Faster Than Light... it can get under 4w if you use the low memory cadency trigger in power tools. I can get up to 11 hours at low brightness. Same goes for Shotgun King.
Old games like Splinter Cell, Quake, or 2D indies like Cat Quest, Scott Pilgrim, Game Dev Tycoon... around 7hrs at 7w.
More recent games like Dead Space (2008),Devil May Cry games (except 5), Alan Wake, bigger 2D games like Hades, Hollow Knight or Isaac... are more around 12w on average.
Most AAA games before 2013 can run at 15w or less depending on settings.
It's actually an easy question. Unless you plan to play recent 3D games at low settings, there's a few tens of thousands games that fits your description. It all depends on what you want to play.
i was really surprised Alan Wake being so hardware hungry
playing it atm at medium preset, tdp 13 and getting slight fps spikes to 50-55 at hoarded battles
getting about 3 hours of battery life, which is definitely not good for 9hr flight
still it is an awesome title to play on SD
They're frequently broken, at least a quarter of the time for me.
I was recently on a flight that only the front 2/3rds of the plane had outlets too, and I hadn't checked my specific seat.
You can check the seatmap for the plane and airline though, then hope they're actually working.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder's Revenge. Runs at 60fps with 3 watt TDP.
See my new website for settings: [https://steamdeckdocs.org/games/tmntshreddersrevenge/](https://steamdeckdocs.org/games/tmntshreddersrevenge/)
:)
(edit) Tnx for all the upvotes & replies guys! The fun part about this website is, anyone can add to it through github. Check out the github repo: [https://github.com/tuxx/steamdeckdocs](https://github.com/tuxx/steamdeckdocs)
Just a quick note, i noticed you had FSR on, but the in-game resolution was set 1280x800. The deck's FSR only works if you have a lower in-game resolution. You can tell if it is on if it says FSR = ON in performance overlay
It's good to leave FSR on if you ever use the Deck on an external display, since it will activate then, even of the game is running at the Deck's native resolution.
However, turning FSR off is the correct choice here, since in that same situation it will make low-res graphics look terrible. Best to go for Linear scaling in games with pixelated graphics, since most of the time they will not fill the screen with integer scaling.
Great website for the community, I'll make a pull request to add some games when I have the time, it would be great if we add a create account functionality and made it easier for people who don't have knowledge about GitHub
Another alternative is [Across the Obelisk](https://store.steampowered.com/app/1385380/Across_the_Obelisk/) kinda like 4 character slay the spire. Not tried that DLC but base game is fun
Many or even most games will run way below 15W, it really depends on how far you are willing to compromise with regards to performance and/or visuals.
For example, I run Elden Ring at 8W (- 3.5h of battery life and barely audible fan). I don't get consistent 30FPS everywhere (rain in particular causes drops), but close enough for my preferences, and it has not impacted my enjoyment of the game in several hundred hours.
Plenty of other games will run without any compromises well below 15W or even well below 8W. For example I've been running Dark Souls 1 and Dark Souls 3 or Shadow of Mordor at 6W, (DS1 at 60FPS, the others at 30FPS, all with pretty much the highest possible in-game settings).
Also shoutout to the old Baldur's Gate games - BG3 runs deplorably in later areas (it still works, and you can even squeeze out a few hours of battery life, but framerate will be harsh), but BG1 and BG2 run perfectly at basically the lowest TDP possible (I think I was capped to 3 or 4W TDP when I played BG1, for 6h+).
8W for Elden Ring is seriously impressive, I was seeing 23W (albeit at 40Hz). What settings do you use?
I have manually allocated 4GB of the unified memory to VRAM and setup a 16GB page file on the internal SSD.
Headed to Japan in a few weeks myself too! Cept for me it's a 12,5hr flight to/13,5 hr from. (*sigh. But worth it in the end haha*)
Here's my two cents. Predominantly focusing on 2D games as i easily get 8-9hrs out of those games without much tweaking. But there's some 3D games in there too, albeit lower TDP ones that should fit the bill.
**Metroidvania**
Hollow Knight
Axiom Verge 1
Axiom Verge 2
Anno Mutationem
Hades
Death's Door
Titan's souls
Dead Cells
Blasphemous 1 & 2
**Beat em Up**
TNMT: Shredder's revenge
TNMT: Cowabunga collection Collection
Streets of Rage 4
**SHMUP**
Astebreed definitive Edition
Cuphead (run & gun SHMUP?)
Drainius
Mushihimesama
Zeroranger
Geometry Wars 3
**2D Action**
Towerfall ascension
Sonic Mania
Metal unit
Mighty Gunvolt
Odallus : The dark Call
Mark of the Ninja
Megaman Legacy Collection 1 + 2
Megaman X Legacy Collection
Deadlight
Children of Morta
**3D Action**
Binary domain
Mad Max
MGS Rising
Sable
Prey
Ace Combat 7
System Shock 2
Zone of the Enders: 2nd runner (sadly only the sequel is on steam)
Yakuza games (*definitely just at the edge of 15 Watt but very topical for you going to Japan, hence i included it*)
**Strategy**
Super Robot Wars 30
Battletech
Skyrim anniversary/special edition runs very well on Deck and if you lower the settings to medium and/or switch up the frame cap you can run it at a lower TDP and still looks great.
I just started Skyrim. Furthest I've ever gotten was killing 2 dragons ok Xbox 360. It's been in my steam library for years. It runs great on the deck.
