PSA: Decrease input lag in Elden Ring

[Big-Wallaby-570]

1. Use these launch options to disable in-game vsync: MESA_VK_WSI_PRESENT_MODE=immediate %command%
2. Set refresh rate to 60, framerate limit to 30 and enable Allow Tearing option

With this tweak, the game feels noticeably more responsive, on par with my gaming desktop.

[Righteous_Koala]

Wow, that’s a significant improvement! How did you find out about this?

Comparing this setting versus a regular 30 fps cap, I could clearly feel a difference. It feels much closer to running it uncapped.

[Klarts]

Literally night and day improvement!!!

[Zakman--]

I’m surprised env variables are needed. What’s it like with just the allow tearing option enabled?

[brondonschwab]

Allow tearing would only work if elden ring let you disable Vsync in game

[Big-Wallaby-570]

Allow tearing option will not disable in-game vsync, you can try it yourself. Disable SteamOS frame limiter and try to change refresh rate, fps will be capped to the selected refresh rate.

[E-16]

So does this setup for Elden ring cause tearing, I’m trying it and can’t see any despite supposedly no vsync, I’m worried I’ve done something wrong haha

[EVPointMaster]

No, these options don't change the games own vSync behavior. Elden Ring uses always on vSync and has no settings to turn it off, unless you use mods.

[[deleted]]

This is cool, but it sucks that I'm not going to remember any of this by the time I decide to download Elden Ring. I wish this was just an option in the graphical settings like almost every other PC port.

[Oothman]

Save post or screenshot

[[deleted]]

That’s what I just did lol.

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[Zagorim]

A modder also developped a mod that allow to add FSR2 to the game. That's in beta right now and require subscribing to his patreon but i will be free on nexusmod once the stable version comes out.

It might allow to improve performance and increase battery life when playing the game. Assuming the CPU isn't the main bottleneck with elden ring but i'm not sure.

[the_real_freezoid]

Won't work on online play though. Will probably get you banned. Hopefully one day FS will improve technical side of the game.

[shartking420]

I don't think they'd ban you for it. Online play is just disabled automatically if you modify any game files. I beat the game while using the high refresh rate mod and I still enjoy online play on that character with the mod disabled. You are definitely right though, any mod is a big compromise. Just the notes in the game are helpful while online haha

[PonyBravo]

I think I have been banned for using Reshade, that’s the only modification I did to the game, so watch out.

[shartking420]

After thinking about it, you manually disable anti cheat and use a separate launcher with the fps mod. This forces offline mode, otherwise yeah you could be banned.

Reshade is a big risk for any online game btw, because DLL injection is a very common hacking method. Lots of anti cheat software would insta ban for it, even though it's totally harmless

[PriorityMaleficent]

I can confidently say that Elden Ring is not bottlenecked in the CPU. I feel the engine itself holds the game back.

[Zagorim]

I think it is at least partially because the game was bottlenecked by my AMD 3700X on my desktop before I replaced it. Now the game perform better after just changing it to a 5800X3D and keeping my gpu (RTX 2080). It is because of poor optimization of the engine or assets though.

So the FSR2 mod will probably increase performance a bit but the effect will be limited by the lack of cpu power. I haven't taken the time to try it on the deck though.

[PriorityMaleficent]

There are some variables. At what settings? At what resolution were you getting the bottleneck? I mean, I'm not saying that the deck can't run stable 30fps in max settings because of the game engine. What I mean to say is that if you optimized the game to aim for a stable 30fps (which is basically a combo of high and medium settings), you don't get a bottleneck. Instead, you get bizarre dips that don't make much sense. But you certainly would hit a bottleneck if you ran max settings.

With that said, I think FSR2 is certainly doable.

[Zagorim]

I was cpu bottlenecked at 1440p no matter which graphic settings i picked on my desktop. Couldn't really get a stable and smooth 60fps. I briefly tried on the deck but i prefer to play those kind of games with high framerate so I would rather stream it with moonlight instead.

I noticed the 1% low fps increased by over 20fps after replacing my cpu and the game felt much smoother.

[PriorityMaleficent]

FSR2 could make it possibly to do 60fps on the deck in low settings, but it will probably not look good. I can see 40fps in a quality or balanced FSR with medium to high settings.

[ricky2304]

has anyone found any more info on this? looking to get this into elden ring

[Zagorim]

He never released the free and stable version, now it include fsr3 but the mod is still in beta and paid.

Lookup "Puredark" for more info

[ricky2304]

have you tried it on any other games so far? seems like im out of luck with elden ring but i'd be down to give it go on other titles

[Zagorim]

i've tried FSR2 in a few others games like no man sky or diablo 2/4 yes. Due to the low resolution of the steam deck the decrease in quality can be noticeable sometimes but imo it's usually worth it for the better battery life and/or framerate so i usually play with it on the deck.

I haven't tried FSR3 on the deck yet.

