The Last of Us Part 1 gets performance improvements and Steam Deck verification

The Last of Us Part 1 did not launch in a great state on PC, but Naughty Dog has been consistently releasing patches to polish up the game. The latest is one of the biggest yet, updating the game to version 1.1 and bringing with it a whole host of improvements – alongside official Steam Deck verification.

Making the announcement on their blog, Naughty Dog has now released patch 1.1 for The Last of Us Part 1 on PC. Said to be primarily focused on “performance improvements, Steam Deck performance, various crashes, and more,” just some of the many patch notes reads as follows:

• Optimizations to improve global CPU and GPU performance throughout the game
• Overall improvements to texture and environment loading 
• Improved shader compilations times
• Fixed multiple crashes
• GPU Performance HUD more accurately displays usage when launched, CPU Performance HUD now more accurate
• Display settings are now saved per device and not shared through cloud saves
• Added a new Very Low graphics preset
• Added a new AI Quality setting in the graphics menu
• Added a new Dynamic Lights Quality setting in the graphics menu

Perhaps the most surprising announcement was the fact that TLOU Part 1 is now Steam Deck verified, with some of the handheld-specific fixes including:

• Overall improvements to performance while playing on Steam Deck
• Addressed a memory leak issue that could cause crashes
• Fixed an issue where in-game HUD did not match Steam Deck Performance Overlay FPS value
• Effects Density now defaults to Very Low instead of Low
• Fixed a crash that could occur at certain checkpoints

As mentioned, The Last of Us Part 1 launched on PC in a rather unacceptable state. While high-end rigs seemed to suffer from very few issues, all those with more modest hardware saw a litany of problems. It is welcome to see Naughty Dog and Iron Galaxy continuing to improve the port. Hopefully the optimisations for the Steam Deck extends to all PC configurations.

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KitGuru says: What do you think of the update? Will you give the PC version a try? What other Sony games would you like to see verified for Steam Deck? Let us know down below.

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