Spider-Man Remastered is now out on PC – but it’s on Steam Deck that it really impresses.
What a world we live in. While Microsoft putting its Xbox games on PC is now the new normal, Sony has also been bringing some of its biggest PlayStation games to PC as well.
While we’ve had to wait a bit longer for Sony games to appear on PC, it has usually been worth it, as so far modern PlayStation PC ports have come with improved visuals and PC-exclusive features, such as support for ultrawide monitors, and Nvidia DLSS upscaling, amongst others, often putting Microsoft’s efforts to shame.
Spider-Man Remastered is the latest PlayStation exclusive to come to PC, and as with previous ports, such as God of War, not only does this game come with plenty features that make the most out of our powerful gaming PCs, but it is also certified for the Steam Deck handheld console.
This is particularly exciting, as it means we can play a visually-impressive, open-world, super-hero game on a portable device. Having played through Spider-Man on the PS4 Pro, and loved it, I was keen to see just how well it would play on my Steam Deck.
While I, like many PC gamers, go straight into a game’s visual settings before playing to eke out as much visual goodness as my graphics card will allow, when it comes to playing games on the Steam Deck, I find it’s best to stick with default settings, to begin with, at least.
This is because Steam Deck verified games have default settings that should give you the best experience on the handheld. Games that aren’t verified for Steam Deck may still run, but you’ll need to fiddle around with the settings for the best experience.
At default settings, Spider-Man Remastered on the Steam Deck runs at 1280 x 800. This is the native resolution of the Steam Deck’s 7-inch screen, and for the size of the display, games look good at this resolution – and it has the added benefit of not being as taxing on the graphics hardware as 1080p or higher resolutions are.
The graphics preset is set to ‘Medium’, which again strikes a decent balance between visual fidelity and performance, and it also uses AMD’s FSR 2.0 (FidelityFX Super Resolution), a useful tool that upscales graphics from lower resolutions in a way that makes it look similar to if it was running at a higher resolution, which can improve performance quite dramatically. By default, it is set here to target 30 frames per second.
Spider-Man Remastered on PC also supports Nvidia’s similar DLSS technology – but that’s only available for Nvidia’s RTX line up GPUs. With the Steam Deck running on AMD hardware, it can only use FSR – which is perfectly fine. By aiming for 30 frames a second, FSR will alter how much it upscales to keep the frame rate as close to 30fps as possible.
While 30fps may not seem like much for PC gamers used to higher frame rates, it’s again a decent compromise which should make playing on the Steam Deck more enjoyable, and help prolong the battery life.
