Star Vortex · published · build 22424067
A lot of testing for Star Vortex happens on Steam Deck, and I recently noticed the framerate taking a dive. This update improves performance there, along with gains on all lower-end systems.
This is ongoing work, so if you notice FPS drops during specific fights or when using certain weapons, please let me know.
• Shield Recharge upgrade increased from +5% to +10% per level.
• Menu and overlay blur transitions are now faster.
• Death screen pause delay slightly increased.
• Steam Deck now defaults to Fastest quality, medium particles, and ship shadows off.
• Disabled anti-aliasing on Steam Deck for improved frame rate.
• Shaders and ship templates pre-compiled during load to prevent first-combat freezes.
• Fixed weapon aim-assist scanning further than needed.
• Reduced HUD redraw overhead during combat.
• Improved pathfinding efficiency for AI ships.
• Ship explosions now use pooled effects to prevent stutters.
• Ship debris chunks are now pooled with simpler physics.
• Removed dark cloud overlay layer.
• Debris smoke trails capped per ship class to reduce lag spikes.
• Radial display now caches slider and text values to reduce unnecessary UI redraws.
• Clouds shader now uses a baked noise texture instead of per-pixel procedural noise.
• Ship shadows and outlines merged into a single half-res pass.
• HUD notices are now pooled instead of created on demand.
• Interaction prompts now cache resolved text per controller.
• Health bars skip positioning while hidden, reducing overhead with many ships.
• PDLs no longer appear in the linking panel as assignable.