In a recent revelation, Bethesda announced their partnership with AMD to unlock the full potential of their upcoming space game, Starfield. The collaboration seeks to optimize the game for exceptional performance on PC for AMD users and Xbox. This announcement came directly from Todd Howard, a representative from Bethesda, in a short video with AMD’s general manager, John Huynh.
Howard stated that Bethesda has built new technology for their development engine, the Creation Engine 2, with the help of AMD engineers. Huynh added that the result of this partnership is better performance and higher visual quality on both console and PC platforms.
the partnership has stirred a somewhat mixed reaction from the gaming community. Some PC users expressed surprise and annoyance on Reddit, as the best features of the game appear to be tied to an AMD graphics card. The minimum requirements for AMD to run Starfield are significantly higher than those for Nvidia graphics cards. Specifically, the minimum system requirements on Steam call for an Nvidia GTX 1070 Ti or an RX 5700, but the RX 5700 is equivalent to an Nvidia GTX 2070 Super, indicating a substantial gap in price and quality.
Moreover, AMD’s record with upscaling and quality enhancement has been a point of contention. The general consensus among PC gamers is that AMD’s FSR upscaling is inferior to Nvidia’s DLSS in terms of performance and extra features, such as ray tracing.
Despite these concerns, some Reddit users have pointed out that it’s not too significant a problem. Bethesda has already promised that Starfield will be a “heaven” for modders, which implies that a DLSS mod will likely surface soon after the game launches. Starfield is set to launch on September 6, 2023.