I lately spent a day getting the unique Oblivion to work optimally on Steam Deck. Regardless of being “playable” out of the field, it is kinda not: the vanilla PC model of Oblivion lacks gamepad assist, that means gamepad glyphs aren’t current. Whereas the Steam Deck’s neighborhood controller layouts tab is a godsend for conditions like this, it nonetheless means having to adapt to the disconnect between keyboard or mouse prompts and the Steam Deck’s Xbox-style glyphs.
Or, after all, putting in mods. After an hour or so spent putting in mods, OG Oblivion reworked from a dubiously “playable” Steam Deck RPG into one thing that rivals Skyrim when it comes to a brilliantly optimised handheld expertise. It is simply good. However now that Oblivion Remastered is out, and with a Steam Deck “Verified” standing in addition, is any of that problem price it anymore?
A part of the rationale I dropped an Oblivion replay on Steam Deck is due to all of the rumours of the remaster, however I most likely should not have waited: Steam Deck can positively run the remaster, however—and listen to me out—I would nonetheless advocate going with a modded model of the unique.
However who is aware of, chances are you’ll really feel in another way. In case you like a locked 60 fps framerate and crisp albeit barely antiquated graphics on extremely settings, with over a decade price of mods to attract from, OG is the clear winner. In case you desire trendy UE5 graphics at a framerate that struggles to maintain 30 fps in most out of doors areas, and with that low-spec vaseline high quality that additionally impacts different “Verified” titles like Kingdom Come Deliverance 2, Remaining Fantasy VII Rebirth and The Final of Us Pt. 1, then certain, desire the remaster.
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I do not count on Steam Deck to run these aforementioned video games completely: it is a small miracle {that a} handheld manages them in any respect, particularly one which launched three years in the past. However it’s more and more the case that one shouldn’t mistake the “Verified” class to imply “it is a good expertise on Steam Deck”. Remaster positively runs on Steam Deck with no fuss, but it surely does not look good or run significantly nicely.
The starter dungeon can principally preserve to a stable 30 fps, however as you’d count on, the open world proves patchy at finest. Utilizing the automated “low” high quality graphic settings, traversing the open world across the sewer exit will often drop to round 21 fps, but it surely’s mid-combat when issues get shaky. Throughout a prickly encounter with two canine and a goblin on a grand hillside overlooking the Imperial Metropolis, the mixture of smudgy picture high quality and a median 25 fps (dipping decrease often) made fight an actual drag.
It will get worse, too: west of Lake Rumore I skilled drops to fifteen fps at occasions, although I believe this happens when the sport is loading in a brand new a part of the map: it tends to coincide with the UI immediate asserting a brand new space. Which most likely explains why the tomato crops at Odill Farm precipitated my Steam Deck to grind to a fleeting halt, likewise after I found Weynon Priory. The world across the first Oblivion gate, close to Kvatch, would deliver me all the way down to 10 fps at occasions, seemingly due to the flamboyant trendy thunder results.
Drops like this are high quality, I assume, when there’s not an imp throwing fireballs at me, or a canine taking chunks out of my rear. However fight within the open world in opposition to multiple foe, with an in depth vista within the background, simply feels horrible. Once I decrease all settings from “low” to “lowest” and toggle from XeSS “efficiency” to “ultra-performance” mode, the body charge round Lake Rumore varies from round 25 to 50, whereas within the much less detailed space round Kvatch, it could really maintain to 60 fps more often than not, although the picture high quality is, frankly, fairly shit.
To summarise (and this is applicable to the Steam Deck OLED, the place a distinction in battery life will most likely be the most important distinction):
|
Steam Deck OLED |
Oblivion OG |
Oblivion Remastered |
|---|---|---|
|
Common FPS |
Locked 60 fps |
Hovers round 30 fps |
|
Battery life |
As much as six hours, however realistically, 5 hours |
As much as three hours at finest |
|
Common battery draw |
Hardly ever above 8w |
Between 15 and 22w |
|
Worth |
$15 / £15 / AU$20 |
$50 / £50 / AU$85 |
Some visible comparisons:
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Is any of this a dealbreaker? I performed Skyrim at launch on the PlayStation 3, so it is determined by your perspective. Enjoying Oblivion Remastered really made me nostalgic for the times of substandard console ports. If this was the one strategy to play Oblivion on Steam Deck, we would all should make do. However ye olde Oblivion is simply sitting there, and it is good on Deck.
Priming Oblivion for modding on Steam Deck is a straightforward course of and can work with the model of Oblivion you should purchase on Steam and doubtless already personal. I adopted these useful directions from person halycon8 on the Steam Deck subreddit and so they held me in good stead; it takes about an hour all up. To summarise, it is a matter of downloading and putting in the Oblivion Script Extender in desktop mode, which is important for many mods, after which finally downloading the Northern UI mod, which not solely provides controller glyphs but additionally reskins the UI to reflect Skyrim’s cleaner, controller-first method. Don’t be concerned: In case you desire the quaint excessive fantasy method of the unique Oblivion’s UI, there is a model of the mod that does not embody the reskin.
Comply with the afore-linked directions and you will have a silky clean model of Oblivion working in your Steam Deck that can run at extremely settings and—although this will depend upon what number of mods you find yourself utilizing—will run on battery for a projected six hours. Not solely that, however Oblivion: Recreation of the 12 months Version prices $15 on Steam in comparison with the $50 value of the remaster.
To be clear: I am not being a crank. I am not saying you should not play Remastered. In case you sport throughout each desktop and handheld, however predominantly the previous, it is most likely price getting the newer and shinier model if you happen to like newer and shinier graphics. In case you’re within the behavior of streaming out of your desktop to your Deck, the identical holds true. I simply assume the unique Oblivion is a much better native expertise on Deck, and because it’s basically the identical sport (albeit with some high quality of life enhancements) you may as nicely go for the model that runs higher on handheld.
Since we’re right here, I ought to level out that Daggerfall can also be a superb Steam Deck expertise after a bit of labor, though its official Steam Deck compatibility standing is “unsupported”. Simply seize the unique sport on Steam (it is free) and set up the Daggerfall Unity mod, which, because the identify suggests, transplants Bethesda’s gargantuan fantasy life sim into the Unity engine. Full set up directions are on this tidy video under:
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