Plans to improve Steam Deck performance

[Gen Shishio]

I play FX3 mostly on a docked deck 1080p and it runs pretty flawlessly. Some research turned up many anecdotal reports on the internet that FX does not run so well. I would spend some cash on the new tables, but not much point if they don't perform well. I haven't seen anything official to indicate Zen is working on Deck performance. Surely if the Switch can handle it the Deck should be more then capable.

Anyone have any news or evidence that Zen is addressing or planning on addressing this?

[Jambon Emmental]

I've been recently wondering the same. Am tempted to buy a Steam Deck cos i enjoyed Zaccaria and FX3 on Switch but feel like I've heard mixed things. Maybe it's better now?

[Knowsome]

FX is indeed heavier than FX3, but you should still be able to run it at 60fps or even 72fps with no dips, with the exception of a few shader cache stutters once or twice when playing the table for the first time.

the game has options to help with performance like DLSS,FSR(which works on steam deck), and even XeSS, for upscaling.

It's free to play so load one of the 3 free tables and test for yourself.
you can disable heavy options like raytracing, AA, and enable FSR on quality.

i have a rtx 2060, and i capped my framerate to 72fps, no AA, DLSS quality ,1080p, no raytracing, and i rarely have any dips. As you might figured, i am barely forcing or making my GPU work with these settings, but then again its pinball, i dont wanna be using a lot of resources when playing this game.

You might not like the lightning or the contrast of colors compared to FX3, which i would agree are more alive and vivid, but it's something you can get used to.

[Knowsome]

The biggest complaint i have about FX compared to FX3, is that everything takes way longer to load due to server calls taking longer. If you are used to the speed and snapiness of FX3, you will notice this immediately.

For example, taking 5 seconds to boot on FX3, takes like 20 seconds on FX.
Loading a table or restarting a table on FX3 took like 3-4 seconds.
Loading a table or reseting on FX takes like 5-6 seconds.

[Mal]

FX on Switch is more akin to the Mobile app. Much lower graphics, limited physics, etc.

FX on PC (Steam Deck) is a different build than the Switch version and has much steeper hardware requirements.

Apples and Oranges.

[Sorthious]

I'm running on Linux Mint, and an AMD 5700xt GPU, and, just sitting in the menu system my GPU is pushing around 67%. Ironically, when you're playing a table, it's about 10% lower. I believe the game is using FSR 2.0, and it looks horrible, even when set to Quality, with the highest settings. Steam Deck uses Arch Linux at its core, and uses an AMD APU, so you wouldn't be able to use DLSS, as it's proprietary. Something is wrong with XeSS(for me at least), as when I cut it on my GPU ramps up to almost 80% GPU usage, just sitting in the menu, and isn't much better in game. So, I can't use upscaling on this game due to the issues with them. As the Steam Deck also uses a Linux distribution and an AMD GPU, the same issues may apply. You may want to see if someone else has had a good experience with FX4 on the Steam Deck before you waste your time downloading it, as it's about 40gigs. Regardless of how many tables you own, you have to download the whole thing. With that said I can run it on my setup, but it's way more demanding than FX3. I've included my system specs, and screenshots comparing FX3/4's usage at 60FPS. I had FX3 on the highest settings also.

With FSR:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3435940085

Without FSR:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3435939328

FX3 for resource usage comparison:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3435956174

Hope this helps!

Linux Mint 21.1 Vera
Ryzen 7 5700x
32gigs DDR4-3600MHz
Radeon RX5700XT-8gigs DDR-6
Asrock 550 Phantom Gaming Velocita
Kingston Fury Renegade NVME M.2 1TB
AOC 144Hz 32" Curved Monitor

[Sorthious]

If you compare the pics I posted above, FX4 is pushing my GPU 3 times as hard on a table. Compare the FX4 screenshot without FSR on. I don't think anyone would want to play with FSR on, unless they absolutely had to.

[saint_reborn]

Originally posted by Gen Shishio:

I play FX3 mostly on a docked deck 1080p and it runs pretty flawlessly. Some research turned up many anecdotal reports on the internet that FX does not run so well. I would spend some cash on the new tables, but not much point if they don't perform well. I haven't seen anything official to indicate Zen is working on Deck performance. Surely if the Switch can handle it the Deck should be more then capable.

