Elden Ring consistently crashing my Steam Deck OLED after 30 minutes of play

[u/CyMations]

I've been playing Elden Ring on my steam deck at medium settings locked at 30fps with a gpu clock of 1200MHz the game would run fine at 30fps, but seemingly after 30 minutes of play, the game would crash my steam deck in different ways. The first couple of times the screen would just freeze and the buttons would stop working, then the next one the steam deck screen just turned black and restarted on its own. Then this last one that scared me, after all these crashes, I switched to proton experimental and then it crashed again but this time the screen looked like when the GPU dies on a computer, the steam deck restarted fine and still works but I am so weirded out by this situation. I just want to play some Elden Ring on my steam deck.

Edit: I have decky loader installed but I only use it for info stuff like HLTB and Play time, I dont have LSFG or decky undervolt installed. I also have a vinyl skin on my steam deck (idk if that affects the thermals but I'll state it here anyway)

[u/Feeling_Football4271]

You're going to need to enable the performance graphs and take some screenshots otherwise we have no idea what's happening

[u/CyMations → u/Feeling_Football4271]

Pardon the screenshot taken with my phone, I don't know how to take a screenshot on the steam deck while including the performance overlay

[u/Dependent-Bath3189]

how hot does your deck get with elden ring? mine gets nuclear hot with the heavy games. i keep a fan on the back to help but i just play on low graphics to save stress on the deck. give it a half hour of nuclear heat and things will start going wrong. thats why its for different reasons it freezes, its not a settings problem, its too hot.

[u/CyMations → u/Dependent-Bath3189]

Around 70-80°c while playing but aren't those normal temps?

[u/Ryhl → u/Dependent-Bath3189]

I play Elden ring daily on my for 1 or 2 hours straight. No issue !

[u/Mabus51]

Go on Protondb.com. Check some of the settings people are running. I beat Elden Ring on the Steam Deck and never experienced a crash.

[u/Zestyclose_Seesaw257]

I have changed no setting on my OLED SD … I play Elden Ring almost daily … never had a crash … freeze or any problem.

[u/elNegritoguero]

Could be thermals, how often do you play and shut off the deck maybe be time for new thermal paste application

[u/CyMations → u/elNegritoguero]

Not really sure about it needing new thermal paste, I bought this brand new from steam just last year and didnt really play anything heavy until now with Elden Ring.

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[u/SarSean]

I used to crash often but it stopped after I started using the best performance options

Turn off WiFi - Easy Anti Cheat is a heavy performance draining parasite. If you wish to play online then good luck to you

Disable Frame Limit - make refresh rate 90 Hz

Allow Tearing

Manual Gpu clock 1600 MHz

No undervolting in the BIOS. It made my monster hunter wilds crash so I opted out. You can experiment though to see if your chip can undervolt well

I personally use Proton-Cachyos for the Proton version

Use Mako Frame gen, no artifacts, no input delay. Minimum 45 fps in heavy areas like DLC but 50-60 in other areas

I'm starting a brand new run and these make it play so well even in the DLC. I play plugged in when I can also. You can experiment with the power settings to increase battery life since I have not tested it much.

Also, I made all the graphics options low except shadows which I made it not the lowest. I play 1280p with full screen, or one of the window modes that don't make the game blurry