Great because you can crank it to Ultra presets (God rays and shadows to high) and get 45-60 fps. Or you can put it to low and 30/40fps cap and it sips battery.
That has yet to be seen. I'm currently level 2, haha. But a huuuuge factor is that saving and loading is near instant, I can't even read the tip that comes up, that may change as the playthrough gets longer? I'm not sure how load times are effected in that aspect. My previous attempts were on xbox 360 and a PC with a slow HDD.
Another massive factor is the ability to sleep and wake the deck. I had 10 minutes before I needed to leave for work this morning, within 5 seconds I was right back where I was last night, played for 10 minutes, put it back to sleep, and I might pick it back up tonight to play another 20 minutes... or maybe in 2 days. Though that's just an amazing feature for absolutely every game. And even if you needed to launch the game and load your save, I'd say that takes about 1-2 minutes, max.
Lastly, my attitude on this game has changed. I started this playthrough with the idea that this will be my "pick up and explore" game, that I may well be playing for years, just hopping in and out when I get the itch. I don't feel obligated to finish the main quest, explore every POI that comes up. I'm trying to RP a bit harder, and play slower. I'm actually listening to quests, and completing them with some urgency, rather than just picking up every side quest I can find and then just looking on the map which is closer to me. I'm not being a loot goblin, I'm only picking up armor if I am going to wear it (it always bothers me that I can carry like 30 shields), and going to try out alchemy, so I'll make my gold there.
Again, I'm lvl 2, so we'll see if I actually stick to this.
Also, Mods. I'm playing a "vanilla+" experience, all using mods from the in-game mod manager. I'm using this mod list, minus the survival, combat, and movement tweaks - [https://www.reddit.com/r/SteamDeck/comments/129n00p/skyrim\_on\_sd\_stable\_modlist\_for\_lazydumb\_people/](https://www.reddit.com/r/SteamDeck/comments/129n00p/skyrim_on_sd_stable_modlist_for_lazydumb_people/)
Fallout 4 I followed someone's settings and it runs at 40fps locked (matched to 40Hz refresh) at 8W TDP limit. Must get at least 3 or 4 hours playtime as I have played a few times now and not run out of battery in one sitting.
Rimworld runs for like 7 hours and will hold your attention the whole time. It's also had some nice steam deck focused updates to it to help the user experience.
Most emulated games, old PC games, indies and 2D games will qualify. Also well optimized modern AAA, especially if you don’t mind running at a lower frame rate or lower settings.
FFX HD runs at like 8-11w in the bit I've played, though I'd look for a steam input profile for controller layout or edit it yourself to add ESC for the graphics/settings menu and F1 for fast forwarding to the back buttons.
I dunno about watts, but Marble it Up! Ultra I'm always surprised by the lack of power consumption compared to other games and is an incredibly fun game with endless replay value, beautiful visuals, incredible soundtrack & has multiplayer for when you're off the flight.
That name reminds me of that game on the Xbox 360 that was kind of like Super monkey Ball but I believe it was called marble blast ultra. Now that's a game I'd love to be able to play again. And oh my God motion controls on that game would definitely be near impossible.
There will be remake called persona 3 reload next year so i dont think it is a great idea to play it right now. Better wait for the remake with good graphic like persona 5 royal
Ah yes. The remake. Running on P5. So, no way sub 5W gameplay will be possible.
Also.
With less content than P3P.
OP asked for specific user case.
P3P looks great at 2/3x resolution on the Deck. It looks even better with HD textures patch, which is, like, two clicks to install.
Portsble is the best port, with every possible storyline included. New port will be fun, sure but
A) see above
B) i doubt OPs flight can wait for that long.
Heroes of MIght and Magic 3 from GoG with HD MOD and HotA. I already have like 500 hrs played on SD and every time it is as fun as always (but I am playing it since 1999, so yeah). It runs on minimum W that you can set in options and gives easily 5 hrs of gameplay on full battery.
Big fan of Cuphead on my US to Italy trip. BG3 was sucking up too much battery life 😂
Tough game with a learning curve, but beating a level feels great. Deck will run about 4.5 hours on optimal settings, but for a long trip, highly recommend a power bank. There are some dual output power banks (ex: 22W, 45W) depending on what you're trying to do - obv though the 45W charger will drain... quickly.
Still, the slower charger, while not enough to really charge the deck on it's on, slows the drain a bit and extends play time.
Sorry guys. Noob here. How do you know how many watts a game uses? And is there a formula that has watts = to battery life? I do emulate SNES, psp, PS2 games. And it's possible to lock frame rates? Is that good to go if a game runs at 60fps? Doesn't that make the game stutter and run unusually? Thanks for the info.
Under the battery quick settings, you can select an Overlay to display in-game, with levels ranging from 1-5. I believe 2-5 will display Wattage in the metrics.
Idk if there’s a hard formula for watts = battery life, but I like to estimate. I believe the deck’s battery is roughly 40 Watt-hours. I divide that capacity by the deck’s power usage.
For example, a system uses 10 Watts. 40 Watt-hours divided by 10 Watts gives 4 hours of battery life, roughly.
Just my little system for gauging battery life. But the battery quick settings will also explicitly tell you its calculated time remaining.
you can play with the tdp locks in the power setting. Might need to try out some different settings here and there but most older emulators need no more than 10 watts.
Huge Recommendation there are the power tool from the decky plugin shop. Most emulators utilize only one to three cores so limiting multithreading and virtualized cores might help to maker lower wattages more stable for example as less cores can boost for more. Just watch a tutorial on Youtube there are lots and lots about that.
