Just wish they would have incorporated the fixes into the game engine at some point. I bet some of the devs would have even signed away the code for free or at least very cheap. It was annoying not being able to use mods to fix bugs in Fallout 76 that were patched in Fallout and Elder Scrolls games some as far back as Morrowind. Sure they were mostly rare like being able to get pushed into the void behind what should have been solid meshes and the game engine seeming not to care as you fall endlessly or it crashed.
Honestly never knew there were people having performance issues. I haven’t really gone to any communities discussing the game til now and the game runs fine on my PC.
I’m inclined to believe this, and this likely isn’t even the whole extent of it. I’ve been playing on a Series X, but decided to check it out on my Rog Ally. On low, at 720p with FSR2 on, I’d get 25-30fps in somewhere like New Atlantis. I downloaded a tweaked .ini for the Ultra preset and now not only does the game look much better, but the city is up closer to 40fps, with most other areas being 45-60+. Makes me wonder what it was they thought was worth the massive cost that the default settings give, with no real visual improvement.
Another odd thing, if I’m playing Cyberpunk or something, this thing is in the 90%+ CPU and GPU utilization range, with the temps in the 90c+ range. Starfield? GPU is like 99%, CPU sits around 30%, and the temp is <=70c, which basically doesn’t happen playing any other “AAA” game. I could buy Todd’s comments if the frame rate was crap, but this thing was maxed out… but not getting close to full utilization on a handheld with an APU indicates something less simple.
I’m hoping the work from Hans finds its way to all platforms (in one way or another), because I’d love to use the Series X but 30fps with weird HDR on a 120hz OLED TV actually makes me a little nauseous after playing for a while, which isn’t something I commonly have a problem with.
From my experience on the Steam Deck is doesn’t matter if I run low graphics or medium graphics (some high settings) the performance is almost the same
I’ll play in a year after most of the bug and performance issues are fixed. Which seems like my typical response to any major game release these days; just wait a few months at first.
The issues are way overblown. I just bought a new car and with brand new tires and a few tweaks from my local repair shop I can go the speed limit now.
I love Starfield and has been playing it every day since launch. It runs like dogshit. Sure it doesn’t stutter or anything but I can’t, for the life of me, get the average FPS in outdoor areas to be anything higher than 70. 5800X + 3080 Ti. It doesn’t matter how much I lower the setting, the CPU overhead is crazy.
And I dont say the game could be better optimised, but to say that a stutter-free expierence with an average of 70 fps is “runing like dogshit” is some kind of special. Could it be better, yes, is it running like dogshit, nope.
70 fps on average without any kind of wrong framepacing or stuttering is not “running like dogshit”, thats my whole point, “mate”. If the the game would run with 30 fps and crazy frame spikes on modern hardware I would agree but to call a >60fps stutterfree expierence that is just supid, on every game.
He’s kinda right though. You are partially too, the game doesn’t run great but it runs fine. Definitely not dogshit. Hogwarts ran way worse for what it was with similar performance but also tons of stuttering on the best setups not to mention lots of crashing in multiple big AAA games this year. Starfield afaik has none of that, it just has lower than expected FPS but not terribly so.
By the standard of being playable, I get that. But I’m not here to mince words. When you zoom out and look at the big picture, this one incorrectly used driver call turns a 3080ti into a 2060. A $1000 difference in performance. Defending Bethesda is just going to make future issues worse and worse.
I guess. I do have the luxury of having a 4090 and I’ve simply seen much smaller games with similar graphics run…similar if not much worse than this. Perhaps others have a different experience but besides the frames being lower than I would like I’m kinda glad such a huge game doesn’t constantly crash for me or stutter every time is press the “sprint” button in a crowded area.
Other people in these comments have been reporting Starfield crashes, some of which “brick a character” apparently if it happens on an exit save (which you can’t opt out of lol). Any sentiment of “it could be worse” just weakens our position as consumers IMO.
it seems the current meta is to hate on starfield at the moment. I would suggest to keep playing and enjoying the game if you do and not to post about it.
