Todd Howard: “You may need to upgrade your PC for this game”

  • qwertyqwertyqwerty@lemmy.one
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    1 year ago

    I’m enjoying Starfield, but it isn’t perfect by any means. I have to ask though, is the bottom screenshot from an area that is meant to be normally seen by the player? Because if it isn’t, they should be toning down the graphics as part of optimizing performance. I guess it’s not really a valid point either though, because Starfield’s performance is terrible.

    • all-knight-party@kbin.run
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      1 year ago

      You’re correct, you normally are walking around up on top of and past the top of that waterfall. You’re allowed to go down there, but there’s nothing to find or see.

      The performance has markedly improved for me after the first patch, I now only dip below 60 FPS in cities on an RTX 3060, could still be better, though, as that’s with most settings on low.

        • all-knight-party@kbin.run
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          1 year ago

          I’m getting a locked 60 everywhere except the three city planets and only in areas there where combat doesn’t happen, so it’s not impeding my gameplay, but it is noticeable. And I do have some settings above low, just the major ones like shadows and such are on low.

          But my other main gaming platform is the Switch, so I’m quite accepting of low or unstable framerates, or even games that don’t look their best. I can personally accept it since there aren’t any other games that combine the genres this one does, but it’s… not good.

          • CaptainEffort@sh.itjust.works
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            1 year ago

            But my other main gaming platform is the Switch, so I’m quite accepting of low or unstable framerates

            Which is fine, it’s okay to be accepting of lower frame rates when they’re acceptable. Like, if you had a 2060 or maybe a 2070 then fair enough. But you have a 3060 and aren’t even getting a locked 60 across the board when at low settings. A 30 series card shouldn’t be struggling so much when at low settings, period.

            It’s one thing to physically be okay with lower frame rates, and another to overlook an unoptimized game. I can live with lower frame rates too, but this is still unacceptable.

            • all-knight-party@kbin.run
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              1 year ago

              Personally with Bethesda, I’m more upset about Fallout 4. I like that game more than Starfield, but even though it’s older, it runs worse in the city with all the debris, shadows, and NPCs in a dense location. And I fight things there.

              Or Oblivion, where even to this day I can’t fully get rid of the stuttering when loading world chunks, because the damn game bottlenecks itself.

              I think it is unacceptable. I love those other games much more for what they did at the time, and with what they offered to me, I found the technical issues acceptable to get that niche fix. With Starfield, I still like it to an extent, but this’ll be the last time I trust off the bat that Bethesda will back up their flaws with a worthy enough overall package.

    • Bleeping Lobster@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      It took me a whole week of mucking about and bugtesting just to get the game to run without crashing every couple of minutes. It’s bizarre to me how attached some people seem to be to the idea that the game is up to the standard we expected (not saying you are, but just look at some of the comments that have been downvoted)

      • Tavarin@lemmy.ca
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        1 year ago

        Well in my case it is up to the standard, because it’s run perfectly fine for me. I installed it, and have been running it on high graphics with no crashes, and only minor positioning bugs.

        So you and I have had very different experiences with the game.

        • Bleeping Lobster@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          The nature of PCs I guess. I ran it on an i9 12900k, 2070s GPU, 48gb ram, m2 SSD, xbox gamepass and had no end of troubles. Even once I got it running, a majority of quests (inc main quests) were bugged to the point I had to use console commands to get past the bugs.

          I’m by far not the only one. People were crashing on console! That’s insane. We now pay to be bugtesters.

          • Tavarin@lemmy.ca
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            1 year ago

            Yeah, I have a Ryzen 5600X, 32 GB Ram, Radeon 5700 XT, installed on an SSD, and gamepass as well. I’ve had no issues, other than a single spinning spaceship, and my follower getting stuck on a doorframe temporarily.

            Crazy the variety of experiences.

            And crashing on consoles I just expect now, devs are making games way too demanding for base level consoles.

