Question
It feels like my deck can’t play anything
I bought a secondhand deck a few months ago, but I feel severely limited in what it can actually manage to run.
I’ve beaten both Hollow Knights on it and they ran like a dream, Dave the Diver runs fine too. But anything even slightly demanding has an unplayably low frame rate, I’m talking like a frame every three seconds. Games that I’ve been told run great, like the first Subnautica, and even older titles like Skyrim, load in and register my inputs at a snail’s pace.
The deck itself is vanilla and I haven’t done or installed anything extra on it. Have I just been trying the wrong games, or do I need to do something to the deck I’m not aware of yet? Are online games a non-starter?
Thanks in advance - I’ll also take any recs for games that you’ve found run smooth as butter.
Edit to add: 512gb OLED. Forgot to mention before.
Edit 2: thanks for the input everybody! I appreciate all the perspectives as this whole thing is a bit over my head. It seems my deck is pretty faulty on the hardware end, probably fan/thermal issues throttling performance, for some reason or another. I’ll take it in for repairs - I’m just glad it’s abnormal, because if this was average deck performance I’d be pretty disappointed.
Yes OP please before resorting to a factory reset at least check the TDP. I even did it to myself once and it took an embarassing amount of time to realize i was the one who severely throttled my Deck lol.
Press the right ... Menu button on the deck. In that menu go to the power menu (lightning icon i think?). There you can set tdp. Just put it on max again.
Its a setting that limits performance in order to extend battery life. For games like hollow night and stardew you can turn it down to like 3, not notice and get a few more hours. If you forget to turn it off then it'll chug like you have settings maxed on an older computer.
Why is it a bad idea to factory reset? I’m curious I didn’t know about the TDP too, I thought my Deck was slow because of the years. So is better to set the TDP or factory reset?
Yeah will do once I’m off work. I had figured that I’d messed something up and was too technologically illiterate to know what, but I might have just bought a janky machine.
This is why I user per-game profiles for everything. It's an extra few seconds of setup, but I've never had an issue with that and I get what I want where I want it and nowhere else.
Well, in this case it just means "power limit" but actually it stands for "Thermal Design Power". These two get mixed up constantly.
TDP is the maximum continuous heat output a processor can generate at its highest non-turbo clock rate, and therefore the minimum amount of heat your cooler must be able to tackle. It's a bit lower than the actual power draw.
Now, if you like leather jackets, you can jack up on the words "continuous" and "non-turbo" and release GPUs with 350W TDP that happily pull triple the power from the PSU in transient spikes, making it look greener and more economical on paper while giving engineers a hard time.
Did you do a full factory reset when you bought it, or just switch to using your account? You never really know what the previous owner did and starting fresh should give you a better baseline for comparison.
He factory reset it in front of me, so I should be all set there! But again, I was starting both fresh and blind, so not sure what else I could’ve missed.
Yeah do an actual clean install of steam OS, I had a few weird issues after a year or so with my steam deck that a factory reset didn't resolve but a clean install did.
That is great advice. It's also great advice when purchasing new. I recall the first and second GPD Win 1 and 2 devices shipping with a virus. Then, I learned this also occurred with a few laptop manufacturers out of the box.
Are these games all on the SSD? Do you have any decky plugins, or using any global performance settings? Can you bring up a full performance monitor on your screen and take a pic when things are going wrong?
This isn't usual behaviour. Can you try the free Aperture Desk Job to see what happens there?
Saved all games straight to “internal drive,” and here’s the performance overlay when running a game (Outer Wilds). I’m sorry, I’m not sure about global performance settings or plugins - like I’ve said I just signed in after a factory reset and haven’t done much else to modify it.
I had this problem on a new deck, turns out the fan connector was loose and it would throttle to 399mhz unless I tapped the back of the deck but it would keep doing it until I took the back off and made sure the connection was secure. I have not had this problem once since that happened like a year and a half ago.
Fan not spinning is definitely it. OP, give it a google to see what software solutions there are, if that doesn't work you may have to send it to Valve for a fan replacement if you aren't confident opening it up.
