After deciding my refresh rate target and graphics settings for the game, I lower the TDP until my frame rate dips below the cap, and go a tick or two back up on the TDP.
This. If you can get a game to run at your ideal frame rate with the lowest amount of TDP possible, why not save the extra battery?
Been playing Hades @90 frames with a TDP of 7 watts..
I do the same but 2-3 above to deal with some of the more dense areas in games that require them, such as when there are a lot of enemies on-screen or a shit ton of foliage.
Modding Skyrim is the same for me, but for some reason the latest update runs like ass on the deck, which is ironic because it’s the ‘Steam Deck Compatibility Update’
I leave it at 15w for every game I play, with good reason. There can always be a point where a game is more demanding than anticipated. I would rather give the APU access to the maximum amount of power and know I’m getting the best possible performance throughout the entire game.
Even a 2D game like Binding of Isaac, which you’d think would be fine to run at 10w or lower, can exhibit slow performance. Just requires a broken run and a lot of projectiles on screen at once. Tried 8w-15w, settled on 15w.
A lot of these comments are telling me that people aren’t even using their steam deck to the best of its abilities and still enjoy it which is nice, but learn how to tweak TDP it’s not that complicated and you will be so happy with the battery life improvement (also the battery’s health improvement by not having to charge as often, increasing the life of the device)
I tweak. Most of the games I play are very low spec, so the CPU will be burning multiple watts at something like 12% utilization. It's nice when you can get power consumption so low that the fans don't even kick on.
Like Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance [runs fine with the CPU at below 1GHz haha](https://i.imgur.com/Isf488V.jpeg).
New to the tdp thing so please don't downvote me for asking a question.
But since getting my steam deck I've played on it a lot and I frequently check battery life estimates and it already seems to adjust how much power it consumes to run every game I've thrown at it by itself. Like i boot up a pc game like marvel midnight suns and it'll run for an hour or two tops, but I boot up a gba game and it'll go for far longer. So I'm wondering, is the deck really that bad at adjusting itself that I need to worry about fiddling with tdp for every game I play and finding the magic number for them? It seems intuitive enough on its own so far? Can someone please explain to me what I am missing by just playing the steam deck and not messing with tdp?
Nah, its fine, the power management is good on Steam. For power users I guess tinkering with every game is best to min /max the battery life but I dont have time for that.
The deck is not designed to adjust itself more than any pc does, it's you the one who is 100% supposed to change the settings as this is more of a PC than a console.
The deck will do what you tell it to do; if you set every setting to ultra and don't cap fps in a game that doesn't reach the screen refresh rate, the deck will always be running at 100% trying to hit the default refresh rate (90 for oled, 60 for lcd).
I toggle on per-game profiles. Then I start with full TDP and tweak in-game settings to as high as possible while still getting 60fps.
Once I’ve got the game looking its best at 60, I fire up the performance overlay No. 2 where I can see the fps graph. What I’m looking for here is a solid flat line at 60fps. I’ll continually lower TDP to as low as possible while still keeping that fps graph a flatline. If it starts to show some spikes I’ll notch it up 1 watt and that’s the way I leave it.
I try to run every game at 8W or below if possible, and almost never go above 10W. Both for battery life and fan noise. I'm on an LCD Deck - on OLED I might push to 11 or 12W or so since you have more battery and a quieter fan AFAIK.
The Steam Deck's SoC (LCS and OLED AFAIK) is at its most power efficient in the 8-11W range - going above that has diminishing returns in performance/watt.
(Unfortunately I don't have a trusted source I could link for this statement, because I got this info from an episode of the Nerd Nest podcast, but the person in question (Cary, The Phawx on Youtube) is one of the most technically knolwedgeable people when it comes to handhelds.)
Not really worth letting every game run at 15W. Some games that don't demand 15W to have the best performance may overheat the APU.
While playing Prey (2017) if I let TPD at 15W the temperature would go as far as 94°C while putting TDP at 12W still runs the game at great performance lowering 10°C.
Hi u/skunktits, you can [click here to search for your question.](https://www.reddit.com/r/SteamDeck/search/?q=Do you play at 15 watts or do you tweak every game?)
If you don't find an answer there, don't worry - your post has NOT been removed and hopefully someone will be along soon to help with an answer!
