Path of Exile 2 has arrived and with over 1 million players redeeming their Early Access keys it's looking to be a busy weekend. In fact, when the game went live its servers overloaded and crashed, but given it's popularity that's to be expected.
Thankfully, things have settled down, and I’ve had the chance to dive into Path of Exile 2 on my Steam Deck. While it’s not officially Steam Deck Verified yet, the developers are actively working toward this milestone. In the meantime, the game is playable—at least in the early game (the late-game performance with its intensive visual effects is still up for debate). Here are the Path of Exile 2 Steam Deck settings I’ve found work best for balancing performance and visuals.
How to play Path of Exile 2 on Steam Deck
These may get tweaked as I play more of the game, but for now these are the best settings I've found for playing Path of Exile 2 on Steam Deck.
- Renderer: DirectX12
- Mode: Full screen
- VSync: Off
- Dynamic Resolution: Off
- Resolution: 1280x800
- Upscale Mode: FSR
- Image Quality: Quality
- Sharpness: 55%
- HDR: Off
- Scene Brightness: +3
- UI Brightness: +4
- Texture Quality: Medium
- Lighting: Shadows
- Shadow Quality: Low
- Sun Shadow Quality: Low
- Number of Lights: Medium
- Bloom: 100%
- Water detail: High
- Nvidia reflex: Off
- Triple Buffering: On
- Dynamic Culling: On
- Target Framerate: 38
- Engine Multithreading: On
Additionally, you’ll want to adjust the HUD Scale in the Interface settings, setting it to maximum for better readability. Unfortunately, there’s currently no option to increase the size of in-game text (aside from chat), but this will hopefully be addressed once the game is officially Steam Deck Verified.
As a longtime Diablo fan, I’m rooting for Path of Exile 2 to succeed across all platforms. With these settings, I’m hopeful the game will run smoothly even as my character becomes an unstoppable force of destruction. Fingers crossed for both Path of Exile 2 and its Steam Deck optimization!
I've purchased Path of Exile 2 on Steam. Why can't I see it in my library?
You need to log into the Path of Exile website, go to your account and Early Access, here you will find your keys for Steam and Epic Games.
