Starfield: Best Settings - Digital Foundry Optimised

Dynamic Resolution Scaling: Off
Shadow Quality: Medium
Indirect Lighting: Medium-Ultra (No Difference)
Reflections: Medium
Particle Quality: Medium-High (No Difference)
Volumetric Lighting: Medium
Crowd Density: Low
Motion Blur: Low
GTAO Quality: Medium
Grass Quality: Medium
Contact Shadows: Medium
VRS: On
► Watch the FULL video here: • Starfield PC - Digital...
► Support us on Patreon! bit.ly/3jEGjvx
► Digital Foundry KZbin: / digitalfoundry
► Digital Foundry at Eurogamer: eurogamer.net/...
► Follow on Twitter: / digitalfoundry

[@The_Man_In_Red]

Does anyone else find it silly we're talking about dropping games to Medium or Low, WHILE using upscaling AND dynamic res on fairly competent hardware and still not able to achieve a solid 60 FPS? Meanwhile that same hardware could run Red Dead Redemption 2 at 1440p Ultra and having it look AMAZING. Even something like a 3070 can get 120 FPS in Cyberpunk 2077 at 1080p Ultra settings and it looks gorgeous yet we're mean't to believe Starfield is such a visual and technical upgrade that a 3070 can't even hope to achieve anywhere near 60 FPS at 1080p. 🧐

[@Scytherman]

Criticism of how the game runs is in the rest of the PC review. This part is just optimized settings and for that it's irrelevant how the game runs, what matters is that the people who want to play the game can inform themselves on how to get better FPS for minimal visual fidelity loss.

[@The_Man_In_Red]

@@weplayvrgames Yeah. Certainly has been the trend for 2023 that's for sure....

[@symol30872]

It's not that simple, there is typically a lot more going on in a Bethesda game behind the scenes vs RDR2/Cyberpunk 2077, especially when it comes to NPC AI. RDR2 will fail the mission if you stray off the path, Bethesda games don't typically do this as you can compete part missions and then come back to them hours later after doing side missions/random quests.

[@fcukugimmeausername]

Yes, let's compare Cyberpunk to Starfield. In other news, my 1996 Compaq used to play Solitaire just fine BUT can't run RDR2. This means Solitaire is the better optimised software.

[@JPgreekgaming]

Depends, I also find it silly how we have 60 series cards masquerading as 70s cards that go for 80s series prices. The whole situation has been a mess for a while, from under performing hardware to poorly optimised games, there is stagnation in the GPU industry and no incentive to make things right cause fuck gamers, ai brings in the big money and we get left in the mercy and whim of big corpos

[@MediaBrad]

Also force ReBAR on in the Nvidia Profile Inspector if you have an Nvidia card.

[@AnalogFoundry]

Yep, can confirm force enabling from NV Inspector added another 5-6% more fps on my 3070 rig.

[@boybanci]

unfortunately my pc was cpu bound in this game so rebar didn't do much

[@steel5897]

@@boybanci you can use a framerate cap slightly under your average FPS to make it more GPU bound. As a bonus you get smoother frametimes too. You should never make the CPU the bottleneck, it's a guaranteed way to get bad frame pacing.

[@flowingpixels]

Update: it seems that the latest nvidia driver now enables rebar by default :)

[@adriang3492]

LMAO that thumbnail face 😂

[@Koozwad]

really sums up the game

[@troy1993]

​@@Koozwad whats wrong with the game? its everything I expected from a bethesda game. If you hate bethesda games don't play it. I'm having the most fun I had since skyrim. It's also the least buggy bethesda game ever at launch.

[@adriang3492]

@@troy1993 OK Boomer

[@ToxMod]

He’s got that “ it’s gonna be a long day” type of face.😂

[@joshuam4993]

​@@Koozwadclearly haven't played it

[@Hybred]

Just as an FYI I made a performance mod that doesn't decrease visual fidelity called "Optimal Performance" I recommend pairing it with these settings, it's free FPS.

[@DuckAlertBeats]

Been waiting for a Starfield video

[@Antagon666]

2:49 Why is that contact shadow of the upper trunk so blobby on medium ? Compared to low and high/ultra. Other than that, the game is not worth running higher than medium.

