Starfield: FSR 2.2

[maxus24]

Starfield is out now, with support for AMD's FidelityFX Super Resolution 2.2 (FSR 2.2). In this mini-review we take a look, comparing the image quality and performance gains offered by FSR 2.2.

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[rusTORK]

I hope there will be testing/comparison of Starfield with diffirent DRAM. Buildzoid speculations sound interesting (especially Ryzen limitation of Infinity fabric).

 

[bug]

Pretty lousy IQ for a title that wants to be so advanced...

 

[Chrispy_]

Thanks for this.

I've held off playing for the moment because the lack of gamma/brightness in game makes worries about image quality irrelevant. The starting cave/mine is so washed out and grey it was actually unplayable for me. I'd rather have the horrible piss-yellow filter from Fallout3/NV than deal with a complete disregard of black levels. It made my OLED look like a low-rent Wish.com garbage-tier TN monitor with a 30:1 contrast level.

I don't spend big money on OLED and calibrating dark levels only to have a game display such a limited and poorly-mastered dynamic range. It's not HDR, it's not even SDR, it's PLR - Pathetically Limited Range.

Edit:
Here's the starting level. I turned off my torch, holstered my mining laser, and ran into the pitch black far away from any light sources so that the game's true black level can be measured. It's 32, 32, 32 which is not black, it's a 12.5% grey. That's worse than even "limited RGB 16-235" which always looks truly awful on any modern display:

...and no, it's not limited to the "dusty atmospherics of the starting mine. It's exactly the same in the air-filtered recovery room before you head outside for the first time, and here I'm staring at the sun causing a whiteout that blooms out cloud detail - it should be 255, 255, 255 or close to it, but no we get very limited-range, even if you ignore the horrible beige filter....

 

[Lew Zealand]

The starting cave/mine is so washed out and grey it was actually unplayable for me.

This right here.

Starfield looks like a title from a decade ago and the image quality failings of the barren planetscapes are similar to the initial cave, with the more lush planetscapes and modern locations suffering from the same problems, though they are masked somewhat by the details in these environments with the others lack. Just a black level or gamma adjustment would go a long way to helping though that would only be masking the horrible lighting, not fixing it.

 

[Space Lynx]

I prefer no FSR 2.2 and just enabling CAS, this review doesn't cover CAS, but I like the visuals of CAS, no shimmering issues, and performance seems similar to that of FSR 2.2 to my eyes, I am on an all AMD setup, so maybe CAS is fine tuned for AMD rigs, I am unsure.

 

[MarsM4N]

Well, that's interesting. Everything up close is sharper with FSR 2.2 (f.e. the gun) but stuff in distance (f.e. the white building) is less blocky with TAA.

The starting cave/mine is so washed out and grey it was actually unplayable for me.

It's not a bug, it's a feature. I guess they're going for vintage visuals.

 

[Chrispy_]

It's not a bug, it's a feature. I guess they're going for vintage visuals.

If it looks this bad on a good display, how awful does it look on a bad display?

Not that it bothers me, but I'm reading several valid criticisms about the lack of brightness/gamma/contrast settings for those with eye conditions, impaired vision etc. It's utterly moronic to omit any kind of adjustment for these, especially when the fixed value is so questionable to anyone with functioning eyeballs. Anyone who works in the film industry will tell you that this is a mastering error, or mastered badly. Any PC/console that meets the minimum spec will use a full-range or high-dynamic range display, so to make the game run with significantly worse range than "Limited RGB (16-235)" is an error that goes way beyond 'artistic style'. Nobody is using analogue CRTs with those old grey shadow maks any more. The game doesn't even run on any device with analogue display compatibility, FFS!

I feel genuinely bad for the artists at Bethesda who worked on assets only to have them look so washed out and lacking any pop/vibrancy/colour.

 

[Mathragh]

I quite like the visuals.
Sure I'd like some proper HDR output, or better textures, or maybe better performance.
The way they're currently presenting the game however does succeed in pulling me in, from the gritty cave to the ISS esque ship or the semi positive futuristic atlantis.

