Digital Foundry: Starfield Tech Breakdown - 30FPS, Visuals, Rendering Tech + Game Impressions

[John Elden Ring]

It's the impressions/reactions video you've been waiting for - and it took time because we wanted to investigate what was shown more deeply. John Linneman and Alex Battaglia share their notes on the Starfield Direct, discuss why the game is 30fps on consoles, what 4K on Series X actually means (and the implications for Series S) before moving onto the rendering tech on display and what they think about the actual game.

• 00:00 Overview
• 00:53 Why is Starfield 30fps on consoles?
• 12:31 Visual impressions and real-time global illumination
• 17:15 Reflections and motion blur
• 23:31 Screen-space shadows and terrain rendering
• 28:06 Volumetric lighting, fog, and bokeh depth of field
• 32:40 Character rendering
• 36:01 Gameplay impressions

- Starts with DF musings on 30 FPS target on the console and how it was likely chosen to maintain the developers visual / cohesive vision etc
- John/Alex would like to see a uncapped mode to reach the 40hz target. They deemed it's likely CPU bound
- One shot shows 1296p with FSR2 style up-scaling to 4K, making it look 'rather crisp'

- DF thinks Star Citizen is a more closer comparison than No Man's Sky
- They use Star Citizen to highlight the CPU bottlenecks a big game like this can cause
- DF fully expects 30 FPS to become the common target going forward as the cross-gen period ends.

- DF calls Starfield "Bethesda's first truly beautiful game".
- Real time GI is praised.
- DF did not notice any SSR or RT reflections, but instead they spotted real time cube maps for reflections
- DF thinks it's preferable to SSR because of the typical SSR occlusions.
- DF gives examples of games like GT7 and Forza Motorsport as games which use cube-maps in real time

- This is the first Bethesda RPG that adds per-pixel and per-object motion blur. Todd mentioned that ID Software helped with this.
- DF praises the look and feel of the guns and combat in the trailer.
- Another first-time for the Gamebryo engine is Screen Space Shadows.
- The game is using a lot of tried-and-true rendering techniques well, that Bethesda RPGs have not used before.

- Ground detail is "really high" with what looks like hardware based tessellation
- Praise on the light scatter model used on clouds and the height and valley fog, they liken it to Horizon Forbidden West.
- They use example of Halo: Infinite where the lack of height and valley fog and shadows makes it look flat.
- Bokeh depth of field and it's cinematic use praised
- Stilted animations of the one-to-one dialogue scenes 'doesn't work out too well'
- Facial animations are also "not awesome"

- DF cites the gun play looking good in both first and third person
- Musings on the RPG mechanics and how the UI relates information to the player
- They like how the world info is relayed but not big fans of the 'XP earned' pop-ups on enemies killed
- More musings on exploration, galaxy map, gaining resources etc and that it has high potential

- DF not fans of the 'No Man's Sky' comparison because of different focus on what the games are (open sandbox vs story based RPG)
- DF thinks both are their own unique things

 

[ethomaz]

It is a Xbox game they will do several videos about...

 

[Sircaw]

• 00:53 Why is Starfield 30fps on consoles?

Df explanation BLA BLA BLA

Starfield- 2 weeks after release, some random user on the internet adds a 60 fps mod.

 

[Evilms]

Like all bethesda games, it's a must-have for the PC
Mods alone are the way to go
There's no point in inflicting yourself with inconsistent 30fps and fake 4K on top of that

 

[Helios]

Like all bethesda games, it's a must-have for the PC
Mods alone are the way to go
There's no point in inflicting yourself with inconsistent 30fps and fake 4K on top of that

Facts.

Even DF dudes are surprised this time that xbox kept on touting their LFC feature that is supposedly better than ps5 vrr but then they locked the framerate. This just proves that they are just using a checklist of features to make enthusiasts happy at first and then forget about using them later

 

[Swift_Star]

• 00:00 Overview
• 00:53 Why is Starfield 30fps on consoles?
• 12:31 Visual impressions and real-time global illumination
• 17:15 Reflections and motion blur
• 23:31 Screen-space shadows and terrain rendering
• 28:06 Volumetric lighting, fog, and bokeh depth of field
• 32:40 Character rendering
• 36:01 Gameplay impressions

30fps is fine now. I wonder what they’ll say about ffxvi.

 

[Dr Bass]

30fps is fine now. I wonder what they’ll say about ffxvi.

FF16 plays and looks fine at 30.

