Starfield units a brand new benchmark for PC efficiency, taxing even essentially the most highly effective {hardware} available on the market. To get the sport to run easily, you’ll want the most effective settings for Starfield.
This isn’t any easy sport, and the state of affairs on PC is much more advanced. I’ve examined the sport extensively each earlier than and after launch to assemble optimized settings, benchmark it with a number of GPUs, and examine in on upscaling assist. Here’s what I’ve discovered to this point.
Best settings for Starfield
Bethesda Game Studios
Starfield doesn’t have an enormous graphics menu, and the 4 graphics presets do a superb job of balancing efficiency. I examined every setting individually, and almost all of them supply a slight bump in efficiency — there are only a few extraneous settings and simple wins for efficiency.
Still, I settled on an inventory of the most effective settings that I really feel optimize efficiency and picture high quality. Here are my optimized settings for Starfield:
Dynamic Resolution: On
Render Resolution: 75%
Graphics Preset: Custom
Shadow Quality: Medium
Indirect Lighting: High
Reflections: Medium
Particle Quality: Low
Volumetric Lighting: Medium
Crowd Density: Low
Motion Blur: Off
GTAO Quality: Medium
Grass Quality: High
Contact Shadows: Medium
VSync: On
Upscaling: FSR2
Enable VRS: On
Depth of Field: On
Gasp! Your eyes don’t deceive you. You ought to run Starfield beneath native decision. As I’ll dig into with my benchmarks later, the sport is clearly designed round AMD’s FidelityFX Super Resolution 2 (FSR 2), and even the very best graphics preset defaults to FSR 2 working at 75% of the native decision.
It’s a bit completely different than FSR in different video games. Normally, FSR 2 contains three or 4 presets that decide your render decision. Starfield as a substitute features a slider that goes from 100% of render decision to 50%. Right within the center at 75% is certainly the candy spot for picture high quality, so it’s finest to optimize your efficiency with settings quite than push FSR 2 right down to its lowest level.
The largest efficiency wins for Starfield come from Shadow Quality, Volumetric Lighting, GTAO Quality, and Contact Shadows, so these are the settings to achieve for first to optimize your efficiency. Motion Blur additionally has a good affect on efficiency, so flip it off until you’re working beneath 60 frames per second (fps) and want slightly smoothing.
Jacob Roach / Digital Trends
As you possibly can see within the comparability above, my optimized settings look awfully just like the Ultra preset, not less than with the 75% render decision utilized to each. I noticed a few 15% improve in efficiency with these settings, however I’ve tailor-made my record in a method that can profit much less highly effective programs.
For occasion, there’s the Crowd Density setting. My testing exhibits that Starfield could be very taxing on the CPU, with some scenes driving even the 24-core Intel Core i9-13900Ok to 60% utilization. Turning down this setting vastly reduces the load on the CPU, so it’s a superb place to chop in case your CPU isn’t as highly effective as your GPU. Crowds nonetheless look dense even on the lowest setting, however when it’s maxed out, you possibly can see 50 or extra individuals in an space at one time.
Finally, I wish to spotlight VRS, or Variable Rate Shading. This setting is on by default, and you need to go away it that method. You might not see it at work relying on how highly effective your system is, however it will probably increase efficiency lots on older, much less highly effective programs.
Starfield system necessities
Before attending to my benchmarks, it’s value trying on the Starfield system necessities. It’s a demanding sport, and the system necessities again that up.
Minimum
Recommended
OS
Windows 10 model 21H1
Windows 10/11 with updates
Processor
AMD Ryzen 5 2600X, Intel Core i7-6800Ok
AMD Ryzen 5 3600X, Intel Core i5-10600Ok
RAM
16GB
16GB
Graphics card
AMD RX 5700, Nvidia GTX 1070 Ti
AMD RX 6800 XT, Nvidia RTX 2080
DirectX model
DirectX 12
DirectX 12
Storage
125GB (SSD)
125GB (SSD)
Based on my benchmarks, it appears the Recommended specs are focusing on 4K at 30 fps on the High preset, which renders the sport at 62% of its decision by means of FSR 2. You might additionally have a look at working the sport at 1080p with 60 fps on the similar graphics preset.
The Minimum specs look as in the event that they’re focusing on 1080p at 30 fps, once more with FSR 2 enabled. As talked about, Starfield is clearly designed round FSR 2, and that’s factoring within the system necessities closely. With the upscaling turned off, you want a way more highly effective system to take care of a steady body fee.
