Starfield's performance is locked on Xbox, Todd Howard says, causing worry about the space sim on PC, but a God of War Ragnarok dev comes to Bethesda’s defense.
“Game dev here,” Carlone writes, adding that they are a “big fan” of Dreamcast Guy. “Wanted to clarify: it’s not a sign of an unfinished game. It’s a choice. 60fps on this scale would be a large hit to the visual fidelity. My guess is they want to go for a seamless look and less ‘pop in.’ And of course, [it’s] your right to dislike the choice.”
Sure. Maybe. It could be this. Or…
Arm-chair babbling idiot who plays too much video games here, I am one hundred percent convinced that it has nothing to do with visual fidelity and everything to do with that asthmatic engine they’ve been dragging since Morrowind. Can’t prove it but… you know. Just a hunch I get from playing their games.
People constantly complain about the engine that they use but no other game engine is as flexible when it comes to modding and no other game engine has the same level of complexity when it comes to being able to pick stuff up and move it around. You can take items off a shelf or desk in skyrim and fallout and stack them somewhere else. You can if you want decide to hoard a bunch of garbage you stole and stack them into a pyramid in your home base area.
Are their quirks? Sure the physics tied to framerate in skyrim was a problem, the games are always buggy, and they arent usually the prettiest games out there(though skyrim looked decent when it first came out and the graphical fidelity mods can work magic).
As for the premise does it have to do with fidelity? Of course it does. Setting a framecap on consoles means theyre able to use higher resolution assets, better lighting effects, and more complex models. I understand the preference of giving up fidelity for some smoothness and frames but 30fps isnt totally uncommon in console spaces and this is a bethesda game not a twitch shooter or a 2d fighter.
Outside the PC space gamers hardly ever talk about or think about framer rate. Graphical effects and details and fisual fidelity are a higher priority and more important in a game where generally you mostly just walk around and explore.
It would be nice if they had an option for a lower res mode or less detailed mode and 60fps target, but I get why they made the choice they did and ideally Im sure it’ll run at a normal framerate on pc.
It’s also a personal choice of Bethesda not to rename their engine. Many other studios do this same thing and reuse engines, but they often rename them after significant rewrites. Bethesda just doesn’t do that.
Also they aren’t worried about how the game will be released. Their games have legs. So a 60fps version will eventually come out. Then they’ll release it 5 more times.
I mean that they haven’t changed it from the Creation engine. Which has been used since Skyrim despite some big rewrites for Fallout and I’m sure more big rewrites or additions for Starfield
But it’s only been 2 games since Skyrim, right? And for Starfield it’s being renamed Creation Engine 2. Either way that statement “Bethesda just doesn’t do that.” Doesn’t seem accurate when they have done that multiple times.
Huh okay yeah that’s fair. I guess I’m thinking more about the time span since that game engine is now well over a decade old whereas the previous examples are separated by a handful of years. And I didn’t know about them putting a ‘2’ in front of it for Starfield.
No, it’s most definitely a choice. You can make any engine run at 60 FPS if you sacrifice something else for it. The RE engine runs beautiful games at 60 FPS, but they had to make all sorts of sacrifices to fidelity to get World Tour in Street Fighter 6 to run at all, let alone at 60 FPS on current gen consoles.
The choice is playing on PC, because unless the game was designed by complete shitheads who decided they don’t need a settings menu, you’ll actually get a choice of what features you do or don’t enable. Console games should have PC-style settings menus, but they don’t. For me, buying a new PC game always involves chores: turning off chromatic aberration, depth of field, motion blur, and other nonsense so I can claw back like 45 additional FPS.
That’s exactly why I mainly play on PC nowadays. I didn’t like PC gaming 10-15 years ago, but now I love being able to play at 4K60 / 1440p60 by downgrading settings I don’t care.
Yeah that’s the other side of it for sure, it’s going to be a lazy port with ham-sized icons, grandma-approved giant text, and menus that can only be navigated with the arrow keys and spacebar.
Starfield on PC will probably be great after modders finish nhe game for them though. Sucks that the physics are almost certainly going to be tied to the 30fps framerate, hopefully SFSE (starfield script extender) is out not too long after launch
Depends on what is causing the framerate issues. If it’s usual fidelity (resolution, draw distance, visual effects) then yes, they can provide options for those.
If the framerate issues are due to physics, NPC/interactions, state-management then it’s unlikely they could or would want to provide options around that type of limitation.
Arm-chair babbling idiot who plays too much video games here, I am one hundred percent convinced that it has nothing to do with visual fidelity and everything to do with that asthmatic engine they’ve been dragging since Morrowind.
Code doesn’t go bad with time, that’s not really how it works. And game engines tend to be a Ship of Theseus situation, where just because it’s still the same “engine” in theory, doesn’t mean that large parts (or all of it), haven’t eventually been replaced or refactored over the years.
