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

kikii

Member
naiis

l35dNLS.jpeg
 

SlimySnake

Flashless at the Golden Globes
No one is arguing that the game was CPU-bound.

no one? you literally said this:

I just need the people saying stuff like "These consoles are CPU bottlenecked" Wake the fuck up now. They aren't, we are dev-bottlenecked... there is a difference.
And I don't care how many months it "required" for them to do this opr that,. any more than they cared about whatever money I spent to play their game. Its not like they accept excuses from us for paying half the money since we are not getting all the features we want, so why should we be making excuse for them.

They needed more time to get the 60fps mode. Fine. Just fucking say so. Do not however come tell us it's a creative decision. Or how 60fps wouldn't be possible. Bla bla bla...

Again, why should I give a fuck? You are making excuses for them. The very systems-driven game that you are championing, which they said meant 60fps was off the table, is what they are now offering with a 60fps mode. And sorry, SM2, is more open world than this game would ever be. This games open world is more akin to what we see in GOW. Open linear. Systems driven... I can't believe you would suggest that sony doesn't make systems driven games as if SM2 isn't a thing... unless of course you only count stockpiling sandwiches and potatoes as being systems-driven.

You willing to wager that with even more optimization they cant get it performing even better?

Shipped with a broken 60fps mode, but guess what, it was there from day one. And it received patches. And in under a month or so, it was fixed. This game came out over 6 months without a 60fps mode. NO 60FPS mode at all. Period.

And again, yes... I get these things take time. I get these things arent easy. But this is exactly why I say we weren't born yesterday... just comeout and say that. Do not try and gaslight us with some creative decision bullshit, then have the media peddling that bullshit and talking about how they are doing things no one has ever done before... yh right.

I have had this conversation with you before. And not gonna get dragged into it again.

There are differences between having CPU bottleneck and having underutilized CPUs as a result of poor optimization.

Dves do not have to be incompetent to have different priorities. That is all well and good, just don't come out and say the machine couldn't do this or that.
lol spiderman 2 is not as systems driven as rpgs like fallout, skyrim, starfield and dragons dogma 2. come on. Go play this thing on the PC and look at the CPU usage. every core is in the 70% range. most last gen games were at 0-10% on any threads aside from the main ones. its not like they were underutilized. its just a cpu heavy game that took a while to optimize. the 3600 zen 2 cpu was able to get 55 fps after like 2 months of patches but as we both know, the ps5 and xsx CPUs are much weaker than that cpu.

and no, horizon fw's performance patch took 4 months to solve. 4 full months. for the first few weeks they refused to even address it and kept saying it was an issue with the tvs. then when they released the NG+ and vrr patch, they finally fixed and had to completely rewrite their reconstruction logic. are they incompetent?

And i agree, you shouldnt have to care but dont bring in PS5 games that are in different genres using different engines and systems either. Besides, all those games had to make sacrifices. GT7 couldnt feature RT during gameplay so they shipped it without. its been 2 years and still not rt. Demon Souls had RT shadows promised and took it out altogether removing any mention of it from the store page. Spiderman 2 got the biggest downgrade since its first reveal. So did Horizon FW from its reveal trailer at the PS5 launch. Every single dev, first party or third party, has to make compromises to their vision and release games with flaws or nothing will ever come out. No one is exempt from this, not even the first party sony studios you mentioned as a beacon of dev competence.
 

Mr.Phoenix

Member
no one? you literally said this:
I am lost... saying something is CPU bound/bottlenecked and saying we are dev-bottlenecked are not mutually exclusive. I am not arguing that game xyz does not show traits of being a CPU-bottlenecked game. I am saying that when these "CPU bound" games are only utilizing the CPU at best 50% of the time or under and as such leaving GPU performance on the table.... that's not what I would call a CPU-bound game/bottleneck.
 

