FSR and Image Quality
Image quality is a very subjective category, especially in a fast-paced video game. One wants smooth gameplay and a good-looking game. Something may have to give. Our testing indicated that Low settings give the best gameplay while obviously High settings looked amazing. Medium settings were many times the sweet spot. There is a noticeable visual difference between High and Low settings, but not so much between High and Medium.
Using FSR did not seem to make any subjective difference. The Steam Deck screen produces a crisp, sharp image at virtually any setting. Frame rate limitations do affect the Steam Deck battery life. Sometimes dramatically. It was not obvious to the eye when the games were set to lower framerate limits. This also did not seem to affect the visual appearance in the slightest.
FSR Image Quality Comparisons
In the below image quality comparisons we have tried to line up comparison screenshots close to the same position, it is hard because the game is in real-time and real-world for our manual gameplay. The time of day does change in the game. You will still be able to see however how little FSR impacts image quality. On the left side is NO FSR and on the right side is with FSR ON. Dying Light 2 is being run in DX12 with ASYNC enabled in the “Medium” Graphics Preset mode.
It is simple to see that FSR gives a frame rate advantage to the three games we evaluated. Does it actually improve anything? We can say very positively yes. You can take your game and up the settings, improve the image, and essentially not be penalized.
The games we used definitely looked better with FSR because we were able to move the IQ up a notch from “Low” to “Medium”. There was nothing to criticize, as you can see in the screenshots we took. The gameplay also was smoother due to increased frame rates. In fact, in FarCry 6 “High” settings are just out of reach.
Full-Size Screenshots
In the above screenshots, you are welcome to enlarge the screenshots to see the whole thing full-screen. On the left side is the NO FSR screenshots, and the right side is with FSR turned ON. Dying Light 2 is being run in DX12 with ASYNC enabled in the “Medium” Graphics Preset mode.
The games we used definitely looked better with FSR because we were able to move the IQ up a notch from “Low” to “Medium”. There was nothing to criticize, as you can see in the screenshots we took. The gameplay also was smoother due to increased frame rates.
In our eyes (no pun intended) selecting FSR and upping the graphic settings in-game on the Steam Deck is the way to go.
Discussion (5 replies)
Join Discussion →Great writeup. I placed an order back in February when they started shipping, supposedly mine will ship by end of year. Makes me eager to see it!
The Steam Deck is a great handheld, but the software development is the most important part of this. I'm really enjoying my Deck, and when I have time I'll be trying SteamOS on a desktop system.
I gotta say Valve got a lot right in its first try. The Deck is quite impressive. That said I think I'm going to wait for the next gen.
Zen3/RDNA3 combo should boost performance quite a bit. An 8inch ZERO BEZEL screen would be awesome. (why do portable gaming devices have such huge bezels?) and full HD please, thankyou.
BTW get rid of the useless touchpads, ok maybe leave one.
I've been using the right touchpad a lot, but a lefty might prefer to use the other one.
The 6800U handhelds that are supposed to be shipping by the end of the year are interesting. I think Valve's input is better than anything on the horizon, though.
My Steam Deck arrived yesterday. My thoughts:
Packaging was impressive. The unit feels solid and holds well. The controls are intuitively placed for the most part — I suspect the four rear buttons as they are accidentally hit by me often, but they don’t really do a lot by default either.
I’ve only played on it for about 30 minutes. The unit has spent almost the entire day downloading updates and a few games to try out on it.
So far I’ve had the unit lock up 5 times just while poking around while stuff downloaded. Every time I go to “non-Steam apps” it asks if I want to install Chrome. If I say yes — half the controls go non-responsive. The UI still mostly works though, and Chrome does not install - it kind of soft hangs. I had the unit lock trying to come out of Desktop mode and go back to Full Screen — it just went to black screen.
The haptics feel tight. The speakers sound good. The screen looks good. The controls feel decent.
I played Transistor for about 30 minutes — that went well. It even got my previous save games from the Desktop (cloud saves). The unit can deliver as long as you have modest expectations
I was also able to get Steam streaming to work from my PC - but that you have you be careful of, as the Deck resolution is so low that most text comes across illegible.
From my limited amount of play time, I was plugged into a normal USB jack - the battery continued to drain since it was not a PD port, after 30 min I went from full charge to about 80% while plugged into low power. While letting it download updates, after about 5 hours the battery was almost drained — despite being plugged into a low power port and not playing any games, just downloading stuff. The unit can not download or perform updates while in Sleep or Standby.
Will report after I get some more playtime. The build quality feels good, many games seem like they will do great even with the small screen (Transistor looked and played great), but the software still has quirks and battery / power management feels suspect right now.