Unreal Engine has been around for 30 years at this point, would you also consider that an “asthmatic engine”?
It sure reads like they are saying “more fps makes game look bad”, but my assumption is that they mean " if we want this to run at higher fps we will have to reduce fidelity or the engine cant handle it". At least thats what I hope they mean
that asthmatic engine they’ve been dragging since Morrowind
I don’t believe that’s true at all, though. At least by Wikipedia, Morrowind was NetImmerse, Oblivion was Gamebryo (modified Havok), and Skyrim was Creation. And I remember in the announcements for Skyrim that they remade the engine for the game. And Starfield is an updated engine, Creation 2
Gamebryo was called netimmerse until 2003. Creation is a modified gamebryo. So Creation 2 will also be based on it. So yes they use kinda the same engine since morrowind. Beteshda will not change away from it because gamebryo is a large reason why the modding community is as strong as it is for skyrim etc. And the modding community sells a lot of copies!
The engine also started as an engine for MMOs, which allowed them rich scripting for every NPC, as well as an inventory for every NPC.
The world fidelity that Bethesda builds, on a technical and simulation level, is unmatched — yeah, something like The Witcher 3 might look better, but it also doesn’t let you interact with basically every item in the world or pickpocket every NPC’s weapon as a way to neutralize them in combat.
I’m sure you’re right about this. Probably the framerate bounces all over the place which feels much worse than simply locking it to 30fps and having a consistent experience. I think a PC has the potential to simply brute force it into 60fps, but an Xbox simply cannot. Which is probably fine. The game is said to run at 4k and 1440p depending on which Xbox you have, and for a game like this where exploration is going to play a big role, those visuals will do a lot of silent storytelling.
I would rather walk over a hill and see an incredible alien sunset on some moon, than have more frames, especially if those frames are bouncing around between 60 and 40 and going over that hill stutters and jerks spoiling the immersion.
If only players could make that choice themselves, perhaps through some sort of graphics settings menu. No, that’s crazy and unprecedented, it could never work.
I think that they talked at one point about how they had it running at 60 fps at one point, but they opted for a more “stable” experience (translation: the amount of frame drops probably would’ve made Cyberpunk on the base Xbox One blush).
Sure. Maybe. It could be this. Or…
Arm-chair babbling idiot who plays too much video games here, I am one hundred percent convinced that it has nothing to do with visual fidelity and everything to do with that asthmatic engine they’ve been dragging since Morrowind. Can’t prove it but… you know. Just a hunch I get from playing their games.
People constantly complain about the engine that they use but no other game engine is as flexible when it comes to modding and no other game engine has the same level of complexity when it comes to being able to pick stuff up and move it around. You can take items off a shelf or desk in skyrim and fallout and stack them somewhere else. You can if you want decide to hoard a bunch of garbage you stole and stack them into a pyramid in your home base area.
Are their quirks? Sure the physics tied to framerate in skyrim was a problem, the games are always buggy, and they arent usually the prettiest games out there(though skyrim looked decent when it first came out and the graphical fidelity mods can work magic).
As for the premise does it have to do with fidelity? Of course it does. Setting a framecap on consoles means theyre able to use higher resolution assets, better lighting effects, and more complex models. I understand the preference of giving up fidelity for some smoothness and frames but 30fps isnt totally uncommon in console spaces and this is a bethesda game not a twitch shooter or a 2d fighter.
Outside the PC space gamers hardly ever talk about or think about framer rate. Graphical effects and details and fisual fidelity are a higher priority and more important in a game where generally you mostly just walk around and explore.
It would be nice if they had an option for a lower res mode or less detailed mode and 60fps target, but I get why they made the choice they did and ideally Im sure it’ll run at a normal framerate on pc.
Now if it runs poorly on PC then we can riot.
It’s also a personal choice of Bethesda not to rename their engine. Many other studios do this same thing and reuse engines, but they often rename them after significant rewrites. Bethesda just doesn’t do that.
Also they aren’t worried about how the game will be released. Their games have legs. So a 60fps version will eventually come out. Then they’ll release it 5 more times.
But they did? For Oblivion it was Gamebryo, for Skyrim it was the Creation Engine
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creation_Engine
I mean that they haven’t changed it from the Creation engine. Which has been used since Skyrim despite some big rewrites for Fallout and I’m sure more big rewrites or additions for Starfield
But it’s only been 2 games since Skyrim, right? And for Starfield it’s being renamed Creation Engine 2. Either way that statement “Bethesda just doesn’t do that.” Doesn’t seem accurate when they have done that multiple times.
Huh okay yeah that’s fair. I guess I’m thinking more about the time span since that game engine is now well over a decade old whereas the previous examples are separated by a handful of years. And I didn’t know about them putting a ‘2’ in front of it for Starfield.
