Fallout 4 Steam Deck Performance Review

It’s been two weeks since the launch of the Fallout 4 Next Gen update. In the patch notes, Bethesda promised to fix many of the game’s bugs and glitches to improve the game’s overall performance. They also promised slight visual upgrades so the game wouldn’t look too outdated. On top of all the improvements, the developers officially had the game verified on the Steam Deck, which means it should be more compatible with the device now than it was before.

With that said, here’s a performance review for Fallout 4 on the Steam Deck.

Fallout 4 is Now Verified on the Steam Deck

The first version of the Steam Deck came out back in February 2022. While Steam is known for having a vast library of games, not all titles are compatible or at least function properly on the handheld device. Fallout 4 was initially one of those games as it was previously labeled as “Playable”.

One might ask what the difference between “Playable” and “Verified” could be. If a game is “Playable” on the Steam Deck, it means that users can technically play the game but they need to make certain adjustments to the settings for full optimization. As for “Verified” Steam Deck games, players should have no problem running them.

Since the launch of the Fallout 4 Next Gen update, the game finally became “Verified”. Given how users shouldn’t come across issues while playing the game, we took the liberty of checking if things were already running smoothly on the handheld device.

How Good is Fallout 4 on the Steam Deck?

Before anything else, we based this review on the original Steam Deck.

It was a nostalgic feeling knowing that we’d be able to revisit the wasteland after years of not playing the game. However, as much as we wanted to explore the Commonwealth alongside the Minutemen, we decided to test the game’s overall performance someplace else. As I booted up my Steam Deck, I realized that one of the areas that gets the GPU working hard is in Far Harbor, Fallout 4’s expansion pack.

For the benefit of those playing the vanilla version of the game, Far Harbor is located in a completely different area from the Commonwealth. Players need to trigger a specific quest that takes them to Far Harbor via a boat.

The expansion pack features a spooky island filled with mist and dangerous mutated abominations to deal with. It’s mostly dark around the area given how players need to walk through a foggy path. For this review, we decided to play the game on the highest graphic settings to see if Bethesda followed through with its promises of improvements.

Graphics

It was quite disappointing when we booted the game for the first time in a while. We knew there wouldn’t be much of a difference in terms of how the game looked, but we at least hoped for noticeable tweaks. However, in all fairness to Bethesda, they did make some adjustments to the visuals.

The developers made significant improvements to the lighting. Players can now see the sun rays shining as the beams of light look more prominent, especially on a dark island such as Far Harbor. As I saw the beams, I decided to check if standing under them would affect my character. To my surprise, the lighting wasn’t just for show. Standing under the rays of light will have your character glowing. My character’s skin looked lighter and I could see a reflection of light from my gun’s shiny spots.

Back when I used to play Fallout 4 on the PS4, there were clear changes in the way my character looked in broad daylight and at night time. But this time seems a bit different. The lighting is more realistic with more shadow effects and a slight chance of blinding yourself if you look directly at the sun.

Resolution

The game’s resolution also got significant improvements as the game looks less pixelated or more clear. However, there are certain moments when small pixels reappear. For example, I went on a quest with Old Longfellow as he escorted me to Acadia in search of Kasumi Nakano. Whenever Longfellow went far ahead of me, his avatar looked a bit pixelated which kind of bothered me considering I never had this experience on the PS4.

Nevertheless, the pixels aren’t a major deal breaker. Fallout 4 on the Steam Deck maintains a stable 60 frames per second, which is an excellent feat for the handheld device. The Steam Deck’s screen has a refresh rate of 60Hz. There were times when the FPS dropped to 50 but it’s only because we were in the middle of combat. The frames fluctuated from 50-60 frames depending on the combative situation.

GPU Usage Percentage

When playing video games, what most players want to avoid is overworking their graphics card due to wear and tear reasons. But for this review, we wanted to push the limits of the GPU to see if the Steam Deck can handle Fallout 4 Next Gen.

As mentioned earlier, we played the game on the highest graphical settings. That means the game looked detailed with good-looking textures, amazing lighting, and a clear resolution. Combining all that with intense gunplay action, we can say that the Steam Deck’s GPU did well.

While walking through Far Harbor, the GPU usage rate would fluctuate between 55% to 65%. When idle or in conversations with other NPCs, the usage rate drops from 40% to 50%. But the moment players get into combat, that’s when the numbers spike up to the high 80s. That’s an estimated average of 60% usage rate during gameplay. That means running Fallout 4 shouldn’t be a problem for the Steam Deck as it doesn’t have the graphics card using all of its power to render everything.

Many believe that getting lower usage percentages on the GPU means that there’s a bottleneck of some sort happening. But keep in mind that consistently having the graphics card run at 100% would ultimately fry your device.

CPU Usage Percentage

With the Steam Deck’s GPU not exerting too much effort, that relieves a huge load on the CPU. During our playthrough, the CPU usage rate was stable at 35%. It would occasionally spike up to 45%, but nothing beyond 50%. Having that said, there are little to no chances of the game crashing when playing on the Steam Deck.

Overall, we’d say Fallout 4 runs impressively on the Steam Deck. For a game that’s almost a decade old, it’s already expected to be running perfectly on modern gadgets such as Steam’s handheld device. The visuals may not be perfect, but players can’t complain about how smoothly the game runs.