Best Deadlock PC & Steam Deck settings for FPS: How to get the best performance

❘ Published: 2024-08-26T06:54:35

Valve

In a competitive game like Deadlock, it is crucial to dial in the best settings to get the best performance on PC and Steam Deck. So, here is everything you need to know.

After months in a not-so-secret playtest, Valve has finally acknowledged Deadlock, allowing the world to see the hero shooter MOBA crossover in an early form.

With the stamp of approval from its enigmatic devs, Deadlock has already gained considerable hype, with thousands of players already online.

If you’re one of those lucky players who managed to gain access to the playtest, you may notice there are some performance issues, no surprise since it’s in very early access.

So, here are the best settings to get as much FPS as you can from the game.

Best video settings

Here are the best settings to maximize your FPS in Deadlock:

Window Mode: Borderless Window
Aspect Ratio: 16×9
Resolution: Preferably 1920 x 1080 on 144 Hz to 240 Hz
Upscaling: Stretch
Render Quality: 70%
Anti-Aliasing: None
Screen Space AO: Low
Distance Field AO: Low
Texture Quality: Low
VSync: Off
Distance Field Shadows: Off
Displacement Mapping: Off
Post Process Bloom: Off
Effects Bloom: Off
Area Lights: Off
Depth of Field: Off
Distance Field Reflections: Off
MBOIT: Off

Screenshot of the Deadlock video settings.

Depending on your PC specs, you can expect to at least get triple-digit FPS, although fair warning the graphics won’t look the prettiest.

With these settings, you’ll be able to squeeze as much FPS as you can from your PC with as low a latency as possible.

As for the Resolution, it would be best if you had a monitor that is 1920 x 1080 with a refresh rate of at least 144 Hz or better, but we understand not everybody has that. Regardless, do at least choose the 1920 x 1080 option and use the highest refresh rate your monitor can handle.

However, if you do want to tweak these settings to make things look nicer, Valve helpfully added descriptions of what each setting does. This will let you choose whether or not you need to turn an option up higher depending on what you want to stand out.

Best Steam Deck settings

Below you can find the best Steam Deck settings for Deadlock:

Resolution: Use Native Resolution
Rendering: Direct3D 11 (-dx11)
Upscaling Technology: Stretch
Render Quality: 70%
Anti-Aliasing: FXAA
Screen Space AO: Off
Distance Field AO: Off
Texture Quality: Med
VSync: Off (Unselected)

Standard matchmaking is currently unsupported on Steam Deck. However, there is a workaround. Go to Deadlock in your Steam library and select Properties > General > Launch Options.

Here, in the launch options text box, bring up the built-in keyboard and type:
SteamDeck=0 %command%

Despite this fix, Deadlock still isn’t optimized for Steam Deck. (Which is likely why matching was unsupported in the first place.)

First off, Deadlock doesn’t have controller support on Steam Deck. This makes playing the FPS on Steam Deck incredibly awkward.

Even while browsing through various recommended, or community-created, button layouts, the game’s tutorials will reference the PC controls making it difficult to progress and play.

Custom photo of Deadlock running on a Steam Deck OLED.

At the default settings, the game also runs anywhere between 25-30 FPS on the handheld — not ideal for a first-person shooter. It’s also a huge battery drain, only producing up to 2 hours of playtime on a fully-charged OLED model Deck.

Our recommended best settings can help improve the performance on Steam Deck further, with the FPS boosted to an average 45 to 50 FPS.

However, with the game still in early development, we’d recommend waiting for Valve to finish working on optimizing the brand-new FPS for its own hardware.

Best audio settings

Below you can find the best audio settings for Deadlock:

Master Volume: Your preference
Game Sound: 100%
Menu Music Volume: Your Preference
Voice Chat Volume: 50%
Speaker Configuration: Headphones
Mic Trigger Threshold: 0%
Open Mic: Off
Push To Talk: V

Screenshot of the Deadlock audio settings.

Audio is quite personal, so don’t take this as gospel, but rather as a template to start finding the right settings that work for you.

We’ve left the Master and Menu Music volumes up to you as everyone has their own preference. We’ve completely turned off the Menu Music and have the Master at 85%, but it will be different for you.

Additionally, we’ve left the Mic Trigger Threshold at 0% and turned off Open Mic. This is just so you aren’t disturbing your teammates with unwanted noises that other players won’t want transmitting into the game.

We’ve also changed the default Push To Talk button to V from the default T because most players are used to having V as their mic button.

Other than that, all these settings are just suggestions and you don’t need to follow them exactly, so make sure you experiment a little. You can also check out our mouse and keyboard settings guide if you haven’t set up your keybinds and sensitivity just yet.