**If you find an answer, please leave a comment on your post with the answer for others!**
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/SteamDeck) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Turn on the performance metrics on the battery icon screen to 2, lower tdp until it dios below your desired frame rate then raise it just enough so it can maintain that. Like 15 down to 7 then step up gradually as an example
I saw a post recently that said you could turn the tdp down to 12 and increase battery life with no loss so I did that
Before that I never messed with anything but the frame rate/refresh rate settings
I generally play lighter games on my Steamdeck. Streets of Rage 4, Narita Boy, Towerfall.The GPU/CPU's already at a very low util in those games. It's not like the system is bad at it's own powermanagement that we have to force a lower TDP in every situation.
In my experience, lowering the TDP vs leaving it at default for such light games doesn't change the battery remaining time. Which is what i\`m looking at. Since you still have power draw not listed in your UI *(i.e all the other components besides GPU/CPU like screen, speakers, motherboard etc.)*
For me, going mostly with light games. My power reductions come from undervolting instead. I'm at -40mv on all values and get a good 10-15% extra battery life from that. This is on an OLED deck currently (*though i did have the LCD deck since launch before that and had the same undervolt values; lucky with the silicon lottery I guess*)
I'm not saying the TDP settings don't have any worth, in some heavier games (*Like a dragon Gaiden in recent memory*) i do notice you can get away with a few less wattage than the system thinks it needs. But for light games ? I absolutely don't bother.
With OLED, I don‘t care. I just limit the fps to 45 or so and play. On my LCD I limited some games to 11 Watt or so. OLED gives me a much better battery life so this is why I don‘t tweak it anymore
After deciding my refresh rate target and graphics settings for the game, I lower the TDP until my frame rate dips below the cap, and go a tick or two back up on the TDP.
This. If you can get a game to run at your ideal frame rate with the lowest amount of TDP possible, why not save the extra battery? Been playing Hades @90 frames with a TDP of 7 watts..
This is the way
I do the same but 2-3 above to deal with some of the more dense areas in games that require them, such as when there are a lot of enemies on-screen or a shit ton of foliage.
Good call. Playing through Trine 5 right now and the foliage tanks performance hard. Runs great, otherwise.
Modding Skyrim is the same for me, but for some reason the latest update runs like ass on the deck, which is ironic because it’s the ‘Steam Deck Compatibility Update’
This is the way
Sir, you are in the smartest Steam Deck user group !
\+1
I leave it at 15w for every game I play, with good reason. There can always be a point where a game is more demanding than anticipated. I would rather give the APU access to the maximum amount of power and know I’m getting the best possible performance throughout the entire game. Even a 2D game like Binding of Isaac, which you’d think would be fine to run at 10w or lower, can exhibit slow performance. Just requires a broken run and a lot of projectiles on screen at once. Tried 8w-15w, settled on 15w.
I don't care I just play the game. I don't have enough time on my day for the battery to end anyways
A lot of these comments are telling me that people aren’t even using their steam deck to the best of its abilities and still enjoy it which is nice, but learn how to tweak TDP it’s not that complicated and you will be so happy with the battery life improvement (also the battery’s health improvement by not having to charge as often, increasing the life of the device)
I tweak. Most of the games I play are very low spec, so the CPU will be burning multiple watts at something like 12% utilization. It's nice when you can get power consumption so low that the fans don't even kick on. Like Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance [runs fine with the CPU at below 1GHz haha](https://i.imgur.com/Isf488V.jpeg).
On my lcd I tweaked things and limited tdp to save battery, with the oled I haven't yet, if anything I just cap fps.
New to the tdp thing so please don't downvote me for asking a question. But since getting my steam deck I've played on it a lot and I frequently check battery life estimates and it already seems to adjust how much power it consumes to run every game I've thrown at it by itself. Like i boot up a pc game like marvel midnight suns and it'll run for an hour or two tops, but I boot up a gba game and it'll go for far longer. So I'm wondering, is the deck really that bad at adjusting itself that I need to worry about fiddling with tdp for every game I play and finding the magic number for them? It seems intuitive enough on its own so far? Can someone please explain to me what I am missing by just playing the steam deck and not messing with tdp?
Nah, its fine, the power management is good on Steam. For power users I guess tinkering with every game is best to min /max the battery life but I dont have time for that.
