Starfield Graphics Optimization Guide & Benchmarks, Settings Comparison, & Performance Mods

Sponsor: Thermaltake SWAFAN EX 120 3-Pack on Amazon geni.us/ardZR
This is our last (for now) Starfield benchmark installation! This one compares Starfield's graphics settings with in-depth benchmarks, visual comparisons, and even some mod packs to modify the .ini files for Starfield's settings. In our benchmarking, we'll look at how you can optimize Starfield settings to achieve the best graphics quality to performance. We're providing you with all the relative scaling tools to determine which graphics options scale the most, how much they visually affect the game, and then we're testing some DLSS, DLSS Frame Generation, Optimization, and FOV mods for the game. We also tested Bethesda's brand new patch in a quick A/B comparison benchmark, finding ultimately that there was no difference with our test hardware (although NVIDIA's recent ReBAR profile update helped).
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XFX RX 6800 XT on Amazon: geni.us/APDyT1F
Or a different 6800 XT on Amazon: geni.us/skLY
PowerColor RX 7900 XTX on Amazon: geni.us/IJdlMvH
ASUS RTX 4090 TUF on Amazon: geni.us/b814
XFX RX 7900 XT on Amazon: geni.us/9DJk
PNY RTX 4070 on Amazon: geni.us/JXyRHNt
XFX RX 7600 on Amazon: geni.us/cvZ2dp
TIMESTAMPS
00:00 - Starfield Graphics, Mods, & Optimization
01:50 - What This Content is For & Mods for Optimization
03:40 - Bethesda's Patch Benchmarks & NVIDIA Driver
04:49 - Summary of Visuals vs. Performance
07:29 - Benchmark Methodology & Plan
08:36 - Starfield GPU-Bound Graphics Settings Optimization Guide
10:45 - Starfield Shadow Quality Benchmarks
11:39 - Shadow Quality Graphics Comparison in Starfield
12:48 - Indirect Lighting Benchmarks in Starfield
13:30 - Terrible Visuals at Low Indirect Lighting without VRS
15:27 - Grass Quality Benchmarks & Graphics Comparison
16:32 - Crowd Density Oddities, Benchmark, & Comparison
18:09 - Reflections Benchmarks & Graphics Comparison
19:49 - Volumetric Lighting Benchmarks & Comparison
20:53 - GTAO Explanation & Comparison
21:58 - Contact Shadows Test & Image Quality
23:00 - Particle Quality Tests & Comparison
24:23 - CPU-Bound Graphics Settings Optimization Guide
25:09 - Mods: FOV, Performance Optimization, & DLSS
26:23 - DLSS Benchmarks & Frame Generation
27:51 - Starfield Optimization Mod Benchmarks
28:57 - Concluding Thoughts
** Please like, comment, and subscribe for more! **
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Host, Writing, Testing: Steve Burke
Testing, Writing: Patrick Lathan
Testing, Writing: Jeremy Clayton
Video: Vitalii Makhnovets

[@GamersNexus]

That completes the trilogy -- for now. Check out our Starfield Day One GPU benchmarks here: kzbin.info/www/bejne/bXunk6WNotGkg9k And our CPU Benchmarks here: kzbin.info/www/bejne/qJLJkISla5V6n5Y The best way to support our work is through our store: store.gamersnexus.net/ We published a new bonus Patreon video yesterday! www.patreon.com/gamersnexus

[@robertlawrence9000]

Thanks Steve!

[@quantum5661]

quality stuff like this is why you folks at GN are the gold standard in the tech world

[@BBWahoo]

I don't give a damn about starfield - but YOU, yes you, make it all worth watching.

[@robertlawrence9000]

@@BBWahoo 🌈

[@LudwigHorsecock]

Steve Steve Steve Steve Steve Steve Steve Steve Steve Steve

[@oddmofo]

I found GN thanks to the GTA V launch benchmarks. I hope a new generation of gamers find their way here thanks to Starfield.

[@GamersNexus]

Wow! That's awesome to hear and great to see you're hanging out here now. Glad you found us back then, and thank you for the kind wishes about the newcomers!

[@ekupka]

For me it was The Witcher 3, I probably held a lot longer to my R9 270X thanks to that video (and the insights I got from it)

[@criznittle968]

Same, but not entirely

[@Styreta]

same dude! I still have their GTA V graphics settings bookmarked from what feels like a decade ago!

