Tweaking SteamOS For Better Steam Deck Performance

Written by Michael Larabel in Linux Gaming on 2 October 2023 at 04:20 PM EDT. Page 2 of 3. 13 Comments.
Counter-Strike: Global Offensive benchmark with settings of Resolution: 1280 x 800, Renderer: OpenGL. SteamOS 3.5 Pre + Tweaks was the fastest.
Counter-Strike: Global Offensive benchmark with settings of Resolution: 1280 x 800, Renderer: Vulkan. SteamOS 3.5 Pre + Tweaks was the fastest.

In the case of Counter-Strike: Global offensive it helped raise the frame rates by a couple FPS on the Steam Deck, but not nearly as significant as the upgrade from SteamOS 3.4.

F1 22 benchmark with settings of Resolution: 1280 x 800, Graphics Preset: Low. SteamOS 3.5 Pre was the fastest.
F1 22 benchmark with settings of Resolution: 1280 x 800, Graphics Preset: Low, Total Frame Time. SteamOS 3.5 Pre + Tweaks was the fastest.
F1 22 benchmark with settings of Resolution: 1280 x 800, Graphics Preset: Medium. SteamOS 3.5 Pre + Tweaks was the fastest.
F1 22 benchmark with settings of Resolution: 1280 x 800, Graphics Preset: Medium, Total Frame Time. SteamOS 3.5 Pre was the fastest.
HITMAN 3 benchmark with settings of Resolution: 1280 x 800, Quality Level: Low. SteamOS 3.4 was the fastest.
HITMAN 3 benchmark with settings of Resolution: 1280 x 800, Quality Level: Low, Total Frame Time. SteamOS 3.5 Pre was the fastest.
Cyberpunk 2077 benchmark with settings of Resolution: 1280 x 800, Graphics Setting: Low. SteamOS 3.5 Pre + Tweaks was the fastest.
3DMark Wild Life Extreme benchmark with settings of Resolution: 1280 x 800. SteamOS 3.5 Pre + Tweaks was the fastest.

In other tested games like Cyberpunk 2077, HITMAN 3, and F1 22 there didn't end up being any real change in performance with these tweaks.

Unvanquished benchmark with settings of Resolution: 1280 x 800, Effects Quality: Medium. SteamOS 3.5 Pre + Tweaks was the fastest.
Unvanquished benchmark with settings of Resolution: 1280 x 800, Effects Quality: High. SteamOS 3.5 Pre + Tweaks was the fastest.

For very CPU bound workloads not too demanding on the GPU, the tweaks -- like switching to the performance governor -- did help in cases like the Unvanquished open-source first person shooter to achieve higher frame-rates.


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