[@fodiddlediddle5015]

thanks Alex!

[@ab.sz.479]

Danke Alex, Allah razi olsun canim benim.

[@mr.electronx9036]

Starfield - when ultra settings are barely different from medium 🤷‍♂ btw sry 4 my english

[@willknight3516]

There’s murder in Alex’s eyes

[@firip255]

On 3440x1440 FSR looks better than native. And sometimes worse. The Best is dlss mod

[@randalldraco3822]

You know why tere are virtual boxes and no seemles transitions? why game restricts itself to 8gb Vram usage on every GPU and rely on streaming assets? Why those assets then had to be chopped ins small bits and pieces? The answer is trivial - Series S garbage tier streaming machine. Modders already proven that planets can be accessed "quadrant by quadrant" and that you can transition from one "box" to another and it can load. There is no world simulation, no AI, its CP2077 lvl joke - just increadibly poor 6-7 core restricted CPU utilisation to fit console hardware. What about PC? Alex already did the testing - Todd "Bugthesda - because f* PC gamers" & "U guys have no moar GPUs?" Howard should resign, followed by Phil "Next year will be groundbreaking for Xbox" Spencer. I just played GOW Ragnarok - 75-90 FPS on beutiful VRR performance mode, no bugs, no glitches, no issues through 98hrs of platinum rush, a perfect execution of AAA flagship in house game. And what, this garbage tier unopitmised piece of dated junk, roughly a reskin of Fallout 4, with level of technical execution adequate to small indie studio they try to sell as best since sliced bread next gen AAA blockbuster? It's a joke. Compared to Sony AAA, the crap that MS releases one after another is just a total remarkable disgrace, a spit in the face of gamers. This is what Game Pass owners got from $7Billion investment? Red Fail and Starfail? They should rename themselves as Xbox Fail Studios.

[@Tony-jp4yl]

This how I felt too. Sick of people defending this crap of a game that looks a decade old and still runs worse than games that are leagues ahead.

[@fgc1850]

How much crying in one comment 😂

[@prauwnsauce]

Recently got a 3060ti and was super excited to give this a try after Red Dead 2, and I have to say it makes it even more disheartening that Todd the God didn’t think it was, he must be going blind that poor old boy.

[@raul-km6mq]

game is full of flickering

[@mr.electronx9036]

Starflickering - Extra Feature👌

[@steel5897]

Use DLSS and it gets rid of all flickering.

[@firip255]

Flickering is on native Resolution Problem too. I Think is normal. Play on 4K or 8K is a Solution. Because The Game has no Anti aliasing options

[@lndintw]

why bro look like that in the thumbnail lol

[@strider775]

Why is nothing being said about the game constantly crashing on PC & Series x & Series S?

[@Jamal-mq6xn]

In my 20h of Starfield I have not experienced a single crash

[@samgee500]

The only crashes I've had were due to mods I configured incorrectly

[@steel5897]

It's not for me... 60 hours on PC, not one crash. They're not gonna talk about specific issues in your setup.

[@kemokems]

No crashes on PC Steam for me, 40hrs in.

[@firip255]

I have only 1 Crash (40 Hours Run)

[@Rodniikun]

Really ugly looking game

[@Coxy-b34]

The poor performance (50fps on a 4090 with FSR2.0 enabled) is down to CPU restrictions, which in turn is down to the horribly dated Ceeation engine. Yea, put a '2' after Creation Engine if you like but it doesn't change the fact it's code is rooted in a 20 year old engine and trying to make AAA games with such an engine is bound to have issues. It's like trying to create a modern game with the original Unreal engine, it's designed for modern system and would give severely disspointing and ugly results, as does Creation Engine 2, to a lesser extent.

[@CheckmateStallioN]

Tell that to all the Todd Howard nutsack riders and they get offended and go in full damage control mode and on top of it all they resort to personal insults and in some rare instances even doxing. I have never seen a community more toxic than the Howard worshippers. That fanbase puts Howard on the highest pedistool when it was shown time and time again that none of his games were mindblowing or revolutionary in any way shape or form. In fact they were held back by an engine that simply can't keep up with the times but here you have all these Howard worshippers acting like he is the "🐐"

[@DeltaAssaultGaming]

*Gamebryo engine

[@Coxy-b34]

​@@DeltaAssaultGaming Essentially yes it is. The trained eye can see telltale signs of the original Gamebryo engine.

