Todd Howard Responds to Starfield’s Alleged Lack of PC Optimization: “Upgrade Your PC”

[Tsing]

Starfield players who are seeing poor performance on PC are likely experiencing that simply because they are in need of a hardware upgrade. This is according to director Todd Howard, who was asked by Bloomberg Technology's Ed Ludlow this week as to why Microsoft and Bethesda Game Studios didn't bother optimizing the game for PC. Howard stated that the studio actually did do that, clarifying that this is a next-gen game and that "you may need to upgrade your PC."

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[Brian_B]

He's not wrong.

 

[Brent_Justice]

First game to require an SSD I think, this is the way forward, I see this becoming the norm.

 

[Peter_Brosdahl]

Performance-wise I feel it's working as expected for a modern game that's demanding due to its graphics and design.

Feature-wise, I'm not happy about the lack of HDR, brightness/gamma, and FOV controls or the lack of 32:9 support. Most of these are features common to most modern AAA games and have been for about 3-5 years now.

 

[Brent_Justice]

I dunno, I feel the graphics are a little underwhelming considering the hardware demand, personally, it could be the art direction, but I don't know. I've been "wowed" by games that have been demanding to a greater degree, like Crysis, and Cyberpunk. This one is demanding, but are the visuals relative to that demandin'ness, making sense? And the game lacks Ray Tracing, something I think it should have.

 

[Marees]

I dunno, I feel the graphics are a little underwhelming considering the hardware demand, personally, it could be the art direction, but I don't know. I've been "wowed" by games that have been demanding to a greater degree, like Crysis, and Cyberpunk. This one is demanding, but are the visuals relative to that demandin'ness, making sense? And the game lacks Ray Tracing, something I think it should have.

I think the question posed was too dumb.

It should have been the other way round

"What feature(s) of this game cause such a demanding requirement on PC Hardware"

 

[Dan_D]

I dunno, I feel the graphics are a little underwhelming considering the hardware demand, personally, it could be the art direction, but I don't know. I've been "wowed" by games that have been demanding to a greater degree, like Crysis, and Cyberpunk. This one is demanding, but are the visuals relative to that demandin'ness, making sense? And the game lacks Ray Tracing, something I think it should have.

The problem is that what determines performance of a game comes down to design decisions and choices for how certain things are implemented. It's rarely about "code optimization" the way people think of it. Todd Howard should explain it rather than being a dick and saying: "upgrade your PC." He's not wrong, but that's not the best way to say it.

 

[xGryfter]

Starfield's graphics would have been on the nicer side of average 5 years ago. Just saying your game is "next Gen" doesn't make it so.

There is nothing visible about Starfield that would make sub 30fps on a RTX 3080ti justifiable on ultra without DLSS {mod} but with DLSS on at 50% render resolution an everything set to high {not ultra} and still dropping under 30? That's inexcusable. Not to mention the numerous and ****ty load times even when installed on a Gen 4 SSD.

I love Bethesda's games but I believe they are ether horrendously bad at the technical side of game development or lazy as hell... or maybe a bit of both.

 

[Peter_Brosdahl]

It's a mixed bag one the graphics for sure, kind of like Hogwarts but the gamma filters here are the worst I've seen since Aliens Colonial Marines.

I ended up downloading a mod last night that essentially removes Bethesda's filters with a small custom script. Once that's done the game, imo, actually looks way better and you can see a lot more of the various textures and effects.

Neutral LUTs - No Color Filters

Removes the color filters from the game + DLC, making the colors more uniformly neutral with deeper blacks.

www.nexusmods.com

 

[xGryfter]

It's a mixed bag one the graphics for sure, kind of like Hogwarts but the gamma filters here are the worst I've seen since Aliens Colonial Marines.

I ended up downloading a mod last night that essentially removes Bethesda's filters with a small custom script. Once that's done the game, imo, actually looks way better and you can see a lot more of the various textures and effects.

Neutral LUTs - No Color Filters

Removes the color filters from the game + DLC, making the colors more uniformly neutral with deeper blacks.

www.nexusmods.com

I'm running that one as well, along with a few others, and it makes a huge difference in overall visual quality in my opinion.

 

[termus]

It's a mixed bag one the graphics for sure, kind of like Hogwarts but the gamma filters here are the worst I've seen since Aliens Colonial Marines.