I agree about the game not using pitch black or pure white being a somewhat unexpected choice, but thinking about it: what would pure whites or blacks objectively add to the game? Isn't there also something to be said for choosing a certain style and sticking with it to get across your vision of how the game should be experienced?

Just my two cents.

Edit: also, i'm not currently using FSR, maybe i should try it with 100% scaling?

 

[Chrispy_]

I agree about the game not using pitch black or pure white being a somewhat unexpected choice, but thinking about it: what would pure whites or blacks objectively add to the game? Isn't there also something to be said for choosing a certain style and sticking with it to get across your vision of how the game should be experienced?

If it's a style, they seem to have forgotten to apply it to many of the game elements such as the HUD which ruins the immersion of that style.

The old fallout 3/NV/4 pip-boy on your arm was cool, because you could catch glare from external lighting on both the screen and the bezel; If you were poisoned/drunk your pip-boy was blurred too.

Artistic style only works if it's convincing, which is impossible with a permanent full RGB range HUD with true black and true white elements incessantly reminding you at all times that the contrast/gamma/black-levels aren't set correctly in-game.

I'll shut up about it for now anyway, I'm not alone in my dislike of it - there are actual thousands of unique threads all over the net complaining about it on both PC and XBOX. It just seems very odd to me that it was passed for release like that and I have absolutely zero doubt it'll be officially patched in due course, hopefully it won't take as long as it took Remedy to fix the black levels in Control....

 

[Count Shagula]

Game looks ok to me. Its kind of like a HD remaster of Fallout 4 set in space with a vintage photoshop filter over the top. Not everyone is going to like the artistic render choices. Most people are going to hate the flaslight as you cant see shit with it. If anyone likes to loot everything they see they are going to hate the lack of space to carry a car full of stuff on your back. Most people bar anyone who has framegen is going to hate the framerate, though credit as even at lower fps at least on my pc's it still has very smooth frame delivery. My poor 'old' 5800x3d and 3090 combo dips under 60 with the dlss mod/fsr in 1080p with the render scale set at 90%. Caves can be 150fps+ but open world or cities especially when in combat regularly at around or under 60fps. No hope of playing at native 2k unless the render res is way lower or i play at 30fps. My sons 6900xt/5800x3d system has a far higher average and minimum framerate than mine but still drops under 60fps at times and the other kid with a 4080/5800x3d combo with the framegen mod on still drops under 60 in 2560x1440. We are all enjoying the game for the most part. Im finding the scale and systems in place to be pretty overwhelming. Im not sure whether its by design or the fact they added a bunch of systems and deign choices and didnt polish it very well but it feels to me like there could be a lot more polish and cohesion/explanation between inventory and what everything you pick up can be used for or does

 

[Totally]

So they spent all their budget on the "live action" trailers instead of on the games visuals.

 

[Tahagomizer]

Tip: You can mod in DLSS. According to some users it has a slightly better performance and image quality than FSR on nVidia cards.
There are a few mods which do this, most people say "Starfield FSR2 Bridge" works best. Then install DLSS, can be found here in TPU download section. If DLSS is too blurry, you can use ReShade to fix that.
Disclaimer: I did not try it myself since I don't have the game, but it seems to work without issues for most players, and since you're not overwriting any files, it's trivial to disable if you encounter problems.
The mod also supports XESS if you feel particularly adventurous.

 

[wolf]

@maxus24 is there any appetite to get the free DLSS Super Resolution mod and test it? Naturally it should be made very clear if/when the results are published that it is a mod, and doesn't come baked into the game, but I think testing it is highly pertinent - given the current political situation in sponsored games.

 

[Prima.Vera]

Yeah, the performance of this ridiculously unoptimized game is horrid.
And the washout colors, and no deep blacks, which are a game breaker for space travel and battles, are the final nails for this quite boring game.
Oh, and I forgot to mention on the extremely low quality of the rendered planets from space?? I mean, event Descent Freespace had better visuals in space (with the latest mods), this is ridiculous.
I think this game will need a lot of patches before getting slightly better....

