Bethesda Game Studios has confirmed Starfield will receive native support for Nvidia’s Deep Learning Super Sampling technology. This update, aimed to elevate the visual fidelity and performance of the game, marks a pivotal moment for the divisive title.
When Bethesda initially announced a partnership with AMD for Starfield back in June, fans weren’t happy. Many took to social media to air out their frustrations, believing this alliance indicated an exclusion of support for DLSS, which turned out to be true. At the time of its launch, Starfield came equipped with AMD’s FidelityFX Super Resolution 2 (FSR 2) and FidelityFX Contrast Adaptive Sharpening (CAS), leaving out Nvidia’s much-lauded DLSS. The absence of DLSS support became a major talking point among players, especially given the title’s status as one of Bethesda’s most ambitious projects to date.
However, it wasn’t long before the modding community stepped in to fill the gap. Modders swiftly introduced DLSS and frame generation into Starfield, a recurring theme of modders solving problems for Bethesda. The modifications, while impressive, were unofficial and not without their issues, including sporadic crashes and performance inconsistencies. It didn’t help that a modder paywalled a more advanced DLSS 3 mod was paywalled by a modder, igniting discussions about accessibility and monetization in the modding ecosystem.
Amidst growing demand and the ensuing modding controversies, Bethesda has pledged official support for one of the industry’s leading upscaling technologies. This update, which is set to enter a beta phase on Steam next week before its full deployment on both PC and Xbox Series S/X, will include support for DLSS with frame generation, display, and HDR controls for supported systems, alongside other optimizations and improvements. This addition addresses a gap for a significant portion of the gaming community, considering that a substantial majority of PC gamers use Nvidia cards.
The decision to include DLSS is a notable pivot for Bethesda, reflecting the company’s responsiveness to the community feedback, even if it took a while. It’s a move that not only enhances the gaming experience for Nvidia users but proves that Bethesda is committed to supporting the game post-launch. The inclusion of DLSS, particularly if it encompasses the latest iteration, DLSS 3, could provide a substantial boost in performance, albeit with the limitation that DLSS 3 is only available for GeForce RTX 40 series graphics cards.
Of course, it remains to be seen if Bethesda will give the dissatisfied fans a reason to celebrate or if the implementation will leave much to be desired.
Despite the initial turbulence surrounding its graphical capabilities, Starfield remains a resounding success for Bethesda, reaching 10 million players in just three weeks post-launch and setting a record for the biggest launch in the history of Bethesda. Microsoft’s Q1 2024 earnings highlighted the impact of Starfield, with a 13% increase in Xbox content as well as services revenue over the previous quarter. Moreover, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella revealed that Starfield set a new record for the most new Game Pass subscriptions in a single day, with over 11 million people having played the game to date.
Looking ahead, Bethesda has signaled its intention to support AMD’s FS3 in a future update, indicating an ongoing and serious commitment to optimizing the game’s performance across various hardware configurations.
Speaking of Starfield, fans continue to let their frustrations regarding the game known. Apparently, Bethesda is aware of the game’s exploration falling short of expectations. It’s now been revealed that Bethesda contemplated several different ideas during the game’s development, including possibly making the game’s scope and scale smaller.
