate is 25.6 FPS and 19.2 FPS, respectively, with a low frame rate of 1% at high settings with a balanced FSR.

CD Projekt Red is putting much effort into optimizing Cyberpunk 2077 for different platforms. Unlike the PC or current generation consoles like the PlayStation 5 or Xbox Series X, the Steam Deck, a handheld console, doesn’t have the same firepower. It’s great that mobile gamers can still enjoy Cyberpunk 2077 with acceptable image quality and performance. The Phantom Liberty DLC is a different story, however, as the developer warns that it will push the processor to the max.

Source: Computerbase