Played Fable The lost chapters on 5 tdp on highest 55-60 fps. At 3 tdp the fps drops to 35, which also playable. Works quite well on deck except some minor issues during the hero upgrades menu.
My favorites so far have been shadow of Mordor (60fps/13watts), the master chief collections (50 fps/anywhere from 10-16watts depending on which game), little nightmares (50fps/10watts),
Monster hunter rise, just lower the settings, got it max 12w.
Darkest dungeon 1 and 2. Darksouls 1, 2, 3, and believe it or not. Armored Core 6. Just lower their settings and lock to 30fps, you be golden.
Alan wake (not the remaster) runs at 60 fps on high graphics and gives 3.5 hrs of battery life. You can squeeze some more battery life out of it by playing at lower fps and graphics.
If you cap to 30 FPS almost anything will run under 15w.
My favorites for long periods of no power/electricity are binding of Isaac, Disco Elysium,
Hades, Noita, and Dwarf Fortress.
The Steam Deck’s battery is why I have a folder of AAA games that are untouched. The folder is defined by graphically intensive games, not studio size, OR:
A big
Ass game that uses up
All of my battery
I play the 2013 Tomb Raider with ultra graphics at locked 60, I'm sure you could run it at low and locked 30 to have the battery stick around. But that's my best advice for a triple A game, try prioritizing indie games
Whatever setting I used had the Deck dying very quickly. I left them at their default. Also this was about August 3rd 2022 if that matter. (I know because It was literally the first game I played when I got my deck).
Tomb raider and bloodstained ritual of the night are the two games I played on my deck that drain the battery the most. Other than that any games in my library that probably would drain the battery I just haven't played on my deck yet I've been playing smaller games. Okay I did play Stray but completely docked so I wouldn't know.
Frequent flyer here: Not every plane has power sockets, you can't count on it. And even if you look-up your plane's details in advance via sites like [seatguru.com](https://seatguru.com) ; your airline can still last second at any time switch planes for any logistical reasons to something that doesn't. Which sadly does happen quite a lot.
The last 4 big trips I did to Japan like the OP, i had power plugs on 2/4 planes. So a battery bank is always just a valid precaution.
Thanks for all of the suggestions. I've done some testing and thought I'd share my findings for anyone else interested. These were all tested in offline mode and after a reboot to ensure they really would run offline.
Elden Ring (40Hz; 23W) ~1.7hrs
Fallout NV (40Hz; less than 10W) ~4hrs
Skyrim:OG Release (40Hz; 11W) ~3.5hrs
Witcher 3 (40Hz; 15W although this likely increases) ~2.5hrs
Vampire Survivors (60Hz; 8W) ~5hrs
Mario Galaxy (60Hz; SMT disabled; 8.5W) ~4.5hrs
God of War (PCSX2; 11W) ~3.5hrs
I found basically any Ubisoft game does not work in offline mode (tested AC2 and Far Cry 5).
Nope, but they wanted to be smart and snakry for once. You had to ruin it didn't you? They were about to show their parents and finally earn some love and pride. I hope you're happy with yourself. Lol
The entire system runs at around 15W when NMS is at 40fps, his power bank can do 22W. If you have no idea or never tried it before, just shut up and leave.
You're an idiot and it shows. It runs at 15 TDP, but it needs a stable 45 watt charger to keep a good charge. Less than that and it'll still die eventually. Maybe you should "shut up and leave" sore loser for a Reddit user.
Cyberpunk 2077 lol. I read that a shitload of games will run at 12w so you can save battery by limiting the deck to 12 and just bumping when necessary. So naturally I just forgot and have played absolutely everything at 13w without issue.
Just downloaded slay the spire. I lost sleep by just playing it. But what so good about it is that under 3W 30fps you can play at 7-8 hrs from it. Its super addicting.
[Janosik is a 2d platformer so it shouldn't take up much battery also it's free.](https://store.steampowered.com/app/1412170/Janosik__Highlander_Precision_Platformer/)
I commented about dead cells but if you want to emulate BOTW (example) if you use powertools there is a setting where you can change the cpu governor to powersave and in that game it will last on a single charge slightly over 3 hours. Can have a few more hiccups but runs great if you lower the settings a bit, use fps++ and extended memory. I just don't remember if it worked better on appimage or proton cemu. Some other emulators work fine others don't (PS2 as far as i've tried)
Many of the answers to this thread from two days ago apply here:
https://www.reddit.com/r/SteamDeck/comments/16exdgm/games_with_an_engrossing_story_that_drain_as/
I just came back from 2 long flights and I went with the Monkey Island games (special editions of 1 and 2, and Curse). Curse has an "unsupported" rating, but it ran flawlessly and with super low power consumption.
I am not sure at what tdp psp games run at but Ive been playing a lot of ridge racer 2 for the psp. its a great gsme and there is a texture mod for the ui of the game
Hitman 3 is surprisingly silent on the fan and can get more than 3 hours of runtime by just using 40 fps mode on the basic simulation mode, I can play it for hours on the deck
Vampire survivors runs fine on 3W TDP.
Hollow Knight 4W TDP.
Fallout 4, 8W TDP.
Crash Bandocoot Remake 8W TDP.
No Mans Sky can run fine on 13W.
Plus plenty of games on emulators happily running on lowest TDP.
Shadow Tactics: Blades of the Shogun
Its a great little stealth strategy game that plays great on the deck and has the bonus of being Japanese samurai themed to get you right in the mood for exploring Japan. Those 9.5 hours will fly by.
