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The Elder Scrolls Online Gold Road was released globally on June 3, 2024. It's the latest chapter of Elder Scrolls Online (ESO) and brings a new story for its fans to enjoy. According to Steam Charts, the game is quite popular and enjoys over 15k daily active users on average. The Steam Deck handheld is one of the best devices to play Steam games like this one.
In this article, we will explore how well the Elder Scrolls Online Gold Road runs and performs on the Steam Deck.
Is Elder Scrolls Online Gold Road compatible with Steam Deck?
The answer to this burning question is a yes. The Elder Scrolls Online Gold Road runs just fine on the Steam Deck after a bit of tweaks. The game runs decently well on the handheld, but it can be improved significantly with a few changes to the graphical settings. We will show you how to do that and more, but first, let us show you how to get the game up and running on the Steam Deck.
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How to run Elder Scrolls Online Gold Road on Steam Deck
The Elder Scrolls Online has a Gold rating on the Steam Deck, thus it is verified to run well. However, after various updates, something changed, and there's a tiny hiccup now.
That said, if you follow this process, the game will be installed successfully on your Steam Deck:
- Install and run the game from Steam for the first time and you will see a screen that says "InstallAnywhere is preparing to install."
- This installer will install the launcher needed to run the game.
- Once that is over, a new screen will appear, and you will be presented with some options.
- First, it will ask you to choose a new language. Do that and tap OK on the touch screen.
- After that, the game will install the second part of the launcher and will show you some more options.
- Tap "Continue" and agree to the terms and conditions.
- Next, it may warn you that there's not enough space on the Steam Deck.
- Ignore that and continue with the installation.
- Once finished, you could be stuck on a black screen. This is a known issue and needs a restart.
- After the restart, the game will launch just fine this time.
- It will now ask if you would like to enable Accessibility mode. You must enable this setting to get the Steam Deck controller fully working.
- You can play the game now.
This is a one-time process, and upon doing it, Elder Scrolls Online runs just fine. If you miss any step, you may need to uninstall and reinstall the game again.
Best graphics settings
You need to set the right graphics settings on the game to achieve optimal performance. This is what we suggest:
- Display Mode: Fullscreen
- VSync: Off
- Texture: Medium
- Anti-Alias: FXAA
- FSR Mode: Off
- Subsampling: High
- Shadow Quality: Medium
- Screen Space Reflection Quality: Medium
- Planar Reflection Quality: Off
- Max Particle: 1024
- Particle Suppression Distance: 50
- View Distance: 35
- Ambient Occlusion: SSAO
- Grass: High
- Depth of Field: Circular
- Bloom: ON
- Distortion: ON
- Sunlight Rays: ON
- Show additional Ally effects: OFF
Performance
If you use the graphical settings recommended above, the Elder Scrolls Online Gold Road will run above 60 FPS most of the time. There could be some slight dips in the market and other areas with higher NPC count. If you want more FPS in those areas, you must turn on FSR. However, don't turn FSR on from the game setting, and instead use the Steam Deck's built-in FSR.
Are there any stutters?
Some users get random stutters in Elder Scrolls Online Gold Road, and the culprit is the ZeniMax Online Studios Launcher. To fix this, you will need to close the launcher after the game is up and running. Doing this will not hamper the gameplay or your save progression. However, you have to do this every time you launch the game.
The bottom line
The Elder Scrolls Online Gold Road runs just fine and delivers a solid 60 FPS smooth gameplay on the Steam Deck almost all the time. If you still experience some dips in performance, turn on FSR from Steam Deck's Quick Access Menu.
