Steam Deck Optimized Settings

Note: the gameplay video above is captured with an AVerMedia X'Tra Go GC515 dock/capture device, which doesn't affect performance in any way. What you see is what you'll experience on your device.

As you've probably seen in the Performance section of this review, things aren't rosy on Steam Deck. Enabling upscaling is a must, and we managed to get a relatively stable 30 FPS experience by opting for the "Very Low" preset, manually changing the "Traffic Density" and "Crowd Density" options to "Low" (they're both set to "Medium" even on the "Very Low" preset), and setting upscaling to "Performance." We strongly suggest not opting for the "Ultra Performance" preset for upscalers that support it because the game looks extremely muddy in that case.


We opted for the IGTI upscaler because, personally, it looks better than FSR and XeSS. The image has fewer temporal artifacts and is less fuzzy than FSR and XeSS, but, on the other hand, the shimmering on wire fences and similar objects is more pronounced with IGTI compared to FSR and XeSS.

At the end of the day, the performance is very similar no matter which upscaler you choose, so we recommend testing each one and settling for the one that looks the best to you.


So, with the "Very Low" preset applied and using the "Performance" preset of the upscaler of your choice, you can expect an almost stable 30 FPS experience. And if you're thinking about using FSR Frame Generation, don't. While it makes the game look a bit more fluid the latency hit isn't worth it, especially if you plan to play on higher difficulties where Frame Generation can mess up your dodge and parry timings.

Now, we usually don't find this level of performance playable, but thanks to the game being played from the third-person perspective, the frame times being pretty stable on SteamOS, and the gameplay feeling rather fluid even at 30 FPS, our verdict is that Marvel's Spider-Man 2 is playable on Steam Deck, if barely.


That said, not all gamers will find this level of performance and image quality passable. We recommend testing the game during the two-hour Steam refund period and then either keep playing or refunding if you find it unplayable. Luckily, the opening sequence is quite demanding, so if you find it playable, the rest of the game should be playable as well.

Regarding battery life, the game uses all the power available, resulting in about an hour and a half of battery life on Steam Deck LCD and just over two hours on Steam Deck OLED.