Although the Mortal Kombat series of games may seem cartoonish or gory to many, one cannot deny how the developer Netherrealm Studios has constantly pushed the bar when it comes to the graphics of the game. Back in the day in the late 90s and early 2000s, when the studios developed 3D games, it pushed the limits in terms of what the relatively small studio was capable of at the time.
The upcoming Mortal Kombat 1 on Steam Deck is a testament to the studio’s efforts, by setting a new graphical bar not only for the series but for gaming in general. A lot of the animations and models seen in the latest campaign are as close to life as Mortal Kombat has ever come. Besides the gameplay too looks stunning.
However, the game has been trashed for its Nintendo Switch version. With a graphical quality of that stature, many gamers assume that it doesn’t run well on the Steam Deck either. But the truth is that Mortal Kombat 1 looks better, and runs better on the Steam Deck than on the official Nintendo Switch version of the game.
Best Mortal Kombat 1 settings for Steam Deck
Mortal Kombat 1 has two in-game graphics menus in Steam Deck that can be used to alter the way that the game renders on the device. It has a general Video and Audio menu, that can be accessed on the main menu on the home screen, as well as the Advanced Graphics menu, which pops up only when prompted in the Video and Audio screen.
Players must remember that the sub-menu is not normally visible, thus players need to press their Start button to create the separate Graphics options in MK1. The settings chosen must get the game to run at a stable 50 to 60 FPS without making any adjustments or changes to the external Steam Deck settings.
Alternatively, players can also try using the Auto-Configure setting to allow the game to choose the right options for them. However, it might set everything to Low, even though Steam Deck can actually handle better than the bare minimum.
Here are the best Mortal Kombat 1 settings on Steam Deck:
Graphics
- Video Mode: Borderless
- Screen Resolution: 1200×800
- V-Sync: Off
- System Cursor: Off
- Upscaling Method: FSR 2
- Quality: Balanced
- Sharpness: 50%
Advanced Graphics
- Texture Quality: Medium
- Shadow Quality: Low
- Anisotropic Filtering: 4x
- Bloom: Off
- Ambient Occlusion: Off
- Reflection: Off
- Chromatic Aberration: Off
- Particle Density: Medium
Similarly, although Mortal Kombat 1 is pretty optimized in itself and ready to play without many changes, altering a few settings here and there in the Steam Deck menu can dramatically improve the performance. Players need to first open the Steam Deck settings menu by pressing the button with three dots on the right side of the Steam Deck. Next, players must scroll down to the Performance section, from where they can modify the settings.
Here are the best Mortal Kombat 1 Steam Deck optimized settings
- FPS Limit: 60
- Refresh Rate: 60
- Allow Tearing: Off
- Half-Rate Shading: Off
- TDP Limit: Off
- Filter Scaling: Linear
- Manual GPU Clock Control: Off
- Proton Layer: Proton GE 8-15 (After downloading Preview for OS 3.5)
While these are some of best settings on Steam Deck, some settings may vary according to players respective preferences and requirements.