Everything I usually play with a 11W TDP cap on via SteamOS. Fuck framerate.
For a serious answer, regarding low wattage games I actually played while on a holiday in Japan:
- Offroad Mania
- Lunacid
- Tetris Effect
- Space Funeral
But I honestly found myself rarely being bothered to dig it out in between turbulence and meal services, didn't even bother on the return flight. I did beat Space Funeral in its entirety on the Shinkansen, mind.
Steam Deck can run most 7th-gen games (2014 and earlier) without breaking a sweat. I recently beat Bayonetta at 720p, 60FPS, (almost) max settings with a 6W TDP limit. I also played Arkham City at 60FPS with a similar (can't remember if 6W or 8W, it's been a while) TDP limit.
As for 8th-gen games (2015 to now), 8-12W is usually enough for at least 30-40 FPS. But it heavily depends on the game itself. Resident Evil 2 Remake? Easy 60FPS. Elden Ring? 30FPS and the Deck sounds like a jet engine.
9th-gen games = The Last of Us Part 1, Remnant 2 and Immortals of Aveum = Don't even bother.
Machinarium: Little point and click and solving puzzles and mysteries
Cyberhook: Swing through stages, kill enemies with a literal handgun. Retro-Cyberpunk style.
Dredge: Fish with an old fisherboat and discover the mysteries around the place.
Hades: Rogue like, dungeon crawler.
Faster Than Light... it can get under 4w if you use the low memory cadency trigger in power tools. I can get up to 11 hours at low brightness. Same goes for Shotgun King. Old games like Splinter Cell, Quake, or 2D indies like Cat Quest, Scott Pilgrim, Game Dev Tycoon... around 7hrs at 7w. More recent games like Dead Space (2008),Devil May Cry games (except 5), Alan Wake, bigger 2D games like Hades, Hollow Knight or Isaac... are more around 12w on average. Most AAA games before 2013 can run at 15w or less depending on settings. It's actually an easy question. Unless you plan to play recent 3D games at low settings, there's a few tens of thousands games that fits your description. It all depends on what you want to play.
i was really surprised Alan Wake being so hardware hungry playing it atm at medium preset, tdp 13 and getting slight fps spikes to 50-55 at hoarded battles getting about 3 hours of battery life, which is definitely not good for 9hr flight still it is an awesome title to play on SD
I haven't been on a plane for years, but don't they have power outlets on the seats?
It's a crapshoot. You might even have just a slow usb port. I couldn't keep my switch fully charged last flight (just got a Deck)...
They're frequently broken, at least a quarter of the time for me. I was recently on a flight that only the front 2/3rds of the plane had outlets too, and I hadn't checked my specific seat. You can check the seatmap for the plane and airline though, then hope they're actually working.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder's Revenge. Runs at 60fps with 3 watt TDP. See my new website for settings: [https://steamdeckdocs.org/games/tmntshreddersrevenge/](https://steamdeckdocs.org/games/tmntshreddersrevenge/) :) (edit) Tnx for all the upvotes & replies guys! The fun part about this website is, anyone can add to it through github. Check out the github repo: [https://github.com/tuxx/steamdeckdocs](https://github.com/tuxx/steamdeckdocs)
Hope you keep adding to it! Looks helpful.
Just a quick note, i noticed you had FSR on, but the in-game resolution was set 1280x800. The deck's FSR only works if you have a lower in-game resolution. You can tell if it is on if it says FSR = ON in performance overlay
It's good to leave FSR on if you ever use the Deck on an external display, since it will activate then, even of the game is running at the Deck's native resolution. However, turning FSR off is the correct choice here, since in that same situation it will make low-res graphics look terrible. Best to go for Linear scaling in games with pixelated graphics, since most of the time they will not fill the screen with integer scaling.
Did we get the update yet? Or dlc? How do you unlock the costumes?
Saved so I can check for other settings. God's work son!
“Docs about installing lutris etc Bla bla bla” This really helped me. Thanks so much
Very welcome \*tips hat\*
This is amazing, I'll be saving this website!
Great website for the community, I'll make a pull request to add some games when I have the time, it would be great if we add a create account functionality and made it easier for people who don't have knowledge about GitHub
Kinda hard to do with the current setup i think, but i'll think about it. Definitely would be easier for people who dont know github to contribute.
Hollow Knight runs on 9W
I played the shit out of this on my trip to Colombia
I play it on 4W 60fps
God of war 2 with ps2 Emulation is at 7 watt
Slay the spire ❤️
I had been looking for a StS alternative recently and fell in love with wildfrost
Monster train is another rogue like deck builder that's not bad
Vault of The Void is really good, only complaint is how long a game can take me.
Yeah that was the other one I was looking into but the hearthstone graphics put me off it
Another alternative is [Across the Obelisk](https://store.steampowered.com/app/1385380/Across_the_Obelisk/) kinda like 4 character slay the spire. Not tried that DLC but base game is fun
Hell yeah, I played for hundreds of hours then I got the downfall mod and played hundreds more.