[@LunarNeedle]

Exactly the same! My old HD7970 was not fit for the task.

[@vividas]

Going above and beyond by looking at mods besides the DLSS ones. Great work as always.

[@FirestormX9]

that mod seems to be causing save game files to crash upon load after the new game update. Uninstalling it removes the issue.

[@akirajkr]

For an extra suggestion: Grab Special K for Starfield. It currently has a FOV slider that changes in realtime with the game, so you can fine-tune it better without touching the .ini, a Mip Bias slider because of a bug with the game, and proper HDR support.

[@moldyshishkabob]

@@akirajkr As someone not going to ever play Starfield, I legitimately thought you were going to suggest what breakfast to eat while exploring the galaxy.

[@tonnentonie2767]

​@@moldyshishkaboboh no special k is ketamine, it's really just the spice from dune.

[@Klar]

yooo vonsoliño love you man

[@ringsystemmusic]

Positive comment: holy shit this is the kind of content I want when a game I like releases. Shame that rarely happens nowadays!

[@GamersNexus]

Thank you for the kind words!

[@BBWahoo]

@@GamersNexus Imagine if you could cover emulation without being stricken, that would be beautiful. "Supertuned" ram really helps for Zelda TOTK.

[@hsanrb]

​@@BBWahoo except that's a console exclusive, so the developer AND the publisher (in case of games NOT doing them in house) have to be happy enough for big releases to hit the market. Consoles might have some "tricks" you can do, but you are rewarded because you usually only have to tailor the game to a single system. PC's or even XBox/Playstation do not have that luxury, despite them having similar spec sheets to a PC because most studios develop them together.

[@MlnscBoo]

@@BBWahoo Hey bub I have an RX 6800. Can you explain "Supertuned" ram? does that apply to AMD cards? and where could I go to find a guide on tuning if so?

[@mjc0961]

@@MlnscBoo They were talking about overclocking a Switch to play The Legend of Zelda Tears of the Kingdom.

[@coryv5679]

What is crazy is that a game in 2023 doesn't come with a Gamma or any way to change the darkness or brightness of the game... It also locks you to either Window mode or Borderless Full Screen which locks you to your resolution. You'd think after 20 years of making games they would know what basic stuff to add.

[@quintoblanco8746]

"Window mode or Borderless Full Screen" That is a function of DX 12. Exclusive full screen functionality is not a feature in DirectX 12.

[@letsgoiowa]

They're going to add it in upcoming patches, but it seems like they were genuinely surprised that people expected these.

[@Veritas.0]

That is microsoft's decision. They have been trying kill fullscreen since DX11.

[@FcoEnriquePerez]

Bethesda doesn't give a damn, is Fallout all over again, not even a f^&*$^ FOV slider or brightness adjustment? LOL And then there's f*^%^&* Todd talking sh*t "Just upgrade your PC" what a POS

[@zq7246]

It’s time to fire Bethesda! How could they do this ? It’s insulting and it makes me so angry. Today I punch three holes in the wall just thinking about it! Todd why are you destroying my life!?!?!!!

[@thebaffman4898]

One thing that I didn't see mentioned in any video analysis/review: the game itself doesn't have an Anisotropic Filtering setting, which is locked at 4x by default, but AF can be forced in the Nvidia control panel (should also work for AMD drivers). This however will cause the shadows to glitch as the game needs to recompile the shaders. Shaders recompilation can be forced by deleting the shader cache in the AppData folder (AppData/Local/Starfield), or reinstalling the video drivers.

[@slimshadythe111]

What a mess. I've had more fun tweaking and modding the game than actually playing it.

[@devondorr8212]

The Anisotropic Filtering settings can, just like those optimization tweaks, be done by editing the ini settings.

[@thebaffman4898]

@@devondorr8212 I tried that but it never worked for me. Maybe I did something wrong. Worked first try on the control panel, so I never went back on it.

[@zelassin]

The setting for indirect lighting that's set when you're on "Low" is named "HalfResIndirect", which suggests that on low quality you literally just get half of the rendering resolution for that. That would explain the immediately noticeable cutoff in quality.

[@DejayClayton]

Dunno why, but I've been trained to check how tired Steve looks whenever I start watching a Gamers Nexus video.

[@GamersNexus]

"How tired are you?" "I KNOW EVERY CORNER OF NEW ATLANTIS"

[@CyberbrainPC]

@@GamersNexusTime to learn every corner of Akila City!

