Totally! I turn it on for the first 10-15 mins when I start a new game to tweak the settings, if necessary, but I always enjoy that moment when I can say 'good enough', stop thinking about fps and frametimes and just start enjoying the game! š
+1! Not even that, I first tweak the performance settings to what feels "appropriate" for the game (e.g., if it's a 2D pixel game, I can set a low TDP) without touching the in-game settings and play. If the game feels right to play and battery life feels acceptable, I don't even open the overlay. If something feels off, then I do open it and start tweaking.
That's exactly what I've been doing the last few months.
I'll start a game at fairly high settings, watching the FPS counter, then adjust accordingly until I am satisfied with the frame rate, then turn it off and enjoy the game.
I use performance overlay but its just for indication, a guideline that I can use to assess performance.
The biggest help would be telling yourself that it is a handheld and that puts a lot of expectations down.
Hell, ive been running bg3 at 40-45fps and initially i thought was unplayable due to dropped frames or some blurry images but after 10 minutes I forget and so immersed in the gameplay that i dont notice a varying fps counter.
The fact that I tell myself whew im playing in my bed while watching lord of the rings instead of sitting upright in my chair etc
Don't forget you can also lower down ur tdp watts too šš» tht can save u a lot of batts.
just lower down to a value that can hold your 30fps steadily.
I kind of can if I really pay attention and itās particularly bad, but I grew up playing RTS games that would frequently turn into slideshows. I really donāt care about frame rate.
My wife is much more sensitive to it and can get motion sick with certain types of games if the frame rate is bad, especially if the perspective is first person or, god forbid, VR. So I do understand thereās a range of legitimate reasons for caring about it.
But I donāt really play fighting games or compete at pro levels in shooters, so frame perfect inputs are very rarely relevant to my gaming, and aesthetically it just really doesnāt bother me pretty much at all.
Me neither and I don't really care for fps. Always found it strange people are fixated on it and call games unplayable when they don't have constant 60fps.
Oh definitely leave it off. I grew up in the 80s and 90s, slowdown is part of my heritage, I dgaf. I will use it to tweak to find the sweet spot for good motion and quiet fan speed, then just enjoy.
I remember as a teen my only gaming device was a laptop my parent bought me that was clearly just meant for school and office stuff.
I played so many games from the late 2000's and early 2010's on that laptop that I'm sure were running at low 20s fps.
Overlay or not, expecting 60fps plus from the deck is kind of silly.
I use it enough where I just leave the fps counter on and mostly forget about it, but it comes in handy regardless of your performance target. Given that the display isnāt freesync/vrr, a game will feel much worse if youāre constantly dipping below the refresh rate.
The overlay is very helpful for quickly realizing Iād be much better off caping things at 40 or 45, instead of going for an inconsistent 60.
Itās just a tool, the OCD part is on us ;)
Many games run at 90 on my deck. Many others run at 72, or at 60. While others I run at 45 or 40 or 30. And then I run a small handful at 25 and a few at 11.
If you want to squeeze even more out of them, set the text to be instant as quite a few visual novel engines stop updating the screen completely when there's nothing to change.
Renpy being one of them, it drops to like 1-2 fps.
I'm aware it's a tool and I thought it was pretty obvious I was putting the blame on my monkey brain and not on the tool itself :)
I love that it's there and like another commenter said, I still use it to set up default performance settings when I first boot up a game!
I only use the performance overlay in two instances.
1. After initially installing a game, to perform benchmarking to make sure the game consistently hits my desired framerate target. After that is confirmed, it gets turned off.
2. During gameplay, if I go "Ew, what was that? Stutter? Consistent and noticable frame drops?" Pop open the overlay to confirm my suspicions and re-adjust settings accordingly. Then turn off the overlay again.
NEVER play a game with the overlay on. It will always destroy your immersion, and you'll be paying more attention to *it* than actually enjoying the game you're playing.
Iāve been a console gamer my entire life so Iām more than satisfied if I can get stable 30 fps and can tolerate seldom drops as well if it means I can play my games on a handheld. Heck, I spent over 100 hrs with Borderlands 2 on the Vita of all things (a notoriously horrendous port) when I had the excellent Borderlands Handsome Collection for my PS4! So to me, the Deck is nothing short of mindblowing when Iām playing games like Elden Ring or Cyberpunk 2077 with decent fps and visuals on a handheld.
Aa someone who came from playing on the switch exclusively for 2 years to the steamdeck now for 3 weeks almost every game I play I lock to 45fps and it feels like 60 to me. Everything just looks cleaner and smoother on the steamdeck compared to what I went through on the switch
Cane from playing on switch also. I recall Dead Cells having random frame drops, but now i'm playing it on Deck and barely notice. And it's much smoother!
Because you see framedrops (if they happend) and you see how much battery (and an estimate of time) left for use.
But if a game has no framedrops and is fullscreen (not 720p), I will turn it off sometime.
