In this post, I'm going to take a look at The Last of Us Part One's latest patch, which includes FSR 3 implementation as well as frame generation. I thought we'd have a look on the Steam Deck to see if it's made any difference.
Off the bat, frame generation is working, and FSR 3 definitely has made some improvements overall, but is FSR 3 frame generation worth it on the Steam Deck? Well, let's have a look. We start off with some frame generation on FSR 3 balanced. I did find that having FSR 3 on quality with frame generation did give input latency a little bit too much, and because the base frame rate with Quality mode was just a little bit too low, it did become a little bit more stuttery.
So, if you are going to use frame generation, I would recommend FSR 3 on balance mode, and everything else is on auto, which is low. As we're moving around, although we're getting up into the 60s a lot of the time, it's spiking quite a lot, and you'll see a fair amount of ghosting as we're moving around, especially as we get into some of these combat sections and switching sides, moving the camera quite rapidly, and even with these blood effects. We really need to sit on the trees, the leaves, and the grass as we're moving around.
Although frame generation feels okay, you definitely notice that frame generation is kicking in with that ghosting and that input delay as well. So, I do actually recommend keeping frame generation off and actually putting FSR 3 on quality mode, keeping everything else on low with those auto settings.
Now, you're actually going to have a really good time. It's definitely improved from the FSR 2 implementation. In buildings, you can even get up to 50 frames per second. Moving around outside, though, we are down into the 30s, but for the most part, it does feel very smooth, and it looks incredibly good on the Steam Deck screen as well.
Without that frame generation, we don't have the input latency, and it just feels very good. With quality mode, we also have much less ghosting, and as always, combat takes a little bit of getting used to, switching games. But even when we do go into some of those combat scenarios, I'm a bit more close up, you will notice that there isn't as much ghosting, and it does just feel a lot smoother.
There are still some scenarios where the frames do dip under that 30 frames per second with new frame generation on, but again, it's minor when it happens, and you're not going to be focusing on that frame time to notice that much when it does occur. All in all, FSR 3 quality mode is actually now a fantastic way to play The Last of Us Part One on the Steam Deck, and the cutscenes do look incredibly smooth as well, hitting 50 frames per second a lot of the time as well.
If you are looking to dive back into The Last of Us Part One because you found it was just a little bit too blurry or stuttery on FSR 2 or previous implementations, then this is definitely worth now picking up. Do be aware though, it is still pushing 23 Watts on the Steam Deck OLED, meaning you're only going to get two to two and a half hours max gameplay, and on the LCD, that's going to be pushing 27 watts still, so you're only going to get an hour to an hour and a half on the LCD.