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Starfield May Update - Adds 40/60 hz Options for Series X and More QoL Updates (May 15)

Topher

Identifies as young
They are downgrading number of crowds, their lighting engine and other level of detail which devs poured almost 8 years authoring. No one wants to put in all that effort only to have half the players turn all of that off for 60 fps.

Devs are getting paid and players are doing the paying so players having that option is as it should be.
 

adamsapple

Or is it just one of Phil's balls in my throat?
The graphics in this game are so good. The shot of the rover driving in the desert looks gorgeous. Great to see third persopn dialogue scenes. Again, so much detail packed in every scene.

Looks like for performance mode they are downgrading the resolution, lighting, crowd and other level of details. Thats a shame but expected. 60 fps comes at a cost and simply downgrading the resolution in a game like this was never going to be enough.

If the 40hz mode retains everything from the normal 30hz Quality mode, that's probably gonna be my go-to.

They have an incredible lighting engine here, probably one of the best ones for a non-ray-traced game.
 

Luipadre

Gold Member
Out of early access soon? After i finished that dreadful main story i was so done with this game.
 
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Thats a pretty meaty update, if you watch the video.

Also at very end of video he mentions they are working on new quests and meaty expansion. One step at a time towards making random exploration rewarding.

This pretty much confirms they are going to build this into way bigger and more detailed than initial release.
 

James Sawyer Ford

Gold Member
They are downgrading number of crowds, their lighting engine and other level of detail which devs poured almost 8 years authoring. No one wants to put in all that effort only to have half the players turn all of that off for 60 fps.

You mean upgrading the number of crowds since less cornball derpy NPCs running around doing stupid shit is an improvement in this game…
 

mansoor1980

Gold Member
starfield legendary edition
starfield special edition
starfield anniversary edition

sounds like a good 10 year plan...................................
tumblr_pb97x6qhyr1xyd7u2o5_400.gifv
 
I may actually try out this update. I didn't care for the game at all as it just lacked immersion but a few bits here look pretty interesting. The land vehicle is a must too, no idea why that wasn't there on release.
 
Why is that BS? They did not say it wasn't possible. They said it was their choice. I think it was stupid decision, but at least they are not pretending there was some technical reason that it wasn't going to happen.
It was obviously a technical reason, what they meant was they didn't want to compromise the visuals in order to achieve a higher framerate.
 

ManaByte

Banned
starfield legendary edition
starfield special edition
starfield anniversary edition

sounds like a good 10 year plan...................................
tumblr_pb97x6qhyr1xyd7u2o5_400.gifv

Exactly. It'll carry them until Elder Scrolls VI. Then Elder Scrolls VI will carry them until Fallout 5. Then Fallout 5 will carry them to Starfield 2.
 

geary

Member
Why is that BS? They did not say it wasn't possible. They said it was their choice. I think it was stupid decision, but at least they are not pretending there was some technical reason that it wasn't going to happen.
If i remember correctly Todd said in a interview they couldn't get a stable FPS and decided to lock it to 30. That was the "creative decision". They never said it could only do 30 FPS.
 
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//DEVIL//

Member
60 hz on Xbox series x means at least it's playable now on that console.

Didn't that bafoon say it's a 30 fps experience on purpose only ? The Todd the frog guy or whatever his name is
 

Topher

Identifies as young
It was obviously a technical reason, what they meant was they didn't want to compromise the visuals in order to achieve a higher framerate.

I'm saying it wasn't a technical reason preventing them from doing it. Now they have suddenly decided that allowing lower visual settings is ok. Should have allowed that from the beginning.
 

Stafford

Member
I took a big break from the game and was ready to get back to it, nice!

Depending on how consistent the fps are and what visual cutbacks there are I might opt for 60fps. But if the difference is too big I'll go for 40fps.
 

adamsapple

Or is it just one of Phil's balls in my throat?
Copying a comment someone on Era said.

They're adding game play modifiers which make it seem a lot like the Fallout 4 Survival mode.

And these effect your XP gain as well, so you can be rewarded by a higher multiplier with more difficult options.



m8skSTA.png
 
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Jigsaah

Member
They need to make the guns better and the story better in the expansion later this year. Those were my two biggest complaints. Playing on PC meant no framrate issues, especially with the DLSS mods from day 2.

Better characters as well. Gimme summa dat.
 

Punished Miku

Human Rights Subscription Service
Copying a comment someone on Era said.

They're adding game play modifiers which make it seem a lot like the Fallout 4 Survival mode.

And these effect your XP gain as well, so you can be rewarded by a higher multiplier with more difficult options.



m8skSTA.png
Sustenance, environmental damage. Going to crank those up.
 

Topher

Identifies as young
People are liars and purposely misconstrue basic English
If i remember correctly Todd said in a interview they couldn't get a stable FPS and decided to lock it to 30. That was the "creative decision". They never said it could only do 30 FPS.

Correct, but more than that they locked to 30fps for the higher fidelity. A performance mode doesn't typically have a locked 60fps regardless.

Howard's words:

"I think it'll come as no surprise, given our previous games, what we go for,” Howard said. “Always these huge, open worlds, fully dynamic, hyper detail where anything can happen. And we do want to do that. It's 4K in the X. It's 1440 on the S. We do lock it at 30, because we want that fidelity, we want all that stuff. We don't want to sacrifice any of it.

“Fortunately in this one, we've got it running great. It's often running way above that. Sometimes it's 60. But on the consoles, we do lock it because we prefer the consistency, where you're not even thinking about it.

“And we don't ever want to sacrifice that experience that makes our games feel really, really special. So it feels great. We're really happy with how it feels even in the heat of battle. And we need that headroom because in our games, really anything can happen.”

 
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Good update overall. Land vehicles are much needed in this game. I know it will probably never happen, but I really want to see a considerable effort to reduce the amount of loading screens, specifically when in space exploration. The sheer amount of loading screens really hurts the immersion.
 

Mortisfacio

Member
Really good update but the problem is majority of these changes shouldn't have wait 8 MONTHS.

That's really my only nitpick. By the 8 month mark for games like Witcher 3 we had additional graphical options/changes, changes to leveling/experience, itemization, added stashes, alternative movement style, UI changes for books/items/alchemy/etc., added small changes like roll to reduce fall damage and added the HoS expansion + was 4 months away from the 2nd expansion in B&W.

Starfield, from what I've tracked, has had largely just stability improvements and very minor to QoL.

The actual changes to the experience, the patch cadence is incredibly slow.
 

Atrus

Gold Member
The big one is the land vehicles. This is the only PC game I’ve ever played that has ever put me to sleep while playing it.

At least when you’re on a console, a couch is like a bed so you can nod off.

On PC, the monotonous travel can induce a type of highway hypnosis and it just knocks you out while pressing that W key to the next POI so you can finish the survey.

Even flight sims had autopilot or accelerated time between nav points to reduce the hours of nothing but here you had to run. It’s why I maxed the O2, spam the hell out of Personal Atmosphere, and stock up on those O2 drinks and boosters.
 
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