Avowed Steam Deck Impressions – Performance, PC Port Features, ROG Ally Problems, and More

by

As a gaming enthusiast, I’ve been eagerly diving into the early access launch of “Avowed,” developed by Obsidian Entertainment and Xbox Game Studios on Steam Deck. Being fortunate enough to have the PC (Steam) version at my disposal, I also gave it a spin on my ROG Ally since I know many gamers will be playing it through the Microsoft Store there. My curiosity was piqued to explore how this next-gen fantasy RPG performs on handheld devices and to check out the third-person mode, as it’s primarily been showcased in first-person perspective.

As an enthusiastic gamer, I’d like to share some insights about the PC port of Avowed based on my early access, pre-release version. Upon booting up the game on PC, it displays a shaders loading screen. Interestingly, on my Steam Deck, this screen appeared during every startup, but only the first one took a noticeable amount of time. Subsequent boots, however, showed this screen for less than half a minute.

Avowed PC graphics options

The Unreal Engine 5 version, named Avowed, offers compatibility with scaling technologies like FSR (3), DLSS, and TSR. It also provides settings to adjust resolution (with options for 800p and 16:10), a frame rate limit that ranges from 30 to unlimited, an FOV slider set at 90 as default, a motion blur control, a v-sync switch, and a real-time ray tracing option. The unique aspect of this ray tracing toggle is it advises users to turn it off when playing on handheld devices, suggesting that the game has been optimized or tested for some handheld platforms at least.











Additionally, Avowed offers a range of sophisticated graphic settings and presets, allowing you to easily adjust the quality of various aspects such as view distance, shadow detail, texture resolution, shading effects, visual effects, plant quality, post-processing, reflections, and global lighting. You can choose from options like low, medium, high, and epic for each category to tailor the game’s visual experience according to your preference and system capabilities.

In Avowed, the third-person view can be found among the game’s camera settings, rather than being categorized as a graphics or display feature. Additionally, I would like to draw your attention to the UI settings, which allow you to customize elements such as text size, icons, loot features like shimmer, notification duration, damage numbers, compass options, and more.

Avowed Steam Deck gameplay impressions

It’s important to mention that the game’s performance on handheld devices wasn’t optimized before its release, so improvements might be made after launch. I’ve shared my experiences based on the most recent build I played yesterday. Upon starting and building the shaders, Avowed initially ran with ray-tracing enabled and high settings, but it was unplayable on Steam Deck under these conditions. Lowering the settings to the minimum, disabling ray-tracing, and experimenting with different upscaling made it more playable. Despite spending over a dozen hours with Avowed on Steam Deck, I’m somewhat surprised by its performance in certain situations. However, the visual quality compromises are noticeable in many instances, as even with adjustments in specific areas, the game struggles to maintain 30fps.

Avowed Steam Deck gameplay screenshots



















Beyond graphics and gameplay, another aspect I truly appreciated was the convenience of using the “Gamepad with Mouse Trackpad” control setup. This configuration worked seamlessly on Steam Deck for overall gameplay, while the right trackpad functioning as a mouse was particularly beneficial for precise aiming. If you’re accustomed to keyboard and mouse controls, transitioning to a controller might seem challenging for accurate aiming, but having the right trackpad act as a mouse significantly enhances ranged combat experiences.

Regarding the performance on Steam Deck, it’s important to note that Avowed is a rather resource-intensive game. To achieve reasonable performance, consider reducing settings significantly and applying substantial upscaling techniques.

Similar to how Indiana Jones required an optional account sign-in for The Great Circle, Avowed also offers this option on Xbox. However, I couldn’t manage to get it working on the Steam Deck at all. It seemed as elusive as the Ark of the Covenant when I tried it. Fingers crossed that they can sort out these issues because I’m eager to explore on my Xbox Series X and then transition seamlessly to the Steam Deck for continued adventures.

