Steam Deck

Portal 2 Best Steam Deck Settings

Embark on a mind-bending, portal-hopping journey with the best settings for Portal 2 on the Steam Deck.

Valve's iconic puzzle platformer continues to boggle minds with its mind-bending mechanics, witty humor, and engaging co-op play. This unforgettable adventure arrives on the Steam Deck, where it feels like it was always meant to be. Portal-hopping and brain-teasing are loads of fun on the portable platform, and the battery life is great, to boot! Check out these optimized configurations for the best Portal 2 experience on the Steam Deck, and delve deeper into the Aperture Science Laboratories wherever you may be.

Portal 2 Best Steam Deck Settings

Compatibility Settings
Proton Version Default

It's funny that so many first-party Valve games have subpar performance on the Steam Deck. Left 4 Dead 2 and DOTA2 both require significant tweaking to get running optimally. CS:GO runs fine but obviously wasn't made to be played with a controller.

Luckily, Portal 2 runs beautifully out of the box. Its native Linux runtime is great, and you can expect a solid 60 frames per second from beginning to end with zero tinkering.

Recommended — Performance Settings (Native@60fps | ~3h30m)

The recommended settings will get you a silky smooth 60 frames per second at native resolution, so we'll mostly be sticking to the default configuration. It's outside of the game and in the Deck's performance menu where we'll be making the changes, with our ultimate goal being to maximize battery life without sacrificing visual fidelity.

Video Settings
Aspect Ratio Widescreen 16:10
Resolution 1280 x 800 (Native)
Display Mode Full Screen
Laptop Power Savings Disabled
Advanced Video Settings
Anti-Aliasing Mode 8x MSAA
Filtering Mode Anisotropic 16X
Wait for Vertical Sync Disabled
Multicore Rendering Enabled
Shader Detail Very High
Effect Detail High
Model/Texture Detail High
Paged Pool Memory Available High
Steam Deck Performance Menu Settings
Refresh Rate 60
Framerate Limit 60
Allow Tearing On
Half Rate Shading Off
Thermal Power (TDP) Limit On
Watts 8
Manual GPU Clock Control On
GPU Frequency 800MHz
Scaling Filter Linear

Battery-saving Settings (Native@40fps | ~4h)

It's wild just how well-optimized Portal 2 is on the Steam Deck. We can easily add another half hour to the playtime just by lowering the system's refresh rate to 40Hz, turning on Laptop Power Savings in the in-game settings, and setting the Steam Deck's TDP to 6 Watts. Everything else is exactly as the settings in the previous configuration. Enjoy the extra battery life!

Video Settings
Aspect Ratio Widescreen 16:10
Resolution 1280 x 800 (Native)
Display Mode Full Screen
Laptop Power Savings Enabled
Advanced Video Settings
Anti-Aliasing Mode 8x MSAA
Filtering Mode Anisotropic 16X
Wait for Vertical Sync Disabled
Multicore Rendering Enabled
Shader Detail Very High
Effect Detail High
Model/Texture Detail High
Paged Pool Memory Available High
Steam Deck Performance Menu Settings
Refresh Rate 40
Framerate Limit 40
Allow Tearing On
Half Rate Shading Off
Thermal Power (TDP) Limit On
Watts 6
Manual GPU Clock Control Off
Scaling Filter Linear