Dragonball Sparking Zero is finally out, and brings with it rather modest PC system requirements. The game does not require a ton of horsepower to get up and running, making it a prime candidate for handheld gaming PCs, such as the Steam Deck.
There do exist several gotchas though, and running Dragonball Sparking Zero on the Steam Deck involves extensive customization – which will be discussed below.
Optimized Dragonball Sparking Zero Steam Deck settings
In-game settings
Graphics
- Battle Screen Type: Swap as per co-op or single player requirements
- Windowed Mode: Fullscreen
- Resolution: 1280×800; Deck native resolution
- Resolution Scale: 70; can be lowered further to increase FPS at the cost of visual fidelity
- V-Sync: Off; always keep disabled
- Anti-Aliasing Quality: Low
- Shadow Quality: Low
- Texture Quality: Low
- Post-Processing Quality: Low
- Effect Quality: Low
- Depth of Field: Low
- LOD Quality: Low
- Grass Quality: Low
- Motion Blur Quality: Off
- Camera Shake: Low or Off; user preference
- Destruction Effect Quality: Low
Controls and Camera
- Control Style Settings: Classic
- Displayed Control Device Settings: Auto; set to the default Xbox layout if overridden
- Vertical Camera Controls: Choose between Normal or Inverted
- Vertical Camera Sensitivity: 7
- Horizontal Camera Controls: Choose between Normal or Inverted
- Horizontal Camera Sensitivity: 7
- Controller Vibration: On
Steam Deck specific settings
- Frame Rate Limit: 60
- TDP: 15 W
- Battery Drain: 25-20 W; expect 2-4 hours of battery life for the Steam Deck and Steam Deck OLED respectively
It is recommended to play with the Resolution Scaler in order to force a consistent 60 frames per second output. Sparking Zero’s game speed is tied to its framerate, and as such ensuring smoother gameplay over visuals is necessary.
Additionally, using the Proton Experimental translation layer is also recommended.
How to force a lower framerate in Dragonball Sparking Zero
- Boot up your Steam Deck and enter its Desktop mode.
- Head to the directory housing the game’s Engine.ini file (~/.local/share/Steam/steamapps/compatdata/1790600/pfx/drive_c/users/steamuser/AppData/Local/SparkingZERO/Saved/Config/Windows/Engine.ini).
- Edit the file using a suitable text editor, such as Kate.
- Paste the following entry at the bottom of the file:
[/script/engine.engine]
FixedFrameRate=40
[SystemSettings]
bUseFixedFrameRate=True
bSmoothFrameRate=False
FixedFrameRate=40
FrameRateLimit=40
- You can adjust the framerate to a custom value if so desired. Make sure to save changes before heading back into the game.
Keep in mind that these changes will lock you out of online co-op. Remove the lines if you wish to retain co-op functionality.
