'Too Big' for Steam Deck? digitalfoundry tests out Deck-verified titles Ratchet & Clank and Remnant 2, finding two very different experiences:
Two of the most technically advanced current-gen titles have just launched on PC - Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart and Remnant 2. These games push features like ray tracing, advanced upsampling, virtualised geometry and GPU-driven decompression, taxing even high-end PCs - and yet, both games also received Valve's Steam Deck Verified seal of approval.
I opted to play unlocked to keep an eye on performance, but if playing for fun I'd suggest capping at 30fps with these settings - either with the built-in Deck limiter, the MangoHUD launch parameter tweak or by enabling half-rate v-sync in the game's option menu. Each of these options delivered a consistent 30fps, with only occasional and minor frame-pacing issues. Capping to 40fps is also possible, but requires settings more in line with the low or very low presets.
Of course, that's using the Deck's internal SSD which is rated for sequential reads up to ~1.6GB/s. On a Micro SD card with a ~90MB/s sequential read speed, each portal takes about 10 seconds and the Blizar level is similarly dilatory. That also probably means that the base 64GB Steam Deck with its 300MB/s eMMC storage, has somewhat compromised loading as well.
As with Ratchet and Clank, upscaling is necessary to achieve reasonable performance - but here FSR 2 exhibits messy resolve on almost any kind of movement. Intel's XeSS, again running in its DP4A path, fares much better. It does have some disocclusion artefacting, but it's perfectly presentable on the Steam Deck's display.
When all's said and done, Remnant 2 doesn't fare all that well on the Steam Deck and the 'Steam Deck Verified' label is stretched to its limits. We have to make significant resolution concessions here, while the game's performance level is too shaky to feel comfortable. It's far from the worst recent release I've played on the Deck - Returnal and Hogwarts Legacy are substantially more compromised - but the overall experience isn't a good one.
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