Starfield PC Performance: How Much GPU Do You Need?

[kerberos_20]

nvidia ultra settings frametime bug is just comming from ultra shadow setting, changing it from ultra to high improves frame latency

also starfield has issue with 12th/13th gen CPUs, if e-cores or intel HT is enabled, fps is lower then with just 8 P-cores, even 6 P-cores are faster then 8Pcores + HT+ e-cores

https://imgur.com/mXihG8v

View: https://imgur.com/mXihG8v

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ciOFwUBTs5s

 

[thestryker]

also starfield has issue with 12th/13th gen CPUs, if e-cores or intel HT is enabled, fps is lower then with just 8 P-cores, even 6 P-cores are faster then 8Pcores + HT+ e-cores

https://imgur.com/mXihG8v

View: https://imgur.com/mXihG8v

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ciOFwUBTs5s

This runs counter to what GN showed when using a 13900K so I wouldn't say that's a given without seeing more testing.

 

[kerberos_20]

This runs counter to what GN showed when using a 13900K so I wouldn't say that's a given without seeing more testing.

indeed, maps tested were different

 

[kerberos_20]

so.. was randomly looking through reddit

Reddit - Dive into anything

www.reddit.com

seems like starfield isnt using dx12 properly

 

[Order 66]

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.

My 6800 begs to differ; it runs 1080p ultra no problem. At 1080p ultra it gets within margin of error territory to a 3090.

 

[kerberos_20]

My 6800 begs to differ; it runs 1080p ultra no problem. At 1080p ultra it gets within margin of error territory to a 3090.

hmm... nvidia didnt enabled re-bar for starfield, when its enabled with nvidia inspector, it gives about 10-15% fps uplift

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0k13UZ_eAtI

 

[Amdlova]

My 6800 begs to differ; it runs 1080p ultra no problem. At 1080p ultra it gets within margin of error territory to a 3090.

In my intel system the 6700XT gives 40 45 fps on ultra and its a 35W tdp cpu! now playing at 2560x1080 on high with 50fps avarage

That game as AMD PROBLEMS! lol

 

[Order 66]

In my intel system the 6700XT gives 40 45 fps on ultra and its a 35W tdp cpu! now playing at 2560x1080 on high with 50fps avarage

That game as AMD PROBLEMS! lol

What cpu? I am so confused. You went from talking about your 6700 xt to saying you have a 35w cpu but you never mentioned what cpu.

 

[kerberos_20]

What cpu? I am so confused. You went from talking about your 6700 xt to saying you have a 35w cpu but you never mentioned what cpu.

he has 13500T, 35-92W cpu

 

[Hotrod2go]

nvidia ultra settings frametime bug is just comming from ultra shadow setting, changing it from ultra to high improves frame latency

also starfield has issue with 12th/13th gen CPUs, if e-cores or intel HT is enabled, fps is lower then with just 8 P-cores, even 6 P-cores are faster then 8Pcores + HT+ e-cores

https://imgur.com/mXihG8v

View: https://imgur.com/mXihG8v

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ciOFwUBTs5s

One of several reasons why I avoided hybrid cpu architectures when I was upgrading my gaming rig this year. AM5 is it!

 

[colossusrage]

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.

I generally agree with this, however, recent games have made the difference between Ultra and Low almost immaterial. You can turn everything down except resolution in Starfield and gain little in the way of performance. If you're near 30 fps, you can get yourself up to 50fps with FSR at 50%, then turn everything to low and you may reach 55-60.

 

[palladin9479]

I generally agree with this, however, recent games have made the difference between Ultra and Low almost immaterial. You can turn everything down except resolution in Starfield and gain little in the way of performance. If you're near 30 fps, you can get yourself up to 50fps with FSR at 50%, then turn everything to low and you may reach 55-60.

That's just Starfield and only because it's since been demonstrated to have a broken engine. You can set it to "low", get really crappy FPS with GPU utilization at the foor.

 

[The Inquisition]

Also... performance on non-AMD GPUs right now is very questionable. Based on the system requirements, we'd expect the Nvidia GPUs to be much closer to their AMD counterparts than what we're currently seeing. Either a last-minute update to the game messed things up, or Bethesda needs to put a lot of additional effort into tuning the game to make it run better.

