Starfield PC Performance: How Much GPU Do You Need?

[Peter Ferrari]

As I have written in other threads, my mid-range specs (see my signature) play Starfield on ultra at 1440p smoothly. No glitches or stuttering whatsoever. I did have to dial the Render Resolution Scale down to high (which is 62%), because of some shadow issues. In New Atlantis, wandering outdoors, the FPS averaged between 45 and 50. The FPS is higher when you enter a building that requires a load screen. I have tested the game in cities, combat and space combat...again, no glitches or stuttering.

There are some clipping issues that should be addressed by Bethesda. I also have some observations about things that should be changed in future updates.

1. Third person character movement looks dated. I play a lot of Division 2 (released 2019) and the third person character movement is very good.
2. Taking cover behind objects in Starfield is poorly thought out.
3. Ship cargo/storage needs to be reworked. In Fallout 4, you can store stuff in just about every container that belongs to you. Inside the starter ship, Frontier, all the storage spaces can't be opened. The only way to store stuff is by accessing the ship's cargo hold through a menu. No visual interaction whatsoever. I haven't built my own ship yet, so maybe this will change later.
4. Ship combat needs some tweaking. It would be nice to have a companion fly the ship while the player mounts a side gun.
5. Movement. The same issue that Fallout has is showing up in Starfield. Walking speed is OK, but running in both the speeds provided is way to fast. This is especially frustrating when trying to collect loot without slow walking through a large area. In settings, there should be a movement speed adjustment. The only way I know to adjust this, is through console commands.

I do love this game though and will be spending a lot of hours playing it.

45fps at 60% of 1440p, GJ Bethesda.

at native, it drops under 30.

Test wydajności Starfield PC - Kosmiczne wymagania sprzętowe. Porównanie wydajności kart graficznych NVIDIA, AMD i Intel | PurePC.pl

Test wydajności Starfield PC - Kosmiczne wymagania sprzętowe. Porównanie wydajności kart graficznych NVIDIA, AMD i Intel (strona 13) Czy pójdzie mi Starfield? Test wydajności Starfield PC, który ma kosmiczne wymagania sprzętowe. Porównanie wydajności kart graficznych GeForce i Radeon

www.purepc.pl

 

[Dr3ams]

45fps at 60% of 1440p, GJ Bethesda.

at native, it drops under 30.

https://www.purepc.pl/test-wydajnos...graficznych-nvidia-amd-i-intel?page=0,12[/URL

As long as it runs smoothly without glitches or stuttering, I could care less what it takes to make the gaming experience good.

 

[Phaaze88]

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F9_aNiMC-Aw

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bBrBu7BxaAg



Since I didn't experience any of this, something must be wrong on their end. /s

 

[Bluoper]

Yep, looks like I was right to not get excited by Starfield, it's unplayable on my 2070 Super even at 1920x1080, much less at 4K.

Sorry for sounding a bit rude but complaining that "my 4 year old mid-high end gpu cant play modern AAA games at 1080p ultra settings" sounds a bit silly to me. especially for a gpu from a generation well known to be a bit of a let down.

 

[kerberos_20]

Sorry for sounding a bit rude but complaining that "my 4 year old mid-high end gpu cant play modern AAA games at 1080p ultra settings" sounds a bit silly to me. especially for a gpu from a generation well known to be a bit of a let down.

tomorrow some big patch should popup, its prerelease afterall...and as a nvidia user you should avoid ultra mode as drivers needs more tunning

 

[PEnns]

And it's kind to AMD GPUs? It takes a $450 RX 6800 to get 60fps at 1920x1080 without cutting details or using upscaling techniques.

If you think $450 is too much for the RX 6800, have a look at the charts again.

Hint: It's all the way up, playing with the big boys (who cost 2-3 times more) and beating some of them too.

 

[Peter Ferrari]

If you think $450 is too much for the RX 6800, have a look at the charts again.

Hint: It's all the way up, playing with the big boys (who cost 2-3 times more) and beating some of them too.

and still dipping under 60 at 1080p
what a disaster this game is.
btw, tom's testing location was pretty lenient on gpu too, in others 6800 will drop to mid 40s

Test wydajności Starfield PC - Kosmiczne wymagania sprzętowe. Porównanie wydajności kart graficznych NVIDIA, AMD i Intel | PurePC.pl

Test wydajności Starfield PC - Kosmiczne wymagania sprzętowe. Porównanie wydajności kart graficznych NVIDIA, AMD i Intel (strona 9) Czy pójdzie mi Starfield? Test wydajności Starfield PC, który ma kosmiczne wymagania sprzętowe. Porównanie wydajności kart graficznych GeForce i Radeon

www.purepc.pl

 

[kerberos_20]

what a disaster this game is.

lighting is a bit heavy on GPU, compute wise similary heavy as UE5 lumen
youll get used to it

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i9ikne_9iEI

 

[Peter Ferrari]

lighting is a bit heavy on GPU, compute wise similary heavy as UE5 lumen
youll get used to it

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i9ikne_9iEI

ew, those real time cube maps....

 

[kerberos_20]

ew, those real time cube maps....

hmm ye, RTGI would look better, maybe later some mod pops up

 

[Colif]

It looks like a painting on some APU

 

[Colif]

And they're definitely only releasing the game on PC and excluding consoles where AMD has 100% of the GPU market.

Given console market is bigger than PC market, it sort of makes good sense to make sure the GPU in the Sony & Microsoft consoles works well in the game.

Doesn't Microsoft own Bethesda, Make the Xbox and also make DX12, so perhaps blame should be on them? they had most to gain by making sure game worked well on their hardware?

 

[kerberos_20]

It looks like a painting on some APU

atlantis is a little bit taxing xD

 

[evdjj3j]

Yep, looks like I was right to not get excited by Starfield, it's unplayable on my 2070 Super even at 1920x1080, much less at 4K.