[@kaseyboles30]

​@@CyberbrainPCplease don't try to break the Steve, we need him NOT in an asylum.

[@CyberbrainPC]

@@kaseyboles30 True true, the UC probably has standing orders for him.

[@nicholasking6066]

I'm begining to do the same lol hadn't thought about it till you said something but ya I realized I'm doing the same.

[@brunoagostinho3539]

Its insane the amount of work you guys do. Thanks for being like this, your work is much apreciated

[@Gottaculat]

I was thinking the same thing; the amount of work that went into collecting the data in this video is pretty crazy. I'd have ended up torching the shop from the tedium, lol! They think it's fun, so I say let them do the hard work, lol.

[@thatzaliasguy]

After some further testing, I found that *Particles Quality* _actually_ refers to explosion debris (Grenades, Environmental Explosives, and Ship explosions). This also affects debris of ground impacts from weapons (much like the Debris setting in Fallout 4's PhysX particle implementation).

[@Servitor6879]

And lava. Large impact there for me with that setting.

[@MlnscBoo]

Large fires on the spacer/abandoned rigs with the huge h3 stores really tank my performance. This could be why. Also on neon the fog outside I think also tanks my performance. I'm using an rx 6800 at 4k 50% res scaling, which still looks great

[@Kniazz]

More on particle quality. (SPOILERS AHEAD) As you play through main quest and later through NG+, you'll find yourself constantly using specific power. Basically running it 100% of the time, as it allows you to move through world much faster by removing stamina consumption from sprinting, even overencumbered. And there's a LOT of "traveling" time in this game. But that thing surrounds you with tons of particles on your screen, and while on Ultra/High particles are subtle and don't block vision, they get much more chunky at Low. power is called "Personal Atmosphere".

[@hotdogsarepropaganda]

We need this as a pin somewhere. thgats great info to have@@Kniazz

[@GamersNexus]

Interesting! Thanks for that. We'll look at that next time as well!

[@travisolander4749]

Fantastic work. Factual, professional, accurate analyses -- impressive how quickly you came out with this. Others could learn a thing or two.

[@Mr.Genesis]

With these games the way they are nowadays.. Optimization guides are well worth and i'd rather watch GN's than anyone else's

[@Znatnhos]

Seeing those visual comparisons side by side is super helpful. It's really difficult to notice fine details like that when playing the game, but the cumulative effect really affects enjoyment. Knowing which settings to tweak to get the most out of your hardware is priceless.

[@Teh-Penguin]

Damn, this is amazing. I love the individual setting impact. Thanks GN!

[@scipher99]

Great video GN. I really enjoy these benchmark themed videos.

[@JamaicanMeCrazy980]

Just gotta chime in; LOVE the way you're testing the settings via baselines with the charts. Great work Steve & GN!

[@Abrasive-Heat]

It seems like medium on most settings is good enough without looking terrible. This video was super helpful. I should be able to get a bit more performance out of my 1080 ti. The games option menu is pretty garbage.

[@jwiz1911]

Amazing work! It's fascinating to see such a deep dive into how the different settings change quality/performance.

[@ryanhenderson4198]

Thanks so much for doing what you do Steve & team! Always mind blown by how in depth you go into things and it is so appreciated by us all

[@Blutzen]

I really love these graphics settings comparison videos, they're one of my favorite things you guys do, even for games that I don't own (like Starfield)

[@WigneyR]

17:57 it’s surprising digitalfoundry missed needing to reload the scene for the option to have an effect but I guess that’s why I’m here for the quality in depth investigative analysis and benchmarking as always, not to say digitalfoundry don’t try but I really appreciate the effort Steve and the team put in to these videos. Thankyou 👍

[@Abrioso]

The guys at DF seem goof at first but their content lacks a bit of the quality this channel bring to the table

[@NickLyttle]

Great content! Just got notification that my 15th anniversary shirt has shipped, very excited!

[@GamersNexus]

Awesome! Thank you for buying one!

[@Frostafarian]

"For example: we tried to find it in the club, in this bottle full of bub" Truly amazing

[@cam42704]

Nice to see you guys tested performance mods as well

[@techwandoUS]

Really solid video guys. Love the deep dive.

[@Verpal]

Recent Starfield contents reminds me of a time when GN is less technical, I think these content are great for reaching new viewers.