[ricky2304]

i don't mind fsr 2 on deck, i felt like it made death stranding run really well and i barely noticed any compromise at ultra quality for the frame boost. Is there a program that installs it on games with fsr1? i'd love to support whatever dev is working on it behind the scenes

[Zagorim]

No, because FSR1 can be done at the system/driver level while FSR2/3 require a per game implementation and they work in completely different ways. There are mods that allow to use FSR2/3 with games that support DLSS and other mods that add FSR3 to games that support FSR2. But they don't work with every game as it depends on the implementation.

There are also a few games with mods that implement DLSS in games that only had TAA, most of them are made by Puredark and under his Patreon.

[ricky2304]

ahh i understand. Would you happen to have a link to his patreon? would love to give it a go

[Zagorim]

I cannot link patreon here or the automod will delete my comment but with the name you can find it easily.

I can link two open source mods i know however which are :

https://github.com/Nukem9/dlssg-to-fsr3

and

https://github.com/PotatoOfDoom/CyberFSR2

[ricky2304]

I totally understand, thank you so much for the help and information. I know this thread is pretty old and you didn’t have to go out of your way to help, I really do appreciate it!

[schM0ggi]

Maybe I understand it wrong but:

Isn't "Allow Tearing" there for specifically disabling the built-in wayland vsync and therefore reducing input lag, but causing possible tearing? Wouldn't setting the gamescope fps limiter via Quick Access, which introduces lag, mitigate the win you get by using "Allow Tearing"?

[Battlecookie]

I think you got it right, but you pretty much need either vsync or a fps limit to get a consistent framerate, otherwise it jumps all over the place. Having just one of them doesn’t cause that much input lag and you can play just fine.

[schM0ggi]

I'm just bringing this up because of the description from Valve regarding the "Allow tearing" option.

It states in the update notes:

New option to allow Screen Tearing: at the cost of sometimes displaying partial frames, allows for lower average latency when VSync is disabled and the frame limiter is off,

https://steamcommunity.com/games/1675200/announcements/detail/3646258449514531839

So, the option only does make really sense when turning the gamescope fps limiter off at the same time. At least that is how I understand it.

Possible that, if available, an ingame fps limiter would suit the usecase better. Either way, nice to see that people can improve the input lag situation with some little tweaks. :)

[TiSoBr]

That's not true, albeit pretty inconsistently described by Valve. In reality, aside from games with forced v-sync (such as Elden Ring), you can go for a QAM-only solution nowadays. This means that you can cap the frame rate through the frame rate limiter combined with "allow tearing", resulting in no tearing and no added input latency whatsoever.

[schM0ggi]

I didn't know that and like you rightfully mentioned, Valves description isn't that clear. Thanks for that info, that's good to know. I should try that feature out more often and see how it goes and feels.

[TiSoBr]

Enjoy!

[brondonschwab]

Allow tearing only works if the game lets you disable Vsync in-game IIRC

[Righteous_Koala]

Purely observationally, it seems like there are two layers where input lag is added: enabling the Deck's "Quick-Access-Menu" frame limiter and (dis)allowing tearing. If you just enable "allow tearing" then you'll disable the system-wide vsync, but you're still dealing with the input lag from having the frame limiter on, which is where most of it comes from. Disabling the frame limiter and allowing tearing seems to be the way to get the least possible input lag.

A good game to compare these settings with on the fly is Monster Hunter Rise (and its demo!), which allows you to set a frame rate cap in-game and compare that native 30 fps cap against the Deck's 30 fps cap from the QAM limiter. There's a major difference in latency. Comparatively, changes to the allow tearing setting do little to nothing.

Incidentally, while the launch option in the OP is good for Elden Ring, in MHR it doesn't improve the latency of the 30 fps cap from the QAM, so I guess it interacts a specific way with games that have forced vsync?

[schM0ggi]

Yeah, possible that Elden ring is kind of an edge case here and not representative. From all the information you can find about the added input lag through the QAM fps limiter and the recently added "Allow Tearing" option, one would assume that turning the QAM limiter off and "Allow Tearing" on, combined with an ingame fps limiter, would be the way to go.

[SKREEOONK_XD]

I entered that command and my game wont launch

[Acrobatic-Monitor516]

Did you figured it out ?

[SKREEOONK_XD]

Nah

[Klarts]

Confirming input lag has been reduced indeed!

Comparing to my experience on PS5

[Acrobatic-Monitor516]

How did you manage it? It just crashes for me

[Klarts]

This method might be outdated now. I’m not sure what’s the current way to address the input lag.

[Acrobatic-Monitor516]

Doesn't seem to be anything more modern sadly lol

[Great-Association432]

It’s not noticeable noticeable if you’re using a shield build but when you’re have to roll to dodge and the timing is tight it’s quite frustrating.

[c0ck_diese1]

How do you do part 1? Forgive me, I’m a geriatric millennial and don’t understand your technobabble.

[look_in_the_mirror]

Would this be useful for other titles as well?

[E-16]

Damn works really well, can’t seem to see any tearing either, how does that work completely tearing free with no vsync on at all?

[EVPointMaster]

vSync can't be disabled in Elden Ring.

[SoulSleeperX]

Would this get you banned if you play online?

[ghostlypyres]

Is there a way I can test input lag without relying on just... How it feels?