A few further notes right here. First, you want an SSD to play Starfield. It’s required, even on the Minimum specs. In addition, the sport requires a six-core CPU at minimal, however I wouldn’t advocate taking part in it with lower than an eight-core chip. The sport could be very taxing on the CPU in closely populated areas, and also you’ll see an enormous dip in efficiency with solely six cores.
What GPU do you want for Starfield?
Jacob Roach / Digital Trends
I examined seven graphics playing cards in Starfield to get a tough concept of what you’d want relying on the decision you’re taking part in the sport at. You can see my outcomes above, with playing cards representing the final two generations of GPUs from AMD and Nvidia. There’s no Intel illustration right here, not solely as a result of there isn’t an official Starfield driver for the Arc A770 and A750, but in addition as a result of the sport refused to load with the cardboard in my prerelease testing.
Intel has confirmed since that the sport has points on its graphics card, and it has promised a patch for the sport’s normal launch.
We are conscious of points with @StarfieldGame on Intel Arc graphics. We are working to enhance the expertise for the sport's normal launch subsequent week.
— Intel Graphics (@IntelGraphics) August 31, 2023
Before digging in, it’s vital to level out that I created a worst-case state of affairs to check graphics playing cards in Starfield. That meant ignoring FSR 2 and working my benchmarks within the New Atlantis metropolis within the sport, the place dozens of characters are on-screen. Performance goes up lots if you allow FSR 2, as I’ll get into later on this part.
For now, you’ll want round an RTX 3070 Ti so as to keep 60 fps with out FSR 2 enabled. The RX 6700 XT can also be an possibility, assuming you flip down a couple of graphics settings. At as much as 1440p, each the RTX 4070 and RTX 3080 scratch 60 fps with out absolutely reaching it, whereas the RX 6950 XT passes that mark with ease.
It’s 4K the place issues are actually unhealthy, although. Even AMD’s RX 7900 XTX and Nvidia’s RTX 4080 can’t keep 60 fps at 4K with out the assistance of FSR 2. That solely leaves the RTX 4090 as an choice to play Starfield at native 4K with the entire settings maxed out.
That mentioned, I did this testing previous to AMD’s launch of a devoted driver for Starfield. The patch notes declare a efficiency improve of as much as 16%, so it would push the sport over the 60 fps mark for the RX 7900 XTX.
Jacob Roach / Digital Trends
I went again and retested a couple of playing cards with the brand new patch, and as you possibly can see above, it improves efficiency fairly a bit.
As talked about, every of the graphics presets in Starfield robotically flip FSR 2 on. The Ultra preset makes use of a 75% render decision, High makes use of a 62% render decision, and each Medium and Low use 50%. Those adjustments have an enormous affect on efficiency.
Jacob Roach / Digital Trends
If you have a look at FSR 2 on versus off, you possibly can see the RTX 3080 can simply hit above 60 fps at 4K with the High graphics preset, however it struggles to take care of above 40 fps in any other case. The disparity on the Low and Medium presets is much more obvious, with FSR 2 providing almost double the efficiency.
Jacob Roach / Digital Trends
That comes at a serious price to picture high quality, although. As you possibly can see within the comparability above, each the Low and Medium presets undergo from important aliasing within the background, in addition to a serious drop-off in sharpness (have a look at the blue flag and the overhanging tree).
Jacob Roach / Digital Trends
Similarly, within the scene above, you possibly can see the indicators on the constructing present far much less element on the Medium and Low presets. There are adjustments to shadow and lighting high quality between modes, however it’s the low render decision of those decrease presets that actually kills the expertise.
Is 8GB of VRAM sufficient for Starfield?
VRAM issues are outstanding amongst fashionable video games, however fortunately, Starfield doesn’t have loads of points. Even at native 4K with all of the graphics turned up, the sport by no means consumed above 8GB of VRAM. That was true for playing cards together with the RTX 4090 with its large array of 24GB of VRAM.
It’s not an enormous concern right here. In addition, I didn’t discover any stuttering or hitching on GPUs with 8GB of VRAM, which has been a major drawback in video games like Resident Evil 4, The Last of Us Part One, and Hogwarts Legacy.
Does Starfield have Nvidia DLSS?
At launch, Starfield doesn’t have native assist for Nvidia’s Deep Learning Super Sampling (DLSS). AMD is the unique PC companion for the sport, however regardless of that, the corporate says the developer is free so as to add DLSS if it chooses.
That hasn’t occurred but, although it’s potential DLSS assist will come sooner or later. Thankfully, modder PureDark has already launched a mod that provides DLSS and Intel’s XeSS to the sport.
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