Starfield Launch Details, PC Specs and More

simple@lemm.ee to Games@lemmy.world – 186 points –
Starfield Launch Details, PC Specs & More
bethesda.net

TL;DR:

Image showing the release times for Starfield

Image comparing the different editions of Starfield

Minimum Specs:

  • OS: Windows 10 version 21H1 (10.0.19043)
  • Processor: AMD Ryzen 5 2600X, Intel Core i7-6800K
  • Memory: 16 GB RAM
  • Graphics: AMD Radeon RX 5700, NVIDIA GeForce 1070 Ti
  • DirectX: Version 12
  • Storage: 125 GB available space
  • Additional Notes: SSD Required

Recommended Specs:

  • OS: Windows 10/11 with updates
  • Processor: AMD Ryzen 5 3600X, Intel i5-10600K
  • Memory: 16 GB RAM
  • Graphics: AMD Radeon RX 6800 XT, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080
  • DirectX: Version 12
  • Network: Broadband Internet connection
  • Storage: 125 GB available space
  • Additional Notes: SSD Required
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I will say once more. Do not preorder video games. It could be shit, it could be buggy, but what it won't do is run out of copies. Wait until the reviews are out, or even a bit after it launches if you can. If you're anything like me you have hundreds of games you haven't played yet so what's an hour or a day in the grand scheme of things.

It’s a Bethesda game. It wouldn’t feel right if it were bug-free.

It wouldn't feel right if it didn't have the exact same bugs as the last 4 Bethesda releases.

If anything is moving backwards through the air, you know it was bolted on to code for Skyrim's dragons

The reviews have mentioned it does actually have an enemy that is this games dragon lol

A news article was released today that said starfield is the least buggy Bethesda game to date. Fluff but man that sure puts some expectations out there to live up too.

Honestly, with how long it's been in development, I can totally believe it. And sure hope so. I mean, it's been so long and I've also been constantly thinking about how long it's been since Skyrim came out (since it's been publicly stated that TES6 was blocked behind Starfield). All that time has gotta mean something. And it's not like Bethesda doesn't have great talent. I've always got the impression it was all a matter of lack of time for the size of the game.

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It's also on Gamepass. You can play it instantly for a much lower cost to make sure it works. Then buy it if you still want later when it goes on sale.

Doesn't work on linux

Duh, the reason there's Game Pass on PC is for people to stay on Windows. Microsoft saw the writing on the wall when Valve released SteamOS and scrambled for a way to keep people on Windows.

And it's working for me (ノಠ益ಠ)ノ彡┻━┻

Send help.

No, MS wanted to compete with PlayStation Plus. Linux constitutes about 2% of users on steam. MS doesn't care about Linux gaming and steam OS is no where choose to being a threat to them.

We need a LSW to run the Windows store on Linux as a pacakge manager

Linux isn’t officially supported anyway. That’s like saying it doesn’t work on PlatStation…

They've applied for steamdeck verification

Not through gamepass.

I love my Steamdeck, it’s great. But ultimately, most games aren’t originally designed to be played on there…

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I was burned too bad with Cyberpunk 2077 that even though Starfield seems to be all right, I'm waiting until after reviews come out before I pick up a copy. That just means I wait a few more days to reduce the risk of more pain.

Cyberpunk also seemed alright, even the reviews were glowing. Well, we all know how that turned out

Man I wish I could even get a consistent impression out of anyone. I've been scrounging for pre-release footage but Beth is being weirdly tight lipped about this one.

100% a wait for the reviews situation, the less they show off the more I worry they're hiding something. Just a reminder to everyone, Fallout 76 was the last game they released...

I agree completely and would like to add especially if it's a Bethesda game. I can still remember waiting for half a year for Skyrim to be playable on PS3 after buying it on launch day.

I'm normally with you but the opportunity to play it on a long Labor Day weekend was calling my wallet to action.

That's how I'm feeling.... Reviews are coming in pretty positively. Can you pick it up on steam and play now?

