Starfield is getting support for Nvidia DLSS in a future update. In a blog post, Bethesda claimed that it will address some of the highly-requested features and make quality-of-life improvements through a series of regular updates. These include an in-game FOV slider, which so far, players have been adjusting by editing a .ini text file, alongside brightness and contrast controls, and an HDR calibration menu. But before that, the developer has dropped a small hotfix today, to help iron out any ‘top blocker bugs’ that are interfering with the general experience in the beloved space RPG. Dubbed version 1.7.29, the hotfix brings improvements to Starfield’s performance on the Xbox Series S/X by reducing crashes. It also fixes some quest-ending bugs.
For now, the PC version of Starfield lacks support for Nvidia’s DLSS upscaling tech, which often helps with achieving higher framerate in games, without sacrificing visual fidelity. Before launch, AMD was confirmed as the ‘exclusive partner‘ for the title, which led to the settings menu only providing the option to enable the AI-powered FSR 2.0 upscaling tech, which has often been panned by players for resulting in fuzzy textures. Understandably, this led to some controversy and fans ended up using mods that would enable the feature. Following that, AMD stressed there was nothing preventing Bethesda from incorporating DLSS into Starfield and now, it’s soon officially inbound.
The studio also expressed interest in adding ‘city maps’ to the game since the current, empty ones have been universally disliked for not providing any actual information. It will be added “in the future.” Support for ultra-wide displays — specifically, 32:9 monitors — is also on the way, in addition to a dedicated button to consume food. Eating food in Starfield restores minuscule amounts of HP, but doing so on the run is a considerably slow process of adding them to the inventory, and then opening the menu. The update would make it so you can hit a button to directly consume food items off the table — instantaneously.
“This is a game we’ll be supporting for years and years to come, so please keep all the feedback coming!”, the blog post reads. “We’re also working closely with Nvidia, AMD, and Intel on driver support, and each update will include new stability and performance improvements.” The latter is, of course, in reference to reports of poor optimisation on the PC version, which was even brought up on live television. On the side, Bethesda is working on bringing official mod support to Starfield, wherein ‘Creations’ will be available to use across both PC and console — similar to Fallout 4 and The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. It will be out in 2024, with director Todd Howard expecting more modders to be able to make a career out of it.
Starfield is out now on PC, Xbox Series S/X, and Xbox Game Pass.