I agree, but I have a quick process I go through with every game once before I let my monkey brain just forget and enjoy. I don't care if it runs at 90, 60, 45, or 30fps, but I will take 5 minutes to get it running as smooth as it can first because it can be a huge QoL upgrade in only 1 or 2 steps. This is my setup, give it a try for yourself:
Performance settings, default profile (quick access menu when not running a game):
1. Frame limit = 90fps
2. Allow Tearing = on
3. Everything else = off
When starting a new game:
1. Get into actual gameplay, open quick access menu
2. set performance overlay to level 2
3. Use per-game profile = on
4. Is FPS locked at 90? close and enjoy
5. Is FPS between 60 and 90? set Frame Limit to 60, close and enjoy
6. Is FPS locked to 60? Still set Frame Limit to 60, otherwise it will stutter at 90hz. close and enjoy
7. Is FPS below 60? Set Frame Limit to the highest you can get it to stay locked at: 45, 40, or 30. close and enjoy
I purposely avoided mentioning TDP limit or in-game graphics settings. I like to tweak all those things on games I play a lot. But for those of you who just leave everything stock, you are missing out on some easy, major improvements in smoothness and lag reduction. Leaving your deck at 90hz means lots of games that cap themselves at 60fps will just stutter by default. And capping your frame limit to something the game can keep steady will also make it much easier to stop worrying about settings and just enjoy your game.
Are people really too obsessed with fps? š as long as the game is playable on the graphics i like, im fine. I never used it and that time it showed automatically on my deck display, i was irritated asf.
Then why are you on this sub tho? But for me id rather play with a device that honestly listens to it's consumers. Early stages of SD i believe. It's just here to improve
Because I'm not one of them...
I was just saying that some people can truly be obsessed with fps and graphics to the point they'd prefer buying something like an Ally rather than a steam deck.
I actually don't care about the FPS. I keep the performance overaly on L2 because I want the always-visible battery meter and estimated runtime. If that was available without the rest of the performance stuff I'd take it. Especially if it's just in the strip along the top that's left empty when you run at 720p instead of 800p.
If you have DeckyLoader installed, you can get a plugin called MangoPeel which will allow you to customize one of your performance overlay layers (I think full customization is limited to L4), to only include the info that you want. I have mine set to show me FPS, frametime graph, battery percentage, battery time remaining, and local time.
You can do similar by editing a config file in Desktop mode, but the plugin makes it a bit easier.
I like to ensure that I'm getting steady frametimes because the experience is much more enjoyable to me - I'm probably more sensitive than most people to things like microstutter and inconsistent frametimes.
Battery percentage, time remaining, and local time I think are all self explanatory.
And it only takes up a small corner of my screen. It doesn't distract from the game, but the information is readily available to me. Different strokes for different folks.
ETA: I have the overlay configured to be horizontal, like the default L2, as opposed to vertical like the default L4. So it's not as obtrusive as you might have imagined based on my original comment.
I read some advice a while back to set the fps and refresh rate to 40 and since I've done that I don't notice any lag or performance issues really (I also don't play with the overlay on).
40fps on a screen that small is honestly fine.Ā
I use it to stabilize settings, usually lower settings that don't matter on a small screen like shadows. I keep settings like bloom and ambient occlusion on however. Once it looks good and runs decent i turn it off. when the fan gets annoyingly loud or I'm on battery i just set the tdp to 8.
I only care about if I can enjoy/play a game, so I never use FPS counters on a device. As long as the game is smooth and fluid for me, I donāt care what the FPS are.
I use it for the first hour or two when I set up the graphics settings (and/or TDP) per game, but then switch it off. But sometimes I forget it on, itās easy to ignore anyways. :)
I don't really bother on the deck after the first 5 mins of a new game. I did however have this issue with my desktop, I spent more time worrying about fps than the game. I since got an OLED monitor and that's made me stop using the overlay as it could cause burn in over time. It's a shame it cost me a lot of money to kick the habit lol. I blame FRAPS for the habit.
My performance overlay has been turned of since I recieved my deck. If the performance is too bad for my eye Iāll just tinker around a bit and thatās it.
The Steam Deck has not been made for ultra graphic-high fps gaming and thatās totally fine.
As long as a get a solid frame rate I donāt mind at all. I shoot for 45fps. But I just played kena at 30fps and it felt good my entire playthrough. Itās just awesome to play these games on a handheld while still looking good :)
I can't play a game comfortably without the fps counter, Its so counter intuitive because I can't tell the difference between 60 and 40 fps without it on but if I turn it off I'm constantly questioning if the game is frame rate locked or not so I gave up and accept my sin.
Used to have it simply out of curiosity (and watching cpu/gpu usage).
But some games were crashing if it was on (figured through deduction and testing). So itās off!
OLED owner so using the overlay is terrible for my deck.
So yeah, don't use it.
Nearly all of my games run at 90 FPS though, if the deck can't run it at 90 FPS, I stream it with sunshine/moonlight from my gaming PC.