[@SentinelBorg]

@@DeltaAssaultGaming *NetImmerse engine

[@samgee500]

Just like it was in Fallout 3 and Oblivion, you cannot look down and see the rest of your body, and when you go to sit down in a chair the camera forces you to have an out-of-body experience. It's the same engine. Todd Howard is even quoted as saying that Starfield will be the last game to feature the "old animation system" before moving to a more photo-realistic approach with the next Elder Scrolls.

[@michahojwa8132]

There's soo much pain from ps5 and nvidia folks - one game not made for them and acid starts flowing.

[@Zenzuu]

PS5 owners don't exactly need Starfield. There's already a good selection of games for it.

[@kalle8960]

badly optimized on amd too idk what you are smoking

[@ryo-kai8587]

It shouldn't perform vastly worse on any hardware, regardless of what manufacturer it comes from. It's fair to say it's not optimized for that hardware that that point.

[@michahojwa8132]

@@ryo-kai8587 But you don't know who messed it up, there were reports of nvidia cutting budget for optimizing drivers and working with devs.

[@michahojwa8132]

@@kalle8960 Crysis waited an year to be playable, noone talked about optimizations when every gen brought +40% fps. When can you call a game unoptimized - when it doesnt work on your pc on ultra? I just don't get wheres the limit.

[@MichaelM28]

37 seconds to load on the "world's most powerful console" while Spider-Man and Ratchet & Clank take 1 second on PS5 😂😂😂

[@mazzalean077]

Your 50th name change, get a life

[@mazzalean077]

@weplayvrgames tbf if you watched digital foundarys video you would know the consoles arent powerful enough to do 60fps...

[@joshuam4993]

It has nothing to do with the console you idiots. It's Bethesda, and their shitty creation engine. There are PCs superior to ps5 loading it the same.

[@MichaelM28]

@@mazzalean077yet Sony's first party games handle 60fps no problem

[@mazzalean077]

@@MichaelM28 There you go, they can. Well done to them. Noone really cares tho.

[@fvallo]

Bad performance was a stylistic choice, its a bethesda game, its expected, dont be a toxic troll, its a 24fps cinematic experience, it doesent look good but it has charm, game gits gud after 36 hours, hold in dere, trust me bro- saint John 2023

[@FatNorthernBigot]

Which pronouns do I enter to improve graphical fidelity?😊

[@JP-eu2dc]

All of them

[@DroneCorpse]

HAHA PRONOUNS AM I RITE. WHAT A WOKEY WOKE GAME SHOULD BE CALLED WOKEFIELD IMAGINE IF THEY DEDICATED THEIR PRONOUN RESOURCES TO OPTIMIZE THE GAME AM I RITE FELLOW GAMERS. WOKE!

[@steel5897]

@@DroneCorpse I BOYCOTTED THIS GAME BECAUSE OF A SINGLE STRING OF TEXT! GAMING IS RUINED!

[@vjmtz]

@@DroneCorpse I knew this game was broken when it couldn't even handle its menu beyond a logo on a black wallpaper with some white text - totally unoptimized trash

[@ThouShaltNotCommitAdultery]

Its not about ultra settings is about giving the best by using the least. Ultra is not needed on Xbox. It can do it but it's just not needed

[@dylanzachary683]

It can’t do it bro keep trying to justify that purchase 😂😂

[@OneTwoMark]

"It can do it but it's just not needed" lol. You may be technically right, if you don't mind playing in 10fps.

[@NephilimGodMusic]

I run all my settings on Ultra and Native at 4k. Playing on a 7900 XTX with a LG Oled yes Ultra looks amazing :D

[@dylanzachary683]

@@NephilimGodMusic you want a cookie bro ?

[@NephilimGodMusic]

Don't be salty :D @@dylanzachary683

[@vinihs2]

This guy is an angel no one else on this world ou do this search

[@Silvar55x]

I believe the Crowd Density affects the spawning rate of NPCs - it doesn't remove existing ones. Tim from Hardware Unboxed at least was able to find (in their optimization guide) a difference between the settings, provided you moved to a new area after changing it. The identical footage in this video from the different Crowd Density settings lead me to believe each was shot immediately after reloading a save while already within the city. I suppose Starfield preserves even NPC state - at least in the current location - in its saves.