[@cole-nq1ru]

Well there is no "bad engine"-bound category yet. But this would win. I'm glad I have not lost years of my life just glancing at the source code. I'd probably run screaming. The idea that FPS is the same with widely different FOV means the engine is always doing far more work than it needs to. Or in other words, impressively bad code. No need to disassemble.

[@zheega2184]

Love that you test adjusting each setting from low and high baseline.

[@canabisquick]

Very interesting results Steve. Thank you for your time and efforts. Very well spoken, I see you do this often.

[@digitalwanderer]

Thank you for the indirect lighting tip! I was playing on all low on my 8gb 580 and couldn't believe just how awful it looked, bumping it up to high barely affected performance but visually it change everything. Thank you!

[@leakyabstraction]

Thanks, Steve

[@Zargo1z]

This was amazing guys! You guys broke everything down so well. In a dream world I would have a video like this for every game. Haha. I hope at least going forward we can get videos like this for heavy performance intense new titles. I would love a video like this for cyberpunk 2.0 and phantom liberty update. Awesome work as always.

[@rip4real437]

Amazing stuff guys, you even included mods. unreal. great video

[@Doug_Dimmadome]

Thanks Steve.

[@notbanned6158]

Its still so strange how they managed to make the performance so bad on starfield, the creation kit has a lot of tools that can be used to increase performance, such as Occlusion Culling Planes. The fact that they implemented DX12 as badly as they did is trademark bethesda lol.

[@dotplan]

They would do even worse on DX11... Why not go Vulkan, anyway?

[@Cindomis]

​@@dotplanthey were planning to but ran into issues so they switched to dx12 last minute

[@rubyvi5442]

It just works

[@asdion]

@@dotplan On the contrary due to the nature of DX11 Bethesda can not ruin things as badly as they can with DX12.

[@dquinn9482]

I had atrocious performance for my first 50hrs of the game. HOWEVER, after trying performance mods with no success I realized I had the game on my HDD instead of my SSD. After fixing that 👌 👏 👍 🥰. My CPU is still bottlenecking but it's still the work horse I thought it was after making that install change.

[@SaviorInTheSun]

I can’t imagine how much time it takes to make a video like this, but it’s very helpful. Keep up the great work, GN!

[@baka1984]

I subscribed because your witcher 3 graphic optimizations helped and nearly 8 years later I'm still regularly watching your content. Please don't change.

[@Silv3rDragon]

The middle settings for indirect lighting were skipped for the low to ultra range being outside the 6% range but would be nice to see an exception for settings like that that have such a massive visual change especially since it was close to the 6% in this case. My curiosity here is, is the jump from low to medium and medium to high linear for the fps cost or is one of those a larger jump than the other?

[@Patrikstar24]

3:43 "Bethesda has posted a note they they were working on ... an FOV slider ..." If you listen hard enough, you can hear TotalBiscuit rolling in his grave right as Steve said this. Seriously, why wasn't there an FOV slider in a game with a first-person camera?

[@GamersNexus]

I miss TotalBiscuit's videos. He'd have had a field day with this one.

[@SuperPseudonymous]

Thank you. Thank you for the long-form technical information videos. 🙏

[@cyberwaste]

Always quality content. My GN toolkit ordered in support after the LTT video finally made its way to me all the way down here in Australia. Awesome kit.

[@kingcobra3854]

I'm getting 40-50fps in 4k medium with my 1080ti, so crazy how long my gpu has lasted!

[@grooners5333]

After the last patch it looks like any edits to the standard INI files will get lost on update. So far Ive been doing mods manually as I wasnt sure about them but adding DLSS. turning down settings from the default Ultra, turning on auto HDR, another mod to sort out the visuals, and the rBAR enable (why was this a week later?) have all transformed a game from terrible in first run to pretty playable now - as it should be on 3080ti 5800x

[@darreno1450]

One of the most useful videos I've seen regarding this game. Thanks for the hard work!!

[@RutgersJRS]

Phenomenal gaming-specific content! This is the type of GN content I miss!

[@TominiOfficial]

Thanks for the video. I haven't played the game ever since I met the Constellation folks, because of the performance (and QoL) issues. I know R7 5800X and RTX 3070 isn't what it was when it came out, but when I was playing with all the settings I was confused as the settings looked same to me or they looked completely different, yet the performance gain was nowhere to be found. I just want stable 60 FPS without having the game look like the original Skyrim without mods...