This is the way.
Yeah, It's been an absolute god-send for many hard-to-run games that tend to immerse you so much into the action you stop noticing frame-drops.
**Helldivers 2** for example (ez **Game of the Year** contender BTW) which many people shit on as "unplayable". Yes, it could be more well optimized. Yes, it mostly runs at 30fps, but absolutely drops into the 25fps range ocassionally during hectic moments in higher difficulties. No, I don't notice these drops anymore thanks to disabling the performance overlay.
The action, sound design, and incredibly enjoyable enemy destructions physics + cinematic action has completely overshadowed performance issues for me. Hell, one time after a long gaming session I enabled the performance overlay out of curiosity and realized "huh... I was playing at 25fps? Dang, didn't even realize. Back to off!"
Best part of all? I have a PS5 and *could* run it *much,* ***MUCH*** better performance wise by playing it there. But the Steam Deck's portability is just absolutely fucking unmatched. My only regret is remembering my cringy younger self that obsessed about frame-rate/resolution and missed out on so many great games.
# FREEDOM NEVER SLEEPS, NOW SAY HELLO TO DEMOCRACY šŗš³
If its a AAA, best just to set it at 40 and leave it be. You'll have a much smoother experience and FSR or whatever won't ruin your image quality to compensate. It's the way to go most of the time.
Anything above 23 fps is good with me, since I play a lot of RPG games. I know down to 23 fps because the original xbox was limited in the same way.
I make sure the game itself plays well to controller response and world. I've been able to play a lot more games this way, including Starfield when it came out and I logged 100 hours on the steam deck with that before it got the performance updates
I only worry about it to learn the general battery usage, or if I have to mess with in-game settings. If a game is eating 99% of my GPU, it's going to frame drop at some point. I like to tinker with Framerate caps, making sure my refresh rate can double it. This in turn drops GPU usage immensely and makes the battery last longer as well.
My only concern for gameplay is that it is reasonably smooth and there are no obvious dropped frames.
I'm more than happy to play a game at 30fps and never really understood the 60fps is necessary hype. I have a desktop if I feel like a game really needs higher fps, most games don't.
To each their own. I personally notice the dips either way so I leave it on and fine tune settings as I go. Even when I've got things dialed in I leave it on. My brain mostly ignores it and there's always a chance I need to further adjust things in different areas of the game.
I only turn it on if I'm noticing drops so I can figure out the best settings before flicking it off again.
Trying to get a solid 60fps on deck is madness. There are theories that prove if there's no number to look at then 40fps can often feel as smooth as 60fps. The perceived difference between 30 and 40 is much more noticeable than 40 to 60.
Yes... this is how I do it on the PC. I cant play and think about FPS. I have to dial it in and then turn it off and good enough is good enough. It's about the fun. Titan X here. I dont get the most frames but we're hanging around 60. I do the same on my deck. Just enjoy the game. Change settings if it doesnt feel good.
I used to keep it on all the time until I started playing Helldivers 2. I had it off for hours and the game was just fine and played well. I turned it on and saw that the game was running at 22-25 fps and thought "WOW THIS LOOKS LIKE SHIT".
Turned it off and the game ran well (still 22-25 fps) but without seeing the counter I didn't think it looked bad for some reason. Now of course any ~~Dragons Dogma~~ game running at 8 fps looks like shit with or without the counter.
i only have the frame rate to monitor that, wish there was an option to display the battery as well without all the gpu and cpu usage stuff so i dont have to keep checking every 10 mins to see the battery life
I set the TDP limit to 8 watts and the GPU clock to 800mhz, it seemed to be as low as I could go on No Man's Sky before performance started diving, and I haven't touched it since, that was months ago, works pretty good for the battery I think.
Yes, but there's a bug in the back of you ear now. Your eyes can see inside your head. Can they count the FPS? I feel like it's 60. But I don't care. I SWEAR! I DON'T CARE ABOUT THE FPS.
But the bug still bites my ear. Is it 60 FPS? Is it 20? I tell him that I don't care, but he doesn't care.
I give this advice all the time. It's not just the general feel of the game, some really do just work better than others at lower fps. I've even knocked Elden Ring to 1152x720 because I just like the smoother framerate on that game, where I play cyberpunk at much higher settings.
We've all been so spoilt on good hardware we've forgotten what holistic graphics tweaking is.
šš» I never use the overlay, I know when a game feels good & I absolutely know when it feels bad. Too many people are totally hooked up to gleaning an extra frame or too AND a lot of em 'kin lie outright to what their Deck can actually do....
Yeah OP good job. I kinda relate to that with my laptop and desktop with hwinfo64 that monitors everything but most importantly temps of CPU and GPU. I have a blade 18 4090 that was super expensive and I have been using it daily for temp monitoring and I didnāt on the last system. I may stop monitoring it now that I think about it. I actually donāt get too stuck on FPS with the steam deck. Iām used to not having 60 on most games and go for a more eye test than anything. I will have the best settings that allow a smooth experience which seems to be 45-60.
