Silent Hill 2 Hides FSR 3 and XeSS on Steam Deck Possibly Due to RAM Usage

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Now, this is a really odd one. I was finishing up some work on my video for Silent Hill 2, and I was responding to some comments on our post. One of them mentioned users reporting bad performance, which is true in the opening area, but there was a comment that really stood out to me. The game actually has FSR 3 and XeSS, which wasn't in the options that I found. After toying around with it, I learned the upscalers are actually in-game, but not for the Steam Deck.

By using the launch option "SteamDeck=0 %command%", which tricks the game into thinking we aren't on a Steam Deck, we can actually bring up the settings. Lo and behold, there they are, FSR 3 and XeSS:

These upscalers are significantly better than FSR 1.0, which is the only one included in the Steam Deck version of the game (other than TSR), but it looks like there's a catch too. As I was taking screenshots, I noticed a significant uptick in RAM usage. And after swapping back and forth with the same settings, I realized that the non-Steam Deck game uses significantly more RAM:

I can't say for sure why the game with FSR 3 and XeSS uses so much more RAM, but there it is. This may be why Bloober Team/Konami left out the settings on the Steam Deck. Because of this, I would probably not try to play like this, even with the better quality. The RAM usage could easily spiral and crash the game, which would be bad. So far, I would still recommend the settings I found in my preview, which doesn't use any upscaling and still looks great with only some minor drops here and there. Regardless, it at least looks like it will be playable based on my experience so far!

Silent Hill 2 can be pre-purchased for $69.99 on Steam or you can get the digital deluxe version to play now for $79.99. However, you can purchase the deluxe edition to play now on GreenManGaming for $62.39 and you should get a code immediately like I did!

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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