Homeworld 3 on Steam Deck: A Surprisingly Smooth Ride

Find out how Homeworld 3 performs on the Steam Deck and get the best settings for a smooth gaming experience.

Embark on a Gaming Odyssey: Homeworld 3 on Steam Deck

Real-time strategy games may not be the first genre that comes to mind when thinking of the Steam Deck, but Homeworld 3 performs surprisingly well. However, benchmarking and actual game testing yielded very different results that you need to be aware of.

Testing Homeworld 3 on the Steam Deck OLED was simple, in part due to the low system requirements set by developer Blackbird Interactive. In fact, I found that my time testing this game on Valve’s handheld gaming PC was a far smoother experience than on PC.

“Homeworld 3 is currently rated as Playable on Steam Deck according to Valve’s testing parameters. It flags warnings for controller functionality, non-controller icons, and in-game text size.”

At first glance, Homeworld 3 is the kind of game that makes me challenge whether Valve’s Steam Deck rating system needs an overhaul. Essentially, the graphical settings aren’t too taxing, but everything else could cause users issues.

Best Homeworld 3 Steam Deck Settings

After running the in-game benchmark countless times while also testing settings in live gameplay situations, I recommend the following configuration for Homeworld 3 on Steam Deck:

Compatibility Tool: Proton Experimental
VSync: On
Frame Rate: 60
Motion Blur: 0.0
Upscale Algorithm: AMD FSR 2.0
Resolution Scale: Quality (67%)
Use High Res Translucency: Yes
Anti-Aliasing Quality: High: TAA
Post Processing Quality: Low
Shadow Quality: Low
Shading Quality: Low
Visual Effect Quality: Low
Texture Quality: Low
Screen Space Reflection Quality: Off
View Distance Quality: Near
Nebula Quality: Low

Homeworld 3 on Steam Deck

The Homeworld 3 benchmark initiates a scene that represents the game at its most hectic with an all-out dogfight happening in a very tight space. This means all results are quite misrepresentative of what average gameplay looks and feels like.

Where the benchmark would return results with a 39 fps average, general gameplay ran at a steady 52 fps with few noticeable drops outside of intense combat. I set the max frame rate to 60, but this can be lowered to 30 if you wish to have a much more consistent frame rate.

In truth, a far bigger obstacle was the control scheme, but that is down to personal preference. While the Steam Deck does more to aid RTS games than most other handheld gaming PCs, thanks to its trackpads, it was rare that I ever felt like I had adequate control in Homeworld 3, and this disconnect grows quite strong during time-sensitive gameplay moments.

You can instead use one of the best Steam Deck docks to connect to an external monitor and then use a mouse and keyboard. If you don’t have this option, I can confidently say that the existing control scheme works, but it just takes a lot of getting used to.

Homeworld 3 Gameplay