The Talos Principle 2 – Steam Deck 40+ FPS Guide

Are you tired of 30 FPS gaming? Are you tired of dips into the low 20s? Lets change that!

Introduction

Welcome fellow steam Deck gamers! We all know the struggle. 30 FPS with dips into the 20s is just not that great let’s be honest about it. BUT we can do something about it in The Talos Principle 2!

This will sacrifice some visual quality (mostly shadows) but in my opinion is more than worth the sacrifice and effort.

Requirements

Here are some requirements:

1. About 15 minutes of your time.
2. Desktop mode is going to be required here.
3. A mouse and keyboard really help.

Lets Get It Done!

1. Press the steam button on your steam deck and choose Power followed by Switch to Desktop
2. Once you are in desktop mode connect your mouse and keyboard if you have them. They are not strictly necessary but will make it easier.
3. Open up the file browser. (click on the folder icon in the bottom left corner)
4. Press into the address bar which is below the word “dolphin” which you can see in the top middle and delete whatever is in there and paste the following:

/home/deck/.steam/steam/steamapps/compatdata/835960/pfx/drive_c/users/steamuser/AppData/Local/Talos2/Saved/Config/Windows/

If this worked and you see all kinds of engine and .ini files then skip to step 14

5. If the above did not work for you then do the subpoints of step 7. If it still did not work for you then go back and repeat the points until you are at step 3 and then continue with step 6.
6. In the new window that popped up click on home which is located on the left side. (you might have to scroll down a bit)
7. Open the deck folder followed by the .steam folder. If you do not see a .steam folder then you have to do the following:
   • Click on the Hamburger icon (three horizontal lines) on the top right below the “X”.
   • Click on Show hidden files.
8. Now open the steam folder followed by the steamapps folder.
9. Now open the compatdata folder followed by the Folder with the number 835960
10. Now open the pfx folder followed by the drive_c folder followed by the users folder.
11. Now open the steamuser folder followed by the AppData folder
12. Now open the Local folder followed by the Talos2
13. Now open the Saved folder followed by the Config folder and finally the Windows folder
14. Here we finally are! Now open the Engine.ini file by double clicking on it.
15. If it asks you what program to use then i personally use Kate

The Edits

Scroll down until you are at the very bottom of the file and add the following lines by pasting them into the file:

[SystemSettings]
r.RayTracing=0

[/script/engine.renderersettings]
r.AllowLandscapeShadows=0
r.Shadow.MaxResolution=2
r.Shadow.DistanceScale=0.001
r.Shadow.CachedShadowsCastFromMovablePrimitives=0
r.ShadowQuality=1
r.Shadow.CSM.MaxCascades=1
r.Shadow.RadiusThreshold=0.1
r.Shadow.CSM.TransitionScale=0
r.ContactShadows=0
r.LandscapeLODBias=0.5
grass.DiscardDataOnLoad=1
foliage.DensityScale=0
foliage.DiscardDataOnLoad=1
foliage.LODDistanceScale=0
foliage.LODDistanceScaleGrass=0
foliage.OnlyLOD=0
r.ViewDistance=0.4
r.ViewDistanceScale=0.5
r.LandscapeLODDistributionScale=1
r.LandscapeLOD0DistributionScale=0.5
r.Streaming.PoolSize=4096
r.Streaming.UseFixedPoolSize=1
r.Streaming.LimitPoolSizeToVRAM=0

If you do not have your VRAM set to 4GB in the bios then replace the 4096 in r.Streaming.PoolSize=4096 with 1024.

Save the file!

Done!

And you are done! This increases performance significantly across the board and the settings in the edits section can be lowered even further for 60 FPS. I personally like the way it is and am having much more fun like that.

I still recommend you use XeSS at quality or balanced mode but if you got this far then you are more than capable of tinkering with the settings to your liking.