That is always the meta with new and popular AAA games. Especially since PS players are salty MS denied them the game there’s even more salt and a lot of tribalism hehe.
Even before release I figured I’d wait for a sale. Too many good games just came out I want more, big backlog of Yakuza games I recently started and got totally hooked on. Not interested in helping standardize $70 games, will wait for a sale, and by then there will be a better mod scene too. Less money for a better game, win/win.
Armored Core VI and Baldur’s Gate III are two big recently published games that do work quite well. They stand on the shoulders of two respectable companies.
I’ve played it a little on Xbox since it’s on gamepass and I haven’t encountered any bugs, other than a single game crash. Is the PC release significantly worse than console?
Doesn’t feel revolutionary but I’m enjoying it. Created Amos Burton and it’s a pretty fun playthru so far.
Edit: Okay so let me correct that to replicatible crashes after xbox captures (both screenshots and recordings).
I’ve had 0 hard crashes but a few soft crashes since entering the final stretch of the MSQ. Sarah and Walter are stuck “talking” to each other permanently despite Sarah being in my ship and Walter the lodge. And if I try to talk to either of them the game locks up whenever it’s time for the other npc to chime in and I have to reload. I also had a random soft crash where I couldn’t enter the lodge from new Atlantis no matter what I did until I restarted the .exe(I’m thinking it’s related to the convos bug I’m experiencing). Also the weird movement bugs like someone walking away from you during a convo or crew members floating in or through random places in my ship. Also have a flashing texture issue for a few seconds after accessing the inventories in the armory ship habs.
Outside that I’m getting 50-70 fps with mostly high settings at 1080p.
Do we know for sure that the Starfield devs weren’t able to figure out the problems with performance? I find often with companies, the larger they are, the more bureaucracy there is, and the more prioritization of tickets becomes this huge deal, where you even end up having meetings about how to prioritize tickets etc.
I would be surprised if the devs didn’t know what was wrong already, I think it’s more likely that management and higherups doesn’t care about them fixing it right now.
Game devs have many teams all with different jobs, for a big game like this you'd typically have multiple teams dedicated to optimization in different areas (and between them). The specific problem in this case was how the game was communicating with graphics drivers (among others), which for any graphics heavy game is very fundamental to performance optimization. The problems aren't even an after-the-fact optimization sort of thing that teams should have to identify and follow-up on, batching jobs is standard practice when interacting with GPUs whether or not there's a translation layer.
When the devs of a core translation API between two supported graphics drivers that are commonplace in the gaming ecosystem have to write code to specifically fix issues with your application you've done something fundamentally wrong.
A lot of posts like these also seem to imply that the open source community should somehow be less competent than these companies and are surprised that the open source community can fix these issues. But the open source community has a ton of very respectable and extremely smart developers, it shouldn’t be any surprise really.
To be even more direct: there’s a huge overlap between the circles of “works in software dev” and “contributes to open source projects”.
I really try to do different things at home than work, but I’ve definitely contributed fixes to game mods (why do so many modders fail to do null checks before trying to interact with short lived shit like projectiles?) and open source software I’ve needed to do stuff.
It’s also verified by Proton users noting a marked increase in performance with just a code commit. I’d urge anyone not to listen to this troll and go have a look.
This really isn’t a good take when the “random guy” has provided proof, open source code demonstrating, and a relatively easy way to verify his claims (using his code).
It’s all there out in the open if anyone has specific counter points, and this type of thing isn’t an unusual situation with Bethesda developed games, or games on this engine.
It’s clearly not due to obsolete hardware. Not getting 60fps in New Atlantis while playing on a beast with 50-70% usage max points to optimization issues. I honestly don’t know why those people think it’s hardware
I dont understand how this is even an argument dude, bethesda has the worst reputation for this stuff. Literally every game they have released has been buggy as shit with terrible performance, but for some reason people just handwave it and say “its a bethesda game” when did they get so brainwashed, why is it acceptable for them??
