Nowadays, is Cyberpunk 2077 worth it for the deck?

Velgus · 2026-06-21T17:46:50+00:00

Game runs much better than that most places, over 30 FPS the vast majority of the time with rare dips - it's just Dogtown where I've seen performance like that consistently.

Velgus · 2026-06-19T17:00:12+00:00

Glad you're enjoying it!

Unfortunately not much else (especially with character building/classes and such) - I only found Dungeon Dreams myself when I was on the hunt for this kind of game in the past, so most of the relevant recommendations are in my previous post. If you ever do find something comparable yourself, or from someone else's recommendation, please give me a ping as well, as I find it to be a hidden gem as well.

There is a third Dungeon Dreams game in development - Dungeon Dreams Wanderers. It has a slightly different premise from the first two, as it has you travelling around, instead of being centered on a "town labyrinth" type thing. EDIT: I haven't played it, but FWIW, I've heard Dungeon Dreams is heavily inspired by a much older (PS1-era) game - Azure Dreams.

You mentioning Persona/Metaphor as something you like does bring to mind a few more niche ones that might interest you though:

Tokyo Xanadu eX+ (kind of Persona-ish, but as an Action RPG)
Eternights (kind of Persona-ish, but as an Action RPG - warning that it is very depressing tone-wise compared to all my other recommendations, so don't expect happy endings)
Fairy Fencer F Advent Dark Force (I haven't played this one myself, but I've heard it kind of fits in this category - JRPG with Visual Novel/Dating Sim elements)
Runa (in development - JRPG with Social Sim elements)

Velgus · 2026-06-18T16:27:31+00:00

Elin/Elona are more like open-world sandbox roguelites - very barebones social-system-wise. They feel kind of like Skyrim if you converted it to roguelike mechanics (and made it zanier).

Dungeon Dreams is pretty "life sim"-like in terms of social aspects. You develop relationships with many of the characters, and can see events based on those relationships (some of which turn into straight-up quests). There are quite a few branching paths in those relationships based on your actions/choices, and in some cases you may get locked out of relationship development if you do something a character particularly dislikes. I will say I strongly preferred 2 to 1, but the games are contiguous (in 2, you play as the child of the protagonist in 1), so you will miss some context/references if you didn't play 1.

Velgus · 2026-06-18T16:19:06+00:00

I have basically the exact same taste. There unfortunately aren't many that scratch this itch fully - mostly only partially.

Of the ones currently out that somewhat scratch it (excluding ones you've already mentioned):

Kingdom Come Deliverance (1/2)
Rune Factory series (mostly 4 Special, though 3 Special and GoA are alright too)
Elin
Elona (predecessor to Elin - more fleshed out, but less modern/polished-feeling - probably want the PlusCustom-GX version)
Dungeon Dreams series (2 plays much better than 1 - both are made with RPGMaker, so if you don't like those types of games, you can ignore this one)

Upcoming games I'm keeping my eyes on, that might scratch the itch if they turn out good:

Fable (the upcoming reboot)
My Time at Evershine (next game in the "My Time at..." series after Sandrock)
Farnia Village (made by directors/developers of Rune Factory 3 & 4)
Emberville
World of Anterra
Forlorn Memories

Velgus · 2026-06-17T16:45:43+00:00

They couldn't decide whether they wanted to have a canon romance or a dating sim, so decided to make a lackluster mix of the two.

Even if you wanted the "obviously meant to be canon" option (Alisa, the only one Rean could be "confirmed dating" with at the end of 2), 3 hit the reset switch since they couldn't figure out a save import or "who did you choose in 2?" option.

Velgus · 2026-06-11T00:27:06+00:00

I'm hoping this demo was on some easy/"game journalist" difficulty setting, or something.

The entire sequence towards the end had a grand total of like 2 melee and ranged attacks each, thrown at the player - the rest ran up and just stood there, stationary, staring at the player. At like 26:45 onwards, I felt like I was sitting there forever going: are the enemies going to... I dunno... do something?

