After months of waiting, some of those that reserved a Steam Deck finally saw their units start shipping. Marketed as a portable gaming PC, developer Valve advertised that the system could play all sorts of games from the Steam library. Obviously, this was exciting for gamers, as the catalog of available titles on the platform was enormous. Among the games that fans were excited to check out was Elden Ring.
Released on February 25, Elden Ring is the latest game from the developers at FromSoftware. In the days since its launch, numerous members of the gaming community have praised its gameplay and incredible open-world design. However, fans have run into technical difficulties during the adventure, such as stuttering on the Steam Deck. Thankfully, it appears that things are about to get better for those playing on the portable system.
Recently, Valve announced that they were aware of stuttering issues for Elden Ring running on the Steam Deck and that a patch was inbound. This news came via Pierre-Loup Griffais, a developer working at Valve. “The graphics team has been hard at work on optimizing Elden Ring for Steam Deck,” he stated in the post. According to the developer, a fix for the stuttering would become available in a Proton release sometime this week. However, they noted players who were anxious to test out the fix could try the Experimental patch now.
In addition to this Steam Deck-specific patch, an update has already been shipped for the game. A couple of days ago, update 1.02.1 was released that looked to solve several problems gamers were experiencing. For example, it addressed issues with Easy Anti-Cheat and looked to minimize the number of assets needed to load when entering new locations.
These updates are doubtlessly good news for those that purchased Elden Ring for the Steam Deck. However, these technical issues experienced on the system at launch raise issues regarding the effectiveness of the verification system. Previously, Valve had revealed that Elden Ring had joined the list of games verified for the Steam Deck, meaning the game had to pass a number of quality assurance tests. Unfortunately, the problems seen at launch seem to suggest that the evaluation process could need re-examining.
It will be interesting to see what the future holds for Valve and the Steam Deck. In other news regarding the system, the company recently announced a new Portal spin-off game called Aperture Desk Job. The game is expected to release on March 1 and is reportedly designed to show off the controls of the Steam Deck. Time will tell if games such as Elden Ring and this Portal spin-off will create even more buzz surrounding the recently launched system.
Elden Ring is available on PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.
Source: PCGamesN