Anyone have any news or evidence that Zen is addressing or planning on addressing this?

Have you tried Decky Frame Gen?
I DL'd the plug-in but have yet to give it a shot- Pinball FX should meet all the requirements for Decky Frame gen a later UE game with DLSS support-

Maybe check a YT guide on decky frame gen- After installing and injecting your game file you enable DLSS (Not a typo) in the menu and magically get frames? Good luck- I mostly play FX3 on Deck and a Mix of various FX versions on desktop.

[MikeFulton]

I do not currently have a Steam Deck so I am not really sure how FX performs on it. How close is it to the target now? Also, how much system memory is left over when FX is loaded up and running on Steam Deck?

If the current performance is fairly close to the target, say 10 to 15%, then MAYBE doing some code optimization would get you there, but it would likely be an extensive overhaul of the code. It wouldn't be something you'd knock off in a week or so.

Major jumps in performance usually only happen when you figure out some faster way to do some important part of the process. Sometimes, if you have the memory to do it, you can pre-calculate some stuff instead of doing it on the fly. This can give a significant performance boost, but it may take more memory than what is available.

[Gen Shishio]

Originally posted by saint_reborn:

Have you tried Decky Frame Gen?
I DL'd the plug-in but have yet to give it a shot- Pinball FX should meet all the requirements for Decky Frame gen a later UE game with DLSS support-

Maybe check a YT guide on decky frame gen- After installing and injecting your game file you enable DLSS (Not a typo) in the menu and magically get frames? Good luck- I mostly play FX3 on Deck and a Mix of various FX versions on desktop.

I haven't installed FX on my deck due to the reported issues. I play FX3 there though and have no problems with it.

I'm not really looking for workarounds with mods and different Linux versions. I was just curious if Zen was working on any further optimizations for deck. If not I'll just stick to FX3 and probably won't spend much money, if any, on FX. I like pinball, but not enough to jump through additional hoops to play it.

[D Fens]

Pinball FX runs at 60 fps @ 720p on the Deck now (on release, it ran poorly). It does eat battery though (~2.5 hours). FSR noticeably degrades quality on some of the newer tables though (like Twilight Zone). Pros and cons with staying on FX3 or upgrading... just depends on the player's interest w/ new tables, DLC investment, and physics preference.

[Sorthious]

Originally posted by D Fens:

Pinball FX runs at 60 fps @ 720p on the Deck now (on release, it ran poorly). It does eat battery though (~2.5 hours). FSR noticeably degrades quality on some of the newer tables though (like Twilight Zone). Pros and cons with staying on FX3 or upgrading... just depends on the player's interest w/ new tables, DLC investment, and physics preference.

I think they use FSR 2.0, which looks horrible, and, iirc, only saved me like 8% GPU usage. For AMD GPU/APU's, there is no upscaling option that works right. XeSS, on my system, looked the same as using no upscaling, but jacked up the GPU usage to 99%. The reason the battery life is being affected so drastically is due to the GPU working harder than it needs to, especially in the menu system. Anyway, if there is a table you really have to have then you can give it a go, but I've seen tables that have bugs go a long time before getting fixed, and some bugs still exist and are waiting to be fixed. Some of the Challenges end abrubtly with a Game Over; Distance, Timed, Flipper Challenges, etc. Even if the bug is fixed on the next patch, that could be 2-months or more waiting for a bug fix. Unless bugs are addressed quicker, you may be waiting a while for problems to be addressed.

[Gen Shishio]

Originally posted by D Fens:

Pinball FX runs at 60 fps @ 720p on the Deck now (on release, it ran poorly). It does eat battery though (~2.5 hours). FSR noticeably degrades quality on some of the newer tables though (like Twilight Zone). Pros and cons with staying on FX3 or upgrading... just depends on the player's interest w/ new tables, DLC investment, and physics preference.

Thanks, I tried it today and it seems to be serviceable. I'm playing docked on a TV, so battery isn't really an issue.

FX3 ran fine at 1080p for me on a docked Deck, FX has to stay at 720p or the frame rate is terrible, but it's playable at the lower resolution. I really like some of the new tables, but it does feel like a step backward in some regards.

[Batman]

Wish they touch the performance at some point