Path of Exile Best Steam Deck Settings

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Path of Exile plunges players into a dark and sprawling world brimming with danger, loot, and boundless customization. To many, it’s the pinnacle of the Diablo-like, hack’n’slash dungeon crawler, with a thriving player base and a complex, ever-evolving skill system. In this comprehensive guide, we’ll unveil the secrets to perfecting your Steam Deck settings for “Path of Exile,” ensuring optimal performance and visual fidelity when you play on the go.

Path of Exile Best Steam Deck Settings

Compatibility Settings
Proton Version Default

Path of Exile works fine out of the box, and you can expect smooth performance for the majority of the main game content. Once you hit the late game and waves of monsters constantly fill the screen, the frame rate dips to as low as the middle 20s. Even those playing on desktop rigs have reported performance issues going into the late game, so the Steam Deck’s modest APU isn’t entirely at fault here. The unstable framerate likely won’t be an issue for casual players, but hardcore gamers will want to keep this in mind, especially if they’re planning to continue playing with their high-level toon.

Due to the game’s varying performance, I’m providing two configurations: hardcore and casual. The casual play settings aim for a stable 40 frames per second with great visuals — perfect to enjoy the main campaign with. The hardcore configuration will prioritize stability and input time consistency, which means dropping to 30 frames per second and keeping the settings as low as possible.

Let’s get right into it!

Recommended — Casual Settings (Native@45fps | ~3h)

With these settings, you’ll get a stable 45 frames per second throughout the entire campaign. We keep most settings at Medium and turn down a few of the more GPU-intensive settings to Low for the sake of preserving consistent frame times.

We also want to limit the game’s framerate. Luckily, Path of Exile lets you do so in the options. Not all titles support in-game frame limiting, but you always want to use that over the Steam Deck’s frame limiter whenever the option is available. The Steam Deck’s frame limiter uses triple buffered VSync, which introduces input delay that can make games feel sluggish. So, keep the frame rate uncapped in the Steam Deck performance menu and turn on in-game frame limiting.

Display Settings
Mode Windowed Fullscreen
Resolution 1280×800
Renderer Vulkan
VSync Disabled
Foreground FPS Cap Enabled / 45
Background FPS Cap Disabled
Detail Settings
Antialiasing Quality Low
Lighting Shadows
Shadows + GI Quality Medium
Sun Shadow Quality Medium
Number of Lights Medium
Bloom 100%
Depth of Field Disabled
Incursion/Ultimatum Effect Enabled
Water Detail Level Low
Texture Quality High
Texture Filtering 16x Anisotropic Filtering
Dynamic Culling Enabled
Dynamic Resolution Enabled
Target Framerate 45
Engine Multithreading Enabled
*Set to personal preference

Steam Deck Performance Menu Settings
Refresh Rate 45
Framerate Limit Unlimited
Allow Tearing On
Half Rate Shading Off
Thermal Power (TDP) Limit Off
Manual GPU Clock Control Off
Scaling Filter Linear

Hardcore Settings (Native@30fps | ~3h30m)

When you’re being swarmed by demons and monsters, the last thing you need is input lag, which can cause bad inputs or missed timings. These settings turn everything down, including the framerate, to give you consistent frame times, resulting in consistent inputs.

Should you use this? If you’re most players, then no; you aren’t likely to get to a point in Path of Exile where you’ll need it. This configuration is solely for the most dedicated players who’ve entered the super-late game and play competitively. A more appropriate question for them would be: Why are you playing competitively on a handheld?

Display Settings
Mode Windowed Fullscreen
Resolution 1280×800
Renderer Vulkan
VSync Disabled
Foreground FPS Cap Enabled / 45
Background FPS Cap Disabled
Detail Settings
Antialiasing Quality Low
Lighting Shadows
Shadows + GI Quality Low
Sun Shadow Quality Low
Number of Lights low
Bloom 100%
Depth of Field Disabled
Incursion/Ultimatum Effect Disabled
Water Detail Level Low
Texture Quality High
Texture Filtering 16x Anisotropic Filtering
Dynamic Culling Enabled
Dynamic Resolution Enabled
Target Framerate 30
Engine Multithreading Enabled
*Set to personal preference
Steam Deck Performance Menu Settings
Refresh Rate 60
Framerate Limit Unlimited
Allow Tearing On
Half Rate Shading Off
Thermal Power (TDP) Limit Off
Manual GPU Clock Control Off
Scaling Filter Linear

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