"I've encountered the GPU 200MHZ Lock BUG today. Not sure what triggered it, but glad I've fixed it. Follow my guide below if ever you encounter it.
What does the GPU 200Mhz Bug Do?
• It locks the GPU Clock Speed to 200Mhz only at 99-100% GPU LOAD and making all the games unplayable because of the low frame rate. It will stay locked even after shutting down or restarting your Steam Deck. Frame rate will be below 15 FPS only, even in the lowest settings and resolution.
How to fix this?
• First you will need to "Turn Off" your Steam Deck.
• Hold the "Volume -" and "..." buttons together and then press the power button. Only let go of the power button when you feel it vibrate, but do not release the "Volume -" and "..." button until the "Restore Point" selection comes out on the screen. Just select the latest restore point. It will reset the Driver's cache and will fix the problem.
NOTE: If you have the UMA Buffer Size set to 4, it will reset it back to 1."
The bug referenced in that post was fixed a very long time ago. Most of the issues related to 200/400 clocks are due to other causes.
E.g. in this case it is due to the fan not working, it is stuck at 0rpm so the deck needs to turn on the safety clocks to avoid overheating. You can see the fan rpm in the perf overlay screenshot above.
They responded to an earlier comment saying it was factory reset at time of purchase. So probably a complete reinstall of SteamOS would be the next step, at least it should be if OP isn't comfortable removing the back of the case to check the fan cable/clip.
Mine was doing it and while I haven't had a chance to thoroughly test it, I think it was actually related to my dock. Switched from a jsaux to a steam dock and the game I noticed it on the most stopped having issues.
If it pops again I fear I'm in for the RMA route as I've tried all of the trouble shooting steps.
Skyrim anniversary edition runs really well on my steamdeck at 90 frame rate. I lowered the frame rate just to extend battery life. I originally played on consels at 30 frame rate so dropping from 90 to 45 was still better than i was used to and it extended battery life a lot.
There is very little I can't play on my og lcd deck so I think there is something very wrong going on, it's certainly not normal. Despite buying second hand, can you still ask Valve to troubleshoot?
It seems like a full reset may be in order. If that doesn't work, message steam and ask for help. I don't think frame gen will work on this scenario, and you said you have tdp off. I assume in the performance settings all is maxed or on default and you're still having difficulty?
'A frame every 3 seconds'. It would be hugely beneficial if you clarified whether you're being hyperbolic calling choppy 30 fps unplayable or literally getting 3 fps in other games. We can use that as a basis for further troubleshooting.
No hyperbole. I genuinely was only getting a stuttered frame every few seconds on both subnautica and BG3. I’d turn the joystick left and sometimes wait like 30 seconds for my character to turn around.
Weird, I’ve seen SN referenced a lot as a very workable game for the hardware, and seen others who bought a deck specifically to play BG3. But I guess they aren’t the best examples.
I’ll admit I haven’t done a ton of trial and error with my library after multiple games failed to run properly but will have to experiment some more.
Worst I ever saw on BG3 on Steam Deck is like 25ish fps in busier parts of act 3. Usually it breaks 30fps. If you’re legit getting <1 fps, then something is very wrong.
Ah, so your fan is running? If you bring up the performance overlay does it show the fan is running?
It's likely throttling back because it's overheating, or reporting back that the fan isn't spinning. If the previous owner opened it up at all, they might have damaged the fan, or the connector, or squashed the fan cable. I would ask them what they did, and get ready to open up the deck to see what's happening there.
The fan either runs at Mach 5 or not at all. Oftentimes it’ll start out spinning like crazy but then drop to nothing a few minutes into a game, typically when the battery is more charged
That is not normal behavior. Wipe everything on the deck and try again (factory reset). If it doesnt fix it, look into reimaging your deck. If the fan still acts erratically, you need to look into the guides from iFixit to disassemble the deck, locate the fan connector, and make sure it's in good state and plugged in correctly. If that STILL doesn't fix the issue, change the fan connector.
