Hogwarts Legacy is drowning in very positive reviews from media and YouTubers, and as fans of the universe, we couldn’t be happier. But as fans, we also expect them to launch games optimized for all platforms. The core game might be great, but when it comes to performance on the PC version, they have a ways to go.
There was a recent patch of around 300 MB without patch notes, which reportedly fixed some issues, but we can’t see any difference in performance after the patch. The recommended settings when you launch the game on Steam Deck is every setting at low, and the game still dips below 30 FPS in busy areas like Hogsmeade and right outside Hogwarts.
At the moment, even beefy PCs with RTX 4000 series are going through stutters when opening doors to enter different areas. We even experienced below 30 FPS on our system with an RTX 3080 Ti in some parts. That said, we can certainly see Avalance Software working on fixes to fix performance issues in the near future.
For now, you can play the game at 30 FPS on the Steam Deck, which is plagued with stutters. We don’t recommend aiming for higher FPS at the moment as the experience is quite terrible. Maybe after the patch, the game can run at a stable 40-45 FPS which is significantly superior to 30 FPS. Here are our settings and an image showing a performance dip.
It’s a frustrating trend that many big-budget games are being released without proper optimizations, which has become the standard. This is a major letdown, as the game itself is pretty good, but the serious performance problems cannot be overlooked.