It’s probably not 100% necessary; even Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart (which was designed to use the PS5’s fast loading speeds to switch between worlds on the fly, and supports the latest DirectStorage implementation on PC) can be played off a hard drive, tests have shown. But any PC recent enough to play Starfield on really should have an SSD.
Well, Nvidia isn’t directly involved here at all, they’ve only commented on the issue once (to say that they don’t block other companies’ upscaling). The objections tend to come from users, the majority of whom have Nvidia cards and want to use what is widely considered the superior upscaling technology.
He admits that — in general — when AMD pays publishers to bundle their games with a new graphics card, AMD does expect them to prioritize AMD features in return. “Money absolutely exchanges hands,” he says. “When we do bundles, we ask them: ‘Are you willing to prioritize FSR?’”
But Azor says that — in general — it’s a request rather than a demand. “If they ask us for DLSS support, we always tell them yes.”
SO developers aren’t forced contractually to exclude DLSS, but outside the contract language, they are pressured to ignore it in favor of FSR. That explains why these deals tend to result in DLSS being left out, and also why there are some exceptions (e.g. Sony games–I imagine Sony knows what features it wants its PC releases to have and has decided to push back on DLSS inclusion). I think AMD is being honest this time, and I’m surprised it admitted publicly that it’s doing this. Hopefully the word about this will get out and more developers will insist on including DLSS.
Returnal (PC) - Still playing the Tower of Sisyphus even though I beat the game. This is the most impressed I’ve been with a Playstation “exclusive” since the PS2, it’s so good. I bet a lot of people give up on it pretty quick because of the difficulty, but I find it’s less difficult than a Souls game once you get a handle on it.
Horizon Zero Dawn (PC) - I kinda want to get to the part where they explain the robot animals (Dr. Eggman?), but the half-assed combat and boring open world are making me not want to bother.
20XX (PC)- It’s fun, but it’s also giving me a new appreciation for how well-designed the Mega Man games were. You’re not supposed to be hitting your head on the bottoms of platforms in games like this, lmao.