Earlier today, a new update for Returnal was pushed out adding in the newest version of AMD's FidelityFX Super Resolution (FSR) upscaling method! The in-game's FSR 1.0 was updated today to 2.0, which should help the game look significantly better than with using 1.0.

Returnal Settings

Unfortunately, while the game does look better, the performance is still lacking from what we would consider reasonably playable. It is do-able, and the game definitely got a nice upgrade, but it still needs a bit more love to become a viable game to play on the Deck. I have hope this is something we will see though! You will also need Proton Experimental currently to play, otherwise, Epic Online Services will not update.

ReturnalFSR2On

For transparency, this is a version of the settings I have been using to test the game to try to get it running better. It isn't upscaling to 1280x800, but compared to FSR 1.0, the edges are much more smooth.

FSR is an upscaling algorithm that takes a game that is running at a lower resolution and bumps it up to a higher one. On the Steam Deck, this can help significantly with performance-heavy games as we can render the game at a lower resolution, saving power, and using FSR to make it appear at a higher resolution. FSR 1.0 is designed to take the image currently being shown and bump it up, while 2.0 actually uses past frame data to upscale the image, making it more accurate and show better quality.

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Noah Kupetsky
A lover of gaming since 4, Noah has grown up with a love and passion for the industry. From there, he started to travel a lot and develop a joy for handheld and PC gaming. When the Steam Deck released, it just all clicked.
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