Dead Space got a remake that was released today and I was incredibly excited by it but sadly it's just a mess. Not the game story, graphics or anything like that but specifically the performance on Steam Deck.
The publisher and developer haven't said it's supported, and Valve haven't given it a Deck Verified rating but many were no doubt like me and very keen to play it. There's numerous problems with it that I'm going to explain and some of them will no doubt get fixed up over the next couple of weeks through performance patches to the game, and with Proton updates I expect to come as well.
Trying with both Proton Experimental and Proton Hotfix (that's the default set by Valve for it), it's no different between them. This is also installed on the Steam Deck's SSD, just to rule out any SD Card issues as I wanted to be sure on that too. The game does warn you it's designed for SSDs and it even claims users on plain HDDs may see errors.
From massive loading spikes, that will often completely freeze the Steam Deck, to issues causing the Steam Deck to reboot, it's full of problems. Some will be improved when it has a full shader cache, while others will need a Proton update. Trying to look at the map, for example, will hard-crash the game and lose your progress every time. Even if you struggle a bit through the great many massive performance drops to get it to perform better later on thanks to some shaders being built up, the map crash and Steam Deck reboots (same happens in God of War, Horizon Zero Dawn, Breakpoint) just make it unplayable. Even when some shaders are built, plenty of areas will also still just drop performance hard with stutters to load it all.
See a video below highlighting just how bad the first couple runs are:
Direct Link
Update 28/01/23: I've provided Valve with multiple crash-log files on the issues.
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
Dead Space Remake uses totally new tech, considering graphics. I think, we need to wait for Steam Deck 2, with newer hardware to perform at least reasonable frame rates and so on. Personally, considering Steam Deck itself, I thought to myself:
"Okay, I'll wait for Steam Deck 2, and then I'll buy this toy for grow ups!".
It is first iteration, technical demo, or something - in my opinion. Next generation of Steam Deck will definitely kick arse! And to be honest - all of us know, that Steam Deck 2 (or whatever they will name it), will be A THING!
Last edited by Avikarr on 28 January 2023 at 2:02 am UTC
Edit: I spoke too soon. It seems it will only run on Steam Deck if you Steamlink it from a laptop or desktop
Last edited by omcdrucifer on 28 January 2023 at 2:48 pm UTC
Quoting: LanzDoes the remake require EA App? I think EA owns the rights to the Dead Space series now.EA always owned the rights to Dead Space - they made it. I don't know if this version needs their launcher, although I don't see why they would choose not to use it for this specific game. Whether it should be used for any game is, of course, a different question.
mr-victory Jan 28, 2023
Quoting: LanzDoes the remake require EA App?
QuoteRequires agreement to a 3rd-party EULAAaand that's it. No mention of Origin / EA App on Steam.
Dead Space EULA
mr-victory Jan 28, 2023
Also I am guessing the game tells it is not for HDDs because the game assumes your system is capable of compiling shaders at a certain speed but Linux is nowhere near that speed (telling from experience) because VKD3D shader compilation goes through more steps.
Last edited by mr-victory on 28 January 2023 at 6:01 am UTC
Quoting: mr-victoryQuoting: LanzDoes the remake require EA App?QuoteRequires agreement to a 3rd-party EULAAaand that's it. No mention of Origin / EA App on Steam.
Dead Space EULA
Also no mention of Denuvo, but it's still there. You'll have to ask someone who bought it to make sure.
Patreon
PayPal
See more from me