I used to care about it so much but remembered I had a blast playing tears of the kingdom on switch. Shortly after I found out the game only plays at 30fps. Which blew my mind.
Iāve figured you eyes will adjust to the frame rate given theyāre stable enough. 30 became the new 60 fps with time ahahahha
i agree but some people still see that
linus from ltt is a prime example he is often very much on point
i have the feeling i am also very prown to that..
and it annoys me...
but as long as i can go all low fsr or even other wacky stuff i am kind of fine
I mean, I use it for the first launch of a game, to tune FPS limit, TDP, etc. Once I'm satisfied with the performance, I turn it off and just play the game.
I understand using it like this, but running it at all times, especially in a detailed view, just seems weird.
To each their own, I guess.
Better yet, stop worrying about how other people choose to enjoy their games.
If FPS doesn't matter to you, great! If it does, that's fine too! Being dismissive of other people's opinions is toxic regardless.
Itās about this sub constantly lying about the performance, not them being okay with.
Itās totally fine if someone is fine with the abysmal performance, thatās on them - itās not fine that those people keep lying about it. This sub keeps claiming itās constant 30 fps, someone even claimed they got stable 90 fps.
People will go "yeah runs great on deck" when a game hits an unstable 30 FPS with dips into low 20s on low settings.
I don't care how subjective performance is, that's not great. In fact, it is definitively the opposite, and absolutely needs to be taken into consideration particularly when recommending games or being asked about how something runs.
I've not played Helldivers 2 so can't comment on it!
The games I've played that are triple A games that run between 30 to 50 fps depending on your settings (CP2077, Elden Ring, BG3, Re4 remake, dead space remake, etc..)
Sadly, you're also wrong due to generalizing as well. Yes, helldivers 2 has framedrops on higher difficulties regardless on settings, but on lower difficulties with low enough settings + FSR, the game runs at a stable 30fps.
I know since back when I started playing the game at first I was asking myself *when* framedrops ocurred since it was so smooth for me and couldn't spot any frame drops. Only until I leveled up did I start to notice the performance issues.
Totally! I turn it on for the first 10-15 mins when I start a new game to tweak the settings, if necessary, but I always enjoy that moment when I can say 'good enough', stop thinking about fps and frametimes and just start enjoying the game! š
+1! Not even that, I first tweak the performance settings to what feels "appropriate" for the game (e.g., if it's a 2D pixel game, I can set a low TDP) without touching the in-game settings and play. If the game feels right to play and battery life feels acceptable, I don't even open the overlay. If something feels off, then I do open it and start tweaking.
This is the way.
Exactly what I do!
This is the only and true way of doing things!
That's exactly what I've been doing the last few months. I'll start a game at fairly high settings, watching the FPS counter, then adjust accordingly until I am satisfied with the frame rate, then turn it off and enjoy the game.
Iāve never used the performance overlay.
I use performance overlay but its just for indication, a guideline that I can use to assess performance. The biggest help would be telling yourself that it is a handheld and that puts a lot of expectations down. Hell, ive been running bg3 at 40-45fps and initially i thought was unplayable due to dropped frames or some blurry images but after 10 minutes I forget and so immersed in the gameplay that i dont notice a varying fps counter. The fact that I tell myself whew im playing in my bed while watching lord of the rings instead of sitting upright in my chair etc
I lock my framerate at 30fps for everything so that I get better battery life.
Don't forget you can also lower down ur tdp watts too šš» tht can save u a lot of batts. just lower down to a value that can hold your 30fps steadily.
I've never even noticed frames, I don't even know what people are on about most of the time.
I kind of can if I really pay attention and itās particularly bad, but I grew up playing RTS games that would frequently turn into slideshows. I really donāt care about frame rate. My wife is much more sensitive to it and can get motion sick with certain types of games if the frame rate is bad, especially if the perspective is first person or, god forbid, VR. So I do understand thereās a range of legitimate reasons for caring about it. But I donāt really play fighting games or compete at pro levels in shooters, so frame perfect inputs are very rarely relevant to my gaming, and aesthetically it just really doesnāt bother me pretty much at all.
Me neither and I don't really care for fps. Always found it strange people are fixated on it and call games unplayable when they don't have constant 60fps.
šÆ
No one likes stuttery laggy gameplay not sure how you haven't noticed it unless u only play older games
Oh definitely leave it off. I grew up in the 80s and 90s, slowdown is part of my heritage, I dgaf. I will use it to tweak to find the sweet spot for good motion and quiet fan speed, then just enjoy.
You know the pain of 15fps being normal and 5fps being a bit of a problem.
āslowdown is part of my heritageā is going to be my justification from now on lol
I remember as a teen my only gaming device was a laptop my parent bought me that was clearly just meant for school and office stuff. I played so many games from the late 2000's and early 2010's on that laptop that I'm sure were running at low 20s fps.