Yeah, exactly. I’m getting tired of this too. Even with all of the evidence in the world that this issue is halving game performance people are still dismissing it. $1000 dollars worth of performance I paid for down the drain and yet “a smooth 60 FPS” is enough justification for people.
It’s like if somebody sold you a full-priced V8 that had 4 of the cylinders not firing and your peers telling you to deal with it because “at least it runs”.
It blows my mind how critical everyone was of Cyberpunk, despite it running fairly well on PC especially a few weeks after release, and how much of a pass everyone gives Starfield.
Looks like Hans implemented a workaround in vkd3d-proton 2.10, using the open-source AMD vulkan driver on linux (RADV).
Device generated commands for compute
With NV_device_generated_commands_compute we can efficiently implement Starfield’s use of ExecuteIndirect which hammers multi-dispatch COMPUTE + root parameter changes. Previously, we would rely on a very slow workaround.
NOTE: This feature is currently only enabled on RADV due to driver issues.
I don’t imagine it will take long for this to make its way into a Proton experimental release. Folks with AMD graphics who are comfortable with linux might want to give it a try.
It’s the same trash engine they’ve used for 20 years. To be perfectly honest, they should put it in the ground and build a new one from scratch instead of pushing their Frankenstein engine along.
Yeah you always have. They’ve been screwing modern graphics features to the old dog for years and hoping it’ll continue to work. There’s some serious limitations in it that another engine would be able to work through for a game like this. Seamless planet travel for one, and less abrupt loading.
People really have no idea about anything in game development. I agree it should have seemless planet travel, but it is not something that an engine “can just do.” It takes so many complicated systems to make that function. There’s no engine that does it out of the box.
Basically any engine can do it, but it requires it to be built. The land must be deterministic at all points, it must be able to create chunks accurately for all points (which gets really weird at the poles, but any latitude above 0 because your chunks shouldn’t be square anymore), and they must be able to be streamed in to their correct position seemlessly.
It is quite complicated, and there’s no reason the engine developed for an arena shooter (Unreal) would be able to handle it any better than any other engine. It just has to be built.
There’s a reason Hello Games wrote their own engine for NMS. We all know that it was pretty bad gameplay-wise at launch, but under the hood NMS was (and still is) something of a technical marvel. No loading screens except for a disguised one when jumping between systems is quite impressive.
Also, IIRC, NMS doesn’t have different gravities, right? Been a year or two since I properly played, but I don’t remember ever really jumping higher or being forced to the ground. That’s one of the sacrifices for seamless landing.
I don't buy this. Plenty of games allow you to adjust gravity on the fly using console commands. All they would have to do if you enter a new planet's atmosphere, is adjust the gravity value.
Source engine has allowed this forever, changing gravity on the fly. No reason it can't be implemented in other engines.
I guess though I mean it is expected at this stage of game development for this genre to have something like seamless planet travel for a space game. Like it didn’t have to be NMS or Elite Dangerous, they could’ve copied something like how Jedi Fallen Order did it, where basically your ship takes off from the planet, jumps to hyperspace and loads the next one during hyperspace and lets you know when you’re ‘arriving’ (aka when the destination is loaded) and you then take an action and land on the loaded planet. It ends up being the same thing as what Starfield basically does but handles it much more deftly.
Idk, just saying there’s better ways they could’ve handled it even if the engine couldn’t handle seamless planet travel in a traditional sense.
I have no game dev experience but I have a math and software background. I’m just curious about what “it gets weird at the poles” means. If I wanted to (abstractly) generate tiny square chunks of a large sphere, I would generate them as (proper) squares and then pass them through an explicit diffeomorphism to the associated region of the sphere, relying on the relative smallness to guarantee that the diffeomorphism doesn’t change things too much. From a game dev perspective, what approach do you take that causes issues at the poles?
Imagine trying to find the intersections of a line or region as it crosses multiple cells of a non-euclidian “grid” near the poles where an entire axis can flip from one cell to the next.