SlimySnake

Flashless at the Golden Globes
I am lost... saying something is CPU bound/bottlenecked and saying we are dev-bottlenecked are not mutually exclusive. I am not arguing that game xyz does not show traits of being a CPU-bottlenecked game. I am saying that when these "CPU bound" games are only utilizing the CPU at best 50% of the time or under and as such leaving GPU performance on the table.... that's not what I would call a CPU-bound game/bottleneck.
starfield was not utilizing 50% of the cpu though. i just told you my cpu cores were at 70-80% at all times. my cpu wattage was pushing 120-150 watts all by itself. the ps5 and xsx cpu have maybe 20-30 watts tops set aside from the cpu.

this is from the df video on the cpu patch they made back in november. they were able to improve cpu performance on AMD CPUs by around 15% by utilizing the threads more efficiently, but as you can see on the right hand side, it wasnt bad to begin with. every thread was well over 50% and in the 70s and 80s which is unheard of.

A LOT of pc games do what you are saying, but starfield wasnt one of them. if anything, they have done a fantastic job multireading in a game already close to maxing out these threads. Dragons Dogma 2 is way worse than this game, and after playing that game, it makes perfect sense why. at any point, a giant dragon and enter the city and you will have like 20-30 NPCs fighting that dragon. there is nothing like this in any last gen game. could they optimize it in the future? definitely. is it acceptable? hell no. but lets not pretend other games are doing anything like this.

0r4kPbr.jpeg
 
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I was always skeptical about 40 until I tried it, and now I believe it should be the baseline over 30. Those 10 frames really are a bigger jump than 40 to 60 is.
Problem is that a 40hz mode requires a 120hz display to be enabled. The vast majority of tvs that people actual own are still 60.

40 is great though especially if locked. The jump is quite substantial but also the reason why going from 120-240 is less then 60-120 which is less then 30-60. Frames are doubling but the impact is lessened the more you jump.
 

RickSanchez

Member
- Surface maps are being updated to be more detailed and easier to navigate (look a bit like Skyrim's overworld now)
- Map markers for easier navigation in cities
- Working on First Land exploration vehicle
- Creation Kit tools are in beta user hands already

These are the highlights for me. I will still wait to see if any good mods come from the creation kit, but this is a step in the right direction. Eventually i will jump back in. The core of the game is still enjoyable to me.
 

adamsapple

Or is it just one of Phil's balls in my throat?
Problem is that a 40hz mode requires a 120hz display to be enabled. The vast majority of tvs that people actual own are still 60.

40 is great though especially if locked. The jump is quite substantial but also the reason why going from 120-240 is less then 60-120 which is less then 30-60. Frames are doubling but the impact is lessened the more you jump.

PC Monitors are great for this. A 32 inch 4K monitor with 120hz and VRR support that works for both Xbox and PS5 costs less than half of what a similar TV would. And I've personally found it's better sitting closer to a monitor than 8~ feet away from a 65 inch TV, I've moved my entire gaming setup from the TV to the monitor since the start of this generation.
 
But they don't even talk about the main issue of the game - repetitive locations on planets. So..
We have to wait on mods with the official tools to aid with problems like this. Same goes for the following annoyance:

1) Start mission. You find out it takes place in a different planet in a system far away -> Loading screen to fast travel into ship -> Pick system to fast travel to -> Loading screen to fast travel there -> You have to jump again if your ship isn’t good enough yet -> which means another loading screen into the actual system where the mission takes place -> You are now in system hovering over planet -> Deal with RNG space event(or scanning to enter) -> Fast travel to planet(loading) to land -> travel on foot to destination.

2) This took anywhere between 5 minutes(with good space RNG and small walk distance to objective on planet) to 20 minutes(bad space RNG and long walk on planet).

3) You finish your objective on the planet (feels worse if the mission itself is a minute or two of dialogue or a package delivery).

4) The quest must be completed by talking to the person who gave it to you. Fully repeat number 1.

What I want a future mod to fix: For all sidequests and missions, an added button that says ‘go directly to location’. Skip all steps in number 1 and be transported 5 ft away from mission start area, Mass Effect 2 style. Same button for finishing a mission if you must return to the quest giver.

That’s potentially 30 minutes or much more handed back to you. The fast travel now feels as good or better than other Bethesda games too due to less busywork. The game’s length is massively reduced. Suddenly unexplored random/repetitive planets don’t feel as bad because there’s no large time-buildup between landing on them for sidequests and missions.

