By Path of Exile 2 has just been given Steam Deck Verified status, so we jumped back in to see whether it actually lives up to the badge. We’re happy to report that it does. With the out-of-the-box settings, we’re getting 60 frames per second even with a fair amount of effects on screen, and it’s a big improvement over how the game ran at launch, and even compared with just a few months ago.
Default settings on Steam Deck
Out of the box, the game runs at 800p with FSR set to Balanced. Texture quality sits at Medium, shadows are on minimum and water detail is set to High, which is about what we’d expect for the Deck. Triple buffering is already enabled, as is dynamic culling with a 60 FPS target.
If you plan to use something like Mako frame generation, you can turn off triple buffering, but this game doesn’t really need it.
Performance when things get chaotic
For most of our time, we sat around 60 FPS, dipping into the 50s when things got busy, which in Path of Exile 2 is most of the time. We play a Sorceress, so there are always plenty of spell effects going off. With just a few enemies around it looks and runs fine, but once we went all out with the ritual altars and a screen full of extra effects, we dropped into the 30s and 40s.
Even then it stayed playable, and we didn’t notice those dips until we went back over the footage to check the performance. The picture quality doesn’t take a hit either.
Best settings: Balanced or Quality FSR
If you want a sharper image with a bit less fuzziness around your character and effects, you can bump FSR up to Quality. Most of the time we still sat around the 60 FPS mark in Quality mode, only dipping during full chaos, and it isn’t very noticeable.
Overall, we’d keep FSR on Balanced, especially for the most chaotic encounters. If you can live with slightly lower frame rates, or you’re using Mako frame generation, Quality mode makes the game look that little bit nicer.
Final thoughts
Path of Exile 2 has come a long way on Steam Deck, and its Verified status is well earned. Are you diving back in now, or waiting for the 1.0 release when it goes fully free-to-play? Let us know in the comments.
