I'd really love to try SC out because I've been itching for something like Elite: Dangerous that's… well… not ED, but my only gaming machine is a Steam Deck and I've understood the performance isn't exactly great. Seems like SC is pretty enjoyable already even though it's very much not finished
Star Citizen
It can be pretty great. I can also be one of the worst experience you'll have. Things really depend on the current state of the servers and what changes were pushed for each patch. I would suggest to try it out during a free flight - they happen multiple times a year and allow you to play for a week or two without the need to drop any money. Granted, servers tend to be at their worst during those events but it's a good primer for what you can expect from the game. The last one just ended, I think, but there should be another one in October or November - I'll post about it when an announcement pops up.
I've seen people try it out on SD so it might be doable (hell, my PC is not exactly up to snuff and I can play well enough). Also, upcoming patches (especially 4.0 at the end of this year/early 2025) should bring some performance improvements as more legacy UI and graphics rendering are being moved to new tech. Not saying it'll turn into 4k/60fps experience but it should be better.
Not saying it’ll turn into 4k/60fps experience but it should be better.
Mate it's a Deck, that's not in the cards anyhow 😀 some of the benefits of having been at this stuff for about 40 years now are that I'm fine with extremely potato settings etc and I have a very high tolerance for lag and jank.
Is there any other way to test the performance without paying for a starter pack, besides free flights? Not that I mind waiting, Oct/Nov's going to arrive way faster than I'd like anyhow heh
Oh I'm fully aware, I have a Deck as well just never tried SC on it.
There's no benchmark or anything like that at the moment. You could try browsing through the telemetry page - it's not great but if you can find specs similar to the Deck you could get some idea what to expect. There's also this thread from Spectrum (official forums) where someone tested performance of the latest patch with SD - it was before the full live release but I doubt things changed much, if at all.
Ah nice, thank you for the links.
~10fps in eg. cities sounds like it might be beyond my jank limit but hard to say how the overall perf would feel like. Hmm, I might look into trying to run it on my laptop but it's Apple ARM – I have a vague memory of seeing something like Proton / CrossOver pop up recently specifically for Apple silicon.
I take it you've never tried running SC on the Deck?
Nope. I played on a laptop for some time but that was years ago, before we even got planets.
If it makes you feel any better my desktop consists of: Radeon RX 580, i7-4790K (lol) and 24GB of RAM. I'm surprised game is even playable with this setup and yet, it can be done. Somehow.
Feel like being a guinea pig for checking out how the current version of SC runs on the Deck? 😀
But more seriously speaking I think I'll give something like Whisky a go. My laptop's decently new so if I can wrangle the emulation it might be Good Enough™ when coupled with a PS4 controller for testing things out during a free fly week
I can't promise an extremely in-depth report but I can give it a shot over the weekend. I was curious about how it compares to my desktop anyway. Just need to figure out how to shuffle stuff since it's filled to the brim at the moment.
Well that'd be awesome, but don't sweat it! Would make my life easier if the perf on the SD was at least in the same solar system as "OK", but there's a decent chance I could use Whisky (or CrossOver) for this
I wasn't able to get the game running on the Deck so far due to launcher issues. It worked fine initially, I was able to install and download everything without a hitch but now launcher simply doesn't work. I can't even try getting into the game, it's really weird.
I'll try to find a way to fix it, if only to know what happened and why, but as it is now I might not be able to test things out anytime soon. I'll let you know if there's anything worth sharing.
Ah that sounds like a real hassle. Thanks for trying it out though, this definitely tells me that the Deck's probably not going to be my platform for playing SC
Yeah, while this specific issue is most likely on my side, I don't think SD would be a great way to experience the game anyway. Especially if you have other options.
It's unfortunate since I also wanted to see how it fares but it is what it is.