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Valve is currently in the midst of fulfilling a massive number of Steam Deck orders, but a fair few people already have their shiny new consoles in hand, and are giving them a proper whirl with all the latest and greatest games. One of these games is FromSoftware's latest flagship release, Elden Ring, and it just so happens to run reasonably well on the handheld gaming PC.
According to some early Steam Deck adopters, Elden Ring is performing significantly better than expected, and AMD's FidelityFX Super Resolution may have something to do with that. Specifically, one user has reported that they've been able to run the game at a 4K resolution with a playable framerate, though there is a bit of a caveat included as well.
Reddit user forger7 hooked up their new Steam Deck to a 4K television set, and claims to have been able to run the game at a playable frame rate without any dips under 30 FPS, even though they were playing at a high setting preset. The key to doing so seems to have been Steam Deck's onboard FSR technology, which upscaled a native 800p image to a 4K output. Though the end result lacks the clarity and crispness of a native 4K image, the game is more than playable, says forger7.
While it's been known for some time now that Valve's handheld PC is a reasonably powerful device following the unofficial Cyberpunk 2077 showcase on Steam Deck, the idea that such a compact PC could put out a reasonably good-looking image even when running games at 4K is very impressive. To say nothing of the fact that Elden Ring is a brand-new AAA title, giving credence to Valve's claims that the Steam Deck can contend even with heavy-hitting titles of the current generation.
At this time, the Steam Deck lists over 2,000 playable games, which means that owners have immediate access to one of the biggest launch lineups in the history of consoles. Naturally, the Steam Deck isn't technically a console and requires a bit more fiddling than one might expect, but Valve is working on ironing out the kinks around the clock, and the Deck's list of supported titles is bound to grow further still.
This isn't to say that there aren't any serious issues with the Steam Deck, of course. A number of early Steam Deck adopters have experienced stick drift already, and the community has noticed some QA problems that make this launch less stellar than it probably could've been. With reservations potentially already stretching well into 2023, however, it's clear that the market for a handheld gaming PC is quite substantial and eager regardless.