No Forced Compatibility
Visuals:
Resolution: 960x600
Display Mode: Exclusive Fullscreen
Vsync: Off
Framerate Cap: 40
Dynamic Shadow Quality: Medium
Lightmap Quality: Low
Texture Filtering: Bilinear
Anti-Aliasing: 4X
Update 9/12/22: Changed Lightmap Quality settings to "Low" due to a recent update that changed Lightmap Quality labels.
Trapped in a dark Victorian city that has been consumed by an ancient curse, you must survive and plan your daring escape using stealth, weapons, and of course, your wit in this unique survival horror game inspired by the great survival horror games of the 90s and 2000s. You will come across a unique arsenal and utilize in-depth interactivity with the environment to stay alive like eavesdropping, peeking through door cracks, checking bullets, and more. Can you make it out of this town alive?
Gloomwood is an early access game produced by the people who made DUSK, AMID EVIL, ULTRAKILL, and FAITH, all of which are awesome games. When I started playing, I came across several heavy issues, but I am happy to report that they have all been solved!
First, we had to deal with the settings. When starting Gloomwood, there is an insane stability issue. If you look at any sort of light source, you will immediately start to drain around 19W battery drain and hit temps at 80c. In my testing, this was due to the lightmap quality. Changing this to "Very Low" fixed this issue entirely, but it wasn't enough. With some other setting tweaks, we were able to use a TDP limit and bring this down to around 12W battery drain max and temps below 70c with a stable 40 FPS.
With very little visual differences, you can see the drastic improvement to battery drain, temps, and framerate stability.
The second big issue after figuring that out was controls. The game doesn't have controller support yet, though there seems to be some plan for it down the line as they have a "Gamepad" option in the settings. I took the time and went through the settings and put together a community controller layout that is now uploaded called "SDHQ Gloomwood Layout". You can find it in the community layouts for the game.
Otherwise, with these tweaks, the game runs like a charm with just a couple small hiccups here and there. But these are so small that I wouldn't say they matter. So far the game runs like a charm and I am happy to say it works so well, especially with the new layout and settings!
Our review is based on the PC version of this game.
If you enjoyed this review, be sure to check out the rest of the content on SteamDeckHQ! We have a wide variety game reviews and news that are sure to help your gaming experience. Whether you're looking for news, tips and tutorials, game settings and reviews, or just want to stay up-to-date on the latest trends, we've got your back!
With some minor tweaks and our controller layout, Gloomwood is definitely not a gloomy time!
Update 9/12/22: Changed Lightmap Quality settings to "Low" due to a recent update that changed Lightmap Quality labels.
Trapped in a dark Victorian city that has been consumed by an ancient curse, you must survive and plan your daring escape using stealth, weapons, and of course, your wit in this unique survival horror game inspired by the great survival horror games of the 90s and 2000s. You will come across a unique arsenal and utilize in-depth interactivity with the environment to stay alive like eavesdropping, peeking through door cracks, checking bullets, and more. Can you make it out of this town alive?
Gloomwood is an early access game produced by the people who made DUSK, AMID EVIL, ULTRAKILL, and FAITH, all of which are awesome games. When I started playing, I came across several heavy issues, but I am happy to report that they have all been solved!
First, we had to deal with the settings. When starting Gloomwood, there is an insane stability issue. If you look at any sort of light source, you will immediately start to drain around 19W battery drain and hit temps at 80c. In my testing, this was due to the lightmap quality. Changing this to "Very Low" fixed this issue entirely, but it wasn't enough. With some other setting tweaks, we were able to use a TDP limit and bring this down to around 12W battery drain max and temps below 70c with a stable 40 FPS.
With very little visual differences, you can see the drastic improvement to battery drain, temps, and framerate stability.
The second big issue after figuring that out was controls. The game doesn't have controller support yet, though there seems to be some plan for it down the line as they have a "Gamepad" option in the settings. I took the time and went through the settings and put together a community controller layout that is now uploaded called "SDHQ Gloomwood Layout". You can find it in the community layouts for the game.
Otherwise, with these tweaks, the game runs like a charm with just a couple small hiccups here and there. But these are so small that I wouldn't say they matter. So far the game runs like a charm and I am happy to say it works so well, especially with the new layout and settings!
Our review is based on the PC version of this game.
If you enjoyed this review, be sure to check out the rest of the content on SteamDeckHQ! We have a wide variety game reviews and news that are sure to help your gaming experience. Whether you're looking for news, tips and tutorials, game settings and reviews, or just want to stay up-to-date on the latest trends, we've got your back!
With some minor tweaks and our controller layout, Gloomwood is definitely not a gloomy time!
No Forced Compatibility
Visuals:
Resolution: 960x600
Display Mode: Exclusive Fullscreen
Vsync: Off
Framerate Cap: 40
Dynamic Shadow Quality: Medium
Lightmap Quality: Low
Texture Filtering: Bilinear
Anti-Aliasing: 4X