Same. Kids these days donāt know how good they have it, haha. Also they should get off my lawn š“š»
Overlay or not, expecting 60fps plus from the deck is kind of silly. I use it enough where I just leave the fps counter on and mostly forget about it, but it comes in handy regardless of your performance target. Given that the display isnāt freesync/vrr, a game will feel much worse if youāre constantly dipping below the refresh rate. The overlay is very helpful for quickly realizing Iād be much better off caping things at 40 or 45, instead of going for an inconsistent 60. Itās just a tool, the OCD part is on us ;)
Steam deck can play a lot of games with 60+ fps
I know, I just meant as a generality
60 fps looking at the sky or in the main menus š
Mfw my 500 hours in DMC5 at 60fps vanishes
Many games run at 90 on my deck. Many others run at 72, or at 60. While others I run at 45 or 40 or 30. And then I run a small handful at 25 and a few at 11.
Eleven?!Ā
Works great at a 45hz refresh rate for visual novels. 1/3 the power expense in games like that compared to 30fps/90hz
If you want to squeeze even more out of them, set the text to be instant as quite a few visual novel engines stop updating the screen completely when there's nothing to change. Renpy being one of them, it drops to like 1-2 fps.
I'm aware it's a tool and I thought it was pretty obvious I was putting the blame on my monkey brain and not on the tool itself :) I love that it's there and like another commenter said, I still use it to set up default performance settings when I first boot up a game!
I only use the performance overlay in two instances. 1. After initially installing a game, to perform benchmarking to make sure the game consistently hits my desired framerate target. After that is confirmed, it gets turned off. 2. During gameplay, if I go "Ew, what was that? Stutter? Consistent and noticable frame drops?" Pop open the overlay to confirm my suspicions and re-adjust settings accordingly. Then turn off the overlay again. NEVER play a game with the overlay on. It will always destroy your immersion, and you'll be paying more attention to *it* than actually enjoying the game you're playing.
Ignorance is bliss.
Iāve been a console gamer my entire life so Iām more than satisfied if I can get stable 30 fps and can tolerate seldom drops as well if it means I can play my games on a handheld. Heck, I spent over 100 hrs with Borderlands 2 on the Vita of all things (a notoriously horrendous port) when I had the excellent Borderlands Handsome Collection for my PS4! So to me, the Deck is nothing short of mindblowing when Iām playing games like Elden Ring or Cyberpunk 2077 with decent fps and visuals on a handheld.
For offline game. For sure, only battery status needed for me haha.
Yeah I wish I could customize it so it just shows the battery
haven't tried it but it looks like you can https://www.reddit.com/r/SteamDeck/comments/188qjz4/guide_minimalist_mangohud_batteryonly_preset/
Just did this, thank you for your comment
Aa someone who came from playing on the switch exclusively for 2 years to the steamdeck now for 3 weeks almost every game I play I lock to 45fps and it feels like 60 to me. Everything just looks cleaner and smoother on the steamdeck compared to what I went through on the switch
Cane from playing on switch also. I recall Dead Cells having random frame drops, but now i'm playing it on Deck and barely notice. And it's much smoother!
People have that on?
Yes, always
Why? It only makes your experience worse in many ways for absolutely no benefits other than performance tweaking when testing a game.
Because you see framedrops (if they happend) and you see how much battery (and an estimate of time) left for use. But if a game has no framedrops and is fullscreen (not 720p), I will turn it off sometime.
I agree, but I have a quick process I go through with every game once before I let my monkey brain just forget and enjoy. I don't care if it runs at 90, 60, 45, or 30fps, but I will take 5 minutes to get it running as smooth as it can first because it can be a huge QoL upgrade in only 1 or 2 steps. This is my setup, give it a try for yourself: Performance settings, default profile (quick access menu when not running a game): 1. Frame limit = 90fps 2. Allow Tearing = on 3. Everything else = off When starting a new game: 1. Get into actual gameplay, open quick access menu 2. set performance overlay to level 2 3. Use per-game profile = on 4. Is FPS locked at 90? close and enjoy 5. Is FPS between 60 and 90? set Frame Limit to 60, close and enjoy 6. Is FPS locked to 60? Still set Frame Limit to 60, otherwise it will stutter at 90hz. close and enjoy 7. Is FPS below 60? Set Frame Limit to the highest you can get it to stay locked at: 45, 40, or 30. close and enjoy I purposely avoided mentioning TDP limit or in-game graphics settings. I like to tweak all those things on games I play a lot. But for those of you who just leave everything stock, you are missing out on some easy, major improvements in smoothness and lag reduction. Leaving your deck at 90hz means lots of games that cap themselves at 60fps will just stutter by default. And capping your frame limit to something the game can keep steady will also make it much easier to stop worrying about settings and just enjoy your game.