Are you suggesting using a stereographic projection? That seems like a bad idea. You wouldn’t want your projection to depend on the coordinate system. Am I missing a reason why you wouldn’t use proper, nonsingular spherical coordinates?
Games, support libraries, and engines don’t really support spherical coordinate systems. If you don’t want to write everything from scratch, you gotta go Cartesian.
Sure, I guess, but constantly mapping between them gets complicated and adds overhead. Plus, now you are dealing with curves instead of lines when checking for intersections, and that gets far more expensive to compute when you are trying to do thousands if not millions of checks per frame when trying to run at 60 or 120 frames per second.
I’m not saying it isn’t possible, just that games haven’t traditionally been written that way, so you can’t build on what they have already figured out. That makes it harder to find people who have game dev experience in that kind of math.
Unreal is older than their engine no? And everyone uses that…so what does this even mean?
The difference is that Epic barely makes games. They have their Fortnite which they can put in some minor effort to keep the money flowing and otherwise they can focus on the engine. Maybe with MS now being behind Bethesda they can also put in more work into their engine…maybe. We’ll see.
Or maybe it is if you meant how many weird and inefficient things living creatures have because it was good enough. Think about that the next time you accidentally choke on nothing
Exactly, people forget that most of the well known engines today are as old or older than Creation Engine, they're all patched/upgraded as it fits, though Creation Engine has no apparent version numbers and it's made by Bethesda so you get free internet points and a feeling of superiority for hating on the popular thing.
If you took these folks opinions as truth you'd think Bethesda games are massive flops that barely sell 10 copies and are a study case on how not to develop a game, but the real world is very different from the echo chamber...
It boggles my mind how many things people say about this game that are patently untrue, obviously extremely biased against the game/studio, or make it seem like this game killed their dog.
The game has issues, for sure, some things like the nonexistent city/building local map systems are indefensible, but damn dude, I wish people would just try to have mature discussions with realistic expectations about it instead of whatever this shit show is that we call "gaming discussions"
Sure, if the game doesn't appeal to you for that value, then there will be eventual sales. It won't be worth that amount to everyone. Doesn't really excuse the overly emotional criticism, or even the overly emotional defense from others. It's a good game. A true value judgment from there will be harder and more tied to individual tastes.
Gamers will never be mature or have realistic expectations. They cannot fathom that people are enjoying a thing they don't like, and they're very vocal about it, it's petty, really.
I try to move myself off of these discussions but there's always one comment that drags me down the well because it's so blatantly untrue, but it's miserable. Lemmy, kbin and Reddit are overly negative places where it seems the goal is to get everyone mad with terrible takes.
People need to remember that opinions aren't factsz and learn to shut the fuck up and let people enjoy things.
Gamers will never be mature or have realistic expectations. They cannot fathom that people are enjoying a thing they don’t like, and they’re very vocal about it, it’s petty, really.
You want people to have more mature discussions but then disavow any nuance in the same breath. Do you not see how this is a contradiction?
Oh don’t get me wrong, Bethesda games are generally great (with notable exceptions like Fallout 76), and do phenomenally well in sales. However, dismissing any and all criticism of the games’ numerous flaws (including glitches which often carry over between subsequent titles, like clipping through collision boxes and falling through maps) is willful ignorance at its finest. Every Bethesda game has performance issues and game-breaking bugs, and there was no reason to expect Starfield to be any different in that regard.
clipping through collision boxes and falling through maps
These are famously common bugs across games in all genres running on all kinds of different engines. I’d go so far as to not even call them bugs because computers simply don’t have the power to calculate collision down to the picosecond/picometer. Every game that’s ever been made has sacrificed precision in physics for performance.
Perhaps the reason it’s more noticeable in Bethesda games is because they typically have way more persistent, physics-enabled objects. That’s actually a strength of the engine, and something no other developer really even attempts.
These are famously common bugs across games in all genres running on all kinds of different engines.
Correct, but we aren’t talking about them. Whataboutism isn’t constructive.
I’d go so far as to not even call them bugs because computers simply don’t have the power to calculate collision down to the picosecond/picometer.
