Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 has made its debut on PC, but the launch has been anything but smooth. Many players have reported issues like game crashes, frustrating frame drops, and some odd graphical hiccups. On a brighter note, the game has fairly modest system requirements, which could lead to a decent experience on various gaming handhelds. Nonetheless, an in-depth review from TechPowerUp reveals that the reality is a bit more complex than it seems.
Handheld Performance Test
TechPowerUp ran tests on two well-known gaming handhelds while playing Marvel’s Spider-Man 2: the Valve Steam Deck and the Asus ROG Ally, both utilizing AMD APUs. The Steam Deck operates with the AMD Van Gogh APU featuring a Zen 2 CPU and RDNA 2 GPU, while the Asus ROG Ally comes equipped with the much stronger Ryzen Z1 Extreme APU. The latter has an 8-core CPU and a 12-CU integrated GPU, delivering an impressive 8.6 TFLOPS of performance. Now, let’s dive into how these devices performed during the tests.
Frame Rates and Settings
At a resolution of 720p with “very low” settings, the ROG Ally, powered by the Ryzen Z1 Extreme, achieved a playable 51.3 frames per second (FPS) at 25 watts, with a minimum of 17.8 FPS. When it dropped to 15 watts, the performance fell to 38.9 FPS, with a minimum of 13.1 FPS. In contrast, the Steam Deck struggled, managing just 26 FPS under the same conditions, with a minimum of 12.8 FPS. When set to the slightly more appealing “low” preset, the ROG Ally performed well with 46.1 FPS, while the Steam Deck was left behind at 21.1 FPS.
Issues and Future Updates
Notably, the game crashed on the Windows-based ROG Ally, a problem that didn’t occur on the Steam Deck. According to TechPowerUp’s findings, the Steam Deck maintained more stable frame rates, although still teetering on the edge of being unplayable, even with upscaling. The ROG Ally, on the other hand, showed much better results and is expected to improve even further with an update that introduces the new Ryzen Z2 Extreme, which comes with four extra CUs. Currently, the Steam Deck is priced at $470 on Amazon, but unfortunately, a successor isn’t anticipated anytime soon. However, Lenovo has already released SteamOS handhelds featuring Ryzen Z2-series APUs.
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