With the ability to play a protracted RPG like Persona 3 Reload on a handheld gadget is, for many people, a fully fantastic factor. However should you’re making an attempt to play Persona 3 Reload on Steam Deck with the default settings, you have possible encountered some extreme efficiency points that may gradual the sport to a crawl in sure scenes. Fortunately, there’s a straightforward approach to dramatically enhance the sport’s body price.
If you happen to pay shut consideration to the areas wherein the body price tanks, you may need discovered what the issue is: reflective surfaces. Though Reload’s PC graphics settings menu is disappointingly fundamental, it does provide the flexibility to show off Reflections. To do that, head into the System menu, choose Config, then Graphics Settings, and set Reflections to Off (make certain to save lots of your adjustments, too). I would suggest setting your body price restrict to 60 when you’re at it.
One of the best demonstration of this distinction comes within the Iwatodai Strip Mall. An excellent portion of the display screen is stuffed by the glass surrounding the doorway to Wilduck Burger, and the distinction with this setting is dramatic. With Reflections turned off, the sport is essentially in a position to keep 60fps, with some occasional, minor dips and body pacing issues–nothing too noticeable. However with Reflections turned on, the realm turns into borderline unplayable, with the body price dipping into the teenagers and sometimes going as little as 10fps on my Steam Deck OLED.
That may be because of the obvious use of ray tracing, as Digital Foundry describes, which does not play properly with the Deck’s {hardware}. Luckily, regardless of the cruel “On/Off” language, turning off reflections does not imply all reflections within the recreation disappear. Whereas Wilduck Burger’s storefront turns into a reasonably boring-looking grey mass, the ray-traced reflections are changed with some different in different areas; the ground of the entryway to Tartarus is not half-bad to my eye.
Tweaking this setting ought to enhance efficiency even in one thing like your dorm room, which has a mirror whose ray-traced reflections show to be an excessive amount of. Even the sport’s menu experiences drawback with reflections turned on, constantly dropping the body into the 50s and lending it an unsteady really feel.
Though the Reflections setting results in a dramatic enchancment, it does not lock the body price to 60. In my expertise, the breakable objects you encounter all through Tartarus nonetheless result in some efficiency issues when they’re current, as do sure rooms within the space. The restricted graphics settings do not current you with some ways to tweak efficiency to your liking; it is primarily simply shadow high quality and rendering scale. I have never discovered the issues extreme sufficient to take an extra hit to picture high quality, although your mileage could range.
Hopefully, efficiency will probably be improved by means of future updates. I do not count on ray-traced reflections to ever run nicely on the present Deck {hardware}, however different points appear minor sufficient that I think they could possibly be resolved. Regardless of the case, the present problems–with Reflections turned off–are minor sufficient that I would nonetheless heartily suggest the Deck model of Persona 3 Reload based mostly on the opening seven hours, given simply how handy the portability makes the sport (and grinding by means of Tartarus) to play. For extra on what to anticipate from this remake, verify our Persona 3 Reload overview, or decide up the sport at GameSpot sister website Fanatical for 13% off.