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The Borderlands video games are a few of my favorites to play, and I nonetheless return to take pleasure in Borderlands 2 every time I can. At the moment, the following recreation within the collection, Borderlands 4, has simply been launched, and it seems to be fairly superb. Critiques have been praising it fairly a bit, and I used to be so excited to play. So, as quickly as I may, I purchased the sport and obtained it downloaded. In fact, the very first thing I needed to do was try it out on the Steam Deck to see if this recreation may run properly. I did not have a variety of hope, however that wasn’t going to cease me from making an attempt.
For many who are curious, we additionally examined all of the earlier video games within the Borderlands collection, from Borderlands 1 to Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands, so you possibly can take a look at how all of them run in our written article or YouTube video.
Borderlands 4’s Steam Deck Efficiency So Far
Going into Borderlands 4 on the Steam Deck, I did not count on it to run. The minimal necessities are hefty, and Gearbox CEO Randy Pitchford talked about that this recreation shouldn’t be anticipated to run on units beneath the necessities. Nonetheless, I wished to check, and it is about as unhealthy as I anticipated, possibly slightly worse in some areas and slightly higher in others.
The opening areas of the sport often caught round 22 FPS, with common drops right down to 8-9 FPS when both loading in new areas or typically simply random spikes right here and there. Nonetheless, these drops had been fairly often and really robust on the gadget. It seems that CPU-usage is the large bottleneck, persistently spiking as much as 100% utilization, whereas GPU often sat at 80% and battery drain didn’t at all times hit the very best potential drain.
This was additionally all examined on the bottom potential settings, with every thing set to low or off, whereas utilizing the best-performing upscaler on the lowest setting. From my testing of FSR, XeSS, and TSR, I discovered that TSR was simply barely higher performing than FSR, and each had been higher than XeSS. Arguably, XeSS appeared one of the best in my view, whereas FSR appeared the worst. TSR did not observe up too far behind, although, because it made every thing look washed out. Coupled with the bottom settings, the place shadows and lighting may simply slowly crawl out and in, it was not pleasing.
Regardless that it may maintain 22 FPS throughout fights as soon as every thing was loaded in, usually, which truly made it playable, simply barely, any kind of new enemy or large results will begin to kill efficiency. There have been a number of scruffs I used to be in the place a random 8 FPS drop got here by way of and led to my demise. I may nonetheless get by way of fights, nevertheless it was brutal.
After which there may be body technology, and I can not exclaim this sufficient: Don’t use it. The in-game body gen is thru FSR, and it introduces excessive enter lag that makes it unimaginable to purpose and kill something. On high of that, the random stutters and drops I skilled earlier than had been 10 instances worse, making the sport gradual to a crawl that felt like possibly 2 or 3 FPS. This occurred rather a lot throughout fights, so it actually solely made the expertise worse on all fronts.
Then there’s Lossless Scaling body technology, which is a step up, however I nonetheless do not advocate it. The sport positively feels smoother extra typically, and the stuttering and drops aren’t felt as laborious, however they nonetheless are obvious and customary. Enter lag is not as unhealthy as FSR body gen, nevertheless it’s nonetheless positively there. It is not sufficient to cease me from killing anybody, nevertheless it’s positively sufficient to make me fall off a ledge. I do not advocate utilizing lossless scaling in any respect, however for those who do, maintain it to 2X. 3 or 4X will make the sport a lot worse, with effervescent results, extra enter lag, and considerably worse stutters.
Both method, I carried out and performed higher at 22 FPS with out body technology over a really sporadic 35 FPS with body gen.
On the plus facet, the sport does acknowledge the OLED’s HDR display screen, and routinely pops open the digital keyboard when mandatory. It is good to see the digital keyboard popping up, since that is one thing a variety of video games do not routinely do. Nonetheless, it would not change the truth that this isn’t a recreation to play on the Steam Deck natively.
If you will play Borderlands 4 on a handheld, I might keep away from taking part in it natively on the Steam Deck. Enjoying it on extra highly effective units just like the ROG Ally X must be a greater expertise, although I’m not certain how a lot better. I plan to check it on different units as we speak and tomorrow and can report my findings, however until you might be streaming from GeForce NOW, I might keep away from Borderlands 4 on the Steam Deck.
Borderlands 4 may be bought on Steam for $69.99.
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