I recently celebrated the 10-year anniversary of Elder Scrolls, a game I haven't played much before. I was curious to see how it runs on different handheld devices, so I decided to jump in and give it a try.
I was pleasantly surprised by how well it ran on the Steam Deck, with 800p medium, 4 gigs of VRAM, and 15 watts. Although there were a few hiccups, the performance was generally good, especially on the 90 Hz OLED screen.
Next, I tried the game on the Legion Go, which has a larger screen and 1200p medium, 4 gigs of VRAM, and 20 watts. The performance was excellent, with clean frame times and no stuttering. Similarly, the game ran well on the Z1 Extreme, whether it was the Go or the Ally, with no noticeable dips or hiccups.
However, the performance on the MSI Claw was hit or miss, with power balancing issues and no options for VRAM. In performance mode, medium 1080p, the game ran well, but still suffered from occasional skipping and hiccups.
I compared the Steam Deck, Claw, and Go, letting them run their max native resolutions. The Claw sometimes ran better than the Go in the city area, but outside the city, the Go generally outperformed the Claw. The Steam Deck suffered from hiccups in some areas, but had higher FPS due to its native resolution of 800p.
In general, the game ran well on all handheld devices, with 720p, 800p, 1080p, and 1200p medium or high settings. However, in combat or when things got busy, the FPS could drop to the 20s, 30s, or 40s, depending on the group size or what was happening in the game. In such cases, it was necessary to lower the resolution or settings for better performance.
Overall, I enjoyed playing Elder Scrolls on all these handheld devices, and I'm looking forward to spending more time with the game. In my opinion, medium settings worked best for most devices, but it's great that the game can run well on all these handhelds.