It will end up as a top 10 mod.
 

lh032

I cry about Xbox and hate PlayStation.
i was told that current gen consoles will never run this at 60 fps
Yea I thought Bethesda said it was not possible due to CPU incentive or something

I strongly believe dragon dogma 2 can run at 60fps if the devs actually optimize their shit
 

FireFly

Member
I was told by The Defenders™ that Starfield couldn't do 60 FPS because there were too many things going on on the CPU side 😛

Jokes apart, good for Bethesda, Starfield, and Series X fans. It'll make the game much better to play.
At launch a 2600X was getting around 40 FPS in cities according to HUB. Even putting all settings on low only improved performance by 10%. DF saw similar results on a AMD 4800S Desktop Kit. So the people claiming Starfield would be CPU limited at launch were completely correct.

A later patch improved performance by a further 20%. However we wouldn't expect this to be sufficient without further CPU optimizations. So either Bethesda have found some more CPU performance, or are essentially offering an unlocked mode that still drops below 60 FPS, like BG3.
 

Sybrix

Member
At last, a semi decent update with more to come.

This game as a TON of issues but it looks like with these types of updates the game will get to a decent state.

It's still annoying that we have to wait for these types of updates 1-2 years post game release......

Sad state of affairs in modern gaming.
 

Fess

Member
They still have to do :

- Entire planet generated (No man's Sky and a lot of other games do it, so no excuses) so the vehicle feels usefull.
I don’t think that’ll be easy, would need all new procedural system to get transitions between biomes natural, or it’ll be like in No Man’s Sky with little biome variety.
likes.
- Having lush planets being really lush, not almost barren jungle with 3 or 4 sparse trees (exagerating here ofc, but mods have shown that they were lacking on this)
There are a few fairly lush biomes already, trees and bushes everywhere, but could be better for sure.
Problem is, the more dense the vegetation is the more annoying it’ll be to traverse, especially with a vehicle. It’ll be interesting to see how Bethesda solves that. Hello Games made vehicles break much of the vegetation, which can look quite weird but they aren’t going for realism so it’s alright I think.
I think Bethesda should add some Star Wars like hover jet bike, something where you don’t have to worry about uneven ground at least and small enough so you can go between trees and rocks easily. A car is great but not always optimal. I hope they don’t stop there.
 
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Bkdk

Member
All they should do is official mod tools and make the game more modding friendly. Time and time again modders can do much better than Bethesda on post game content support. Why do they even bother to dig the hole deeper, you can bet there will be more and more bugs introduced while each of these updates breaking mods so modders will be busy just tweaking their mods to make it work again. Bethesda has completely lost touch of what their strength is for their games.
 

Vitter.

Member
I enjoyed my 90 hours with it, felt pretty anticuated in so many respects but still had something that hooked me... this update has thing that should have been in there from day one, city maps? items menues were a mess, ship building on console was too (land vehicles incoming too). I hope they get to the npcs too, they felt so limited, specially the ones that came along. Im not sure I would re install it for the expansion but im hoping it looks cool to make me want to... NG+ was the only real innovation imo.
 
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Well, this will be nice for VRR/Freesync users. I will say that this is one of those games where the 30fps isn't overly stuttery to begin with, but a boost is always nice.
 
Problem is that a 40hz mode requires a 120hz display to be enabled. The vast majority of tvs that people actual own are still 60.

40 is great though especially if locked. The jump is quite substantial but also the reason why going from 120-240 is less then 60-120 which is less then 30-60. Frames are doubling but the impact is lessened the more you jump.
The law of diminishing returns.
 

Chukhopops

Member
Just saw that you can now respec your traits and appearance when you enter Unity.

Still weird that you can’t fully respec but that’s a very good first step.
 

Punished Miku

Human Rights Subscription Service
Yeah, that does seem sucky. I’m still on my first playthrough, and I hate the idea of losing the ship that I perfected.

GMlJTkubQAAFhmg
I don't mind losing everything honestly. It kind of is the point.