 

[thestryker6]

I turned down the sharpening as the cave you start in looked different with FSR vs off until I did. I've been running resolution scale at 75% with 30% sharpening and it seems to look fine.

 

[Garrus]

game is super fun!

 

[ratirt]

I will have to try this game at some point but not today or tomorrow. I will have to wait a bit.
Maybe by the time I try it myself, the performance will be better due to some patches.

 

[Dr. Dro]

@maxus24 is there any appetite to get the free DLSS Super Resolution mod and test it? Naturally it should be made very clear if/when the results are published that it is a mod, and doesn't come baked into the game, but I think testing it is highly pertinent - given the current political situation in sponsored games.

Agree with you. Would love to see it!

 

[Outback Bronze]

Is it just me or the vegetation looks subpar?

 

[the54thvoid]

@maxus24 is there any appetite to get the free DLSS Super Resolution mod and test it? Naturally it should be made very clear if/when the results are published that it is a mod, and doesn't come baked into the game, but I think testing it is highly pertinent - given the current political situation in sponsored games.

It would be good to see, but I'd defuse the rhetoric as the current situation isn't at all 'political'. It's marketing '101'. The sponsorship of titles is marketeering, and we all know marketeering at best favours a brand, and at worst, inflicts doubt/harm on the competitor.

 

[wolf]

@the54thvoid from my perspective there are a great many parallels, which is why I chose the word despite it being obvious that it's not literally politics. Happy to elaborate but of course don't want to be argumentative / derail the thread, after all we've seen how multiple threads related to this 'marketeering' have gone down, not only lately, but over the years.

 

[Vayra86]

If it looks this bad on a good display, how awful does it look on a bad display?

Not that it bothers me, but I'm reading several valid criticisms about the lack of brightness/gamma/contrast settings for those with eye conditions, impaired vision etc. It's utterly moronic to omit any kind of adjustment for these, especially when the fixed value is so questionable to anyone with functioning eyeballs. Anyone who works in the film industry will tell you that this is a mastering error, or mastered badly. Any PC/console that meets the minimum spec will use a full-range or high-dynamic range display, so to make the game run with significantly worse range than "Limited RGB (16-235)" is an error that goes way beyond 'artistic style'. Nobody is using analogue CRTs with those old grey shadow maks any more. The game doesn't even run on any device with analogue display compatibility, FFS!

I feel genuinely bad for the artists at Bethesda who worked on assets only to have them look so washed out and lacking any pop/vibrancy/colour.

I think this is also kind of the artistic vision they wanted to go for?

Fallout 3 was green, Starfield is poop brown or grey. Arguably Fallout 3 also had a better atmosphere to it than 4 which had 'vibrant' colors, I mean 4 is the most fake looking Creation Engine game ever and the vibrancy is part of that. New Vegas had brown/red which also kind of worked, a little bit.

But yeah this is simply, once again at its core, the engine that just can't do proper lighting and Todd's coping mechanisms to 'fix it'.

 

[Dr. Dro]

I think this is also kind of the artistic vision they wanted to go for?

Fallout 3 was green, Starfield is poop brown or grey. Arguably Fallout 3 also had a better atmosphere to it than 4 which had 'vibrant' colors, I mean 4 is the most fake looking Creation Engine game ever and the vibrancy is part of that. New Vegas had brown/red which also kind of worked, a little bit.

But yeah this is simply, once again at its core, the engine that just can't do proper lighting and Todd's coping mechanisms to 'fix it'.

It's not a huge deal, anyway. Lots of LUT mods on the Nexus already, for every taste, from neutral to cinematic

I expect that after tonight and the standard edition players starting, things might pick up a bit

 

[Prima.Vera]

Is it just me or the vegetation looks subpar?

Vegetation, NPCs, planets from space, etc.
The graphics is no way that good to require so much resources. I know 5 years old games that are looking way more better and requires a 980 to play, common.

Not sure what is happening recently. Games with subpar graphics requiring ridiculous amount of resources, for no actual benefit. This starts to look more and more like a scam in order for the Video card sellers to sell more of their over expensive cards.