Larian has delayed the release of Baldur’s Gate 3, currently on pace to possibly be 2023’s Game of the Year, until they can figure out how to make split-screen work on Series S.
Larian has delayed the release of Baldur’s Gate 3, currently on pace to possibly be 2023’s Game of the Year, until they can figure out how to make split-screen work on Series S.
Honest question: how can it be verified on Steam Deck but not run on Series S, which is more performant (at least on paper)?
Feature parity is not a requirement for Deck verification, Larian simply disabled split screen on the platform and called it a day.
Microsoft requires feature parity between Series X and S versions of the same game. If you want to support split screen on Series X then you must support it on Series S as well.
But isn’t the Steam Deck version the same you can find on Steam?
is it like a preset or something?
Yeah it’s basically like a launch option that will configure it in a certain way. You can in fact with a launch option tell the game to ignore this, and play split screen on Deck. I have seen people doing it but I doubt it runs well but I guess that’s the beauty of PC/Deck gaming that you can do whatever you want to and make up your own mind.
The default profile for Steam Deck disables split screen. You can enable it but it will run like shit. It running at ~30 fps with the default profile means it can be verified.
The problem is the memory usage for split screen multi player. Steam Deck doesn’t do split screen.
Is that a console exclusive feature?
No. You can run split screen on non-Steam Deck PCs, and in fact you can launch BG3 on a Steam Deck as if it were a proper PC with split screen enabled (it prob just won’t run well).
I see, thanks for clarifying! Aside from the obvious performance issues, do you know if this is a resolution issue (no split screen on 800p monitors) or some kind of handheld-specific issue? After all, you could plug your Deck into a 4k TV if that’s what you really wanted.
I’m not sure. I saw some one comment that they were running split screen on Windows, but I can’t personally verify that. Based on what I know of software development, it’s likely part of every version of it but not necessarily easily accessible. For example DoS2 has split screen coop on PC, but you wouldn’t know it by looking at it. You have to plug in 2 controllers and do some extra steps but it works.
Maybe if you plug in a second controller on steam deck you can?
EDIT: missed an ly on likely
Deck has more RAM. It also renders to a lower resolution in most cases.
The portable chipset is less powerful than that of the Xbox but no GPU power can compensate for a lack of RAM.
Yeah, I thought Series S had 16 GB of RAM but apparently it’s ‘only’ 10 GB. Of which I’m guessing 2 GB are reserved for the operating system.
Maybe they can get split screen to work by running the game at… 360p lol
The Series S is more powerful: https://www.eurogamer.net/digitalfoundry-2022-steam-deck-vs-xbox-series-s-how-future-proof-is-the-valve-handheld
But the Steam Deck is a portable console, so the design considerations are different, so it’s a bit of an apple to oranges comparison. On pure numbers, though, Series S will perform better. (Steam Deck is still awesome though 👍)
I’d guess that the series X would need to show at least full HD
With the Steamdeck it only needs 720p which is a pretty big gain in performance
800p, not 720p, but yes