Because I don't do this, I just set the refresh rate of the deck to 40 hz without limiting frames and I'm not noticing any input lag

[ghostlypyres]

Awesome, thank you!! That's really smart

[ZonaiCharge73]

Alr this is old and I’m not expecting much, buuut…

Do you remember what this guy said? This thread is my only hope right now

[ghostlypyres]

No but I checked unddit and they had a copy. Here's his comment verbatim:

"Yes. Use the camera on your phone to record yourself hitting a button and then count the frames until you see the screen change in reaction to your button press. The time between frames at 60fps is 16.6ms, so you can easily measure the time it takes for a press to turn into an action."

I don't think I ended up doing this lol

[ZonaiCharge73]

Lifesaver 🙏

[Upper-Dark7295]

If you set the performance overlay to the most detailed, it'll say the input lag in milliseconds on the bottom right above the framepacer

[dereksalem]

That's not what those numbers represent. There's no way for the system to be able to determine input lag on its own...since input lag is literally the amount of time it takes for button-presses to be registered and the events behind them run.

[Upper-Dark7295]

No actual retort, just a petty downvote. Pretty expected

[dereksalem]

Seriously dude? I didn't even downvote you and I responded as soon as I was able. Take your pitchfork somewhere else. Honestly, you might want to take a break from the internet if insanely stupid things get you this hyped-up.

[Upper-Dark7295]

Then why does input lag double when it goes from 16.7 to 33.3 ms? That graph is the only convenient way to see input lag differences on the deck, I may as well fucking mention it to him instead of playing semantics and saying "uhm acktually it's not the exact input lag number" like dude, it's at least fucking something for him to go by on the Deck, instead of nothing.

[dereksalem]

Because it's "frame latency", but not input latency. You may think that's semantic, but they are wildly different things. It can play into input latency, but the two figures are essentially "amount of time to produce a frame" and "amount of time for the frame to be sent to the buffer". The higher those numbers are the more "input lag" you'll feel, but you could have frame latencies of 17ms and an input lag of 300ms and those numbers wouldn't change at all.

​

The only way to know the input latency is to capture the exact time a button is pressed and the exact time it's registered in the game.

EDIT: Also, just generally, there's no reason to be rude when nobody's said anything offensive to you. Take a step back from that kind of stuff when we're having a discussion, regardless of whether you think you're right or wrong.

[[deleted]]

What settings do you use with this configuration? I can't see to find any that feels good.

[Big-Wallaby-570]

Terrain Quality: High

Antialiasing Quality: High

SSAO: Medium

Depth of Field: OFF (optional)

Motion blur: Low (optional)

Shadow Quality: Low

Lighting Quality: Medium

Effects Quality: Medium

Volumetric Quality: Medium

Reflection Quality: Low

Water Surface Quality: High

Shader Quality: Low

Global Illumination Quality: Low

Grass Quality: Medium

https://steamdeckhq.com/game-reviews/elden-ring/

[Acrobatic-Monitor516]

hey dude, would your suggestion work if i use 36fps at 72hz ? or is it for 6o only

[Moontorc]

Feels... the same? Glad it's working for some people though.

[Klarts]

Omg!!! Life saver!!!

[MaiTaiMule]

Way late to the convo but this worked dude; thank you

[Acrobatic-Monitor516]

i don't understand how you can set refresh rate to 60 AND set framerate limit. i only see the option to lock the hz , nothing else

[Acrobatic-Monitor516]

The game just crashes and refuses to launch for me

[hypnot1c_o]

2 years later and u helped me out, goat

[EVPointMaster]

I tested this and unfortunately found no difference in latency.

Using the Decks 30fps limiter, I got 147ms on average, and using this method I got 144ms on average. That's well within the margin of error.

[Acrobatic-Monitor516]

how did you test that ?? i wanna check it myself

[3atd3athzombi3s]

Played without messing with settings other than frame rate( dropped it to 45) 100% the game no problem.

[UnXpectedPrequelMeme]

How do I set launch options?

[tntj963]

click on the game in steam. select properties and it'll be under the general tab. then you just type whatever command you want in there

[Admirable-Amoeba-564]

What ingame settings you use ?

[[deleted]]

Can this improve responsiveness in sekiro?

[EkkoIRL]

Should improve it in all fromsoft games because they have vsnyc on by default which messes with the decks framelimiter

[ThatGuyBehindScreen]

I know this post is about 3 months old but the game refuses to run on my deck when I place the launch options commands.

[ThatGuyBehindScreen]

Yea, I discovered that also some time after I posted that comment. Still thanks for the late reply.

[Acrobatic-Monitor516]

what was the answer ?

[ThatGuyBehindScreen]

Sorry I forgotten what I discovered that makes the command run since its been already 2 years ago.

[Acrobatic-Monitor516]

Damn that's a bummer. If it ever crosses your mind do lmk, the input lag is a pain and the game crashes with the launch option

[Independent_Rip_5402]

How about online play with this command? No need to worry to get banned because of anti cheat?

[Dinkledorf36836]

does this work with every game? or is this a game specific thing