            • Bleeping Lobster@lemmy.world
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              1 year ago

              Do you notice the difference between our systems? Yours is AMD cpu / AMD gpu, mine is intel cpu / nvidia gpu. We know AMD worked with BGS to some extent to make sure Starfield was well-optimised for their gear. I had a bit of a paranoid moment during my struggles to get it running that BGS had deliberately not optimised the game for non-AMD components and this info does not assuage my paranoia haha.

    • lichtmetzger@feddit.deOP
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      1 year ago

      Yes, it’s an area in Atlantis that you visit as part of the romance questline with Sarah. Bethesda hasn’t changed a lot in the water system since Skyrim and I believe it’s laughable in 2023 for a game that costs 99$.

      • Tavarin@lemmy.ca
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        1 year ago

        So you’re saying its an area that isn’t meant to be normally seen. Some players may see it once in a play through, and only if they romance Sarah. That’s the exact definition of not normally seen.

        • lichtmetzger@feddit.deOP
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          1 year ago

          That’s the exact definition of not normally seen.

          No it’s not. You visit this area during a mission and you can visit it every time you land on Atlantis, which is the main hub city of the game.

          Added to that, the whole point of Sarah bringing you here is to look at how beautiful this place is, which is ridiculous when you look at it. :D

          • Tavarin@lemmy.ca
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            1 year ago

            A completely optional mission, in a completely optional romance line, that you only see once should you choose that one romance quest out of the options. Normally seen in a game is something like the New Atlantis Spaceport, which every player sees multiple times in a playthrough.

            Though I do agree, I did that romance, and was certainly underwhelmed by the waterfall.

            • schmidtster@lemmy.world
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              1 year ago

              Are you seriously excusing shit waterfall mechanics/graphics game wide because this one particular view is only forced on you once in a certain situation?

              That’s a new take lmfao.

              • lichtmetzger@feddit.deOP
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                1 year ago

                Some people are really pissed because I posted a shitty meme, it really is ridiculous. But I guess when you spend up to a hundred bucks on a 6/10 RPG that was hyped-up like crazy you need to vent all of this frustration somewhere…

                • schmidtster@lemmy.world
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                  1 year ago

                  The memes not shitty, people just ignore stuff for whatever justifications they can come up. If you can view it once, why should it be a different quality than something you see 100x? It’s a bloody water effect, there should be zero difference.

                  Change the what item it is and it shouldn’t change anything either.

                • Tavarin@lemmy.ca
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                  1 year ago

                  Don’t put words in my mouth. And I spent $0 on it, gamepass for the win. I still enjoy the game, even with it’s shitty waterfall.

                  • lichtmetzger@feddit.deOP
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                    1 year ago

                    I still enjoy the game, even with it’s shitty waterfall.

                    Just want to say, that I did so, too! It’s not a bad game at all, but it could’ve been better in so many ways. Writing, game mechanics, world building…

              • Tavarin@lemmy.ca
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                1 year ago

                No, I’m just correcting the poster who says it’s a normally viewed part of the game. Are you unable to read or understand simple context?

                  • Tavarin@lemmy.ca
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                    1 year ago

                    My comment says I agree the waterfall is shitty, did you miss that part?

                    And no, I’m not incorrect, when a person asks if it is a normally viewed part of the game, that means viewed commonly by everyone. The waterfall is not a normally viewed part of the game.

                    It is shitty, and it shouldn’t be, but it is not normally viewed by most players.

            • Umbrias@beehaw.org
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              1 year ago

              This is not a great argument unless you are very deep into pretending a game company can do no wrong.

              There are lots of ways this is silly to claim is fine, it’s ridiculous to act like this is expected or acceptable and not just amateurish lack of polish.

              But it’s okay, you can still enjoy the game. It’s okay to enjoy things which have flaws.

              • Tavarin@lemmy.ca
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                1 year ago

                Did I say it was acceptable? No, I said it was underwhelming.

                What I’m arguing is it is not a normally viewed part of the game, because the vast majority of players will never see it.