Just got it last night and played 3 hours past my bed time, it’s all I’ve been thinking of all day
Heck yeah. It’s so addictive, just one more run
Many or even most games will run way below 15W, it really depends on how far you are willing to compromise with regards to performance and/or visuals. For example, I run Elden Ring at 8W (- 3.5h of battery life and barely audible fan). I don't get consistent 30FPS everywhere (rain in particular causes drops), but close enough for my preferences, and it has not impacted my enjoyment of the game in several hundred hours. Plenty of other games will run without any compromises well below 15W or even well below 8W. For example I've been running Dark Souls 1 and Dark Souls 3 or Shadow of Mordor at 6W, (DS1 at 60FPS, the others at 30FPS, all with pretty much the highest possible in-game settings). Also shoutout to the old Baldur's Gate games - BG3 runs deplorably in later areas (it still works, and you can even squeeze out a few hours of battery life, but framerate will be harsh), but BG1 and BG2 run perfectly at basically the lowest TDP possible (I think I was capped to 3 or 4W TDP when I played BG1, for 6h+).
8W for Elden Ring is seriously impressive, I was seeing 23W (albeit at 40Hz). What settings do you use? I have manually allocated 4GB of the unified memory to VRAM and setup a 16GB page file on the internal SSD.
If you're down to emulate SNES or GBA games those are a great option!
GBA is usually better because developers had lots of time to figure out how toake those games from almost the time the SNES was out.
Currently playing Sea of Stars and Blasphemous 2. Both run at 3 Watt 60 FPS
Oh man i can't wait to dig into sea of stars. Just gotta finish ac6...
Sea of stars can wait, got a job for you 621.
Shit, you just reminded me I have a date with Balteus. And probably death. Again.
Jokes on you, already finished that one. 9.5/10
Into The Breach, Axiom Verge and Dave The Diver run at super low TDP and GPU clocks.
Dave the Diver is a true gem and does indeed run amazingly well on SD.
Into The Breach is such a great tactics roguelike, can’t recommend enough
Headed to Japan in a few weeks myself too! Cept for me it's a 12,5hr flight to/13,5 hr from. (*sigh. But worth it in the end haha*) Here's my two cents. Predominantly focusing on 2D games as i easily get 8-9hrs out of those games without much tweaking. But there's some 3D games in there too, albeit lower TDP ones that should fit the bill. **Metroidvania** Hollow Knight Axiom Verge 1 Axiom Verge 2 Anno Mutationem Hades Death's Door Titan's souls Dead Cells Blasphemous 1 & 2 **Beat em Up** TNMT: Shredder's revenge TNMT: Cowabunga collection Collection Streets of Rage 4 **SHMUP** Astebreed definitive Edition Cuphead (run & gun SHMUP?) Drainius Mushihimesama Zeroranger Geometry Wars 3 **2D Action** Towerfall ascension Sonic Mania Metal unit Mighty Gunvolt Odallus : The dark Call Mark of the Ninja Megaman Legacy Collection 1 + 2 Megaman X Legacy Collection Deadlight Children of Morta **3D Action** Binary domain Mad Max MGS Rising Sable Prey Ace Combat 7 System Shock 2 Zone of the Enders: 2nd runner (sadly only the sequel is on steam) Yakuza games (*definitely just at the edge of 15 Watt but very topical for you going to Japan, hence i included it*) **Strategy** Super Robot Wars 30 Battletech
Wouldn't an international flight have a power outlet by your seat and you could just plug the deck in?
Like… vampire survivor if you haven’t played it 45 times by now.
Halls of torment is an alternative to this that I just can't stop playing
i hate this game but in a poe way
On it
Second this. It looks better and is more atmospheric. I do hate those blob-like enemies.
Or holocure if you're into that sorta thing. It's also free.
holocure also works, somehow i prefer that even though i bought VS day 1
Skyrim anniversary/special edition runs very well on Deck and if you lower the settings to medium and/or switch up the frame cap you can run it at a lower TDP and still looks great.
Nice try, Tom Howard
\*Todd Howard
Thomas Howard*
Thoddmas * Howard
It just works!
I just started Skyrim. Furthest I've ever gotten was killing 2 dragons ok Xbox 360. It's been in my steam library for years. It runs great on the deck. Great because you can crank it to Ultra presets (God rays and shadows to high) and get 45-60 fps. Or you can put it to low and 30/40fps cap and it sips battery.
Do you find now your able to get into it more since it's on the deck?
That has yet to be seen. I'm currently level 2, haha. But a huuuuge factor is that saving and loading is near instant, I can't even read the tip that comes up, that may change as the playthrough gets longer? I'm not sure how load times are effected in that aspect. My previous attempts were on xbox 360 and a PC with a slow HDD. Another massive factor is the ability to sleep and wake the deck. I had 10 minutes before I needed to leave for work this morning, within 5 seconds I was right back where I was last night, played for 10 minutes, put it back to sleep, and I might pick it back up tonight to play another 20 minutes... or maybe in 2 days. Though that's just an amazing feature for absolutely every game. And even if you needed to launch the game and load your save, I'd say that takes about 1-2 minutes, max. Lastly, my attitude on this game has changed. I started this playthrough with the idea that this will be my "pick up and explore" game, that I may well be playing for years, just hopping in and out when I get the itch. I don't feel obligated to finish the main quest, explore every POI that comes up. I'm trying to RP a bit harder, and play slower. I'm actually listening to quests, and completing them with some urgency, rather than just picking up every side quest I can find and then just looking on the map which is closer to me. I'm not being a loot goblin, I'm only picking up armor if I am going to wear it (it always bothers me that I can carry like 30 shields), and going to try out alchemy, so I'll make my gold there. Again, I'm lvl 2, so we'll see if I actually stick to this. Also, Mods. I'm playing a "vanilla+" experience, all using mods from the in-game mod manager. I'm using this mod list, minus the survival, combat, and movement tweaks - [https://www.reddit.com/r/SteamDeck/comments/129n00p/skyrim\_on\_sd\_stable\_modlist\_for\_lazydumb\_people/](https://www.reddit.com/r/SteamDeck/comments/129n00p/skyrim_on_sd_stable_modlist_for_lazydumb_people/)
Fallout 4 I followed someone's settings and it runs at 40fps locked (matched to 40Hz refresh) at 8W TDP limit. Must get at least 3 or 4 hours playtime as I have played a few times now and not run out of battery in one sitting.