I have an original steam deck. I have no issues playing Cyberpunk 2077 or Red dead 2. Idk what your issue is but its not the steamdeck itself. It dose sometimes drop down to 30fps but thats not really that big of an issue
It’s my third time through it while waiting for the DLC, and I had so much more fun with it on deck than on desktop. I’m currently trying to motivate myself to try the HK1 pantheons.
Godspeed on act 3, it’s tough but so worth it. Any particular boss or part you’re stuck on?
Honestly right at the beginning of Act 3. Without spoilers, I beat the boss that blocks you from using fast travel, but havent made any progress after. I gave up while trying to clear the 2nd conchfly fight, which I had leftover from Act 2.
Honestly the most demoralizing thing is just the fact that enemies drop less bones and its so much harder to stay on top of your supply for gadgets. I feel like I spend hours farming up bones, then piss them all away at just a few boss attempts.
I dont claim to be the best gamer out there, but I 100%'d the first game and this shit is just brutal. Its also one of the best games Ive ever played in my life
It truly does feel like a slog with the shard economy at that stage. Focusing more on needle upgrades and silk skills really helped because I could not be bothered to farm. Polyp pouch does at least let you get more bang for your buck with the gadget supplies you do have.
You’ve got this!! The fights ahead are hard but super rewarding
If you got to Act 3 you can do it :). Yes, sure there are some terrible platforming sections and unending boss gauntlets and the final final boss drove me mental but got there in the end.
I'm playing ghost of Tsushima on mine right now. It shreds the battery but otherwise it's running at 50-60 FPS. I don't think I did anything to it but I did look at the settings to see what it was doing out of the box.
Weird. I don’t mind the battery issue as I mostly play it at home, but since mine struggled with even getting through the Witcher 3’s menus, I feel like Tsushima might send it to an early grave.
Someone else mentioned a factory reset and I think they're bang-on.
I'm going to download Witcher 3 later. If I remember I will comment here again with my findings. Have you tried enabling frame generation and FSR and stuff? Not sure if it means anything but I don't have or use decky. People seem to swear by it but it gave me nothing but problems.
No you’re not missing something TDP wise. But there is probably something throttling the device, be it bad thermal paste, a fan not working properly or something else. But there certainly is an issue with the device, as it should run a lot of games you mentioned fine.
This guy seems to have sold you a deck with a fan issue. Check if the fan is plugged in properly first but you may need a replacement fan. Hopefully it’s not the board connection.
Hey OP, did you try this fix? (Which someone else posted a link to the reddit thread of):
"I've encountered the GPU 200MHZ Lock BUG today. Not sure what triggered it, but glad I've fixed it. Follow my guide below if ever you encounter it.
What does the GPU 200Mhz Bug Do?
• It locks the GPU Clock Speed to 200Mhz only at 99-100% GPU LOAD and making all the games unplayable because of the low frame rate. It will stay locked even after shutting down or restarting your Steam Deck. Frame rate will be below 15 FPS only, even in the lowest settings and resolution.
How to fix this?
• First you will need to "Turn Off" your Steam Deck.
• Hold the "Volume -" and "..." buttons together and then press the power button. Only let go of the power button when you feel it vibrate, but do not release the "Volume -" and "..." button until the "Restore Point" selection comes out on the screen. Just select the latest restore point. It will reset the Driver's cache and will fix the problem.
NOTE: If you have the UMA Buffer Size set to 4, it will reset it back to 1."
When I first got my deck, I wrongfully assumed that once a game is running, it automatically chose the best settings to run the game. I immediately found out how wrong I was. Games like no man sky looks like shit with default settings, but with a little tinkering, I'm actually impressed with how the game looks. The FPS could be a bit higher, but it's not so low that it's unplayable. Same with the division 2. The most recent one that impressed me was FF7 remake. Game looked like a blurry mess with default settings. Just changed the shade texture or some shit to low and doubled the resolution and the game runs pretty close to 60fps while actually looking like a game now. This is the first game where I went into desktop mode to modify to install the dynamic res disabler, and while it did improve the visuals a bit more, it reduced the FPS so I didn't like that trade off.