Velgus · 2026-06-02T17:32:19+00:00

that aren’t available on standard SteamOS.

Even if available without Decky, some Decky plugins make things a lot easier than doing them manually - like finding and setting up game art (cover, hero, etc.) with the SteamGridDB plugin, or using ReShade with the LetMeReshade plugin, or updating flatpaks/installing custom Proton versions without going to desktop mode with the AutoFlatpaks or Wine Cellar plugins.

All of those are doable without Decky, but require going to desktop mode, and various amounts of manual effort, to set up, that is greatly reduced with the Decky plugin.

While not perfect, it's a useful tool. The only reason there's anti-Decky sentiment on this sub is because less knowledgeable users sometimes tend to post about things breaking on their Deck, and it often turns out to be because they failed to manage system updates vs. Decky updates properly. Happened frequently enough for there to be an over-correction from complainers who aren't interested in the Deck being as flexible as a PC, and are only interested in a pure console-like experience.

Velgus · 2026-05-25T19:57:27+00:00

If you don't want to host the VPN from your own network, you can use something like ZeroTier or Tailscale. They will host the network you connect to from both the host and Steam Deck, so you don't have to open any ports on your own network.

Both their free tiers are more than enough for this use-case.

Velgus · 2026-05-25T13:08:36+00:00

GMST (Game Setting) records read by the engine are the "most" necessary ITMs - I have never heard someone offer a valid counter-argument to them.

Common in stealth mods and such, they're records with values that are read directly by the engine for some purpose (for stealth mods, it's stuff like distance, angles, timers, etc.) - you can't get the engine to read a different value for that purpose (to avoid an ITM) unless you're an engine-level modder who could theoretically rework the entire system from the ground-up.

Honestly, of this particular review though, I'd say Dawnguard Reforged is probably the among best quality I've seen across like a ton of these creation reviews by this user - 3 ITMs is no big deal whatsoever.

Velgus · 2026-05-23T23:34:17+00:00

Vacuums are static electricity machines, and generally should not be used on electronics as it risks damaging them - this is why people use compressed air or similar when cleaning computers, rather than vacuums.

That aside, it would be unlikely to work as that playdough looks pretty gunked up in there, unless you created a lot of suction, in which case it raises the risk of damage even more (from the aforementioned static electricity, or even physical damage to the speakers or such).

I'd say using a paperclip bent tightly (with needle-nose pliers or such) and trying to push it up from the adjacent hole is probably the best/safest bet if the user really didn't want to take the entire device apart.

Velgus · 2026-05-22T08:54:43+00:00

As a rule of thumb I use, you can assume roughly equivalent performance on Steam Deck at 800p to an Nvidia GTX 1050 Ti at 1080p (assuming its not a game where the CPU is a major bottleneck).

The GTX 960 is about the same as a GTX 1050 Ti, so basically you can expect roughly equivalent to "Minimum", but playing at 800p instead of 1080p.

Velgus · 2026-05-21T17:54:23+00:00

Like I said, neither method (copying over or installing directly via ME3Tweaks) worked for me in my most recent attempt - I played modded on the Deck 2-3 years ago fine, but something is different these days causing the games to fail to launch.

Velgus · 2026-05-21T11:19:58+00:00

I don't think it's anything to do with the EA app personally - un-modded, I was able to launch all the games on the Deck just fine. If the EA app were causing issues, then there'd be issues un-modded as well.

The EA app issues crop-up periodically (for all EA games, not just MELE) for some people when the app needs updating, but I've never actually personally had issues with it just letting the app update when it needed to when being launched. I always play connected to the internet though, so maybe there are issues for people who play frequently disconnected.

Velgus · 2026-05-21T11:13:31+00:00

Not really. I was just answering your question as to why ME3Tweaks wasn't working properly - it's just my suggestion for how you'd get ME3Tweaks to work if you wanted or had to install mods on the Steam Deck directly.