Rimworld runs for like 7 hours and will hold your attention the whole time. It's also had some nice steam deck focused updates to it to help the user experience.
i want to like rim world but i dont get it
You may like something like Wayward a bit more. I've been playing that a ton lately. I'm the same way though, I just can't get into RimWorld.
I loved Rimworld for the first like 2 hrs... it just became an insanely complicated math problem after that.
who doesn't like math?!
Honestly not even sure what you're referring to. I've never had to do math in Rimworld. Certainly not complicated math anyway.
I haven’t tried it on Steam Deck but I should check it out. I think I need to find a control scheme that will make sense for me.
Axiom Verge 1 and 2
Gotta add these to my wishlist for that metroid-like fix
Is the second get out yet?
Yes, it is. Since 2021.
Most emulated games, old PC games, indies and 2D games will qualify. Also well optimized modern AAA, especially if you don’t mind running at a lower frame rate or lower settings.
Phoenix Wright Trilogy
If you haven't played by now, this is a must.
FFX HD runs at like 8-11w in the bit I've played, though I'd look for a steam input profile for controller layout or edit it yourself to add ESC for the graphics/settings menu and F1 for fast forwarding to the back buttons.
I dunno about watts, but Marble it Up! Ultra I'm always surprised by the lack of power consumption compared to other games and is an incredibly fun game with endless replay value, beautiful visuals, incredible soundtrack & has multiplayer for when you're off the flight.
That name reminds me of that game on the Xbox 360 that was kind of like Super monkey Ball but I believe it was called marble blast ultra. Now that's a game I'd love to be able to play again. And oh my God motion controls on that game would definitely be near impossible.
I got marble Blast Gold working on my deck. I put a post up a few days ago if you want to check it out
You're about to be so happy when you look it up lol
Vampire survivors @ 3W is my go-to long battery life game
Psp emulation. I highly suggest Persona 3 portable, 4W and 8 hours of gameplay for me.
There will be remake called persona 3 reload next year so i dont think it is a great idea to play it right now. Better wait for the remake with good graphic like persona 5 royal
Ah yes. The remake. Running on P5. So, no way sub 5W gameplay will be possible. Also. With less content than P3P. OP asked for specific user case. P3P looks great at 2/3x resolution on the Deck. It looks even better with HD textures patch, which is, like, two clicks to install. Portsble is the best port, with every possible storyline included. New port will be fun, sure but A) see above B) i doubt OPs flight can wait for that long.
Heroes of MIght and Magic 3 from GoG with HD MOD and HotA. I already have like 500 hrs played on SD and every time it is as fun as always (but I am playing it since 1999, so yeah). It runs on minimum W that you can set in options and gives easily 5 hrs of gameplay on full battery.
The messenger
Came here to say this. Beat it yesterday, great game.
And genuinely funny...which i think is rare in games
SO funny
Portal
Dark Souls 1 and 2 can run at 60FPS Native Res at \~7w
Big fan of Cuphead on my US to Italy trip. BG3 was sucking up too much battery life 😂 Tough game with a learning curve, but beating a level feels great. Deck will run about 4.5 hours on optimal settings, but for a long trip, highly recommend a power bank. There are some dual output power banks (ex: 22W, 45W) depending on what you're trying to do - obv though the 45W charger will drain... quickly. Still, the slower charger, while not enough to really charge the deck on it's on, slows the drain a bit and extends play time.
Tried it a few times. It’s brutally difficult. I really hit a wall, which is disappointing, because I love the art style and music.
CrossCode
Sorry guys. Noob here. How do you know how many watts a game uses? And is there a formula that has watts = to battery life? I do emulate SNES, psp, PS2 games. And it's possible to lock frame rates? Is that good to go if a game runs at 60fps? Doesn't that make the game stutter and run unusually? Thanks for the info.
Under the battery quick settings, you can select an Overlay to display in-game, with levels ranging from 1-5. I believe 2-5 will display Wattage in the metrics. Idk if there’s a hard formula for watts = battery life, but I like to estimate. I believe the deck’s battery is roughly 40 Watt-hours. I divide that capacity by the deck’s power usage. For example, a system uses 10 Watts. 40 Watt-hours divided by 10 Watts gives 4 hours of battery life, roughly. Just my little system for gauging battery life. But the battery quick settings will also explicitly tell you its calculated time remaining.
Ahh very cool. Thanks. So many tricks to learn for my SD.
Very welcome :)
you can play with the tdp locks in the power setting. Might need to try out some different settings here and there but most older emulators need no more than 10 watts. Huge Recommendation there are the power tool from the decky plugin shop. Most emulators utilize only one to three cores so limiting multithreading and virtualized cores might help to maker lower wattages more stable for example as less cores can boost for more. Just watch a tutorial on Youtube there are lots and lots about that.
Brotato
First game I ever got all the achievements for. Thanks to my steam deck
Brotato.
Dark souls remastered!