I ended up downloading a mod last night that essentially removes Bethesda's filters with a small custom script. Once that's done the game, imo, actually looks way better and you can see a lot more of the various textures and effects.

Neutral LUTs - No Color Filters

Removes the color filters from the game + DLC, making the colors more uniformly neutral with deeper blacks.

www.nexusmods.com

Wow that is a crazy good difference.

 

[Peter_Brosdahl]

Yeah, imho, Bethesda's filters are just plain baffling.

 

[MadMummy76]

First game to require an SSD I think, this is the way forward, I see this becoming the norm.

Dragon Inquisition was unplayable without an SSD in 2014, IDK if it officially required one or not, but running it from a HDD meant 5 minute loading times instead of 20 seconds, and cutscenes played at 2-3 fps.

I dunno, I feel the graphics are a little underwhelming considering the hardware demand, personally, it could be the art direction, but I don't know. I've been "wowed" by games that have been demanding to a greater degree, like Crysis, and Cyberpunk. This one is demanding, but are the visuals relative to that demandin'ness, making sense? And the game lacks Ray Tracing, something I think it should have.

The graphics is a mixed bag, there were parts that wowed me, like the ship and base interiors and some colonies. But planetside exploration kind of looks like Fallout4 with a little tuneup. But there are more things that can be impressive about a game than the graphics. For example I feel much more free in Starfield than I ever did in Cyberpunk 2077, which looked pretty but it was all window dressing, because outside of mission critical locations you couldn't explore much in it. Crysis being a linear shooter is not even worth comparing to either.

As for ray tracing I honestly couldn't tell that it does not have it if I didn't know. So perhaps it doesn't really needs RT.

Yeah, imho, Bethesda's filters are just plain baffling.

I have grown to like them, it makes the game more atmospheric and realistic looking, even if without them the textures look more impressive and the objects more detailed. But in my opinion also more artificial and too clean. Which puts emphasizes on that it is just a videogame.

 

[Marees]

Starfield engine can't handle 100000 sandwiches on top of 15000 water melons & 6000 oranges. Game freezes

https://twitter.com/x/status/1700615105459986637

 

[Ditchinit]

Starfield engine can't handle 100000 sandwiches on top of 15000 water melons & 6000 oranges.

Me neither. Maybe 5999 oranges, but 6000 is one too many.

 

[LazyGamer]

As for ray tracing I honestly couldn't tell that it does not have it if I didn't know. So perhaps it doesn't really needs RT.

It could use it. Every game can use RT.

 

[MadMummy76]

It could use it. Every game can use RT.

Not every game uses every effect. RT is the buzz now, many devs use it regardless of cost / benefit. But not all gmes benefit from it significantly, in fact there are some that would probably work much better had they been designed without it. If Starfield had RT then the performance complaints would be 10 times worse probably. Maybe it can be added later as an option like in Metro Exodus, if they are so inclined.

I mean some say Cyberpunk 2077 looks better with RT off. Not that I agree with them, but it shows how incremental the difference is in practice compared to baked in lightmaps.

 

[LazyGamer]

But not all gmes benefit from it significantly

That's not what I'm saying - I'm saying that there's always a benefit, some more, some less. The basic reality is that without some really, really good lightmaps, the lack of RT is immersion breaking. Things don't look 'right'.

If Starfield had RT then the performance complaints would be 10 times worse probably.

Well yes, that is Bethesda's trademark, after all.

 

[MadMummy76]

That's not what I'm saying - I'm saying that there's always a benefit, some more, some less. The basic reality is that without some really, really good lightmaps, the lack of RT is immersion breaking. Things don't look 'right'.

Are saying you never played any games before 2019? Because that is what it sounds like. And lightmaps are pretty expensive too, so their resolution used to be much lower.

And I'm not saying that there is no benefit too it, I'm saying the cost sometimes outweigh the benefit, and also that I don't miss it in starfield.

Spoiler: It looks good enough to me

 

[LazyGamer]

And I'm not saying that there is no benefit too it, I'm saying the cost sometimes outweigh the benefit

That I agree with. It's not necessary to have in every game, but every game would benefit from more accurate lighting.

and also that I don't miss it in starfield.

I missed it almost immediately...