Same, and with Game Pass it was just a $30 upgrade. The only stuff I pre-order is stuff I know I'll like anyway - mainly Destiny expansions and TES/Fallout/Starfield. I'm gonna buy it anyway, why not pre-load it and play immediately?

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Alpha Centauri +4.37LY

Man, this is some BULLSHIT. Why do the Alpha Centaurians have to wait so long?

Stupid speed of causality.

We still haven't established whether some form of warp drive is doable or not. Even if you can't move faster than light, if you can distort spacetime around yourself sufficiently in the right way, you can maybe get a functionally-similar effect.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcubierre\_drive

The Alcubierre drive ([alkuˈβjere]) is a speculative warp drive idea according to which a spacecraft could achieve apparent faster-than-light travel by contracting space in front of it and expanding space behind it, under the assumption that a configurable energy-density field lower than that of vacuum (that is, negative mass) could be created.[1][2] Proposed by theoretical physicist Miguel Alcubierre in 1994, the Alcubierre drive is based on a solution of Einstein's field equations. Since those solutions are metric tensors, the Alcubierre drive is also referred to as Alcubierre metric.

Objects cannot accelerate to the speed of light within normal spacetime; instead, the Alcubierre drive shifts space around an object so that the object would arrive at its destination more quickly than light would in normal space without breaking any physical laws.[3]

The local velocity relative to the deformed space-time would be subluminal, but the speed at which a spacecraft could move would be superluminal, thereby rendering possible interstellar flight, such as a visit to Proxima Centauri within a few days.

Here's the problem, you have to bend space the opposite direction it does from mass to make it work. For that, you need antigeavity. And the only way to make antigravity, is with negative energy. Which is a real thing that actually exists. Basically, the universe runs on averages. So long as a system averages to a number that works, discrete parts of it can have values that don't make sense, so long as the rest of the system makes enough sense for the average of it to be sensible. So in a system that hovers around 0K, for example, it's possible to have tiny fluctuations that occasionally dip to negative temperatures. The math gets weird, but generally it doesn't matter, because those regions are too tiny and random to make any use of it.

But, theoretically, it is possible to harness negative energy. It's been a while since I looked into it, but IIRC, the best theory is to basically concentrate an enormous, mind boggling, ludicrous amount of energy, and then at the very edges of that system you should be able to bleed off tiny bits of negative energy fairly reliably. But we're talking civilizations that move stars tech here. I think the idea was for a giant ring, that would encompass our solar system, kuiper belt and all, and get it to spin. The amount if energy required to spin something that large is mind boggling, and that's your high energy system, then along the surface you can bleed off negative energy. But even that would be an insanely tiny trickle of negative energy. Unless some new method of bending spacetime is discovered, Alcubierre is just unfeasible. However, this could be more practical for wormholes. But even still, likely looking at a microscopic event horizon for the giant ring, it would be for communication only. But at least you can still technically scale up large scale systems like this to theoretically make something large enough for a person to enter.

That's the problem though. While antimatter exists, which has negative mass, it exists only in small amounts, and you'd have to have a massive amount of it to accomplish such a feat. We'd need to find a way to create it.

And don't get me started on the other problematic aspects of it, like space debris.

Digital downloads only. The throughput is fine, but the latency is terrible.

A LY isn’t a unit of time…

Sure it is, hence why it's called a lightYEAR. It's the time that a year passes for one light.

I am disappointed that some people don't seem to get this joke.

Time doesn't pass for light, though.

And a parsec isn't a unit of distance but that didn't stop Han Solo from completing the Kessel run in fewer than 12.

As naff as a Solo film was, they actually closed that plot hole and clarified he was talking about distance.

That was actually explained back in the pre-disney EU, so it hasn't been a plothole for decades. Solo just kept the existing explanation, which was pretty neat.

Didn't realise that, makes more sense.

They barely know anything about the game at this point, they won't expect it for several more years.

REMEMBER: NO PRE-ORDERS. Safest bet is to wait a year after any Bethesda release to give modders enough time to fix the game.

Am I crazy or has there been almost no pre-release coverage of this game?

