Top News: Bethesda Starfield Update Brings Major Improvements and Performance Boost in 2024

Bethesda games are kind of like fine cheese. They often need a year or two to mature, and rarely need to be purchased at launch.

The developer has become famous for releasing endless games. It seems that their strategy is based on the fact that the players themselves have to correct all the minor mistakes through changes.

Starfield was no exception when it launched in September.

But things happen. In 2024, Bethesda will come with expansions and the Creation Kit mod tool, and on May 15 they will release the biggest update for the game to date.

The developer has fixed many of the problems since launch. You can already download the update in Steam’s Beta program, and I’ve tried it.

Progress

Bethesda has made changes to both the technical and game mechanics aspects of the game.

The player will get, among other things, more detailed maps, more options to set the difficulty level, new options for the interior of the ship, the option to change the figure with New Game Plus and several small changes that will make the experience more better

The update has also ironed out a long list of minor bugs. Everything from unresponsive characters, quests that stop to textures that disappear, have been removed.

That doesn’t mean Starfield is still a flawless experience, but it’s definitely gotten better.

20 percent faster

In the five hours with the new update, I’ve experienced characters that want to talk to me, movie sequences that start out of the blue, textures that flash and enemies that don’t take damage.

But the game has not crashed. It wasn’t mistakes that stopped me from doing assignments.

It’s an improvement from last time.

The performance is probably where I notice the biggest difference. I haven’t played Starfield since September, so maybe things have gradually happened through several updates.

Areas with many people are not particularly demanding on the processor, and you will notice that this is fine with slightly older computers and in lower resolutions.

Here’s how the numbers look with an Nvidia RTX 4090 flagship and an Intel Core-i9 13900k processor:

On average the frame rate has increased by 20 percent at the “ultra” setting. The difference is less on “high”.

The minimum frame rate is also reduced, of course significantly on “high”. Strange, but the stream is definitely better thanks to the lower frame time.

The game is not that fast. Unfortunately, from time to time you will experience a significant drop in frame rate in new areas, but this is usually short-lived.

The measurements are made with a viewing angle of 85. Bethesda included a conversion for this after launch, but on PC you can use the command line to change this more than the conversion allows.

Help with level up

Bethesda introduced the DLSS upscaling AI method some time after launch.

DLSS is still the best upscaling, but I experienced a few cases where textures flashed like Christmas tree lights. FSR3 is far worse. It has major problems with poor internal textures and flickering textures.

DLSS also seems to give slightly better performance.

The game has supported Frame Generation for AMD since launch. In the autumn he also came to Nvidia, but I was not able to get to work.

If I turn it off in the menu, it will be off when I open it again.

Thousands of changes

Bethesda games wouldn’t have been the same without the massive mod communities. Starfield already has over 7,000 mods on NexusMods, and it’s a lot of fun to play with.

The Creation Kit isn’t out yet, so there are fewer major changes, but there are many useful changes to weapons, skills, figures and general game mechanics.

Reddit user nineties_nostalgia recently posted an overview of the highlights.

Many of the changes are required Download Starfield Script Extender to work, but the changes may need to be changed for the new update. It might take a while.

Worth downloading?

The new update fixes a lot in Starfield, but it didn’t make the game more appealing to me. That’s because the biggest problems in Starfield are about completely different things than the technical.

The story, the quest and the universe are still the same. If you didn’t like Starfield at launch, it’s unlikely you’ll like it now either.

I’m crossing my fingers for an attractive expansion, but I have more faith that the modders will make the game worth it in the end. That’s why I’m so excited about the Creation Kit.

In Bethesda games, it’s all about patience. Then you can also get the game at a lower price.

Nevertheless, this is primarily a technical review, and the performance is undeniably better. There are fewer minor errors, and the gaming experience is slightly improved. Bethesda shows that they are trying.