Avowed Steam Deck recommended settings so far

In simpler terms, I’ve been toggling between two configurations, primarily using the low preset with all advanced graphics options set to minimum, 800p resolution, capped at 30fps, and either FSR 3 or TSR enabled. When I tested FSR 3, I noticed that the game would sometimes drop below 30fps in large areas filled with NPCs, even when using FSR 3 at Ultra Performance. This significantly lowers image quality, but if the performance improvement isn’t significant over better upscaling options, it’s not worth it. I chose to use FSR 3 at Quality setting and accept the occasional dips into the high 20s for better visual quality. These drops don’t occur in smaller or more enclosed areas or even some parts of open zones. They are mainly noticeable in larger cities or similar locations. I opted for FSR 3’s Balanced mode for more stability, although it doesn’t provide a drastically improved experience. On smaller screens, these differences are less apparent than when playing on my monitor.

Migrating to TSR allows for customization of the TSR Screen Percentage. At its lowest setting of 33%, you’ll experience more consistent performance compared to FSR, but expect noticeable shimmering effects. Additionally, I observed significant ghosting when utilizing TSR at lower percentages.

To start testing its limits, I sprinted through the city of Paradis. Regardless of using Ultra Performance FSR 3, it frequently dipped to around 20 frames per second (fps) during gameplay. When I adjusted the TSR to 33% Screen Percentage, I noticed a slight improvement with approximately 1-2 more frames per second, but still failed to reach the desired 30fps in demanding areas like Paradis, even on the lowest graphics settings, as you can observe on Steam Deck.

With Avowed on Steam Deck, you’ll need to accept frame rate drops to around 25-27 frames per second in busy areas and run it with FSR 3 Balanced or Temporal Super Resolution (TSR) at about 50%. This adjustment provides improved image quality that looks great on the handheld screen.

In addition, I experimented by manually adjusting the GPU speed to 1600 MHz, which led to a decrease in GPU usage from 99% to around 80%, while CPU usage increased. However, maintaining a consistent 30 frames per second (fps) is not achievable even with high performance upscaling and this forced GPU clock speed. Instead, you’ll need to adapt to playing at framerates in the upper 20s or around 30fps, with occasional drops to approximately 27-28fps, if you wish to play Avowed exclusively on Steam Deck for now.

Following my experiment with the third-person perspective, I found that overall performance significantly dropped. Consequently, I reverted to the first-person view for my gaming session.

Avowed ROG Ally screenshots before the crash






Avowed on ROG Ally 

1. Disable Ray Tracing in Unreal Engine 5 Games on ROG Ally:

If you’ve been experiencing issues with Unreal Engine 5 games on your ROG Ally, particularly with missing effects and lighting, here are some steps to try to improve the gaming experience:

1. Open the NVIDIA Control Panel by right-clicking on your desktop or a blank area of the screen and selecting “NVIDIA Control Panel.”
2. Navigate to the “Manage 3D Settings” tab.
3. Click on “Program Settings” and select the game you are having trouble with from the list (e.g., Silent Hill 2, Still Wakes the Deep, Life is Strange, or Avowed).
4. Uncheck the box next to “Use the advanced NVIDIA settings for this program.” This will turn off Ray Tracing and other advanced graphics settings.
5. Save your changes and restart the game. The performance should now be improved without ray tracing.
6. If you still encounter issues, try reinstalling the game, verifying its files, and updating your Windows 11 to the latest version.
7. If none of these steps solve the problem, please leave a comment below for further assistance.

It’s been captivating to explore and I can’t wait to dive back into it, uncovering all its hidden gems soon on my Xbox Series X. Despite being an exclusive Xbox Series X|S game without a version for Xbox One, I was surprised to find that it’s almost playable on Steam Deck after a bit of tweaking. Although the visual compromise is noticeable due to the inability to achieve a consistent 30fps on Valve’s handheld, it’s nearly ready for an unreserved recommendation if they can manage this optimization.

Read More

2025-02-13 19:27