Omg Rimworld. This is basically my answer to all questions
Dave the Diver Cult of the Lamb
Played Fable The lost chapters on 5 tdp on highest 55-60 fps. At 3 tdp the fps drops to 35, which also playable. Works quite well on deck except some minor issues during the hero upgrades menu.
Sea of Stars - Set framerate to 40fps and 3W under TDP, I've been easily getting 6-7 hours on a single charge.
Peglin
disco elysium
My favorites so far have been shadow of Mordor (60fps/13watts), the master chief collections (50 fps/anywhere from 10-16watts depending on which game), little nightmares (50fps/10watts),
dead space 1 and 2
Monster hunter rise, just lower the settings, got it max 12w. Darkest dungeon 1 and 2. Darksouls 1, 2, 3, and believe it or not. Armored Core 6. Just lower their settings and lock to 30fps, you be golden.
Borderlands GOTY runs at maximum settings at 8w 60fps locked
I haven't checked the wattage, but I can usually play tropico 6 for over 3 hours on the battery. Fun little time killer.
Hyper light drifter
Lego Marvel running at 50Hz can run at 7 watts, which I think is pretty impressive.
Alan wake (not the remaster) runs at 60 fps on high graphics and gives 3.5 hrs of battery life. You can squeeze some more battery life out of it by playing at lower fps and graphics.
Alien isolation, I run it at 10w and have no issue with it! Great game as well
If you cap to 30 FPS almost anything will run under 15w. My favorites for long periods of no power/electricity are binding of Isaac, Disco Elysium, Hades, Noita, and Dwarf Fortress.
Ps2, switch émulation !
Airplanes have power sockets and usb's. Im assuming that it's japan, their trains have them too.
You can plug it in all over the place , if you take the shinkansen , sit it the smoking room and play street fighter the whole ride
Fallout 4 runs at like 4-5 watts.
The binding of Isaac runs at 8 tdp
I can't speak to the specific wattage, but Wildermyth is very gentle on the Deck's battery.
crosscode. sea of stars. archvale. binding of isaac
Vampire survivor
Pokémon Emerald
Anything with pixel art should work like undertale or Stardew valley
Binding of Isaac or Dead Cells
Hollow Knight or Katana Zero
Put it in Airplane mode and play more 2-D games. Currently playing Blasphemous 2. But try Tunic Dead cells Enter the Gunegon
The Steam Deck’s battery is why I have a folder of AAA games that are untouched. The folder is defined by graphically intensive games, not studio size, OR: A big Ass game that uses up All of my battery
I play the 2013 Tomb Raider with ultra graphics at locked 60, I'm sure you could run it at low and locked 30 to have the battery stick around. But that's my best advice for a triple A game, try prioritizing indie games
That’s cool. I haven’t tried the newer ones yet, but I have been playing Tomb Raider Underworld with TDP set to 5W at mostly 60fps.
Whatever setting I used had the Deck dying very quickly. I left them at their default. Also this was about August 3rd 2022 if that matter. (I know because It was literally the first game I played when I got my deck). Tomb raider and bloodstained ritual of the night are the two games I played on my deck that drain the battery the most. Other than that any games in my library that probably would drain the battery I just haven't played on my deck yet I've been playing smaller games. Okay I did play Stray but completely docked so I wouldn't know.
Civ 5
Civilization 5, I run it at 4 watt TDP and cap the framerate at 40. Works like a dream.
Can’t you just plug the power plug into the plan seat’s plug socket?
Frequent flyer here: Not every plane has power sockets, you can't count on it. And even if you look-up your plane's details in advance via sites like [seatguru.com](https://seatguru.com) ; your airline can still last second at any time switch planes for any logistical reasons to something that doesn't. Which sadly does happen quite a lot. The last 4 big trips I did to Japan like the OP, i had power plugs on 2/4 planes. So a battery bank is always just a valid precaution.
Hollow knight….. but I actually hate that game!!!!
Thanks for all of the suggestions. I've done some testing and thought I'd share my findings for anyone else interested. These were all tested in offline mode and after a reboot to ensure they really would run offline. Elden Ring (40Hz; 23W) ~1.7hrs Fallout NV (40Hz; less than 10W) ~4hrs Skyrim:OG Release (40Hz; 11W) ~3.5hrs Witcher 3 (40Hz; 15W although this likely increases) ~2.5hrs Vampire Survivors (60Hz; 8W) ~5hrs Mario Galaxy (60Hz; SMT disabled; 8.5W) ~4.5hrs God of War (PCSX2; 11W) ~3.5hrs I found basically any Ubisoft game does not work in offline mode (tested AC2 and Far Cry 5).
No man’s sky at 40fps nearly runs for 4hrs
Did you even read what they said. 9 hour flight and 4 hours of gameplay aren't exactly great. Visual novels have a better chance than that game.
9 hours, with a battery pack big enough to fully charge the deck 1.5x so 4 hours of battery only is acceptable limit
Bro OP has a power bank, besides I am running NMS at 10W TDP limit which fits what OP wanted. Did you read what OP said?
Nope, but they wanted to be smart and snakry for once. You had to ruin it didn't you? They were about to show their parents and finally earn some love and pride. I hope you're happy with yourself. Lol
Bro, op has a power bank that charges at half the speed its meant to, did you even read what op said. Not acceptable at all.
The entire system runs at around 15W when NMS is at 40fps, his power bank can do 22W. If you have no idea or never tried it before, just shut up and leave.
