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EA shocked me not too long ago with Dragon Age: The Veilguard getting a Steam Deck Verified badge. It wasn’t due to the upcoming motion RPG itself getting it, however moreso that the sport did not have a launch date and didn’t have minimal system necessities listed but! That made it fairly exhausting to match and confirm for ourselves if it might actually run, and it made me doubt the inexperienced checkmark. Properly, the necessities are right here, and whereas I can see why the Verified badge was given, I do nonetheless have some worries.
The necessities for Veilguard are throughout the Steam Deck’s energy, but it surely does begin to cross the road a little bit in some areas:
Dragon Age: The Veilguard Minimal System Necessities:
Requires a 64-bit processor and working system
OS: 64 bit Home windows 10/11
Processor: Intel Core i5-8400 / AMD Ryzen 3 3300X* (see notes)
Reminiscence: 16 GB RAM
Graphics: NVIDIA GTX 970/1650 / AMD Radeon R9 290X
DirectX: Model 12
Storage: 100 GB obtainable house
Extra Notes: SSD Most well-liked, HDD Supported; AMD CPUs on Home windows 11 require AGESA V2 1.2.0.7
Now there are a few issues right here that fear me. First, the CPU and GPU necessities. These are throughout the energy that the Deck can deal with, but it surely does push it. Baldur’s Gate 3 has a GTX 970 listed for its minimal GPU requirement, and whereas it is playable, it is not the best expertise. And whereas the CPU can also be throughout the energy, it’s a heavier requirement than most others, which suggests it is going to take extra energy away from the GPU that it could want.
However with some tweaking, I might see this all being playable. The half that basically worries me is RAM necessities. The Veilguard has a requirement of 16GB of RAM, the precise quantity that the Steam Deck has. This has sadly led to sport crashes, which we have now skilled in different video games with the identical necessities. For instance, the upcoming Black Fable: Wukong and No Relaxation for the Depraved each have 16GB RAM necessities, and each have or had crashes on account of RAM utilization. No Relaxation for the Depraved did optimize it a bit, however the utilization remains to be comparatively excessive.
So what does this imply precisely? Properly, we aren’t 100% certain but, however from the specs listed, it does give me pause earlier than celebrating the inexperienced checkmark. Theoretically, the sport ought to be playable, which is nice, however there are some caveats. The ability drain might result in dropped frames or 30 FPS secure, whereas the RAM requirement might result in crashes. The latter may be averted with utilizing a 4GB UMA Buffer and CryoUtilities, however that Verified badge nonetheless should not be there in that case. It is attainable SteamOS 3.6 might assist as effectively, however that’s nonetheless in beta. Hopefully, it is going to launch earlier than Veilguard is out and we will see for ourselves!
Even with the pessimism, I do need Dragon Age: The Veilguard to run on Steam Deck. I like the sequence and I’ve hope that will probably be playable, so here is hoping!
You may pre-purchase the sport on Steam for $59.99 forward of its October thirty first launch date.
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