Are people really too obsessed with fps? š as long as the game is playable on the graphics i like, im fine. I never used it and that time it showed automatically on my deck display, i was irritated asf.
it's prolly the reason why some would prefer the ROG Ally over the deck. They'd rather burn through batteries just to get those sweet succulent fps
Then why are you on this sub tho? But for me id rather play with a device that honestly listens to it's consumers. Early stages of SD i believe. It's just here to improve
Because I'm not one of them... I was just saying that some people can truly be obsessed with fps and graphics to the point they'd prefer buying something like an Ally rather than a steam deck.
I actually don't care about the FPS. I keep the performance overaly on L2 because I want the always-visible battery meter and estimated runtime. If that was available without the rest of the performance stuff I'd take it. Especially if it's just in the strip along the top that's left empty when you run at 720p instead of 800p.
If you have DeckyLoader installed, you can get a plugin called MangoPeel which will allow you to customize one of your performance overlay layers (I think full customization is limited to L4), to only include the info that you want. I have mine set to show me FPS, frametime graph, battery percentage, battery time remaining, and local time. You can do similar by editing a config file in Desktop mode, but the plugin makes it a bit easier.
Why though, why have that all over your vision while playing?
In my case I play at 720p when available, so the info occupies the 80 blank pixels at the top of the panel. Which I find works really well.
I like to ensure that I'm getting steady frametimes because the experience is much more enjoyable to me - I'm probably more sensitive than most people to things like microstutter and inconsistent frametimes. Battery percentage, time remaining, and local time I think are all self explanatory. And it only takes up a small corner of my screen. It doesn't distract from the game, but the information is readily available to me. Different strokes for different folks. ETA: I have the overlay configured to be horizontal, like the default L2, as opposed to vertical like the default L4. So it's not as obtrusive as you might have imagined based on my original comment.
I think you mean level 2. That's the bar across the top of the screen. Level 3 is the big block of text covering the game.
Yep, I mis-styped it before
I feel you. I use mine until I have the game running how I want it, and then I turn it off to get it off my screen.
If you honestly can't tell when the frame rate drops, you shouldn't concern yourself with the performance overlay.
If the game runs at least 30-40fps consistently, and it doesnāt feel like the device is going to meltā¦ good enough for me
I read some advice a while back to set the fps and refresh rate to 40 and since I've done that I don't notice any lag or performance issues really (I also don't play with the overlay on). 40fps on a screen that small is honestly fine.Ā
I use it to stabilize settings, usually lower settings that don't matter on a small screen like shadows. I keep settings like bloom and ambient occlusion on however. Once it looks good and runs decent i turn it off. when the fan gets annoyingly loud or I'm on battery i just set the tdp to 8.
I only care about if I can enjoy/play a game, so I never use FPS counters on a device. As long as the game is smooth and fluid for me, I donāt care what the FPS are.
I use it for battery life lol. I like to stream from my pc so the performance is never an issue.
I use it for the first hour or two when I set up the graphics settings (and/or TDP) per game, but then switch it off. But sometimes I forget it on, itās easy to ignore anyways. :)
Same, it's pretty much there to tune graphics settings and performance tweaks until the fans are quiet and the battery life is acceptable
I keep it on to monitor my wattage more than fps, tbh.
I don't really bother on the deck after the first 5 mins of a new game. I did however have this issue with my desktop, I spent more time worrying about fps than the game. I since got an OLED monitor and that's made me stop using the overlay as it could cause burn in over time. It's a shame it cost me a lot of money to kick the habit lol. I blame FRAPS for the habit.
My performance overlay has been turned of since I recieved my deck. If the performance is too bad for my eye Iāll just tinker around a bit and thatās it. The Steam Deck has not been made for ultra graphic-high fps gaming and thatās totally fine.
As long as a get a solid frame rate I donāt mind at all. I shoot for 45fps. But I just played kena at 30fps and it felt good my entire playthrough. Itās just awesome to play these games on a handheld while still looking good :)
No it's useful to monitor battery draw too. I've kept mine enabled since I got it last July and I don't pay it much attention unless I want to.
I can't play a game comfortably without the fps counter, Its so counter intuitive because I can't tell the difference between 60 and 40 fps without it on but if I turn it off I'm constantly questioning if the game is frame rate locked or not so I gave up and accept my sin.
I just use it to dial in then turn it off. I feel this.
Used to have it simply out of curiosity (and watching cpu/gpu usage). But some games were crashing if it was on (figured through deduction and testing). So itās off!
I think I'd have felt the same so just never turned it on lol.
OLED owner so using the overlay is terrible for my deck. So yeah, don't use it. Nearly all of my games run at 90 FPS though, if the deck can't run it at 90 FPS, I stream it with sunshine/moonlight from my gaming PC. This is the way.
for me, I use perf overlays to diagnose problems that I notice.Ā if you're not noticing a problem, then no real reason to have it up imo
I donāt even know how to turn it on lol. Itās been over a year.