[@Aruhen69]

I beat the game recently with a Ryzen 7700x and RTX 3070. At 1440p with medium settings and 62% resolution scaling with the DLSS mod I was able to achieve a stable 60fps though most of the time it was 80+. Yeah I know its not the same CPU so in big cities it'll run worse but everywhere else "should" be fine.

[@SahiPie]

It’s baffling to see people like you complain yet here I am playing on a 1660ti laptop that only gets 60 for 2 seconds looking at the corner of a room indoors and averages barely 30

[@TheDrewchebag]

I'm running an i7 11700F and a 3070 and can't even get a stable framerate on low settings. Loving the game but the performance is awful.

[@TominiOfficial]

@@Aruhen69 Damn, 62%? That's not even 1080p. I forgot to say that I have 1440p and I tried running it at 75% with upscaling, which is 1080p. Presets don't change much especially in cities.

[@TominiOfficial]

@@SahiPie What is baffling? If you enjoy the game like this then good for you. I am getting nauseous. It's not strictly about the framerate, but the pacing of it. The sudden dips to ~30 FPS is killing me.

[@DavidLee-cr4xv]

Unlike prebuilt video games, Starfield requires you to build the game yourself from the base game and mods, and change settings to achieve optimal performance. It is a true enthusiast's game.

[@mathewrost]

Thanks guys for all your work

[@KismetBP]

Why did KZbin not recommend this channel earlier. Awesome! +1 sub ❤🤘

[@dalet8777]

So far I've been able to play the game for about 30 minutes at a time before I get bored and play something else.

[@robertsewell536]

Tried 2 times on Series x week apart and I cannot make it longer than 2 hours. Complete waste of 100.00

[@kwazhims3lf]

wat? you dont want to play girlboss tEH game in space?@@robertsewell536

[@TheChosenOne471]

@@robertsewell536if your unsure of a game then don’t spend 100 dollars on it bud, and if your bored your not playing it right, there is tons of things to do you just didn’t give it time…

[@fensoxx]

Thank you so much!! Needed this.

[@SaltyCorncob]

Excellent work, thank you for your time!

[@horza3106]

Just out of curiosity, why was there no discussion of the visual impact of DLSS?

[@aaz1992]

This

[@dragontales1999]

I can't believe it's 2023 and they still can't optimize AAA games for PC.

[@akaviral5476]

At this point, I can. Modders are too valuable a people to take for granted. This company, however, is

[@Willie6785]

watch out, bethesda fanboys will come out and cope by saying it's "new innovative tech" and that "you need new hardware" 😂😂

[@anasevi9456]

It's Bethesda, they can barely get their games to run... and have already been outed for causing API bugs in Starfield which causes instability acutely for ARC, somewhat for Geforce and worse than normal performance for all videocards including Radeon. And because these are API bugs where the Vulkan/DX12 code is broken; it makes it far more difficult if not impossible for driver teams to get around them without direct under the hood access to Bethesda's dev team's work. No wonder Bethesda didnt even bother to try to get RT to work in Starefield.

[@dragontales1999]

@@anasevi9456 which is just insane. You think by now they'd get their shit together

[@RiskOfBaer]

They can. They just don't. People still buy them so why spend time on it?

[@Dante_S550_Turbo]

Awesome video! Love these kinds of optimization videos, especially when everyone is fighting tooth and nail for a few fps.

[@shinokami007]

Thank you guys

[@Gruntzilla]

You know the game is """well""" optimized for PC when Gamer's Nexus makes an entire production based on optimizing your settings to obtain acceptable performance. THANKS TODD!

[@wtfronsson]

You do want that ReBar enabled with some lower or mid tier setups. And for me that meant actually updating the motherboard UEFI, as my version from 3 years back did not have the support needed. This is a Tomahawk MAX B450 with a Ryzen 3600, and the last time the UEFI was updated was around Cyberpunk release. ReBar really helps, and not only in Starfield. I should have done this a lot earlier, really. The annoying part for me was having to punch in my custom RAM timings profile again. I use a complete custom profile to get the most out of my specific RAM sticks. But I just took photos of all the settings with my phone, so it can't exactly go wrong. Just a bit of work, and it's good to for another few years.

[@akeean]

Thank you for also benching the performance and DLSSG mods.