Right, a last-minute update. I get you Jarred, you can't accuse, but I sure can.
AMD wants more than a single-digit market share. Why do it the hard way when you can do it the easy way and make NVidia seem like a lame duck on a high-profile game being released?

 

[JarredWaltonGPU]

Right, a last-minute update. I get you Jarred, you can't accuse, but I sure can.
AMD wants more than a single-digit market share. Why do it the hard way when you can do it the easy way and make NVidia seem like a lame duck on a high-profile game being released?

I mean, pissing off a huge chunk of the potential market isn't good business. I don't know how much AMD would have to pay to make that happen, but... a lot. How much money did Bethesda put into developing Starfield? Most big games like that are in the tens of millions in costs, minimum.

But the recommended/minimum hardware is totally not lining up with how the GPUs perform right now. You can get away with a far slower AMD GPU than what is suggested as a minimum (e.g. RX 590 and RX 5600 XT work fine), while at the same time the minimum Nvidia GPU (GTX 1070 Ti) struggles badly.

And it shouldn't, really. GTX 1070 Ti should be roughly at the level of a Vega 56, which is generally 10% slower than an RX 5600 XT, never mind the more potent RX 5700 (20% slower). So on paper, the minimum GPUs aren't too far apart. But in my testing, GTX 1070 Ti performed only slightly better than an RX 590, and about 35% slower than the 5600 XT. I could totally see last minute tuning for AMD causing the swing, but it's still dumb.

 

[olofssonjoakim01]

Radeon 7900 XT, still I need more smooth and sharpen output. I think it's my monitor issue.
samsung odyssey g9 on the way.. what do you think?

 

[Colif]

Entire world seemed to blame AMD for Starfield not having DLSS support, some conspiracy to make their cards look good. Turns out, it was Bethesda being slow and just not including it in the game at launch.

Bethesda asked AMD to help get the game ready for launch, that is only reason any cards make game look good. Game was originally programmed using vulkan and then swapped to DX12, AMD were hired to help make game work at this stage as they created Vulkan and have DX 12 experience.

AMD at least made sure it works on their GPU.

Nvidia/Intel drivers were bad because it was ages before there was even a working version of the game.

 

[Phaaze88]

Entire world seemed to blame AMD for Starfield not having DLSS support, some conspiracy to make their cards look good. Turns out, it was Bethesda being slow and just not including it in the game at launch.

Bethesda asked AMD to help get the game ready for launch, that is only reason any cards make game look good. Game was originally programmed using vulkan and then swapped to DX12, AMD were hired to help make game work at this stage as they created Vulkan and have DX 12 experience.

AMD at least made sure it works on their GPU.

Nvidia/Intel drivers were bad because it was ages before there was even a working version of the game.

/LE GASP!


Anywho, this game's been pretty hit/miss for folks, eh?

 

[-Fran-]

Entire world seemed to blame AMD for Starfield not having DLSS support, some conspiracy to make their cards look good. Turns out, it was Bethesda being slow and just not including it in the game at launch.

Bethesda asked AMD to help get the game ready for launch, that is only reason any cards make game look good. Game was originally programmed using vulkan and then swapped to DX12, AMD were hired to help make game work at this stage as they created Vulkan and have DX 12 experience.

AMD at least made sure it works on their GPU.

Nvidia/Intel drivers were bad because it was ages before there was even a working version of the game.

It's not going to be enough for true keyboard warriors in their crusade to protect their Trillion dollar startup nVidia from "worst anti-competitive company ever" AMD

I wish that was sarcasm... Oh welp. The ~$200M AMD division fighting the ~Trillion greens is a lil' devil, ain't it? xD

Regards

 

[JarredWaltonGPU]

Entire world seemed to blame AMD for Starfield not having DLSS support, some conspiracy to make their cards look good. Turns out, it was Bethesda being slow and just not including it in the game at launch.

Do you honestly — HONESTLY!? — think that Bethesda would have added DLSS support after the game launched if it wasn't for the internet outcry? Because if so I have a tropical island I'll sell you for cheap. I don't think it had anything to do with Bethesda being "slow" and more just trying to get the product out the door ASAP. I can also pretty much guarantee there were a lot of people working on the game that were pleading for delays and time to fix stuff like this.

