Welcome, stranger. We’ve been playing the new Resident Evil 4 Remake on the Steam Deck and have some interesting findings to share with you.
Resident Evil 4 Remake crept right up on us and shoved a farming sickle in our back. After Capcom put out the demo and being the resident Steam Deck aficionado, we decided to see how it runs on Valve’s handheld system.
The original RE4 runs wonderfully on the Steam Deck, though, we’re not here for that title. While the Chainsaw Demo was a little worse for wear on the Steam Deck, the full game itself now runs just fine – after some tweaking. It’s a massive AAA release, of course it comes with its own caveats.
Does Resident Evil 4 Remake run on Steam Deck?
Yes, Resident Evil 4 Remake runs just fine on the Steam Deck, but does require a little extra effort to smooth it out.
While the Resident Evil 4 Remake demo gave us some concerns about the full game running on the Steam Deck, we’ve thankfully not much to worry about. However, you will have to temper expectations.
The game isn’t particularly resource heavy, but it’s incredibly detailed with a lot of fidelity. It was never intended to run on a system like a Steam Deck, so we can forgive it some.
During our testing, we ran it with FSR 2.0 on, AMD’s supersampling options. While we wish Intel’s XeSS was included after it worked excellently with the PC port of Spider-Man. FSR 2.0’s grungey look wound up working just fine at Balanced modes.
Here, we could use the game at variable refresh rates to get between 40-60FPS, and a solid 30FPS without any of the intermittent dips found in the demo. In fact, we actually recommend you run RE4 Remake at 30FPS on the Steam Deck for the best experience.
Best settings for Resident Evil 4 Remake on Steam Deck
RE4 Remake runs best on the Steam Deck at Low, with the assistance of FSR 2.0. Without any other supersampling software being used on the Deck version, we’re unfortunately stuck with the tools that we have.
We might have a slightly different experience to the average user, as we’ve equipped our Steam Deck with Cryoutilities. We have a full guide for it, but it essentially forces the Deck to use more of its physical RAM, rather than defaulting to software.
Turning it back didn’t make much of a difference. The consensus between Steam Deck users is that it’s best to use it for squeezing just about everything out the handheld.
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However, outside of tweaking the resolution, the game’s default Low settings work a treat. That’s right, despite the toggling of settings, RE4 Remake works great on the Steam Deck.
The reason we’ve toggled the resolution to 720p, rather than the stock 1280×800, is that the game has these black bars surrounding the gameplay. Rather than putting additional stress on the system, you might as well turn it down and get a smidge extra battery life out of it.
FSR 2.0 is also needed at all times. The game is just too demanding on the Steam Deck for it to be considered playable without it. While we’re not fans of FSR 2.0’s supersampling, it’s better than nothing.
Recommended settings
- Resolution: 1280×720
- Refresh rate: 60Hz
- Frame Rate: 30FPS
- Vertical Sync: On
- FidelityFX Super Resolution 2 (FSR 2.0): Balanced/Quality
We then also turned everything down, like persistent corpses and motion blur. By reducing things to low, you’ll be able to survive the hoards coming at you in due course.
How to fix Resident Evil 4 Remake black pixels on Steam Deck
This issue should have been fixed from the demo, but if you haven’t updated your Steam Deck in a while, you should do that.
To get Resident Evil 4 Remake running without the black pixels on Steam Deck, you’ll need to update your system.
You can swap over by heading to Settings > System and then check for an update.
Once you’ve done this, you’ll restart and follow the process. We’ve also found the game runs better on Proton Experimental, so be sure to change that, as detailed above.
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