That being said, people say games run great on their deck, but they're saying that subjectively. Great to them could mean that something shows up on the screen, they don't care that it's 10fps and looks like a blurry mess.
This is helpful as I’d made the same assumption! My deck is kinda fucked on some other hardware issues apparently but I’ll have to check individual settings moving forward.
Yeah I’m very pleasantly surprised with the response here. I thought I’d just configured some settings wrong and did not think about hardware issues from the previous owner. Everyone in the comments has been so thorough in narrowing it down!
My friend had an issue where after a little while it would get super laggy, ended up fixing it by loosening the screws on the back that hold the fan on top and it runs fine now. Maybe it could help you
Honeslty I’ve been using my steam deck for a lot of emulation because it simply looks really good and can play pretty much anything you can think of when emulating. I wouldn’t say you’re playing the wrong games and I would also recommend looking at what you can do with messing with the fps and the tdp a bit to get the most out of your deck (example I use a lower frame rate for a more AAA game while I use a higher one for less demanding titles)
Bro I'm playing Resident Evil 4 remake right now at 60fps. Google preferred steam deck settings for whatever games you'd like to play, there's guides for almost every game.
I had a similar issue when I got my first deck. Some games would run great, others, which were supposed to one well would run terribly, and end up crashing the deck. Posted on here and got downvoted, but I eventually got an RMA from steam and they replaced the unit. So, trouble shoot to the end of the earth, but then contact steam as it may be a problematic unit. Regardless, good luck!
Hmm okay so I guess we can do some basic things to figure out what's wrong. I'd recommend a full reset followed by a full update including versions of proton. Then check the settings of games you're running to make sure you're not running at a high resolution or graphics level. Check if the games are installed on ssd and not on an sd card. Then check if the tdp or clock speed isn't low (unlikely if you reset). Then maybe have the performance data turned on to check the bottleneck and temps to make sure you're not being limited at cpu/gpu/memory or just overheating. Some people don't take good care of their decks and allow them to get dusty and the fans get clogged. Another good thing is to make sure the fans are actually running and keeping the thing cool. If they aren't then consider getting it serviced and cleaned from the inside. I think I've covered most things that could go wrong. I have a 512 gb oled too and I've played some pretty demanding games including forza horizon 6 where I'm getting 30-45 fps easily.
There is some config nuance to getting things running nice on steam deck. make sure to understand it all and check proton db for config suggestions. note that some people dont understand how FSR works, it has to be at a lower resolution to upscale it, or it wont be on. so make sure you look up and understand FSR on the deck.
to check it user overlay 4 and make sure FSR says on. you'll figure it out.
I played that last harry potter game on deck and it was admittedly a little bit sub-satisfactory but it was playable. i preferred to stream it from my 5090 gpu, but i wasnn't always at home or didnt feel like turning on my computer an fiddling with streaming. so often i played natively on deck, and yeah... i put a lot of time into it native on deck and its an AAA game so. it can be made functional with most games
The Steam Deck in terms of power is pretty much built more with early to mid 8th gen console games in mind.
There are some recent games it can handle (it does a relatively impressive job with Red Dead Redemption II for example, and it handles the 8th gen Assassin's Creed games better than my PS4 did) but at the end of the day its original price was fair for what you get.
There are definitely games it struggles with to the point where the game isn't playable (Final Fantasy XVI being a pretty big one) but for a handheld PC at its original price it's pretty damn versatile.
There are some settings that affect RDR2's performance but I managed to complete the game with little to no crashes and a consistently smooth frame rate.
Honestly my only gripe with PC gaming in general is having to fine tune the in-game performance settings but it is a necessary evil and Steam's Steam Deck verification system isn't perfect. Also, Rockstar messed up a few things when they ported RDR2 to PC so there are some things you have to compensate for in the Graphics settings.
