Hogwarts Legacy is without doubt one of the most anticipated games of 2023 and naturally we all want to know how well it runs on the Steam Deck! Well, we have good news.
IT RUNS EXTREMELY WELL!
Now if you haven’t had the chance to pick it up yet, we highly recommend picking the game key up for a *BLINDER* of a deal from CDKeys, our most-trusted game key partner! (I buy most of my game keys from here as they’re typically cheaper)
YES! Steam Deck verified which means right from the get-go it is compatible, playable and pretty optimized for the Steam Decks hardware. So don’t hesitate to buy it even if the Deck is the only system you’ll be playing it on!
Hello again, David! We reached out to the Hogwarts Legacy team for you and were able to confirm that the game WILL be Steam Deck verified on launch. We hope this helps with your decision! Take care.
As you can see, WB Games Support was quick to quell fears that it would not be Steam Deck compatible earlier in January! They did not disappoint.
How well does it run?
Surprisingly, it runs really well – even on lower-end hardware like the Steam Deck. After watching my wife boot into the game into the character creation screen I was seeing a solid 60FPS with incredible detail.
Now I wouldn’t expect you to expect a solid 60 throughout the entire game with great visuals to boot (although knowing Valve and their proton optimization updates as well as your standard quality of life updates on the developer side, I frankly wouldn’t rule it out a few months from now)
But I can comfortably say, you can expect a solid 30-55fps consistently throughout the game, assuming you have FSR 2.0 enabled (which this game thankfully supports!) and the game looks absolutely stunning as seen here on DeckWizards performance video on youtube.
The most important bit, until we get precached shader files – use Proton GE v49 (or higher):
boot into desktop mode, open the Discover Store, search for “ProtonUp-Qt” and install it
Open ProtonUp-Qt, then install ProtonGE 49
Next, go to your game settings in Steam, click “Compatibility”, then check “Force the use of a specific Steam Play compatibility tool”, and select “GE-Proton7-49”
Click the “General” tab, scroll down to launch options, there add the line “RADV_PERFTEST=gpl” (without the quotes)
Done. 🙂
Starting with GE45, dxvk async was removed, and replaced with a supposedly better solution (this one here). It’s built to avoid shader stutter as best as possible, you can google the details.
Mind that you will still occasionally see some minor stutters, but that seems to be related to asset streaming and autosave, and we’re talking about 0,5 second frame drops from 30 down to 28, and back up again. Plus I’m playing at reduced TDP, so you might be able to get around that if you’re running your Deck at full blast.
Optional: increase VRAM to 4GB
To answer u/ARustyShackle‘s question: I’m also using 4 GB of VRAM, which might help to increase performance further. To do so, boot into your Steam Deck’s BIOS, and change UMA frame buffer size to 4 GB under “Advanced Settings”. You can also check out CryoByte33’s YT channel for further optimization tipps: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=od9_a1QQQns
Steam Deck settings:
TDP=12W
Frame Rate Limit 30 (40 should also be possible, 30 gives much lower temps)
Allow Tearing
No Half Rate Shading (doesn’t improve performance, and might cause graphical artifacts)
In PowerTools, reduce max CPU speed to 2800 MHz (completely optional, as it involves installation of and tinkering with DeckyLoader)
Ingame settings
(Edit: found out that you can actually push the settings quite far on the Deck, so I raised most of them up a bit) (Edit 2: lowered some settings to medium, to keep performance stable while outdoors)
Display Options:
Windowed Fullscreen
FSR 2 (Quality)
Vsync=off
Framerate 60 fps (anything above 30 is fine, as we’ll cap fps anyway)
Motion blur=on (personal preference, I turn it on at 30 fps, and off at 40 fps cap)
DOF/CA/Film Grain off (personal preference, I don’t like em)
Graphics Options:
Effects=Medium
Materials=Medium
Fog=Low
Sky=Low (these two volumetric options are performance hogs)
Or if you’d prefer to watch a video, this one should have you covered!
Are you picking up Hogwarts Legacy on Steam Deck? Let us know in the comments! And if there’s anything you’d like to share on our site whether it be news articles, videos or anything else – feel free by just clicking the Post button at the top of the site! 🙂
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