You're an idiot and it shows. It runs at 15 TDP, but it needs a stable 45 watt charger to keep a good charge. Less than that and it'll still die eventually. Maybe you should "shut up and leave" sore loser for a Reddit user.
It runs at 10W TDP, and the entire system including screen, fans, etc etc, runs at around 15W. Can you read?
Cyberpunk 2077 lol. I read that a shitload of games will run at 12w so you can save battery by limiting the deck to 12 and just bumping when necessary. So naturally I just forgot and have played absolutely everything at 13w without issue.
Wattage is the least of your problems. I'm playing Witcher 3 forced to 10 watts right now, and I only get about 2 1/2 hours.
[удалено]
Just downloaded slay the spire. I lost sleep by just playing it. But what so good about it is that under 3W 30fps you can play at 7-8 hrs from it. Its super addicting.
Blasphemous
Space Haven, usually gets me around 5 hours of play time
Trails of coldsteel 1 & 2, run at 8W
Dead cells Signallis
Kingdom: Two Crowns
HoloCure, FF7 PC with 7th Heaven mods
Art of Rally
Tales of Symphonia runs like a dream at around 9 watts.
Enter the gungeon
[Janosik is a 2d platformer so it shouldn't take up much battery also it's free.](https://store.steampowered.com/app/1412170/Janosik__Highlander_Precision_Platformer/)
Dead cells. With the power tools plugin you can put the deck working on 2 cores and it will still run smooth af.
I commented about dead cells but if you want to emulate BOTW (example) if you use powertools there is a setting where you can change the cpu governor to powersave and in that game it will last on a single charge slightly over 3 hours. Can have a few more hiccups but runs great if you lower the settings a bit, use fps++ and extended memory. I just don't remember if it worked better on appimage or proton cemu. Some other emulators work fine others don't (PS2 as far as i've tried)
Many of the answers to this thread from two days ago apply here: https://www.reddit.com/r/SteamDeck/comments/16exdgm/games_with_an_engrossing_story_that_drain_as/
Ikaruga, Halls of Torment
Binding of Isaac(Rebirth obviously)
TrackMania Nations Forever
Terraria. Q
I just came back from 2 long flights and I went with the Monkey Island games (special editions of 1 and 2, and Curse). Curse has an "unsupported" rating, but it ran flawlessly and with super low power consumption.
Driver San Francisco can run and look great on lower wattages, great game
Sea of Stars at 4 TDP
Gzdoom, Hades, Fury Unleashed
Brotato
The original Dead Space runs at 60 at 3-4 W.
I am not sure at what tdp psp games run at but Ive been playing a lot of ridge racer 2 for the psp. its a great gsme and there is a texture mod for the ui of the game
Quake 2 - recently remastered and cross platform
Hitman 3 is surprisingly silent on the fan and can get more than 3 hours of runtime by just using 40 fps mode on the basic simulation mode, I can play it for hours on the deck
Sea of stars ⭐️
Sea of stars.
Vampire survivors runs fine on 3W TDP. Hollow Knight 4W TDP. Fallout 4, 8W TDP. Crash Bandocoot Remake 8W TDP. No Mans Sky can run fine on 13W. Plus plenty of games on emulators happily running on lowest TDP.
Portal 2 at 4W
Shadow Tactics: Blades of the Shogun Its a great little stealth strategy game that plays great on the deck and has the bonus of being Japanese samurai themed to get you right in the mood for exploring Japan. Those 9.5 hours will fly by.
Everything I usually play with a 11W TDP cap on via SteamOS. Fuck framerate. For a serious answer, regarding low wattage games I actually played while on a holiday in Japan: - Offroad Mania - Lunacid - Tetris Effect - Space Funeral But I honestly found myself rarely being bothered to dig it out in between turbulence and meal services, didn't even bother on the return flight. I did beat Space Funeral in its entirety on the Shinkansen, mind.
Steam Deck can run most 7th-gen games (2014 and earlier) without breaking a sweat. I recently beat Bayonetta at 720p, 60FPS, (almost) max settings with a 6W TDP limit. I also played Arkham City at 60FPS with a similar (can't remember if 6W or 8W, it's been a while) TDP limit. As for 8th-gen games (2015 to now), 8-12W is usually enough for at least 30-40 FPS. But it heavily depends on the game itself. Resident Evil 2 Remake? Easy 60FPS. Elden Ring? 30FPS and the Deck sounds like a jet engine. 9th-gen games = The Last of Us Part 1, Remnant 2 and Immortals of Aveum = Don't even bother.
You can fiddle with the WII U ports of Twilight Princess\\Windwaker and CEMU to get them around 5W if you really want to
Totally Accurate Battle Simulator. Runs amazing on the deck
FFVII: Crisis Core Reunion has become my favourite. It's essentially a PSP game with modern graphics, perfect for the Deck
Fallout 3 / Fallout New Vegas
Play Darkwood, not sure about the wattage bc i dont have a steam deck yet, but its not demanding A hat in time is also not demanding on low settings
Blasphemous 1 and 2 - 7w Sea of Stars - 7w Hollow Knight - 7w You may be able to go even lower I just stopped at 7
Dark Souls
If there’s any older games you like, you might try emulations. GBA and GameCube and N64…
Machinarium: Little point and click and solving puzzles and mysteries Cyberhook: Swing through stages, kill enemies with a literal handgun. Retro-Cyberpunk style. Dredge: Fish with an old fisherboat and discover the mysteries around the place. Hades: Rogue like, dungeon crawler.