They even have one cool conversation related to someone who can't let go of their material accomplishments in this universe to cross to the next one. All that carries over is you, and your powers / knowledge. I think I stopped on new game+5. Got 5 more to go to hit 10 and max out all the powers and get the suit. They're pretty fast runs if you want. I think I got it down to about 5 hours.
 
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FoxMcChief

Gold Member
I don't mind losing everything honestly. It kind of is the point.

They even have one cool conversation related to someone who can't let go of their material accomplishments in this universe to cross to the next one. All that carries over is you, and your powers / knowledge. I think I stopped on new game+5. Got 5 more to go to hit 10 and max out all the powers and get the suit. They're pretty fast runs if you want. I think I got it down to about 5 hours.
I get it. It makes sense for a story reason.

When the time comes for me to part from it, I think I will have this moment….

doctor-who.gif
 
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tommib

Gold Member
PC Monitors are great for this. A 32 inch 4K monitor with 120hz and VRR support that works for both Xbox and PS5 costs less than half of what a similar TV would. And I've personally found it's better sitting closer to a monitor than 8~ feet away from a 65 inch TV, I've moved my entire gaming setup from the TV to the monitor since the start of this generation.
Do you know if the 40hz mode has an unlocked framerate mode?

It does! Just found it on the op. Thats my preferred mode this gen. Great news.
 
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Punished Miku

Human Rights Subscription Service
I get it. It makes sense for a story reason.

When the time comes for me to part from it, I think I will have this moment….

doctor-who.gif
I honestly thought I'd feel that way, but the story set it up a cool enough way. It's literally the one journey you can't make with your possessions in the story. If you want to stay in the original save, you honestly don't lose that much. But I thought it was cool. Going to probably do all the factions again on run 9 to see the alternate paths, then settle on 10 for base building and maxing out whatever else / expansions.
 
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CyberPunk, Battlefield, Cities Skylines 2, Halo....... many many more examples of games being released as a complete shit shows and waiting for 1-2 years post launch for fixes
Apologies, I didn’t know you were mostly referencing certain AAA/high budget titles.

If you ever get tired of dealing with that part of the industry, there’s an entire ocean of content I can point you to for fun experiences with games that don’t do what you claim.
 

adamsapple

Or is it just one of Phil's balls in my throat?
Do you know if the 40hz mode has an unlocked framerate mode?

It does! Just found it on the op. Thats my preferred mode this gen. Great news.

Yes, you have the option to uncap frame rates going by the info they put out. It should work, in theory, like how the VRR modes work on Spider Man 2.

I thought they were CPU locked, I have doubts this hits a consistent 60fps.

They're effectively cutting back on things like crowd densities which use more CPU, so it very well may be a decent 60 FPS. Cities might see some drops but the 'dungeons' and universe exploration should be able to reach 60 easily.
 

LordCBH

Member
It just lacked soul. A universe to explore with the feeling of littler exploration. I enjoyed my time with it, great ship builder but the game didnt hit.

This ship building part was sick as fuck. I just wish space flight was more…..just more. It felt like a ship moving across a picture a lot of the time

If they dropped an expansion that added even more to ship building and expanded the in space part I’d give that a download.
 

Punished Miku

Human Rights Subscription Service
This ship building part was sick as fuck. I just wish space flight was more…..just more. It felt like a ship moving across a picture a lot of the time

If they dropped an expansion that added even more to ship building and expanded the in space part I’d give that a download.
I just want to be able to build a Battlestar Galactica carrier ship that has a bay holding all my other ships. Make it into a full city.
 
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Topher

Identifies as young
This ship building part was sick as fuck. I just wish space flight was more…..just more. It felt like a ship moving across a picture a lot of the time

If they dropped an expansion that added even more to ship building and expanded the in space part I’d give that a download.

Yeah, I really wanted to be able to see my ship zipping past planets and stars like just about every other space ship game I played. They made traveling in space boring.

The combat wasn't bad though.
 

Punished Miku

Human Rights Subscription Service
This is what has me interested in user created mods. They will create so many cool ideas, even if they don’t fit the narrative.
For sure. Though ...
There is a side quest that basically has something almost this big in the game. A few battlestar level ships are basically cities. They don't have the huge hanger bay though
 
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