None of that is inherently AMD's fault, though, and as I pointed out earlier, AMD isn't in a strong enough position to be able to pay a game dev money to snub Nvidia GPUs. Lucky for AMD, it's partner Bethesda was apparently fine with / incompetent enough that it didn't matter.

The real question is how long it will take for Bethesda to "work closely with Nvidia, AMD, and Intel on driver support" and get the game running acceptably on all reasonable levels of hardware. Given the graphics, I'd say even GTX 1060 6GB at low/medium should easily be able to break 30 fps.

 

[Colif]

Do you honestly — HONESTLY!? — think that Bethesda would have added DLSS support after the game launched if it wasn't for the internet outcry? Because if so I have a tropical island I'll sell you for cheap. I don't think it had anything to do with Bethesda being "slow" and more just trying to get the product out the door ASAP. I can also pretty much guarantee there were a lot of people working on the game that were pleading for delays and time to fix stuff like this.

i can't answer that question (thinks of holy grail and hopes no people asking 2 more questions he needs to answer here)

I am last person to defend Bethesda. It wouldn't surprise me if they weren't going to.

If AMD had paid them off, why no stars?

 

[JarredWaltonGPU]

i can't answer that question (thinks of holy grail and hopes no people asking 2 more questions he needs to answer here)

I am last person to defend Bethesda. It wouldn't surprise me if they weren't going to.

If AMD had paid them off, why no stars?

It's the curse of practically every sponsored game I can think of from the past year or more. Like, has there been a single truly great bundled game from either AMD or Nvidia in recent years? A lot of people probably thought Starfield might be that game, and now they're disappointed. Funny that no company had to directly sponsor Baldur's Gate 3! It's almost like taking sponsor help indicates fundamental problems with the game design. 🤔

 

[Colif]

I haven't really taken any notice of sponsored games until now. I don't even think about it when buying a game. I may choose to avoid heavy RT games based on having an AMD card. Thats about it.

 

[Phaaze88]

Modern Gaming, yay. [monotone]
-totally unbiased sponsorships. /s
-always online, live service. Product preservation non-existent, without private servers or the yo-ho-hos.
-bugs and glitches, oh my. But all is fine as some get patched up over time. Keyword on 'some'.
-fewer folks actually having fun with the more profit driven products, and not running it like a 2nd job. I guess there's fun in that for some...


Not trying to troll or anything, rather I've become desensitized to it.

 

[TJ Hooker]

If you're getting cynical about AAA gaming, I'd recommend checking out indie gaming if you haven't already. For years I more or less ignored those $5, $10, or even $20 games on Steam as being for kids, for more casual gamers etc. (and I'm not talking about older games that eventually get to those prices when they're on sale for 75% off, I'm talking about games that are that price on release or soon after).

But once I gave them a chance I found they could be an absolute blast. Plus a lot of them will run well on a potato, if you're finding PC hardware upgrades are getting too expensive. And DLC is typically either non existent, minor cosmetic addons, or cheap enough/provide enough content you can't complain. And/or they just put out content updates for free.

Edit: And some have really rad soundtracks.

 

[helper800]

If you're getting cynical about AAA gaming, I'd recommend checking out indie gaming if you haven't already. For years I more or less ignored those $5, $10, or even $20 games on Steam as being for kids, for more casual gamers etc. (and I'm not talking about older games that eventually get to those prices when they're on sale for 75% off, I'm talking about games that are that price on release or soon after).

But once I gave them a chance I found they could be an absolute blast. Plus a lot of them will run well on a potato, if you're finding PC hardware upgrades are getting too expensive. And DLC is typically either non existent, minor cosmetic addons, or cheap enough/provide enough content you can't complain. And/or they just put out content updates for free.

Edit: And some have really rad soundtracks.

Some of them are even free, like HoloCure if you are into the UwU vampire survivors type of games. I think the 3080 I have will be the last 400-500+ dollar card I ever own because I just look at the amount of hours I put into games that require anything near that power vs the 100+ games that I have on steam that can be run on a 3060. I got the 3080 for Cyberpunk 2077, and I don't regret it. I still play that game. There is going to have to be a very compelling game in the future to get me to buy a XX80 or XX90 card from Nvidia or AMD equivalent card.