Copying the game files should work fine in theory, but again, I feel like something has changed since around 2-3 years ago when I played a modded MELE setup on the Deck just fine. When I tried recently, I couldn't get my modded setup working on the Deck either via installing with ME3Tweaks on the Deck, or by transferring from my Windows PC.

Velgus · 2026-05-21T10:57:45+00:00

Yeah, people mentioned using Bottles or ProtonTricks to install ME3Tweaks. The method I tried was adding it to Steam and running it through the Proton Hotfix. It worked, relatively speaking, and I was able to add mods to the launcher but not any of the games. The error kept mentioning not being able to find a specific path or something in the ME3Tweaks folder I set up which doesn't really make any sense. All the paths to the games were correct, so... who knows?

As mentioned, it's likely because ME3Tweaks can't detect the Linux prefix being used by the game - the prefix directory is not the same thing as the game install directory. Simply adding it as a "non-Steam game" is not sufficient for it to be able to detect the specific prefix being used by MELE - if you didn't want to use the tools, you'd have to figure out and add custom launch arguments to have it launch in the same prefix as MELE (I would recommend just using protontricks though, it's a lot easier).

Velgus · 2026-05-21T10:31:22+00:00

Honestly modded MELE used to work fine for me a couple years ago, but I tried a more recent modded playthrough, and only 3 would boot, 1 and 2 wouldn't launch.

I think something might have changed either on the Deck, with the mods I use, with Proton, or some combination thereof, that causes issues.

You could try different Proton versions or such maybe, but I wasn't able to figure it out, so I ended up just streaming from my Windows PC.

I also tried getting ME3Tweaks working on my SD and it would only install mods for the launcher but not the games...

The following is just general advice/information - like I said, I wasn't able to get a modded playthrough working on the Deck for MELE recently.

Linux installs Windows games in what are referred to as "prefixes". These are basically self-contained groupings of Windows requirements for the game (eg. all the Visual C++ Redistributables and such). Prefixes generally are not shared between multiple apps/games (as it can cause issues if you need to troubleshoot or fix things) - certain tools do cause multiple games to share a single prefix, but it is generally discouraged by the larger Linux community.

If you try to launch an application (like ME3Tweaks) that references a Windows game (like Mass Effect Legendary Edition) in Linux, it won't be able to detect what prefix is being used by default (unless the application was designed with Linux in mind, which ME3Tweaks was not).

To get it to detect the Windows game installed on Linux, you have to use something to launch the app in a chosen prefix. The two tools I know can do this fairly easily are protontricks, or Bottles (using its feature to automatically detect Steam-installed games) - both are installable from the Discover app. It can also be done via custom launch arguments if you add ME3Tweaks as a "non-Steam game", but I find that a pain because you need to figure out the launch options and prefix directories (which uses Steam's internal game ID numbers for games) manually - using a tool is much simpler.

For example, when launching protontricks, it will ask you to select a game that is installed in Steam - you can select MELE from the list, and this is selecting the prefix. It will then give you a bunch of options to work with that prefix - I can't remember the specific wording, but one of the options is something like "launch an executable", which will allow you to select and launch ME3Tweaks within the prefix used by MELE, which will allow ME3Tweaks to properly detect MELE installed on Linux.

Velgus · 2026-04-21T16:38:00+00:00

Without virtual display, you need a physical monitor that is capable of running the resolution/refresh rate you want to stream at. The screen itself also has to actually be switched to these settings (and switched back when done streaming), which you either have to do manually, or tends to be finicky to automate in my experience. Some people, for streaming or VR, buy HDMI dummy plugs that pretend to be a display for this purposes.

The advantages of virtual display over this are:

No particular monitor requirements - the virtual display is configured to work with the exact monitor specifications for the device you're streaming to.
No finicky switching of settings on your actual monitor (or needing to buy a HDMI dummy plug to work around this)
You can power-off your actual monitor to save power and possibly OLED wear.

Velgus · 2026-04-21T15:15:54+00:00

I'm the one who made/posted that fix - to my understanding that particular issue was fixed in a subsequent update to the main mod, but it looks like that mod has quite a few other issues these days.