Actually, a large proportion of OoB clips in games are due to some combination of lacking speed caps and having acute angles in collision boxes.
Every game that’s ever been made has sacrificed precision in physics for performance.
Correct, and I’m not disputing this.
Perhaps the reason it’s more noticeable in Bethesda games is because they typically have way more persistent, physics-enabled objects.
This definitely contributes to the issues common in Bethesda games, but it’s not the only reason. Take Skyrim for example: some of its best-known glitches (such as restoration bonuses buffing enchantments, the various duplication glitches, and basically everything involving horses) have nothing to do with the number of dynamic objects loaded.
That’s actually a strength of the engine, and something no other developer really even attempts.
Not really - plenty of other games use Havok physics and don’t suffer from the same issues, or at least not to the same degree. Perhaps there’s a reason other developers using the Havok physics engine don’t make games with huge quantities of dynamic objects loaded at once.
Uh… you were talking about them. Those are the two examples of bugs that you provided. I literally wouldn’t have made the comment if you hadn’t brought them up.
such as restoration bonuses buffing enchantments, the various duplication glitches, and basically everything involving horses
Like if you had said these originally, I wouldn’t have even argued with you. I never personally experienced those bugs, probably because I don’t play games like I’m a QA tester, but I know many people did.
Not really - plenty of other games use Havok physics and don’t suffer from the same issues, or at least not to the same degree. Perhaps there’s a reason other developers using the Havok physics engine don’t make games with huge quantities of dynamic objects loaded at once.
I’ve definitely fallen through the world in several of the games listed there. But anyway, specifically, I said persistent physics objects. You can drop a cabbage in Whiterun, walk to Solitude and back, and the cabbage is right where you left it. In, say, GTA, you get out of your car and look away for 5 seconds, turn around, and it’s gone. Most games work more like GTA, where a limited number of objects even have full physics simulation, and those that do are only in memory if you’ve looked at them in the last x seconds. Otherwise, they unload and are lost forever.
Now, whether it’s even worth having so much physics-enabled clutter is another question. It certainly contributes to immersion, but is it more trouble than it’s worth?
Which is, literally, not every major version. I didn’t say “all Unreal Engine versions are evolutionary steps over their predecessors”, I said “they don’t get rewritten from scratch for each major version”.
Someone else also brought up the Quake engine, which has even more evolutionary steps; even with forks like the Source engine.
That's the engine in which Creation Engine was based on, so what? Saying that name won't somehow invalidate everything that was developed using the two engines or accomplish anything really. By your logic, we should call Source 2 engine the Quake engine
This article is kinda pointless. Go look at the linked PR. The author says his optimizations yield a tiny performance gain. Not particularly worth mentioning.
I was able to install the DLSS mod which helped some but there’s still performance issue even with using the DF optimized settings. I assume this will be fixed with driver and game updates but who knows how long that will take.
Builds out thousands of hours well written, acted, and intricately laid out rpg content that people are immediately sinking hundreds of hours into, has minor technical issues
I’m not sure what this means. Is the game not on PS5?
You’re absolutely free to enjoy the game. Like I mentioned in the comments, Bethesda’s game is like instant ramen. It can definitely be delicious and enjoyable, but it’s not good/healthy food.
Morrowind's entire map was hand made. All of its quests were hand made.
Starting with Oblivion, they moved to make most of the map and quests automatically with minimal human intervention.
To the point that they admitted it was too much for the tech at the time and actually hurt the gameplay, and pulled back for Skyrim, using a mix of computer made and human made content, adding in the radiant quest system in an attempt.to make the gameplay "endless".
The modern thing we call AI is just the chatbots from a decade prior with improved processing power and vastly larger data sets to work with. The tech in those chatbots had been working in various pieces for a decade before that.
There’s a lot of interesting world building and history to draw upon, it’s just a shame Bethesda doesn’t do that.