I have a 2070 and I've played about 40 hrs so far, the game is very playable on your GPU. I use a mix of med and high settings suggested by Hardware Unboxed. I get over 60 FPS in a lot of indoor areas and no less than 30 in the worst outdoor areas. The DLSS mod looks much better than FSR.

 

[Hotrod2go]

AMD holds 3-6% of the PC GPU market compared to Nvidia? Smart move.

/s

Nearly 16% according to steam hardware survey > https://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey/

 

[JarredWaltonGPU]

Nearly 16% according to steam hardware survey > https://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey/

To be fair, there are a LOT of underpowered and older AMD GPUs that count toward that 16%. If you only go with RX Vega and above (meaning, Vega plus 5000/6000/7000 series), the total is about 7% — and nearly 2% of that is Vega, so you could even say it's about 5.3%.

For Nvidia, if we just do all RTX series (10-series competed with Vega and is another 28% if you count 10- and 16-series), it's 46% of the total. Which, in terms of ratios, still isn't too far off from the 16% figure.

Basically, Nvidia is currently outselling AMD in terms of "reasonably fast" GPUs by a factor of about 8 to 1.

 

[peterf28]

This game is total crap, maximum 5/10 .

 

[Hotrod2go]

To be fair, there are a LOT of underpowered and older AMD GPUs that count toward that 16%. If you only go with RX Vega and above (meaning, Vega plus 5000/6000/7000 series), the total is about 7% — and nearly 2% of that is Vega, so you could even say it's about 5.3%.

For Nvidia, if we just do all RTX series (10-series competed with Vega and is another 28% if you count 10- and 16-series), it's 46% of the total. Which, in terms of ratios, still isn't too far off from the 16% figure.

Basically, Nvidia is currently outselling AMD in terms of "reasonably fast" GPUs by a factor of about 8 to 1.

Yes, very true. The most popular GPU on there is Nvidia's older 1650 card. But we have to keep in mind the shenanigans that go on behind the scene in this industry. Take a AAA block buster game from 2011 like Skyrim for example, that had Nvidia support from the get go, just one example among many there of Nvidia influencing developers to use their products first & foremost. Now its the opposite with Starfield.

 

[colossusrage]

And it's kind to AMD GPUs? It takes a $450 RX 6800 to get 60fps at 1920x1080 without cutting details or using upscaling techniques.

Although I think his take is very fanboy-esque, he's referring to the fact that a 6950XT sits right next to a 4080 in average fps in this game. Obviously that is very favorable to AMD, but agree, the game doesn't perform well overall.

 

[Dantte]

Gigabyte X570 Aorus Pro WIFI
Ryzen 7 5800X3D
Gskill (2x32) 64GB Memory
7900XTX (Merc 310) - gotta love Prime day, $919 for the card, free Star Field Premium, and 6% back with my Prime card!

At 1440P Ultra, 75" scaling, I'm getting according to AMD Adrenalin 110FPS average. Depending on where I'm in the game, I've seen the Steam FPS overlay show as low as 70FPS and as high as 150FPS, but normally its sitting around 115/120.

100% scaling is pointless, you cant see any difference dropping to 75% with FSR on or off, below that visual quality does start to suffer IMO.

 

[palladin9479]

To those complaining, stop playing on Ultra. I've made this comment before, but nowadays "Ultra" is just a codeword for the devs using the worst possibly values just to jack up numbers and claim some weird requirements crown. Every game developer wants to take the new "but can it play Crysis" meme and they use Ultra to do it. Just slide it down to high and, like magic, all the issues go away.

 

[kerberos_20]

To those complaining, stop playing on Ultra. I've made this comment before, but nowadays "Ultra" is just a codeword for the devs using the worst possibly values just to jack up numbers and claim some weird requirements crown. Every game developer wants to take the new "but can it play Crysis" meme and they use Ultra to do it. Just slide it down to high and, like magic, all the issues go away.

black desert when it released remaster in 2018? also added ultra mode, which wasnt really playable on back then hardware, but atleast they did put note there mentioning that is not ment for gameplay, but for making ingame picures, nowadays ultra is playable

 

[JarredWaltonGPU]

To those complaining, stop playing on Ultra. I've made this comment before, but nowadays "Ultra" is just a codeword for the devs using the worst possibly values just to jack up numbers and claim some weird requirements crown. Every game developer wants to take the new "but can it play Crysis" meme and they use Ultra to do it. Just slide it down to high and, like magic, all the issues go away.

It’s almost like someone should also test at 1080p medium to see how that runs! And then even write something like, “Going from ultra (maximum) settings everywhere to low (minimum) settings everywhere, but keeping the 100% scaling, performance only improved by about 35%.” But that’s just crazy talk…

 

[palladin9479]

It’s almost like someone should also test at 1080p medium to see how that runs! And then even write something like, “Going from ultra (maximum) settings everywhere to low (minimum) settings everywhere, but keeping the 100% scaling, performance only improved by about 35%.” But that’s just crazy talk…

Well high / very high setting is usually sane and how the game was meant to be played. The devs use "ultra" to try to melt cards. Its only really the super hyped AAA titles that do this.

 

[JarredWaltonGPU]

Well high / very high setting is usually sane and how the game was meant to be played. The devs use "ultra" to try to melt cards. Its only really the super hyped AAA titles that do this.

The point is that Starfield doesn’t scale to higher FPS by turning down settings, at least not that much. It has nothing to do with Ultra being too demanding, and everything to do with base (low) settings being too demanding. And it’s not that the game looks amazing. It’s just rather poorly coded. It enables 4X upscaling at low and medium presets to try to hide the horrible performance on most GPUs.