Games

No, Todd Howard doesn't make mistakes, you just have to buy a more expensive graphics card!

/s

People figured out the performance issues with Starfield when it was first announced: the Bethesda logo

As audial, it takes free labor for Bethesda to get their shit working the way it’s supposed to. What a garbage developer.

I wonder if this has anything to do with not being able to load my saves. I went to mars and exited the game after a long gaming session. Came back the next day and I get a full system crash upon trying to load the exit save. Tried the autosaves, same deal. Tried my last normal save, same deal. Every once in about 5-6 full system crashes I can reload one of the saves from just landing on mars but if I try to enter caledonia then it's a full system crash. It's weird too, I can still hear the game running in a loop but I can tell there is no input and the graphics fully fail. Very frustrating. I finally got back to my main rig to be able to play and the game has just been straight not playable since about the day after it came out. Can't even get a hotfix from Bethesda. Bummer. I'll just have to wait to play it again. I'm not going to restart a new character just to run into the same thing.

I'd assume an issue possibly at the engine level isn't something that a mod can fix?

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.

There's a Bethesda parody from a few years ago: https://youtu.be/YPN0qhSyWy8

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.

The problem is so severe, in fact, that the aforementioned translation layer had to be updated specifically to handle Starfield as an exception to the usual handling of the issue.

"I had to fix your shit in my shit because your shit was so fucked that it fucked my shit"

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.

If this is such a big issue then Bethesda should make it a top priority to fix it, it does sound like a complicated issue though.

I'm eagerly awaiting the radio silence from all the people blaming it on obsolete hardware lol

Overall I like the game though, it has a lot of very entertaining ideas.

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.