Much improved but probably not absolutely perfect.
The last time The Last of Us got a performance patch, developers Naughty Dog conceded that there was still work to be done. Well, it looks like that work has indeed been done. Because the latest patch is good enough for Steam Deck Verified status.
The Last of Us: Part I finally arrived on PC in March and fair to say that it wasn’t terribly well optimised. Early Steam feedback showed about two thirds of PC gamers returning negative feedback thanks to various issues from crashing and hefty waits for initially shader compiling on first start up to excess VRAM usage.
Things were bad enough to draw an apology from Naughty Dog, while Steam issued refunds regardless of amount of time played and revoked the game’s Verified status in early April.
Previous patches have addressed at least some of those issues. But this new patch, version 1.1.0, looks like it should get the game into the state that it should have been at launch, though it’s worth noting that installing the patch will trigger a full shader rebuild.
Anyway, for Steam Deck, the patch notes go thusly:
Overall improvements to performance while playing on Steam Deck
Addressed a memory leak issue that could cause crashes
Fixed an issue where certain button prompts would be misaligned
Fixed an issue where changing (Options > Graphics > Graphics Preset) could trigger an intense lighting effect
Fixed an issue where in-game HUD did not match Steam Deck Performance Overlay FPS value
Fixed a crash that could occur during loading screens
Effects Density now defaults to Very Low instead of Low
[Lakeside Resort] Fixed a crash that could occur at the start of a cutscene
[Pittsburgh] Fixed a crash that could occur at certain checkpoints
[The Outskirts] Fixed an issue where locked FPS could make it difficult to move pushable objects
While the general release notes include:
Optimizations to improve global CPU and GPU performance throughout the gameOverall improvements to texture and environment loading Improved shader compilations timesFixed a crash that could occur after changing custom controller settingsFixed a crash that could occur in Photo Mode when saving images in 4KFixed a crash that could occur when playing on Ultra graphics preset with DLSS enabledFixed a crash that could occur when using a mouse with a high DPIFixed a crash that could occur when entering Options > Graphics Fixed multiple crashes affecting players with Intel GPUsFixed an issue where players could lose the ability to aim or shoot immediately after exiting menusFixed an issue where the Flashlight tutorial would not leave the screen if ignoredFixed an issue where exiting Photo Mode could cause the player to throw an equipped item Fixed issues where players could see outside the game world in some locationsAddressed issues where screen tearing could still occur with V-Sync enabledFixed an audio issue that could occur when using a USB audio device alongside Spatial Audio Plug-InsAdded support for players using third-party audio drivers Fixed an issue where changing graphics presets (Options > Graphics > Graphics Presets) in-game would not saveFixed an issue where the Speedrun timer could roll back after a crash or when quitting to desktopFixed an issue where scrollable menu descriptions could not be navigated with a mouse scroll wheelUpdated the QTE button UI to correctly display when using Xbox controllers Corrected several in-game, menu, and text-to-speech translation errorsGPU Performance HUD more accurately displays usage when launched, CPU Performance HUD now more accurateCorrected an issue where the Aiming Mirror settings did not affect motion sensor aimingFixed an issue where settings would not Reset to Defaults if players had any of the menu drop downs still openFixed an issue so that scrolling in Photo Mode does not affect the in-game cameraFixed an issue where the game could reset a user’s Monitor setting when launching the gameFixed an issue where the shader loading could be shown as complete before it actually wasFixed an issue with Corsair and Logitech device LEDs turning off on start-upDisplay settings are now saved per device and not shared through cloud saves[The Suburbs] Fixed a crash that could occur in the sniper fight[The Suburbs] Fixed an issue where Sam would appear wet during a cinematic in a dry areaAdded a new Very Low graphics preset (Options > Graphics > Graphics Presets)Added a new AI Quality setting in the graphics menu (Options > Graphics)Added a new Dynamic Lights Quality setting in the graphics menu (Options > Graphics)
You can peruse all the release notes on Naughty Dog’s website. According to Naughty Dog, several known issues remain including, somewhat surprisingly, loading shaders taking longer than expected, memory leaks and corrupted shaders. So it seems their work isn’t entirely done. But the game’s re-acquisition of Steam Deck Verified Status certainly suggests that the most painful problems have been fixed.
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