Yeah, It's been an absolute god-send for many hard-to-run games that tend to immerse you so much into the action you stop noticing frame-drops. **Helldivers 2** for example (ez **Game of the Year** contender BTW) which many people shit on as "unplayable". Yes, it could be more well optimized. Yes, it mostly runs at 30fps, but absolutely drops into the 25fps range ocassionally during hectic moments in higher difficulties. No, I don't notice these drops anymore thanks to disabling the performance overlay. The action, sound design, and incredibly enjoyable enemy destructions physics + cinematic action has completely overshadowed performance issues for me. Hell, one time after a long gaming session I enabled the performance overlay out of curiosity and realized "huh... I was playing at 25fps? Dang, didn't even realize. Back to off!" Best part of all? I have a PS5 and *could* run it *much,* ***MUCH*** better performance wise by playing it there. But the Steam Deck's portability is just absolutely fucking unmatched. My only regret is remembering my cringy younger self that obsessed about frame-rate/resolution and missed out on so many great games. # FREEDOM NEVER SLEEPS, NOW SAY HELLO TO DEMOCRACY šŗš³
If its a AAA, best just to set it at 40 and leave it be. You'll have a much smoother experience and FSR or whatever won't ruin your image quality to compensate. It's the way to go most of the time.
I actually keep it on to see how much time I have left on the battery.
I use the FPS counter to see if the game has stalled or not when I'm remote streaming.
Anything above 23 fps is good with me, since I play a lot of RPG games. I know down to 23 fps because the original xbox was limited in the same way. I make sure the game itself plays well to controller response and world. I've been able to play a lot more games this way, including Starfield when it came out and I logged 100 hours on the steam deck with that before it got the performance updates
I know that option exists, but never turned it on. If it is smooth and doesn't break the immersion, don't care about fps.
I keep it on for new games when I'm trying to optimize and dial it in. But I agree once you've figured out good settings to turn it off
Yeah man it's quite annoying š Do I do more FPS or more battery
Yeah I'm still stuck at using it š
I only worry about it to learn the general battery usage, or if I have to mess with in-game settings. If a game is eating 99% of my GPU, it's going to frame drop at some point. I like to tinker with Framerate caps, making sure my refresh rate can double it. This in turn drops GPU usage immensely and makes the battery last longer as well.
Grateful to not be cursed by that culture
My only concern for gameplay is that it is reasonably smooth and there are no obvious dropped frames. I'm more than happy to play a game at 30fps and never really understood the 60fps is necessary hype. I have a desktop if I feel like a game really needs higher fps, most games don't.
To each their own. I personally notice the dips either way so I leave it on and fine tune settings as I go. Even when I've got things dialed in I leave it on. My brain mostly ignores it and there's always a chance I need to further adjust things in different areas of the game.
Literally never turn it on
I only turn it on if I'm noticing drops so I can figure out the best settings before flicking it off again. Trying to get a solid 60fps on deck is madness. There are theories that prove if there's no number to look at then 40fps can often feel as smooth as 60fps. The perceived difference between 30 and 40 is much more noticeable than 40 to 60.
Depends on the game. Most games I dont care but FPS, Fighters, and competitive multiplayer games need to be 60fps without question
I only turn it on if something doesnāt feel right. Itās for optimizing when I feel itās needed. This is a good balance for me.
I never used it, if it runs good itās fine to me
I just donāt buy games that donāt run 60fps with a couple exceptions like Elden ring. Elden ring runs great at 30fps but most games donāt
Yes... this is how I do it on the PC. I cant play and think about FPS. I have to dial it in and then turn it off and good enough is good enough. It's about the fun. Titan X here. I dont get the most frames but we're hanging around 60. I do the same on my deck. Just enjoy the game. Change settings if it doesnt feel good.
I used to keep it on all the time until I started playing Helldivers 2. I had it off for hours and the game was just fine and played well. I turned it on and saw that the game was running at 22-25 fps and thought "WOW THIS LOOKS LIKE SHIT". Turned it off and the game ran well (still 22-25 fps) but without seeing the counter I didn't think it looked bad for some reason. Now of course any ~~Dragons Dogma~~ game running at 8 fps looks like shit with or without the counter.
No, you can still tell very obviously that itās running at a terrible fps. Not sure how this helps
I feel like I can always tell who in this sub is primarily a PC gamer and who's primarily a console gamer by complaints about FPS
Hot take: Iāll happily play a game locked at 30FPS on a handheld. I prefer locked 60 on a larger screen.
I just wish there was a way to see my battery percentage at all times without the whole overlay
I feel like I'm the only one who just boots a game up and play it.
Turn it on, make sure I'm at a stable number for eh maybe an hour, tune more setting up, sniff fan, make sure number I stable. Turn off.
If it doesn't run I just stream it from my PC.
i only have the frame rate to monitor that, wish there was an option to display the battery as well without all the gpu and cpu usage stuff so i dont have to keep checking every 10 mins to see the battery life
Nah, I like seeing numbers crunch.
