Although Baldur’s Gate 3 is traditionally played with the precision of mouse and keyboard controls, its availability on PlayStation 5 suggests that it can also be adapted for controller-based gameplay. This makes it a promising candidate for the portable PC environment of the Steam Deck.
The Baldur’s Gate 3 Steam Deck compatibility question is answered by the game’s ‘Verified’ mark in Valve’s ecosystem, which means the game runs smoothly at a respectable 30fps on the Steam Deck. However, achieving this performance does require adjusting settings and making some compromises in terms of graphics.
Players are eager to know whether the Steam Deck can handle Baldur’s Gate 3, as the portable console is known to have some frame rate drops for massive games. In this guide, we will explore the best Baldur’s Gate 3’s Steam Deck settings and the game’s overall performance on the handheld.
Best performance settings for Baldur’s Gate 3 on Steam Deck
To ensure a seamless and visually satisfying experience of Baldur’s Gate 3 on the Steam Deck, adopting the right settings is crucial. Here is a comprehensive breakdown of the optimal settings for achieving stable performance:
On your Steam Deck, go to the Video settings in BG3 and adjust them to the following parameters:
Aspect Ratio: 16:10
Resolution: 1280×800
Refresh Rate: 60 Hz
Display Mode: Fullscreen
VSync: Triple Buffering
Frame Rate Cap: On
Maximum Frame Rate: 30
Model Quality: Medium
Detail Distance: Medium
Instance Distance: Medium
Texture Quality: Medium
Texture Filtering: Anisotropic x4
Animation Level of Detail: Medium
Slow HDD Mode: Off
Dynamic Crowds: Off
Shadow Quality: Low
Cloud Quality: Low
Fog Quality: Low
AMD FSR 1.0: Off
FidelityFX Sharpening: Off
Sharpness: N/A
Anti-Aliasing: SMAA
Ambient Occlusion: Off
Depth of Field: None
God Rays: Off
Bloom: Off
Subsurface Scattering: Off
Players seeking a balance between visual appeal and frame rate can tweak their experience further. For optimal load times and in-game performance, installing Baldur’s Gate 3 on the Steam Deck’s native NVMe storage is recommended. However, a MicroSD card can be used if storage space becomes a constraint.
Troubleshooting Baldur’s Gate 3 Steam Deck Launch Issues
Baldur’s Gate 3 is verified for the Steam Deck, but some players may experience problems when the game first launches. If you face similar issues, you can try the following:
Enable/Disable Proton Experimental
- Select Baldur’s Gate 3 on the Steam Deck homepage.
- Click on the cog icon and access the ‘Properties…’ menu.
- Select ‘Proton Experimental’ from the dropdown menu under the ‘Compatibility’ tab.
- Reload the game, and then keep an eye on performance if you experience crashes right after startup. This could solve the problem on its own in some cases.
Reinstall the game
If the first method doesn’t work, think about reinstalling the game from scratch. Any underlying problems that may be causing crashes may frequently be fixed by doing this.
