#Steam Deck : Game performances worsened after time

28 messages · Page 1 of 1 (latest)

dense belfry
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I played on my steam deck for 3h straight, after time my loading screen started to take up to 1min+, fps dropped significantly (even in starting zones) and I had few frozen screens. No issues during the first hour.

calm parcel
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I have the same issue.
After several runs (5 or more) then the game slows down. The loading screens between areas take 2 mins to load. Eventually it just stops working.

left stratus
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Same issue here. It seems to slow down particularly during later zones like dungeon and bosses like shadow face.

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It is like a slow incremental graphic/performance slowdown. It's like clockwork. The first 45m or so are very smooth but after that loading screens eat up more and more time and you experience more and more general graphic lag, fps hits, and short freezes.

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**Something that helped performance somewhat for me was turning the pixel perfect setting under graphics OFF and making sure UI scale and game zoom were both set to 1. **Didn't eliminate it but it helped it somewhat

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I also played for a few hours this morning on desktop mode checking the task manager. Over about 2hr memory usage went from 1.3gb to 2.1gb. I dont know if that's normal or not but posting it here just in case.

snow radish
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I can second pretty much everything noted here so far. Have been playing pretty much exclusively in desktop mode. The game runs nicely up to a point for me, and then degrades pretty quickly over the course of 1-2 floors. Sometimes it lasts for up to 15+ floors before degrading, other times I can go 2-3 floors before things get shaky. Restarting the game fixes these issues immediately and is pretty quick. And luckily the ability to resume/rejoin a run works fine in this game, so it's been a minor annoyance.
I am seeing pretty much the same memory usage while playing as well. Have to think that's not normal, as a friend I play with that uses a Windows PC isn't seeing nearly as much memory usage over time. I'll try out the noted graphics tweaks today and see if that makes any difference for me.

left stratus
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@snow radish fyi the settings I mentioned didn't eliminate the performance drops but it did seem to help in a noticeable way.

formal fiber
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+1 for this issue. picked up the game today and played for about an hour on steam deck. First few loading screens were snappy and got progressively worse after a few runs in the forest/caves. I adjusted UI scale so that fonts were readable on my TV. Deck specs: LCD steam deck connected to dock and wired to ethernet.

edgy apex
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Another Deck related issue: Visual static noise. Feels like every pixel is heavily flickering when moving.(it's not the settings/foliage wind setting) Could not reproduce it on PC/TV screens so it must be Deck-specific.

velvet lava
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not just on steam deck, i have a ryzen 7 7800x3d and a 4070 gpu. and even after a few hours of playing i can go from 400+fps uncapped, although i do cap it at 120 just for stable rate, i tank down to 40 fps average with bad spikes and need to restart the game. also notice the ram usage goes up to around 3.5gb from around the 1.5gb ish around the start of playtime

tacit vine
left stratus
# tacit vine Seems like a memory leak issue

yeah i had posted about it on the subreddit first just as advice to other players, someone mentioned that so i did my very rudimentary testing of tracking the memory usage over time in the task manager

smoky mulch
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FYI, I tried this fix and it basically fixed it on Steam Deck for me. I played for about 2 hrs and didn't notice degredation to gameplay. From a steam user named Pythios:

If you turn on compatibility and go back to proton 7, it fixes a lot of the problems. The loading times times don’t get longer and the massive freezes don’t happen. There is still minor stuttering, but it’s definitely workable until they hopefully fix the problem entirely. This is from personal experience as I play entirely on steam deck.

Instructions:
Highlight the game in your Library
Press the Menu button
Select Properties
Select Compatibility
Select Force the use of a specific Steam Play compatibility tool (Choose Proton 7.whatever)

left stratus
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@smoky mulch This fix worked for me exactly as you described. Thank you 🙂

harsh steppe
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@scenic axle can you give this a try?

scenic axle
harsh steppe
left stratus
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on steam deck at least even with settings dropped to absolute minimum the hitching and slow loading screens would start by the third biome (around shadow face iirc) so from my vantage point it seemed more like a zones thing than strictly a time thing

scenic axle
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ok but not super happy if thats kept as the fix because its a much older proton version, but if it helps work out whats causing it can try.

scenic axle
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Seems stable so far, curious to why or if its a proton bug that needs them (valve/proton people) looking into it @harsh steppe

harsh steppe
scenic axle
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I just dont remember the demo having the issue or maybe never played it long enough,

left stratus
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FYI just played thru 3 runs, completed one. no freezes happened. previously only restarting the client temporarily fixed. no restarts this time.
IDK if this is relevant at all I'm a complete luddite when it comes to this but i mentioned in my previous post memory usage going up from 1.3 or so to 2.2 gb over the course of playing for about an hour or 2. right now it's at 2.6 now after the 3 runs with no restarts, but it's not affecting my game at all from what i can tell.
Anyway, thank you for the game and community have a good day

snow radish
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I also don't remember the demo having this issue, and I definitely played it enough.
Can also report that things are more stable on Proton 7. Which is slightly annoying, as I tried 8, 9, and experimental. Just not 7.
I'll also echo the sentiment that an actual fix to this issue would be preferred, but happy enough to have a game I don't need to restart every hour or so.

lyric jay
left stratus
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just updating, after switching to proton 7 left the game open on my deck all day and overnight (the deck was in sleep for a large portion of it) then played a ton today with no restarts. still playing well. some slowdowns in dungeon in particular but just wanted to give an update.

harsh steppe
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Thanks for the update, this is really helpful to other steam deck players