Cash Cleaner Simulator Is Playable on the Steam Deck With A Few Tweaks

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I am always on the hunt for new simulators to try out, and Cash Cleaner Simulator popped up just at the right time. It's an interesting game where you take on the role of a criminal who is counting, cleaning, packing, and sending out money to clients. It's also got a lot of physics-based objects, which I adore, and some solid humor. It feels like the perfect game to sit back and enjoy on the Steam Deck, and to some degree, it is, but it isn't perfect.

There are two main problems I encounter when playing this on the Deck: Performance and Controller Support. Performance can be all over the place, depending heavily on where you look, which is a shame considering the game primarily takes place in a very enclosed area. It seems as though reflections and physics most likely play the biggest role in the performance drop, and with a combination of settings, we can get around 30 FPS regardless of the direction you are looking while still keeping solid visual quality.

And yes, this is another game where you will want to keep frame generation turned off, since it slows the game down immensely and adds tons of input lag.

Cash Cleaner Simulator Current Recommended Settings:

• Upscaling Method: AMD FSR 3.1
• FSR Quality: Quality
• RCA Sharpness: 0%
• Global Illumination: Medium
• Shadows: Medium
• Anti-Aliasing: High
• View Distance: Medium
• Textures: High
• Effects: High
• Reflections: Medium
• Post Processing: High

I do recommend using an upscaler in this case, and expect some ghosting if you are going to use FSR. I didn't find it too distracting, and FSR 3.1 on Quality made the game look quite nice in most scenarios. The game does have XeSS as well, but with FSR, we have some increased performance, and the game still looks quite nice.

Overall, with these settings, the performance tends to range from 45 or 50 FPS to 30 FPS, but it didn't go below. Having a 30 FPS cap should keep everything stable and very playable. I do hope there will be more optimizations, though, as I think this is a game that should hit higher framerates since we aren't in a very open area. There are some moments that can tank performance, like when some of the wooden barriers catch on fire, but it bounces back quickly afterwards.

Then we have the controls, which are a mixed bag. Cash Cleaner Simulator technically has controller support in-game, and in almost every situation, it works well. However, there are a couple of spots where it doesn't, which irked me. Accepting quests and buying new gear go through the smartphone, which can't be controlled yet with a gamepad. There are also some menus that don't work, but I did get them working randomly before they stopped again, so it seems random if it will work or not.

While we can use the touch screen on the Steam Deck, which does make the smartphone aspect feel a little more authentic, it's still not great. I would much prefer everything be controlled by the gamepad instead of swapping to and from. The parts that do work feel wonderful, though, and I much preferred having gamepad controls mixed with the right touchpad acting as a mouse.

To do this, you will have to set your controller configuration manually to the Gamepad with Joystick Trackpad configuration. Then, edit the configuration and go to the Trackpad tab. After that, just change the right trackpad's dropdown to "As Mouse" and then set the click action to be emulating the left mouse button. You should be all set from there, and we get the best of both worlds.

Overall, Cash Cleaner Simulator is a fun game to play on the Steam Deck, even with these compromises. It's a tedious yet enjoyable experience, and I love watching the physics of bags, boxes, and cash fly around as I take on more jobs and count money. I can't wait to play more and see how the game expands, and I really want to get that ink out of the large bags of money I have.

Cash Cleaner Simulator is on sale for $13.49 until May 22nd, but if you want to save more money, you can get it on GreenManGaming for $10.79.

The GreenManGaming links above are using an affiliate link, which gives us a little back from sales at no extra charge to you. All proceeds go back into SDHQ and its development.

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