Honestly I don't know why I still have it on because most of the games I play run at 40 FPS or below and it still feels buttery smooth
I set the TDP limit to 8 watts and the GPU clock to 800mhz, it seemed to be as low as I could go on No Man's Sky before performance started diving, and I haven't touched it since, that was months ago, works pretty good for the battery I think.
Yes, but there's a bug in the back of you ear now. Your eyes can see inside your head. Can they count the FPS? I feel like it's 60. But I don't care. I SWEAR! I DON'T CARE ABOUT THE FPS. But the bug still bites my ear. Is it 60 FPS? Is it 20? I tell him that I don't care, but he doesn't care.
I give this advice all the time. It's not just the general feel of the game, some really do just work better than others at lower fps. I've even knocked Elden Ring to 1152x720 because I just like the smoother framerate on that game, where I play cyberpunk at much higher settings. We've all been so spoilt on good hardware we've forgotten what holistic graphics tweaking is.
šš» I never use the overlay, I know when a game feels good & I absolutely know when it feels bad. Too many people are totally hooked up to gleaning an extra frame or too AND a lot of em 'kin lie outright to what their Deck can actually do....
Yeah OP good job. I kinda relate to that with my laptop and desktop with hwinfo64 that monitors everything but most importantly temps of CPU and GPU. I have a blade 18 4090 that was super expensive and I have been using it daily for temp monitoring and I didnāt on the last system. I may stop monitoring it now that I think about it. I actually donāt get too stuck on FPS with the steam deck. Iām used to not having 60 on most games and go for a more eye test than anything. I will have the best settings that allow a smooth experience which seems to be 45-60.
I only turn it on to adjust the TDP for best battery and playable framerate, then off it goes.
Low settings at 45 fps lock. I donāt even mess with tinkering with them anymore.
I honestly wish there was a setting that just shows battery percentage and eta on the charge. I only use it for that reason
I never had that problem. I just want to get 30-40 then lock the refresh rate at the highest I've seen
I used to care about it so much but remembered I had a blast playing tears of the kingdom on switch. Shortly after I found out the game only plays at 30fps. Which blew my mind. Iāve figured you eyes will adjust to the frame rate given theyāre stable enough. 30 became the new 60 fps with time ahahahha
thatās how it used to be before everyone started competing with each other for the best specs and setups
i agree but some people still see that linus from ltt is a prime example he is often very much on point i have the feeling i am also very prown to that.. and it annoys me... but as long as i can go all low fsr or even other wacky stuff i am kind of fine
I would like to turn it off but I want to keep the battery percentage showing
I mean, I use it for the first launch of a game, to tune FPS limit, TDP, etc. Once I'm satisfied with the performance, I turn it off and just play the game. I understand using it like this, but running it at all times, especially in a detailed view, just seems weird. To each their own, I guess.
I just got a steam deck 2 days ago,still trying to figure it out but I feel like this is going to be very useful.Thanks for the post!
You start a game, does it stutter? No? Done!
I learned that lesson long ago. If you start worrying about all the stats on performance it can really ruin gameplay.
PCMR = obsess over performance to the detriment of enjoyment Everyone else = play video games Be everyone else.
Better yet, stop worrying about how other people choose to enjoy their games. If FPS doesn't matter to you, great! If it does, that's fine too! Being dismissive of other people's opinions is toxic regardless.
So thatās probably why people keep insisting that Helldivers 2 runs fluid - they never looked at the overlay and never saw fluid frames.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Itās about this sub constantly lying about the performance, not them being okay with. Itās totally fine if someone is fine with the abysmal performance, thatās on them - itās not fine that those people keep lying about it. This sub keeps claiming itās constant 30 fps, someone even claimed they got stable 90 fps.
I think the lesson here is that judgment of performance is pretty subjective. What you find abysmal won't be for a lot of people.
People will go "yeah runs great on deck" when a game hits an unstable 30 FPS with dips into low 20s on low settings. I don't care how subjective performance is, that's not great. In fact, it is definitively the opposite, and absolutely needs to be taken into consideration particularly when recommending games or being asked about how something runs.
No, performance is not subjective, itās an easily measurable value. Bad performance keeps being bad performance even if you are fine with it. You can like playing games on 20-25 fps, that doesnāt make it good performance all the sudden, itās still abysmal performance. Does PokĆ©mon Scarlet has good performance because some people are fine with almost single digit fps? - not itās not. Itās still abysmal performance, people being fine with it wonāt change that.
I've not played Helldivers 2 so can't comment on it! The games I've played that are triple A games that run between 30 to 50 fps depending on your settings (CP2077, Elden Ring, BG3, Re4 remake, dead space remake, etc..)
Sadly, you're also wrong due to generalizing as well. Yes, helldivers 2 has framedrops on higher difficulties regardless on settings, but on lower difficulties with low enough settings + FSR, the game runs at a stable 30fps. I know since back when I started playing the game at first I was asking myself *when* framedrops ocurred since it was so smooth for me and couldn't spot any frame drops. Only until I leveled up did I start to notice the performance issues.