Steam Deck

Tom Clancy’s The Division® 2 Best Steam Deck Settings

The fight for DC never has to end with these settings for the best The Division 2 experience on Valve's handheld.

The Division 2 is Ubisoft's online shooter RPG that has players fighting to bring order to a lawless post-apocalyptic Washington DC. The gameplay harkens back to the third-person cover shooters of the sixth console generation, which makes it a comfortable fit for the Steam Deck. In this guide, we'll introduce the settings we've found to provide the best balance of performance and graphics quality on Valve's handheld. Let's get right into it!

Tom Clancy’s The Division® 2 Best Steam Deck Settings

Compatibility Settings
Proton Version Default
BIOS Settings
UMA Frame Buffer Size 4G

Steam Deck gamers have a volatile relationship with Ubisoft due to their aggressive anti-cheat implementation and the Ubisoft Connect launcher. Even today, players have reported inconsistent experiences with the game's secondary launcher.

Troubleshooting Ubisoft Connect Issues in The Division 2

Some players have had trouble getting into The Division 2 due to the Ubisoft Connect launcher. Here are a few workaround the community has discovered:

  • Delete the Proton Files. Deleting the Proton files will force Ubisoft Connect to reinstall updates, which some players report has fixed their login troubles.

  • Execute a script from Desktop Mode. If you're getting an error message stating "Connection Lost - a Ubisoft service is currently unavailable.", then go into Desktop Mode and run the Konsole. Then type in and run the following:

echo net.ipv4.tcp_mtu_probing=1 | sudo tee /etc/sysctl.d/custom-mtu-probing.conf

Once you're in, The Division 2 runs great with framerates consistently in the 40s, even when things get busy. That means we can rely on the tried and true 40 fps refresh rate limiter for time frame consistency. You'll notice lots of stuttering for the first hour or so of gameplay. That's just the Steam Deck putting together its shader cache, which is standard procedure for many AAA games on the Steam Deck. After a while, the frame drops will gradually become less intense and less frequent. Don't worry; this won't happen every time you run the game.

Recommended — Balanced Settings (Native@40fps | ~2h30m)

These settings will give you a great balance of visual fidelity and framerate performance. The Steam Deck easily manages framerates higher than 40, so we set the refresh rate and frame limiter to 40 in the Steam Deck performance menu. This should give us more consistent frame times, resulting in a stabler, more enjoyable shooting experience than if we left the framerate uncapped.

Graphics Settings
Graphics Quality Medium
V-Sync On
Frame Rate Limit Off
Shadow Quality Medium
Spot Shadows Medium
Contact Shadows Off
Resolution Scale 100%
Sharpening 5*
Particle Detail Medium
Volumetric Fog Low
Reflection Quality Medium
Local Reflection Quality Low
Vegetation Quality Medium
Sub-Surface Scattering Off
Anisotropic Filtering 16X
Parallax Mapping Yes
Ambient Occlusion Medium
Depth of Field Off*
Object Detail 5
Extra Streaming Distance 0
Neutral Lighting Off*
Lens Flar On*
Vignette Effect Off*
Chromatic Abberation Off*
Projected Texture Resolution 128
High Resolution Sky Textures No
Terrain Quality Medium
Anti-aliasing Medium
*Set to personal preference.
Steam Deck Performance Menu Settings
Refresh Rate 40
Framerate Limit 40
Allow Tearing On
Half Rate Shading Off
Thermal Power (TDP) Limit Off
Manual GPU Clock Control Off
Scaling Filter Linear

Performance Settings (Native@60fps | 2h30m)

In most shooters, a higher framerate just feels better. The Division 2 is no exception. So, if you don't mind giving up graphics quality, the Deck can give you a mostly stable and fully playable 60 frames per second if you use these settings.

Graphics Settings
Graphics Quality Low
V-Sync Off
Frame Rate Limit Off
Shadow Quality Low
Spot Shadows Low
Contact Shadows Off
Resolution Scale 75%
Sharpening 5*
Particle Detail Low
Volumetric Fog Low
Reflection Quality Low
Local Reflection Quality Low
Vegetation Quality Low
Sub-Surface Scattering Off
Anisotropic Filtering 1X
Parallax Mapping No
Ambient Occlusion Low
Depth of Field Off*
Object Detail 5
Extra Streaming Distance 0
Neutral Lighting Off*
Lens Flar On*
Vignette Effect Off*
Chromatic Abberation Off*
Projected Texture Resolution 128
High Resolution Sky Textures No
Terrain Quality Low
Anti-aliasing Low
*Set to personal preference.
Steam Deck Performance Menu Settings
Refresh Rate 60
Framerate Limit 60
Allow Tearing On
Half Rate Shading Off
Thermal Power (TDP) Limit Off
Manual GPU Clock Control Off
Scaling Filter Linear