How to play Genshin Impact on Steam Deck & best settings

Genshin Impact runs great on the Steam Deck, as long as you don’t mind 45FPS. The open-world nature of the game means that it’s a little harder to run. However, it does run smoothly once you’ve got it set correctly.

It used to be a bit of a headache to install it on the Steam Deck. Thankfully, Non-Steam Launchers is here to save the day. With this, it handles installs and integrates it smoothly into the Deck’s gaming mode. 

What is Non-Steam Launchers?

Non-Steam Launchers is an additional piece of software that handles installing non-Steam launchers. This includes Epic Games, EA, and Ubisoft. 

More interestingly, it now supports HoyoPlayer, MiHoYo’s own launcher. This means you don’t need to install Epic Games to access the title – which just installs a version of the HoyoPlayer anyway. 

If you have Decky, the store has a Non-Steam Launchers plugin for you to download. This works the same, but handles everything in Gaming Mode, rather than on desktop.

How to install Genshin Impact on Steam Deck

Here’s a very quick rundown of installing NSL on your Steam Deck and using either the HoyoPlayer or Epic Games:

1. In gaming mode go to the desktop by pressing the Steam button
2. Choose Power and choose “Switch to Desktop”
3. Navigate to NonSteamLauncher’s GitHub page
4. Hit the big colorful download button
5. Save the file to the desktop for safekeeping
6. Double click and hit execute
7. When the menu appears, update or install Proton-GE 
8. Let it restart
9. When presented with a list of options, you can go with the HoyoPlayer, or through Epic Games
10. Head back to gaming mode via the icon on the desktop or by restarting the device
11. Everything will be listed under “Non-Steam games” in your library

Best Steam Deck settings for Genshin Impact

HoYoverse

Genshin Impact differs a little from the smaller Zenless Zone Zero. As such, you’ll need to set the game to low graphical settings and use AMD’s supersampling, FSR 2.

The game’s open world will mean that you’ll need to limit the frame rate to get a smooth experience. We recommend 45FPS, but you can put it down to 30 for additional battery life.

• Graphics Quality: Custom
• FPS: 45
• V-Sync: On 
• Render Resolution: 0.8-1.0
  • Lowering will make the game uglier, but will help performance
• Anti-Aliasing: FSR 2

Everything else you can turn off, and set to Low. 

Will you get banned from Genshin Impact for playing on Linux & Steam Deck?

Dexerto

It’s highly unlikely that you’ll be banned from Genshin Impact if you play on Linux or the Steam Deck.

There’s been a few reports of bans happening to Linux players. More often than not, it’ll be because they’ve cheated in some capacity. 

We’ve been playing both Zenless Zone Zero and Genshin Impact on the Steam Deck for a while now. So far, no bans.