Fallout 76 is seeing a resurgence in players due to the Fallout TV show, which means many people (myself included) are wondering if the game can run on Steam Deck and, if so, what the best settings are. Here's how to make sure your game runs smoothly on your Steam Deck.
Can Fallout 76 run on the Steam Deck?
When you look The Fallout 76 Steam Page, the game is shown as “playable.” This means that the game should work on any Steam Deck, but it might have some issues. For example, the page mentions that you might need to pull up the virtual keyboard to type, or you might have trouble reading the text on the screen
Overall, it looks like the game should run on the Steam Deck without game-breaking issues. I haven't had any issues with the game so far, but I haven't played with other players so I haven't needed the keyboard much at all. In fact, I enjoyed the game on the Steam Deck more than on my PlayStation, just because I can play it anywhere without sacrificing much.
Related: Fallout 76 Error During Bethesda.net Login – How To Fix
Best settings for Fallout 76 on the Steam Deck
Honestly, the game runs great without changing any important settings. I just changed the in-game settings for certain graphics, and it worked fine. If you don't care about the battery, you can turn up your settings (everything on medium settings) and keep around. 60 FPS. The downside of saving settings to medium is that you'll drain your battery quickly; my OLED lasted just over two hours at these settings.
However, most gamers will want to sacrifice some graphical fidelity to save battery. I added about an hour to my gameplay by dropping the graphics, making it worth it in the long run. If you do that, you'll still be floating around 45 FPS, which seems to be enough to play the game properly. To accomplish this, you'll want to configure the following settings:
- Resolution: 1280×800
- Texture Quality: Medium
- Water quality: Low
- Light Quality: Medium
- Shadow Quality: Low
- Shadow Distance: Low
Admittedly, the game performs extremely well for a modern MMO that isn't labeled as “compatible” by Steam. It's one of those games that I don't have to fiddle with a lot to get going, which makes it more than playable on Steam Deck in my opinion.
For more help with Fallout 76, check out All Fallout 76 Merchants and Inventories (Map) and All Fallout 76 Gulper Locations (Map).
