How Valve made Steam Deck the first PC to smoothly run Elden Ring

Enlarge / Artistic representation of having Elden Ring running surprisingly smoothly on Steam Deck. (credit: Valve / From Software / Sam Machkovech)

While Elden Ring‘s recent launch has been a massive critical and commercial success, it continues developer From Software’s streak of leaving players in a technical lurch. Even on the newest Xbox and PlayStation consoles or the highest-end PCs, Elden Ring still manages to turn in somewhat unsteady performance for various reasons.

In the case of one unoptimized aspect of the game’s PC version, someone outside From Software has swooped in to save the day. Usually, this kind of PC gaming story comes thanks to enterprising modders from the gaming community at large. In Elden Ring‘s case, however, the fix comes courtesy of an unlikely source: Valve, the massive company who runs the Steam storefront.

And Valve’s fix, so far, only works on Steam Deck.