I also agree with that. I love the modding aspect of it and I fear it’ll go away with a new engine.
No, it’s most definitely a choice. You can make any engine run at 60 FPS if you sacrifice something else for it. The RE engine runs beautiful games at 60 FPS, but they had to make all sorts of sacrifices to fidelity to get World Tour in Street Fighter 6 to run at all, let alone at 60 FPS on current gen consoles.
I mean sure but give us the choice, damn it! :(
The choice is playing on PC, because unless the game was designed by complete shitheads who decided they don’t need a settings menu, you’ll actually get a choice of what features you do or don’t enable. Console games should have PC-style settings menus, but they don’t. For me, buying a new PC game always involves chores: turning off chromatic aberration, depth of field, motion blur, and other nonsense so I can claw back like 45 additional FPS.
That’s exactly why I mainly play on PC nowadays. I didn’t like PC gaming 10-15 years ago, but now I love being able to play at 4K60 / 1440p60 by downgrading settings I don’t care.
I no longer trust triple A games on PC and if the game is not ridiculously busted optimisation wise for PC at release I would be amazed.
Yeah that’s the other side of it for sure, it’s going to be a lazy port with ham-sized icons, grandma-approved giant text, and menus that can only be navigated with the arrow keys and spacebar.
Starfield on PC will probably be great after modders finish nhe game for them though. Sucks that the physics are almost certainly going to be tied to the 30fps framerate, hopefully SFSE (starfield script extender) is out not too long after launch
Depends on what is causing the framerate issues. If it’s usual fidelity (resolution, draw distance, visual effects) then yes, they can provide options for those.
If the framerate issues are due to physics, NPC/interactions, state-management then it’s unlikely they could or would want to provide options around that type of limitation.
I’m kind of assuming it’s the latter, but if they have a decent amount of overhead, a 40fps uncapped mode would be a good option for VRR displays.
Code doesn’t go bad with time, that’s not really how it works. And game engines tend to be a Ship of Theseus situation, where just because it’s still the same “engine” in theory, doesn’t mean that large parts (or all of it), haven’t eventually been replaced or refactored over the years.
Unreal Engine has been around for 30 years at this point, would you also consider that an “asthmatic engine”?
Some engines get better and some just get more and more spaghetti duct tape.
No, what I mean is that this engine always had a cobbled up together with duct tape feels to it. It’s also the beauty of it.
It sure reads like they are saying “more fps makes game look bad”, but my assumption is that they mean " if we want this to run at higher fps we will have to reduce fidelity or the engine cant handle it". At least thats what I hope they mean
Yeah, reducing graphical fidelity is often one of the things needed in order to increase framerate. That is not unique to their engine, or any engine.
I don’t believe that’s true at all, though. At least by Wikipedia, Morrowind was NetImmerse, Oblivion was Gamebryo (modified Havok), and Skyrim was Creation. And I remember in the announcements for Skyrim that they remade the engine for the game. And Starfield is an updated engine, Creation 2
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creation_Engine for more
Gamebryo was called netimmerse until 2003. Creation is a modified gamebryo. So Creation 2 will also be based on it. So yes they use kinda the same engine since morrowind. Beteshda will not change away from it because gamebryo is a large reason why the modding community is as strong as it is for skyrim etc. And the modding community sells a lot of copies!
The engine also started as an engine for MMOs, which allowed them rich scripting for every NPC, as well as an inventory for every NPC.
The world fidelity that Bethesda builds, on a technical and simulation level, is unmatched — yeah, something like The Witcher 3 might look better, but it also doesn’t let you interact with basically every item in the world or pickpocket every NPC’s weapon as a way to neutralize them in combat.
I’m sure you’re right about this. Probably the framerate bounces all over the place which feels much worse than simply locking it to 30fps and having a consistent experience. I think a PC has the potential to simply brute force it into 60fps, but an Xbox simply cannot. Which is probably fine. The game is said to run at 4k and 1440p depending on which Xbox you have, and for a game like this where exploration is going to play a big role, those visuals will do a lot of silent storytelling.
I would rather walk over a hill and see an incredible alien sunset on some moon, than have more frames, especially if those frames are bouncing around between 60 and 40 and going over that hill stutters and jerks spoiling the immersion.
If only players could make that choice themselves, perhaps through some sort of graphics settings menu. No, that’s crazy and unprecedented, it could never work.
I think that they talked at one point about how they had it running at 60 fps at one point, but they opted for a more “stable” experience (translation: the amount of frame drops probably would’ve made Cyberpunk on the base Xbox One blush).
Call of Duty still runs on the Quake 3 engine, if we go off of the logic people uncharitably use for Bethesda’s games specifically.