 

[Nhomnhom]

All I want from digital foundry is an analysis of FFXVI with the day one patch on release day.

 

[Swift_Star]

FF16 plays and looks fine at 30.

Yes, it does. But I’m betting DF will roast Square enix for it.

 

[Gods&Monsters]

GOW Ragnarok was not in DF Top 10 for 2022 but they are so impressed by Starfield when it looks worse?



Paid shills

 

[Nhomnhom]

I'm no expert but it looks like shit to me.

 

[Helios]

I'm no expert but it looks like shit to me.

Have you noticed that the game looks like it has a filter that i can only describe as a toned down sepia filter, kinda faded look. I don't think its an aesthetic they are trying to capture, some scenes look too bright and facial expressions are so uncanny valley

 

[PropellerEar]

15min of apologizing about 30 fps...
Then the say it looks gorgeous, while the clips they show are hideous...
Stopped watching after that.

 

[PropellerEar]

Have you noticed that the game looks like it has a filter that i can only describe as a toned down sepia filter, kinda faded look. I don't think its an aesthetic they are trying to capture, some scenes look too bright and facial expressions are so uncanny valley

Brown smear

 

[Satoru]

Brown smear

Phil Spencer's bullshit

 

[Entropi]

So, the media settled on the ‘cross-gen is over’ narrative so from now on every game will be 30fps.

We got the burning shores DLC, which is current-gen only, at 60 fps. The amount of dick riding on Phil’s shaft makes me believe they get paid by or are looking at a gig at MS.

 

[Danja1187]

So, the media settled on the ‘cross-gen is over’ narrative so from now on every game will be 30fps.

We got the burning shores DLC, which is current-gen only, at 60 fps. The amount of dick riding on Phil’s shaft makes me believe they get paid by or are looking at a gig at MS.

It's all a calculated PR propaganda campaign. How convenient some media sites suddenly posting how PS5 users are ready to ditch their box for Xbox yet under every tweet, it's actual gamers saying... "Why not just own both consoles"?

We saw the same crap with Halo and now Starfield. Setting the stage for them to give it a good metacritic. While overlooking the short-comings. If Starfield isn't seen as a must have game, it's game over for Xbox commercially for the foreseeable future.

The checks have been deposited.

 

[Dr Bass]

I've decided I'm going to check out the game when it comes out, and like everything else I play, I will give it my personal opinion based only on its merits (or lack thereof). Very curious to see what I will think, and I don't care what the media tries to paint it as, I'll just say what I think.

That said the over the top gushing seems really transparent. The gameplay only segments look so normal it hurts. It's just a well cut trailer but all of the most interesting looking stuff is just the vistas that I would guess were made purely for the trailer, since they don't resemble gameplay at all.

 

[KnittedKnight]

Herd ----> way.

I've decided I'm going to check out the game when it comes out, and like everything else I play, I will give it my personal opinion based only on its merits (or lack thereof). Very curious to see what I will think, and I don't care what the media tries to paint it as, I'll just say what I think.

Got many games on priority above this but I may give it a try if it turns out good... I have several ways of arriving at that conclusion without going by META. Prob do a PC gamepass trial for it. A lot of ifs however cause I'm being bombarded with titles (Diablo IV, Helldivers II, Spider-man 2, Avatar, Plucky Squire, Lies of P + TMNT Shredders revenge soon - maybe FFXVI, maybe Alan Wake 2, maybe Armored Core VI) - that's a backlog right there on top of my backlog. Not gonna put up with Bethesda mediocrity when my time is golden. It better be real good.

 

[Helios]

So, the media settled on the ‘cross-gen is over’ narrative so from now on every game will be 30fps.

We got the burning shores DLC, which is current-gen only, at 60 fps. The amount of dick riding on Phil’s shaft makes me believe they get paid by or are looking at a gig at MS.

How many of you here agree with me that Redfall was capped to 30fps on purpose to test the reaction for starfield and lower peoples expectation about starfield's eventual 30fps cap. I started seeing comments in gaming forums and communities after redfall release that people should start lowering expectations for starfield running at 60fps, i expect some astroturfing there.

Conspiracy time- they had already manufactured disc box for redfall with 60fps written on the backside and they had to put stickers on it that it will come with future updates. It becomes extra shady once you realise that they said they'll update it with 60fps later down the line, like who gives a road map for improved performance when the game hasn't even released.

How many of you here believe this. Redfall was going to be a flawed game and they already knew this, so they let it trip the landmine so starfield can walk