Oblivion and Fallout 3 are two of my all-time favourite games (I've played the others as well but those 2 stuck with me the most) but I just cannot get hyped for this game. It's like a black box with people's hopes and dreams, and it feels like people are just hyping themselves up by imagining what could be inside it.

I couldn't imagine pre-ordering this game in particular. Beth has been so quiet I'm worried it may just be a total flop.

Bethesda put out a long video around Summer Game Fest that spent 45 minutes showing most of the gameplay systems in the game. It was honestly a bit overwhelming.

Reviewers are quiet because the NDA is still active. It should end sometime today (Aug 31).

Yeah I watched that. It was almost all dev talk, some views on the major city, and some promises. I meant like, I haven't seen ANY impressions from outside the company that made the game.

But yeah, review embargo is up so let's see

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It's finally happened ... my 1070 is finally below minimum requirements for a game I want to play. Guess this will be an Xbox only game for me because I am not paying the insane prices for GPUs.

GPUs are at pretty reasonable prices if you buy used. The 3060 Ti is $237 and it beats the 4060.

Intel's GPUs are an insane value now that they've got a lot of the driver kinks worked out. Some DX11 games still don't run as well as they would on equivalent Nvidia or AMD hardware, but most newer games are using DX12 or Vulkan nowadays.

now that they've got a lot of the driver kinks worked out

And dropped their prices considerably

If/when I finally build a PC, Intel Arc is going to be a serious contender for me. They're looking really good as they continue to support them.

And they outperform AMD on ray tracing workloads, so I think they will age better as more games start shipping with RT features over the next year.

Depends on where. In my country there are assholes that still want the equivalent of 300USD for a 2080ti.

That's assuming I have $237 laying around to play a game id also need to spend $70 on.

Same, for the GPU that is. I don't have or want an Xbox so I guess I won't be playing it for a long time. Not that I ever play Bethesda games at launch anyway.

I run most of my gaming through GeForce No Can't afford to replace my 1070 and streaming the games seem to work fine for now.

Don’t own an Xbox or PC, I’m going to wait until they decide milking money out of an old game > exclusivity and play with the future GOTY edition on a smart refrigerator or a Playdate or whatever other weird platform they repackage it for.

You reminded me it's not on PS5. The PC my partner (who might be interested in this) plays on can't handle this. So...guess we won't play it. Oh well.

I'm pretty hyped for this game. I love space RPGS and haven't had something cool since Mass Effect.

This is Bethesda. There's no way it'll be anywhere near as refined as mass effect.

But that means this will be more fun. I love me some Bethesda bug chaos. And mods.

I also love space RPGs. SWTOR was pretty great. It's an MMO, but it has good single player. The Knights of the Fallen Empire/Eternal Throne DLCs are basically single player games and they're really good quality. The KOTOR games are also really great, if a bit older and KOTOR2 was basically unfinished and requires mods to make it even feel 80% finished.

Outer Worlds was okay. It certainly does in some ways feel similar to Fallout in space. But not quite as good and I don't recall being aware of any serious modding scene.

But huh, I thought there'd be more, but I'm struggling to think of space RPGs with a feel like Mass Effect or Elder Scrolls. I'm really looking forward to this, too, cause despite being a buggy mess, I love Bethesda games and I also love sci fi (especially in space).

Not an RPG, but I also love Stellaris. It's a strategy game, but really scratched that hyper advanced sci fi and space exploration itch.

I really liked the Mass Effect Series, it's no Freelancer or Freespace but if Starfield even feels a little bit like what No Man Sky was doing it should be good. Fallout series and TES proves it will be buggy but fun.

I asume you've tried Elite Dangerous. Why didn't you like that?

I played the original Elite on the BBC, and then Elite 2 & 3 on the Amiga. Elite Dangerous on the PC was just plain dull by comparison.

Is it still 30 fps on Series X? I don't think that's acceptable for a first-person game in 2023.

You say that, but Immortals of Aveum probably would have benefited immensely from a 30 FPS option.

Even more from a 40FPS option.

I didn't follow this game. Can you explain why a lower frame rate is desirable here? Is it just too demanding to run at 60+?