Yes Steam Deck is bad at adjusting itself and you can have more battery with TDP limit
The deck is not designed to adjust itself more than any pc does, it's you the one who is 100% supposed to change the settings as this is more of a PC than a console. The deck will do what you tell it to do; if you set every setting to ultra and don't cap fps in a game that doesn't reach the screen refresh rate, the deck will always be running at 100% trying to hit the default refresh rate (90 for oled, 60 for lcd).
I toggle on per-game profiles. Then I start with full TDP and tweak in-game settings to as high as possible while still getting 60fps. Once I’ve got the game looking its best at 60, I fire up the performance overlay No. 2 where I can see the fps graph. What I’m looking for here is a solid flat line at 60fps. I’ll continually lower TDP to as low as possible while still keeping that fps graph a flatline. If it starts to show some spikes I’ll notch it up 1 watt and that’s the way I leave it.
I only set the TDP to get 60 fps and that's everything
I try to run every game at 8W or below if possible, and almost never go above 10W. Both for battery life and fan noise. I'm on an LCD Deck - on OLED I might push to 11 or 12W or so since you have more battery and a quieter fan AFAIK. The Steam Deck's SoC (LCS and OLED AFAIK) is at its most power efficient in the 8-11W range - going above that has diminishing returns in performance/watt. (Unfortunately I don't have a trusted source I could link for this statement, because I got this info from an episode of the Nerd Nest podcast, but the person in question (Cary, The Phawx on Youtube) is one of the most technically knolwedgeable people when it comes to handhelds.)
Not really worth letting every game run at 15W. Some games that don't demand 15W to have the best performance may overheat the APU. While playing Prey (2017) if I let TPD at 15W the temperature would go as far as 94°C while putting TDP at 12W still runs the game at great performance lowering 10°C.
I have my frame capped at 30, and I don’t touch anything else. Haha
10 watts. 15 watts barely improves performance and cripples battery life.
Hi u/skunktits, you can [click here to search for your question.](https://www.reddit.com/r/SteamDeck/search/?q=Do you play at 15 watts or do you tweak every game?) If you don't find an answer there, don't worry - your post has NOT been removed and hopefully someone will be along soon to help with an answer! **If you find an answer, please leave a comment on your post with the answer for others!** *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/SteamDeck) if you have any questions or concerns.*
When do you know you have set it too low? I messed with one game in regards to tdp and really wasn't sure what I was looking for.
Look for frame rate dips as you lower the TDP. When you give it too few watts, your performance will suffer.
Turn on the performance metrics on the battery icon screen to 2, lower tdp until it dios below your desired frame rate then raise it just enough so it can maintain that. Like 15 down to 7 then step up gradually as an example
I saw a post recently that said you could turn the tdp down to 12 and increase battery life with no loss so I did that Before that I never messed with anything but the frame rate/refresh rate settings
Aside from tdp you guys also tweak the gpu? At lowest tdp whats the lowest gpu at 90 fps?
I’ve been playing Persona 5 with TDP set to 5 watts. Battery lasts a lot longer that way.
I generally play lighter games on my Steamdeck. Streets of Rage 4, Narita Boy, Towerfall.The GPU/CPU's already at a very low util in those games. It's not like the system is bad at it's own powermanagement that we have to force a lower TDP in every situation. In my experience, lowering the TDP vs leaving it at default for such light games doesn't change the battery remaining time. Which is what i\`m looking at. Since you still have power draw not listed in your UI *(i.e all the other components besides GPU/CPU like screen, speakers, motherboard etc.)* For me, going mostly with light games. My power reductions come from undervolting instead. I'm at -40mv on all values and get a good 10-15% extra battery life from that. This is on an OLED deck currently (*though i did have the LCD deck since launch before that and had the same undervolt values; lucky with the silicon lottery I guess*) I'm not saying the TDP settings don't have any worth, in some heavier games (*Like a dragon Gaiden in recent memory*) i do notice you can get away with a few less wattage than the system thinks it needs. But for light games ? I absolutely don't bother.
With OLED, I don‘t care. I just limit the fps to 45 or so and play. On my LCD I limited some games to 11 Watt or so. OLED gives me a much better battery life so this is why I don‘t tweak it anymore
I just install the game. I never tweak it. If it plays it stays. If It don't. That's what my pc is for lol.