[@greyfox2344]

Great work, GN team!!! Looking forward to plugging in some of these settings into my game and bettering the experience =)

[@jollygreen4662]

But Linus said it was good to go

[@bb1377]

Great video. While we should be very grateful for the people who develop and publish these mods, I do think that this unfortunately incentivises game developers to continuously cut costs and decrease the quality of their releases, so that the community can do the bug fixes and optimisation for them for free.

[@casual.dojo.1]

Awesome. More than a review from GN, this is like a university hands on lab. Nice how you bring us viewers alongside you for the analysis.

[@Thrashman138]

The best damn graphics optimization guides on the internet. And that's with some serious competition from Alex and the crew at Digital Foundry. We should feel lucky to have access to such high quality, in-depth settings guides in the here and now.

[@Hoigwai]

Since the CDPR devs said that Phantom Liberty is going to push the system I hope you do a new series like this for the expansion.

[@kaimojepaslt]

can you provide source where they said that.

[@dustinmock46]

Really wish you looked into the SSD bottleneck claims. Imo the stuttering while running in a densely populated city is the worst part of Starfield. You suggest to crank the crowd density setting to make the game feel alive but that is the setting that affects the stuttering the most and is most immersion breaking. All of the settings you reviewed net a few fps or a tiny bit of graphical fidelity here or there but the gnarly hitches and massive frametime inconsistencies in cities is so much more noticeable. Not to diminish what you do this guide is great I just think there's a bigger issue to be investigated and addressed if the SSD claims are in fact true.

[@jelly8594]

What would be a resolution of the SSD bottleneck? Or do you mean SATA SSDs?

[@dustinmock46]

@@jelly8594 toms and wccftech have articles about it. Currently there is no fix. If you turn down crowd density it helps but doesn't completely get rid of it. And no I don't mean SATA ssds. I have a gen 4 nvme and still have the stutters

[@kennethwilson8236]

Definitely an issue I bought an sn850x nvme 2tb to install the game to . Not very playable on my A770. After install, the game ran fine

[@jelly8594]

@@dustinmock46 so you mean there 8s no optimal way to install it? HDD of course not, nvme problems and SATA SSD?

[@dustinmock46]

@@jelly8594 you should read the articles but yes even with the fastest ssds there is an issue with the game overloading an SSD. The SSD will be at 100% and unable to keep up which causes the GPU to drop to 0% and is the cause of the stutters when running around a city

[@HelplessTeno]

I originally found this channel because of your budget-mid range PC case airflow videos. I really wanted to prioritize airflow in my build and your testing led me to purchasing the CM Masterbox NR400, which has served me so well these last few years. Now you guys upload the most comprehensive performance guide on one of my most anticipated games of the last decade. This channel is a gift. Thank you.

[@Surms41]

Love the video like always! Those ketchup and mustard wires on the cyberpunk build look kinda funny lmao.

[@AsuraOkami]

Definitely interested to hear what Steve has to say about startfield. My experience with performance for the game has been mixed.

[@yaldabaoth2]

Badly optimized games like Starfield are a selling point for FSR and DLSS.

[@TalesOfWar]

I wonder how much is poor optimisation and how much is pushing the engine well beyond where it can go, ie this is as good as it realistically gets for this archaic engine.

[@yaldabaoth2]

@@TalesOfWar Well, that's also true but both are their responsibility, not the costumer's.

[@TalesOfWar]

@@yaldabaoth2 Totally agree. They shouldn't have released the game with these kind of engine limitations. It just isn't acceptable from a AAA studio in 2023.

[@RoronoaZoro-fq4cw]

GREAT WORK BOYS, i'd love to see more content like this.

[@danielhelderman5228]

this is insanely helpful! thank you

[@twiggsherman3641]

Game is hard on hardware. I have a 5800X3D and a 6950XT. At 1440p and ultra or high I get around 70 fps on the lower end. Even on medium in my ship I only see around 90-100. FSR 2 doesn't seem to add much performance unless I drop the scaling way down to like 50%. Todd said its for next gen hardware, my top-end last gen hardware clearly isn't up to the task.

[@christinaedwards5084]

I have similar set-up. Top tip, set monitor to 60hz and use v-sync. A solid 60fps will give a better user experience and feeling of smoothness than 90,72, 99, 110, 63. That my 6950xt gave me. Still have no idea what fsr2 actually does, I noticed no difference. Also high fps in single player is a total waste of energy. It’s not competitive where every drip of performance counts. That 60 cap lowers cunsumption by 200w. That’s less heat and noise from your pc too.

