Starfield Update Adds DLSS support, Improves Graphics, Performance, and Gameplay - News
by William D'Angelo , posted 6 days ago / 4,347 Views
Bethesda Game Studios announced the next update for Starfield - version 1.8.86 - is now available.
The update adds Nvidia DLSS support, the ability to eat and drink items when finding them in the environment, as well as improvements and fixes to the performance, gameplay, graphics, and quests.
Read the patch notes below:
- This update introduces Nvidia DLSS support for our PC players. Compatible Nvidia graphic cards can now use DLSS Super Resolution, Deep Learning Anti-aliasing (DLAA), Nvidia Reflex Low Latency, and DLSS Frame generation.
- By popular request, we have added the ability to ingest food and drink items upon finding them in the environment. You can enjoy those Chunks immediately or save them for later. The choice is yours.
- Addressed a number of memory related issues and leaks.
- Added some GPU performance optimizations, which will be more impactful on higher end cards.
- Improved renderer threading model, improving CPU usage most notably on higher end systems.
- Various stability and performance improvements.
- Added the ability to eat the food placed in the world.
- Adjusted stealth to be a bit more forgiving.
- Fixed an issue where Andreja’s head would stay permanently cloaked.
- Fixed an issue that could prevent players from firing their weapons.
- Fixed issues where some NPC could be seen not wearing clothes (Note: This issue may resolve itself over time).
- Fixed an issue where already in-progress skill challenges could stop progressing after reaching the Unity and starting a new game.
- Fixed an issue that could temporarily prevent opening the inventory or saving after entering the Unity.
- PC: Fixed an issue where mouse movement could be choppy.
- Fixed a rare issue that could cause the home ship to be lost.
- Fixed an issue where the ship services technician might be missing.
- Fixed an issue where occasionally the camera could shake incorrectly during Traveling, Grav Jumping, Docking, or Landing transitions.
- Addressed an issue with how ambient occlusion appeared in ultrawide resolutions.
- Optimized initial shader compilation that occurs on start-up.
- Added the ability to adjust Brightness and Contrast in the Display Settings menu.
- Added the ability to adjust HDR Brightness provided that the system supports it. (Xbox & Windows 11 only).
- Addressed a number of materials that could sometimes present an unintended pattern under certain conditions.
- Fixed various visual issues related to the new FOV slider options.
- Improved the appearance of the eyes on crowd characters.
- Addressed a number of minor visual issues related to lighting, shadows, terrain, and vegetation.
- PC: Addressed additional visual issues related to DLSS.
- All That Money Can Buy: Fixed a rare issue where players couldn’t sit during the negotiation with Musgrove.
- Blast Zone: Fixed an issue where the hard rocks that need to be cleared out by players will not appear on Ngodup Tate’s land.
- Echoes of the Past: Fixed an issue where the Grylloba Queen could sometimes not be reachable during the objective “Secure the Shuttle Bay”.
- Eye of the Storm: Fixed an issue where players' quest progression could potentially be blocked due to a missing docking prompt.
- Grunt Work: Addressed an issue where progress could appear blocked if “Supra et Ultra” was completed while returning to the Lodge during “High Price to Pay”.
- No Sudden Moves: Fixed an issue that could prevent the entrance door to the Scow ship from being opened again.
- Operation Starseed: Fixed an issue where the key that is needed to exit the facility could sometimes not be present.
- Sabotage: Fixed an issue where David Barron could potentially not be found by players.
- Short Sighted: Fixed an issue where players could rarely become control-locked while speaking with Vladimir.
- The Heart of Mars: Fixed an issue where players might not be able to mine the “The Heart of Mars”.
A life-long and avid gamer, William D'Angelo was first introduced to VGChartz in 2007. After years of supporting the site, he was brought on in 2010 as a junior analyst, working his way up to lead analyst in 2012 and taking over the hardware estimates in 2017. He has expanded his involvement in the gaming community by producing content on his own YouTube channel and Twitch channel. You can contact the author on Twitter @TrunksWD.