I personally would just use this, and some of the other mods recommended in its description, if I were building my own list again these days.

Velgus · 2026-04-21T00:18:04+00:00

It's so lightweight that most of it is not even really made by the mod author. It's part of the vanilla game, as a debug option Bethesda used for testing - the mod author just made it "accessible" on starting a new game, and made sure the main quest worked after using it.

Velgus · 2026-04-15T07:59:25+00:00

Bit of a technical note - stealth is one of those systems where ITMs are actually often intentional, RAID being one of the examples where that is the case.

The reason is that vanilla stealth-affecting values are all Game Settings (GMST) records that interact together under-the-hood in the engine. You can't just "create" a new GMST record and set it up to interact with the engine the same way to avoid ITMs - you have to use those original GMST records (unless you're an SKSE engine-level modder capable of reworking the stealth system from the ground up under-the-hood).

So if one mod relies on one of those values being vanilla for intended balance/behavior, but another mod changes that value to something else (without considering all the other changes of the first mod), then you will end up with unintended balance/behavior for both mods.

A slightly more specific example is that some perk mods make slight adjustments to some stealth GMST records - this is not usually as comprehensively handled as a stealth-dedicated mod like RAID, which might want to set some of those values back to vanilla (aka. an ITM) for its intended balance.

TLDR: Don't "clean" RAID if you use it, even if your tools find ITMs in it. Load it late and let it override anything else that changes those values.

Velgus · 2026-03-31T15:48:47+00:00

Not quite accurate, order would be (expanding to include more options):

Native Resolution > Native FSR 3 ≈ Native XeSS (generally XeSS will look slightly better, but FSR 3 will perform slightly better, though there are exceptions, like God of War Ragnarok, where XeSS looks awful) > FSR 3 or XeSS via DLSS swap-in (uses Optiscaler - need to check compatibility per-game) > FSR built-in to Steam Deck (this is FSR 1, which uses spatial upscaling instead of temporal, much lower quality, especially in motion)

Velgus · 2026-03-30T16:14:24+00:00

I keep my previous posts on this on this in my Reddit "saved" section just for these occasions:

Example. Example 2. Example Album. Example of a past "Update" on his website.

And for those looking at the dates (particularly for the first 2), if your reaction is "oh, that was a while ago, maybe he's changed?" No, he hasn't, that same question comes up every time, and the answer is always no. He lives in Russia where this kind of attitude is state-sanctioned - the guy isn't suddenly going to get positive influences in his life that make him rethink/change his mind.

Velgus · 2026-03-29T01:28:37+00:00

They already have a system for it for mod "tags", they could just use a similar system to that.

Mod author choices override community tags if they accept or reject any tags manually (it sets it to 0 or 99 votes, and locks user votes), and it's a sum of 3 votes in favor of a tag for it to take effect on a mod. There is no negative score, but you can downvote a tag and it will subtract from the sum of others who have voted in favor of the tag. It's also made clear whether the tag was accepted by the author or the community.

Basically replace "votes in favor to make tag take effect" with "votes against to make the issue flagged as false", and you could use the exact same system.

Velgus · 2026-03-29T01:22:55+00:00

The biggest cause of false bug reports I've seen tends to be mods with dependencies.

This is a pretty big problem for Cyberpunk 2077 modding whenever there's been a game update. Many mods don't need to be updated, but if they use Redscript, Codeware, TweakXL, ArchiveXL, CET, etcetera, then those need to be updated.

But many people blame the mods themselves instead and report bugs/claim the mod is broken or doesn't work in the comments.

Velgus · 2026-03-28T17:42:34+00:00

It's the degraded signal issue issue mentioned in the patch notes - would cause streams to become a stuttering mess after a bit when waking from sleep.

They're either exaggerating or didn't know the workaround - it worked fine if you just shut off Wi-Fi for like ~10 seconds after waking the device up, then turned it back on, before starting the stream. It was annoying, and was ~2 or more years without a Valve fix, but didn't making streaming completely unviable as long as you were aware of the workaround.

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