It is the first shipping UE5 game that uses both Nanite and Lumen, and with insanely detailed environments to boot. It holds a pretty stable 60 FPS on the PS5, but it runs at 720p internally and upscales to 4k using FSR2, resulting in some very questionable image quality.

I think these features are insanely cool and their commitment to supporting 60 FPS is commendable, but this really is a case where I would actually prefer 30 or 40 FPS with a higher internal resolution.

It's 720p on PS5 then upscaled. It runs ok at 60FPS. But the Res is simply too low for me

It's not going to get better unless companies start making consoles with 1-2 year life cycles (which won't sell, because at that point, you may as well be swapping parts out of your PC of Theseus).

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Why? If the game has been targetted at 30 though development and everything built around that it should be fine.

You really believe that? Have you played New Vegas at 30 and 60 fps? Go ahead and try it out. I'll wait.

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Ssd required?

SSD has been a best practice requirement for a long ass time anyway. SSDs are cheap now.

I just bought an 8TB chonker last week for $340. It comfortably fit my entire Steam library of 19 years with room to spare.

A year ago this same drive was still averaging ~$650-$700.

In case someone's wondering about cheaper options; Samsung 980 500GB NVMe M.2 costs as much as £32 GBP (~40 USD), and 1 TB version is £52 GBP (~65 USD).

It shouldn't be a surprise. Games load assets on the fly to save memory, which would be terrible on a hard drive.

Not great for an SSD either since they have finite read/writes too.

Solid State Drives have no read limits, only write limits.

Oh wow that made a ton of changes to my statement! Same difference.

No it's not the same. Playing games, or loading assets causes no wear for the SSD.

Well that's just not factually accurate. The accurate thing would be it causes so little wear and tear it might as well not count on the memory chips. But using ANYTHING causes wear and tear to build up eventually and a SSD has more points of failure than just reading and writing to the memory.

Nonsense. NAND flash memory is non-volatile and can be read from indefinitely without wearing out.

You can't read I said the SSD has more points of failure than the memory. And those points of failure go up the longer it's used.

You're being obnoxious, on top of being wrong. Please stop.

Lol yeah man, SSDs last FOREVER, they never break down do they? Are you seriously implying that?

Lemmy allows you to embed objects in posts?

These should show up as images, I'm not sure what app you're using.

Sync for Lemmy. They show up as images in the post, but on the preview it looks like I shared. Weird.

Just a guess, so I could be completely wrong. But I imagine Sync doesn't run text from the post feed through a markdown parser/renderer. It only does that when viewing the full post. At least that's the reason why we have a similar result in Thunder for lemmy.

Sync has some issues displaying images embedded into post bodies. I still have Jerboa installed for if I need to view or make posts with them.

I believe yes, it should act like something you just did, embedding image in comment

SSD Required? Wat

Yes. Now that all the consoles have ssds, devs are going to design their games around them. That means asset streaming is the norm. And that means hdds will cause massive pop-in and stutters.

Honestly if you don’t have an SSD save 50$ and get one. Especially for crappier pcs it’s the most significant upgrade you can do and not even for gaming. 10 years ago SSDs were somewhat niche. They were expensive as well. Now I won’t even touch a computer without one basically.

It's probably not 100% necessary; even Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart (which was designed to use the PS5's fast loading speeds to switch between worlds on the fly, and supports the latest DirectStorage implementation on PC) can be played off a hard drive, tests have shown. But any PC recent enough to play Starfield on really should have an SSD.

"Playable" and "good experience" don't necessarily mean the same thing though. Those rift transitions in R&C are rough on anything less than a decent NVMe SSD. Though there may be some room for improvement, as even high end NVMe drives struggle to handle these transitions as gracefully as the PS5.

Whether or not playing off an HDD is truly a dealbreaker though depends on where in gameplay the storage speed bottleneck causes problems. For Rift Apart, it's mostly just an issue with these rift transitions, and the gameplay effectively pauses while it waits for them. For an open world game it could be more problematic (i.e. pervasive traversal stutter during combat.)