[@twiggsherman3641]

@@christinaedwards5084 I mean you do you, but 60 hertz isn't enough to make the game feel smooth. I'm used to games in the 130-140 range. Having half of that at parts in the game is the problem. I also don't care about power consumption. I use headphones and my PC is pretty quiet anyway with everything overclocked.

[@braddishv3146]

I don't understand why everyone is "shocked" by this nightmare. The writing has been on the wall for years (30 fps is fine guys, just trust me, bro). I can't emphasize this enough, I LIKE(d) Bethesda all the way back to Daggerfall, but with the 87th special super-duper version of Skyrim, to 76, and now this - I am done. What was once "charming" and character bugs has devolved into shameless, "We will release crap and modders will fix it for free - and if we CAN steal (monetize) that work so much the better." FO4 came out almost a decade ago, and to this day is still a minefield of game-breaking bugs (WITH mods, mind you). That is an objective fact. I really appreciate Steve's content and hard work, but I simply can't watch this. GN will get my "like" as it always does, but I am moving on. 32 minutes of dozens of different mods, settings, this - that on something with almost a decade's worth of dev time from a HUGE studio backed by Microsoft is just pathetic at this point. Remember the outrage over 5 dollar horse armor - I do. Where is the much-needed outrage over this far more egregious turd sandwich?

[@kwazhims3lf]

remember when they went after the modders trying to saddle them? then failed because *_FCUK YOU BETHESDA_* i do... the last crapthesda product i bought was skyrim.. this all will continue to happen because new suckers come around all the time so you all get *_WHAT YOU DESERVE_*

[@TalesOfWar]

To put this into even more context, especially on the Microsoft backed side of things... Bethesda, by dint of being owned by Microsoft, is technically a $2.45TRILLION company, and this is the best they can do. There are so many indie games out there made by a handfull of people, or even a single person with a shoestring budget producing better stuff than this, both in terms of writing and technical competence. Even when Fallout 3 came out the idea of having to load every damn building or "zone" in such a jarring, obvious way with a loading screen was considered kind of old fashioned. We had games already doing the open world thing without the need to have loading screens like that, they'd stream it in the background. The Witcher 1 being a good example.

[@llamacydeog9553]

100% they spent $200 million and over 8 years into this and the entire story is as transparent as can be. At first I was surprised by how big everything was but it's just a false sense of size when you're far enough in and can see everything outside of towns is copy paste. The hand crafted locations made beth games good, everyone always knew the gameplay struggles and their old engine chugs along but the general worldspace and feel behind it always pushed things forward. In Fo4 people complained about the lack of fleshed out towns, well this is reverse fallout, they made a few towns and about nothing else. Procedurally generated giant empty clones of the same 6 or so (exaggeration) location styles. I genuinely can't even understand how these writers are even employed with how shallow and transparent the story was and if anything has me feeling that ES6 is going to be more or less the same. Starfield feels like a lazy MMO not a 200m solo rpg. To be fair I am 100hrs in but it feels like that's honestly where you start to really notice "it's miles wide but only an inch thick". My hype died with NG+

[@crashbug4343]

Great work!

[@johnneal00]

Please keep doing these types of content! I like this a lot and I enjoy your approach more that others like Digital Foundry who seem to focus on consoles these days.

[@Hybred]

Hey GamersNexus be careful changing the ini settings in regards to shadows and reflections. Reflections when lowered can cause crashes on saves and shadows crashes on NPC dialogue. I've been experimenting and trobulechuting these issues for weeks with my Steam Deck/Low End PC Performance mod. It can also cause visual glitches. I personally wouldn't mess with reflections at all as they all causs issues and for shadow's only some of the parameters cause these problems.

[@zemperish]

Best optimization is to refund the game, this shit is unacceptable, where did the 200milion budget go?

[@i3l4ckskillzz79]

They spend all of the money for Todd's haircut

[@cunicelu]

Thanks for the in-depth analysis.

[@-CrimsoN-]

Quality content as always!

