Fallout fans are returning to Fallout New Vegas, but does the series’ fan-favorite run well on the Steam Deck? Here’s all you need to know.
With the release of the Fallout TV show, interest in the Fallout series has been on the rise, including that of Fallout New Vegas. Fallout New Vegas is widely recognized for its performance issues, just as much as it is for being a fan-favorite in the Fallout series.
Bethesda hasn’t pulled out all the stakes and planned an upcoming update like with Fallout 4, however, despite its age, you can still bet on Fallout New Vegas to be a welcoming Fallout experience on Steam Deck.
Can you play Fallout New Vegas on Steam deck?
Fallout New Vegas is playable on Steam Deck, however it is prone to frame rate drops and occasionally crashes.
Fallout New Vegas has aged like fine wine, remaining one of the better Fallout games in the long-running franchise. Valve has given the FPS a “playable” commendation for Steam Deck, citing the Bethesda launcher requiring the use of touch-screen controls and the built-in virtual keyboard as reasons for it missing out on being fully verified.
Fallout New Vegas best settings on Steam Deck
- Aspect Ratio: 16:10 Widescreen
- Resolution: 1280 x 800
- Anti-aliasing: Off
- Detail: High
- Screen Effects: HDR
- Proton version: Default
Through our own testing on a Steam Deck OLED, we discovered that similarly to Fallout 4, Fallout New Vegas performed well on the handheld. That should come as no surprise, given the Steam Deck typically doesn’t struggle with much older games. We discovered that Fallout New Vegas can run up to 90 FPS, however, the game will have frequent frame rate drops. The frame rate can drop anywhere from 80 FPS, to 70 FPS, and even to 20 FPS in heavy NPC-populated areas.
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Playing through the entirety of Fallout New Vegas at 90 FPS is still possible. Yet it can take up a lot of your handheld’s battery. While roaming the wastelands at 90 FPS, the battery consumption went up to 89% which gave us between 2-3 hours of gameplay.
For the best New Vegas experience on Steam Deck, we recommend setting the frame rate limit within the Steam Deck settings to 60 FPS. As well as setting the in-game graphical detail to ‘medium’ on the Bethesda game launcher. You can continue playing the game at 90 FPS, however setting a hard limit to 60 FPS will help prevent more unnecessary frame rate drops. Changing the in-game video settings to ‘medium’ will help lower the battery consumption and avoid crashing, which New Vegas is notorious for.
Fallout New Vegas only requires approximately 10GB of install space for your Steam Deck, which isn’t a lot for today’s stands. Its low-storage requirement shouldn’t be surprising, given it’s a 14-year-old game.
Yet, picking up one of the best microSD cards for Steam Deck will still ensure you have plenty of storage to play Fallout New Vegas. Especially if you haven’t yet upgraded the SSD, or managed to add the 1TB Steam Deck OLED to your gaming setup.