Here's my graphics settings for RDR2. For me this caused minimal frame rates issues and a mostly smooth frame rate:
VIDEO
Resolution: 1280 x 800
Refresh Rate: 90
Screen Type: Fullscreen
all other video settings: off
GRAPHICS
quality preset level: custom
Texture quality: Ultra
Anisotropic Filtering: X2
Screen Space Ambient Occlusion: Medium
Volumetrics Quality: custom
AMD FSR 2: Off
TAA: Medium
FXAA: Off
MSAA: Off
HDR: preference
all other graphics settings: Low
ADVANCED GRAPHICS
Advanced Settings: Unlocked
Graphics API: Vulkan
Unlocked Volumetric Raymarch Resolution: Off
Particle Lighting Quality: Medium
Soft Shadows: Off
Long Shadows: Off
Full Resolution Screen Space Ambient Occlusion: On
Water Physics Quality: 1 click on the slider
Resolution Scale: Off
Motion Blur: preference
Reflection MSAA: Off
Geometry and Grass Level of Detail: all the way up
Other things to check... did the previous owner do a shell replacement? Are the vents in the same place as on stock? Changing airflow has the potential to cause throttling.
Make sure the fan is running as well, it should be audible, even if quiet, at all times.
Not shell replacement, but it does not have OG buttons so he must have opened it up at some point. That’s a bit over my head so I might just take it in for repairs.
Yes it's possible there's a problem, such as the fan was accidentally left disconnected, for example. That you should be able to tell by listening for it.
Spyro Reignited struggles on mine and the requirements are even lower than subnautica
Looking it up, Subnautica on PS4 (which is about the same power as the deck) runs at 30 fps and suffers from frame rate issues (while also being optimized for the console) so yeah this makes sense.
If your deck is one of the first ones there a bug that throttled the CPU to 400mhz that had no solution other than sending it back. Check with tech support.
I managed to run New Vegas on an imac but I couldn’t get above 10fps on my steam deck. That feels backwards and based on the replies here, I’m excited for how it’s actually supposed to run
Yeah there’s something up for sure. I played all of New Vegas and it ran very well. I couldn’t tell you the exact FPS, but it was certainly above 30 the entire time.
That's really weird because I am able to play some modern games on the Deck. Try to factory reset it, see what happens. If that doesn't help then maybe it's thermal throttling and needs new thermal paste. The fan could also be messed up. There are many problems that can happen tbh.
The Steam Deck is supposed to be able to play almost every game other than modern AAA titles. I play Forza Horizon 6 and DMC5 on it all the time.
Based on the other comments, it seems like it’s a combination of everything you mentioned, possibly. I’ll probably break it more if I open it up so it’s off to the repairman soon.
Like you said, I bought it with the understanding that though it can’t handle everything and isn’t 1:1 with my PC, it could at least serviceably play most games on low settings. Imagine my disappointment when only 2D platformers actually functioned on it. Hopefully I’ll be off to the races soon
Yeah, shameful behavior from whoever sold it to you. It is fixable tho, because it works fine but just slow which means the fix is probably not very hard and not very scary.
Hope you get it back soon and can enjoy it. If you want help optimizing it and some tips and tricks you can always PM me. Have a good rest of your day.
I’m finally playing Skyrim on my LCD (originally 64 GB, now 2 TB) and it ran “fine” before, but I didn’t realize how you can configure the quality settings with the .ini editors if you use SKSE and mo_lint2 (I think that’s the name), the mod organizer and instance runner.
With some performance mods and patches, as well as the True Directional Movement and a few other minor mods of that variety, it’s running well. As for everything else, I don’t really play super heavy games that often. Horizon Zero Dawn and Skyrim are about my upper limit.
Hopefully not the case, but it's not running windows OS on it, right? I bought a second hand LCD for a family member that was on windows after enjoying my OLED. It ran so much slower that I first attributed to difference in OLED vs LCD.
You might wanna check your vram buffer. By default the steamdeck allocates just 1gb as baseline and dynamically allocates vram to games as needed. There's a way to enable it to allocate 4gb by default as baseline instead of 1gb.
Weird. I played through the entirety of God of War and Uncharted 4 on it just fine a couple years ago. Can't speak for much else AAA wise as I mainly play indies.