You’re never really presented with moral choices. The story never really has you think about things. There’s a tonne of lore books and tapes and what have yous that spill a rich tapestry of stories at you, but you’re never really shown any of it. I’ve had fun with Oblivion, Fallout 3, and Skyrim, and to a lesser extent Fallout 4, but at this point I’m kind of tired of it. They’re all the same game. They have the same floaty combat. The same lacklustre storytelling. The same awkward “talk at you” conversations.
I would like to add Hook to this list. I was flabbergasted when, as an adult, found out it was poorly received. Then I rewatched it as an adult and was forced to agree. Still one of my favorites.
Fast food can be delicious and filling, but it’s not good food.
Bethesda makes the game equivalent to fast food. Specifically instant ramen. You can tweak instant ramen, add veggies, eggs, meat, seasonings, etc. and transform it into something new. It’s still instant ramen, but it’s different.
Fast food can be delicious and filling, but it’s not good food.
this is a completely different argument. Fast food is “good by any measure” because it’s good by the measure of delicious and of filling. It doesn’t make sense to complement something and then say it’s not good in any aspect.
It's best gameplay is when your ignore the plot entirely and create your own story.
Same with Skyrim, Fallout 3 and Oblivion.
The actual main plots are simplistic, boring and oddly quick. Weirdly, each of the games has an expansion that has a well done quest line, so its not that they can't do it, they choose to not do it.
It does not matter how extensive the lore, character design and world building is if the fucking game runs like shit and crashes. The game being in a playable state is the bare minimum.
Its like a chef spending hours decorating a dish made with spoiled raw chicken.
Bethesda is sub-par in just about every aspect of game development. Shallow combat. Basic dialogue trees. Skill/feats haven't evolved in several games. Engine so old it has to have loading screens for every type of transition.
But you picked the story and acting to tout as good? Bethesda is well-known to have pathetically bad main-story arcs. Only a handful of side quests end up being engaging to most people. The face animations are...better now but still deeply in the uncanny valley. Their acting is usually deadpan with only the merest speck of emotion and shown as if the actor is reading their script for the first time during recording.
Honestly the main thing that Bethesda games have going for them are a detailed, hand-crafted world that is fun to explore and experiment in. Which...Bethesda handily disposed of to have the majority of its world and worlds be procedurally generated.
Wow, so informed you are, you are talking of Starfield right?
You wouldn’t happen to just be talking out of your ass trying to make broad generalizations about games made 20 years apart to try and cast shade on a game you’ve never played would you?
This comment doesn't actually say anything. It's just casting aspirations against me because you didn't like what I said. It doesn't rebut anything or offer differing opinions on anything I proposed.
They should but its Bethesda. A company that misread the room thinking people making memes about how unoptimized their games are meant fans thought it was endearing rather than something deserving of mockery.
That’s exactly what they’re going to do because it costs nothing. The problem is they won’t ever accept the community fixes into official updates since they’re binary patches or file replacements.
Sure but bundling the latest game with a gpu has been common practice by both green and red for a while. When the Egyptian assassins creed was coming out I remember seeing a card next to the GPUs at Microcenter saying you got it free with a qualifying purchase.
I took a gamble on the Arc 770 when I built my PC a few months ago, because I honestly am not too keen on the current GPU generation. Like why would I want to pay through my nose for cards that are incredibly power inefficient, with tendencies to catch fire to boot? The Arc series offered decent performance (save for old DX9 games and such, but I already had a GTX970 I could use for those if need be), and shocking amounts of memory, so I gave it a shot and I’m really happy with it.
I have some weird graphical glitches in FFXIV from time to time. It’s nothing overly annoying, sometimes a box will flicker on the screen for a frame, and sometimes the light fades out briefly. Other than that I’ve had no issues, it’s chugging along really well. My biggest (and only) gripe with the card is the control centre software not allowing you to remap keybinds. That’s pretty dumb.
All that said, I’m not a hardcore gamer by any means, I don’t buy all the latest AAA games at launch (often not at all, really) and I don’t care much for maxing out my graphics and running at 900FPS.
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