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These updates don't fix the game from being the unfinished most dissapointing AAA hyped game of the generation
This game should have had official DLSS support at launch or within a week of launch, honestly.
When the modding community is able to provide DLSS support that works just as well as the official DLSS support, but was able to do it within days of the games early release...well it just makes it seem a bit suspicious as to why this wasn't supported earlier.
Still, better late than never!
Quality assurance. A modder can release basically an alpha version, and everyone will be happy, let alone something that works just fine most of the time. A buggy official DLSS implementation would probably get a worse reception than no DLSS implementation at all, so they have to make sure it works really well. Of course Bethesda could be slow too.
Bugs shouldn't indeed be a huge deal, but if there are any significant graphical glitches, for example, there will be backlash. There was probably more to this taking so long (for example, everything else that was included in the update), but I think it's plausible getting production-quality DLSS in the game wasn't as easy as you might think.
I mean, this isn't DLSS 1.0. DLSS is extremely easy to implement. Again, it took one modder a few days to put a fully functional DLSS option (and one that is almost as good as the official patch). Meanwhile, Bethesda Game Studios have had months since the game went gold (and a very long time before that) to add DLSS. They could have added FSR and DLSS at the same time even, as the QA check would be the exact same.
I think dismissing this as a QA issue is misleading and taking away from Bethesda accountability.
I mean, I'm sure Bethesda could have released DLSS earlier, but it would've been an update with little else, I imagine. Or perhaps it would have caused e.g. the performance improvements to have been postponed, because they were probably more work.
I'm probably just as disappointed as you are with how long this took, but a week? It would have had a fairly high chance of being a bit of a buggy mess. Even the way they did it, the DLSS update was released into beta first and stayed in beta for more than a week, and that's after it was implemented. There's no way Bethesda could have released a production-quality DLSS implementation within a week or probably even two of releasing the game unless they started the implementation before release, which they don't seem to have done. And you have to consider that usually after a release, you have to be ready to fix any urgent bugs that might arise, and IIRC that's exactly what Bethesda did.
I'm not dismissing this as a QA issue, I just think it's a significant part of the whole thing. It's what it is, and perhaps Bethesda should have managed the whole thing better. I think they should have, but at the same time, it's not absolutely terrible for an AMD-sponsored title. I would have preferred two smaller updates instead of one larger update, and maybe that way we could have got received DLSS earlier, but I think this is a legit choice too - especially since DLSS without optimization at the same time would have been a recipe for backlash too. Damned if you do, damned if you don't, I think - and absolutely deserved too, but I don't think there is a clearly better way besides delaying the game even more.
Well the customers were the QA. That is how it is
And the developers had 20 years of development to implement the DLSS while the modder had couple days, so blaiming QA or anything else is silly.
It's a massive game, so QA was probably one factor. Probably many other factors as well, I guess.
agreed
Quite possibly some type of deal to give preference to one over the other solution.
Call me when it's 60fps on XBSX
I will say this now that Starfield will be game of year.
Starfield is easily their best game to date and it's great to see them continue to support it.
It's good, but not their best. Exploration was a huge let down for me
For me out of those I have played it's Fallout 4 < Oblivion < Starfield < Fallout 3 < Skyrim, so Starfield is middle of the pack and Skyrim is the top dog.
For me its Fallout 4 < Starfield = Fallout 3 < Oblivion < Skyrim < Fallout New Vegas (yes I know it's not made by Bethesda)
Really, you put the strafield experience over experiencing fallout 3 for the first time and skyrim???
You're reading it backwards, those are greater than signs, not less than. Skyrim is 1st, Fallout 3 2nd, Starfield 3rd.
My bad
Good that you think this, but doesn't seem to be the sentiment of the fanbase when you look at Steam reviews, concurrent players at this moment being lower than Skyrim and possibly Fallout.
