Ever thought of reliving the early days of the Call of Duty boon by firing up the original Call of Duty Black Ops on your Steam Deck? Chances are, you’ve quickly put that idea to bed after finding out that it’s a hitch-filled mess. Turns out you’re not alone. Lucky for you, if the latest SteamOS beta build is anything to go by, older Call of Duty games could see a huge performance boost. And the benefits aren’t limited to the classic FPS franchise, either. Theoretically, anyway.
So, what’s the reason for this renewed interest in bringing Captain Price on a long train journey? A little something called ntsync. The major (and really only) feature of the January 8 SteamOS beta update added kernel-level support for this super special driver that’s been known to boost performance of Windows games on Linux—the base of functionality for not only the Steam Deck, but the forthcoming Steam Machine and Steam Frame hardware. Exciting times indeed.
Now, before you get too giddy thinking this is some hail-mary for Windows-based mimicry on Linux, let’s slow down a little. While ntsync has been known to offer up huge performance gains in some versions of Linux, SteamOS already supports fsync—a driver that provides much of what ntsync brings to the table. But that doesn’t mean ntsync can’t bring some slight improvements, especially for older games that don’t play nicely with fsync. Much of the buzz online has revolved around problematic titles in the Call of Duty franchise, but there’s little reason to think ntsync can’t lend a hand to other PC games from that era as well.
Curious to see if this newfound potential was real, I grabbed my Steam Deck to put these hopes and dreams to the test. I still occasionally fire up the original version of Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare on my PC for some retro (ouch) manic multiplayer mayhem, needing my boots on the ground for a change. While getting the multiplayer component working on my Steam Deck would take hours I simply did not have on a busy Sunday, I did dive into a bit of the campaign to seek out any noticeable differences. And were they game-changing? Well, not really. But it’s not quite the end of hope, either.
It turns out Call of Duty 4 runs just fine on the Steam Deck already. Achieving the refresh cap on the Steam Deck OLED is a given. By unlocking the frame rate, however, I noticed some minor improvements when running Proton GE (ntsync)—a crucial distinction considering the beta nature of this update—compared to the classic Proton branch still utilizing fsync.
Unplugged from its charger, loading into the catwalk checkpoint of the Crew Expendable mission had the Gamescope overlay FPS reading anywhere from 130-140 on the current fsync build, whereas switching to the Proton-GE fork that utilizes ntsync saw it hover more reliably between 135-144.
Is it enough to claim victory over the stuttery mess of former Call of Duty runs reported by other players? Again, not quite. And let’s be honest, I’m no member of the PCGamesN hardware team, so take my basic testing with a gigantic grain of salt. But if you’re keen on connecting your Deck to a 144Hz panel for some super-smooth runs of the F.N.G. training mission, you might appreciate these minor improvements.
Over on the Steam Deck subreddit, though, user ‘Sjknight413’ reports that the previously observable “horrendous framerate drops” and “glitchy or pitch black” objects in Call of Duty Black Ops using fsync are now nonexistent with this new Proton-GE/ntsync combo. So, if there’s an older Windows game you’ve struggled with on your Steam Deck, it might just be worth spending a lazy Sunday experimenting with this handy new solution. All you need to do is opt into the SteamOS 3.7.20 beta branch and install the latest Proton-GE version via the Proton Up-Qt app found in the Discover store. A few clicks are all it takes—promise.
Not feeling it? Once this beta branch rolls out to the broader public, expect plenty of benchmarks to pop up around the web. Me? I’m just excited to polish my fruit-killing skills on the go. Sure, they’re already “remarkable,” but they do say becoming an expert in anything takes 10,000 hours.