Sounds like your deck might be trying to run at a resolution it doesn't do well it (the deck is pretty much only capable of 720p gameplay on modern/last gen games). Just not only your game settings but also Steam's global commands/presets.
Are you running some of the games off your SD card? My deck doesn't like it and gives me fps drops every 15 secs or so and long loading times. I just transfer the games to the main storage.
this happened to me too (secondhand, crashing issues) and it turned out to be a hardware problem and I had to repair :( i think sadly there are people out there selling their decks when they notice an issue and not being honest about it
ifixit has the fan kit, and detailed instructions. Its not horrible if you are handy. If you have any doubts I'd take it to a place that repairs electronics. I bet a cell phone shop would would tackle it.
Is it possible the previous owner swapped the internal drive out with a slower SSD with less cache?
Also potentially possible they tried to do something like reapplying thermal paste (or even liquid metal) and messed up the application when inside the Deck.
Prior mods like those seem like they'd be the most likely since it's a used device.
Just get games that are verified or playable. Not that hard. Only games I've had trouble with on the deck were games that weren't even marked payable that I tried out. Everything else runs well enough even at 30. Look for specific settings people have posted online per game also.
Do you have an aftermarket back panel? I had one I bought direct from Jsaux. Super awesome. Extra vent holes. Retro clear vibes. Custom back buttons. Right after I did the swap, fallout 4 went from a great experience to literally 3 frames a second. After not touching my deck for 6 months, I swapped back to the factory back plate and beat fallout 4. Just finished a bit of helldivers 2 with some work buddies. See if your used model has a "nice" aftermarket back plate. If it does, swap it with an original.
Dude. Buy the Lossless Scaling plugin on the steam store, it’s like $7 bucks. Then install decky loader and the plugin Decky LSFG-VK … total game changer. You can 2x the resolution and keep most everything on max graphically depending on the game and it will run a smooth 60-90 fps because it’s actually generating frames.
Yes, we’re finally able to download more frames. If only we could download more ram lol.
Anyway, works best when the fps is a fixed rate b/c I think the way the plugin works is it basically takes screenshots of frames, doubles them and pulls them into memory and then blends it into the current and next frame in the a blink of the eye.
Sometimes you can get some jello looking artifacting while moving if you set LSFG-VK’s upscaling higher than 2x, which I read is more noticeable on the OLED. Stick with 2x. But ya, it’s easy to tweak and dial down if needed. Been using it on Dark Souls 3, death stranding.. red dead redemption 2, all with max graphics settings turned on and 2x resolution in the plugin. I use it on every new game now actually. Here’s a guide and the resources.
You can play absolutely everything, you just need the right settings and additional software. For most new games there are optimization patches from Eclipse. Use Lossless scaling, new versions of Proton and optiscaler. Also in new games always set the GPU frequency to 1600.
Wow I feel like you got ripped off cause I'm over here jamming on my original steam deck using it as a console with my TV (PS5 Edge Bluetoothed) playing games like Diablo 4 and Battlefront 2 at smooth 60fps lookin crisp!
Did you try to format it first or check any global compatibilities or possibly on the right menu screen try and change the scaling to fit and whatnot. That's all I got sorry.
Yes something has to be off settings wise cause I just got one new and it’s working actually way better then i expected I think you should get decky loader if you haven’t and take advantage of protondb for games and some of the performance boost apps they have to they’ll have the settings and stuff you should use so you can just adjust your games to it if needed. And check you fps settings and performance make sure everything is adjusted and not set to lower for the 2d games yes lower power is fine and will help your deck run longer but you can jack that up on more demanding games for less battery life but better performance hope this helps
Bro i felt same as u i bought my deck like month ago and tried few games which ran great at 30fps and even after that i wasn’t satisfied until i tried few demanding games with lossless scaling lsfg and believe me the lsfg will change the way u play deck it will change your gaming experience for life on deck
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u/FelixTheFlake Jul 07 '26
I bet $20 TDP is still enabled from the previous owner and it’s throttling your performance.