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It is all the time a pleasant shock after we hear of builders doing particular optimizations for the Steam Deck, and ZA/UM’s sport ZERO PARADES: For Lifeless Spies did precisely that. Though there have been some points, we did discover the sport playable on the Steam Deck in our assessment.
The workforce at ZA/UM even made a selected Steam Deck trailer for the sport, which you’ll watch beneath:
So what particular optimizations and changes did the workforce make to get the sport to a playable state on the Steam Deck? Properly, first off, they opted to make use of Vulkan to render the sport, slightly than DirectX, eradicating any efficiency loss Linux would possibly get from translating between DirectX and Vulkan. In response to their testing, it elevated efficiency by round 23%. In addition they added help for the Steam Deck’s 1280×800 decision, as an alternative of the extra frequent 1280×720, giving us some beneficial further display actual property, important in a really text-heavy sport.
In addition they utilized framerate caps by default to Steam Deck units, 30 FPS on the LCD mannequin, and 45 FPS on the OLED, so as to give a extra secure expertise, whereas reducing down on battery drain.
The current D21 patch additionally addresses points as a result of RAM constraints on the Steam Deck, so for those who had been experiencing crashes taking part in ZERO PARADES in your Steam Deck, you would possibly need to strive once more and see if it is mounted.
The Head of Engineering at ZA/UM, Dr. Kay Ross, additionally talked about how optimizing for the Steam Deck and different low-end units is simply good follow:
“The workforce was eager on making ZERO PARADES: For Lifeless Spies an important expertise on Steam Deck. Any optimisations we make for the platform additionally assist individuals on all different ones too, each in efficiency and accessibility. For a sport with massive quantities of textual content to digest, making the font scalable makes it extra readable for the smaller Steam Deck display. It’s then additionally extra readable for anybody on desk sure platforms who would possibly require bigger fonts for another purpose. By optimising scenes, VFX, lighting and property to run higher on the Steam Deck, these areas additionally run smoother for everybody.”
Dr. Kay Ross, Head of Engineering, ZA/UM Studio
ZERO PARADES: For Lifeless Spies is now obtainable on Steam, Epic Video games Retailer, and GOG, and till July 9, 2026, it is 10% off for everybody and 20% off for homeowners of Disco Elysium within the Steam Summer season Sale.
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