[@unbanmekoil]

Yeah Alex is wrong. I wonder how many hours he actually spent “counting”.

[@Alexandrosvls]

Will you be covering Jedi survivor latest patch which seems to be the most significant? The usual such as framerate and native resolution

[@DeltaAssaultGaming]

*Optimized

[@autodidact7127]

Illuminati confirmed

[@DinnerIsDelayed]

The Look of Kratos on the thumbnail is wild XD

[@Koozwad]

1:04 HOW are you even getting ~25 FPS there with a 3090 with max clocks and 99% GPU usage I am getting like ~30 FPS using the exact same settings(4k, 67% res and max settings) - in some areas like dense forests even dipping to ~27 FPS 3090 is supposed to be ~82% faster(so almost twice as fast) according to UserBenchmark all in all solid analysis but the text at times seemed a bit rushed(some typos like comparing High to High when I assume the second High should be Ultra) PS solid thumbnail, really sums up what a disappointment the game has been in some areas

[@John-oo9xu]

Bottom line, no differences when playing without a magnifying glass

[@DroneCorpse]

Whatever you need to cope lol

[@ionrage]

You are also going to make a optimised setting example for AMD gpus because they perform better natively, these settings tend to show the limits on Nvidia but show what can be pushed on there.

[@03chrisv]

nVidia will most likely release new drivers that allow better performance on Starfield, not to mention the devs will continue to update the game that will also increase performance over time.

[@ionrage]

@@03chrisv but these performance updates will also improves AMDs the same. but thats not my point. With the game actually favouring AMD over Nvidia in this, for those users, it be great for DF to actually provide that video and not show apparent bias to Nvidia which as an outlet they should not have.

[@03chrisv]

@ionrage Considering nVidia has 85% market share and a 6800 XT outperforms a 3080 by 30% to 40% in this game when the 3080 usually performs the same to a 6800 XT (In rasterization), it's actually better to target nVidia users. They make up the majority of gamers and in this case the nVidia GPUs are underperforming so they would need the optimized settings more than AMD users. Also performance updates can target certain cards, if Bethesda makes updates that increase performance on nVidia hardware it doesn't mean AMD cards will perform better too.

[@ionrage]

@@03chrisv that's not how the PC market has ever worked, devs don't optimize based on this, they view the PC segment as a whole. Have you ever seen cod benchmarks, if so AMD has a similar lead to starfield, it's sure to Nvidia lacking the silicon to process what the game throws at it compared to AMD. Id this is the similar thing, Nvidia will always be behind AMD for this game. Any dev optimisation will just improve both vendors performance.

[@03chrisv]

@ionrage I've been building gaming PCs since 2003 so I'm not new to the PC space, devs have optimized for specific cards before. I'm not saying it's common but it has happened when performance disparity has been very lopsided. CoD performs better on AMD mainly due to Infinity Cache and its scheduler that helps alleviate some CPU bottlenecks since CoD is quite CPU hungry. nVidia doesn't really have a 1 to 1 equivalent to this so the CoD devs can't really optimize for nVidia anymore unless they rewrite their game engine. Starfield on the otherhand is built on an over decade old engine (the Creation Engine) which has powered other games. The disparity between AMD and nVidia has never been so huge in AMD's favor before in past creation engine games so obviously the dev team spent more time optimizing for AMD graphics cards this time around since it's an AMD sponsored game. I suspect more optimizations for nVidia hardware will take place in the future since obligations to tailor the game to AMD no longer apply, even Digital Foundry mentioned this.

[@the100ways6]

whats the difference about hardware unboxed optimized settings and the digital foundry's settings? I'm confusing which one i should use

[@MichaelM28]

Spider-Man 2 > trashfield

[@racephase]

keep dreaming

[@MichaelM28]

@@racephasekeep coping

[@joshuam4993]

I get to enjoy both. Must suck being you

[@nintendo1889x]

Trashfield > TLOU2

[@mysticking16]

As a owner of a PC and a ps5 I get both