[@_n8thagr8_63]

Big step in the wrong direction, imo. The writing and character development is still trash, but only this time there's no incredible world to fall back on

[@llamacydeog9553]

I'm right there with you, I took it slow in 1 playthrough spacing core factions and mq to get an even feel. I'm 100hrs maybe less then 50 of the 1000 planets explored and I've gotten duplicate content back 2 back. Did the meet Andreja mq and then a random bounty and the location "dungeon" was the exact same just different planet and slightly darker grey.

[@ivanognjanovic2194]

I don't always comment first on Gamers Nexus videos, but when I do, I waste it on a completely useless comment. Back to you Steve.

[@chloegrobler4275]

no one cares dude, ur not even first smh.

[@deathjololopez2989]

Steve, man, you guys rock! Great vid.

[@ctrlectrld]

Fantastic video, pure tech analysis without poisoning the well with conspiracies and such. Refreshing. I hope you guys can start bringing this kind of content on a more regular basis.

[@bestonyoutube]

You cant optimize this crap game, it uses a 20 year old engine and looks like a xbox 360 game. this must also be the only game where low looks identical to ultra and give the same bad performance.

[@gosuprime]

It blows my mind that Bethesda, owned by Microsoft, a trillion dollar company, felt the need to do an AMD exclusivity deal and shoot themselves in the foot with FSR2 which is 1) awful relative to DLSS, and 2) slower (not even counting frame generation). Reception of the game would have been much better with DLSS and frame gen at launch, given New Atlantis runs terribly even on a 4090/13900 system. Even if the game itself looks...dated. It would be running better/have better upscale tech.

[@ssl3546]

They already announced DLSS is coming. Bethesda literally paid AMD to help with the graphics engine (which makes sense as they need console performance most of all, and is literally the opposite of AMD paying for exclusivity) and meanwhile nVidia has cut way back on its game engine support team and didn't do any work for this game.

[@chloegrobler4275]

dlss is garbage only because its not universal, unlike fsr tech

[@danielkirchner3394]

Amazing video! Great work! Woulds be nice to see a deep DLSS / FSR comparison next time.

[@CBR600xF4i]

This was AWESOME. Thank you.

[@starlightHT]

Maybe the worst game of the year for me..... The NPCs look like lifeless dolls and nothing that does anything different and I'm not even going to talk about logging in every 2 minutes even in a small ship.... Hollow and meaningless .

[@megadeth8592]

Sounds like you played for 2 minutes

[@starlightHT]

@@megadeth8592 And based on your well-founded opinion, you shouldn't even have installed the game yet. No character in the game behaves like a human, they all look like robots and have the intelligence of a door, they know how to open and close it.

[@starlightHT]

@@megadeth8592 And now the physics of the game looks like something made in the 90s....

[@Honk_Clank]

No fixing that Story & gameplay 🤣

[@radicalxg8282]

Extremely informative by also using mods for better optimization now i know where to look at

[@vahnn0]

Top notch work, fellas!

[@iHaveTheDocuments]

Looking for ponies in the comments highly triggered and pretending they played this game and Don't like it "I pUt iN 5,000 hOurS aNd tOtaLly rEfundeD it oN sTeam"

[@akaviral5476]

Don't have to search hard

[@francodambolena]

90hs so far and forgot to follow the main storyline, so, having that good of an ol' Bethesda fun here.

[@TheGoncas2]

GN is pursuing the latest trend with low quality content. So sad. They should be held up to the standards they hold others.

[@GamersNexus]

This was like 60 hours of testing and editing. Just because you don't like the game doesn't make the quality low.

[@em.dot.2]

​​@@GamersNexus Your Contact Shadings must be set to Ultra, with all that accurate shade you're throwing.

[@eodyn7]

@@GamersNexus He's a butthurt Linus fanboy.

[@OrdinaryJo3]

@@GamersNexushey man, this was a great vid. If you don’t feed the trolls, they’ll slowly die off.

[@Braden123135]

Thanks for posting. This rocks

[@MusicForHourss]

09:30 The effort that the team has put in is amazing! Very respected 🙌🏼

[@KevinxDoll]

@gamersnexus I want to say thank you for the years of support. i'm on my second PC build using your tests and i've been happy with them both.

[@apiestink]

thanks. would love to see more

[@alla5578]

I think the word is.....thorough! This would definitely be useful for getting the max out of your card for a game you particularly spend the majority of time playing. Nice work GN, back to you Steve

[@ibbobud]

All the info! Will watch again and take notes