Todd Howard Addresses Starfield PC Optimization Worries

Bethesda’s Executive Producer, Todd Howard, recently addressed concerns about the PC optimization of their highly anticipated release, Starfield. As the game finally made its debut, some players were left disappointed with performance issues, despite Bethesda’s earlier release of minimum and recommended system requirements in June, which already indicated that Starfield would be a demanding title. While the game is locked at 30 frames per second on current-generation Xbox consoles, PC gamers were hoping for a smoother experience with maxed-out settings.

In a recent interview with Bloomberg, Todd Howard dismissed claims that Starfield had not been well-optimized for PC, stating unequivocally that “It’s running great.” He emphasized that Starfield is a “next-gen PC” game, hinting that players might need to consider upgrading their PCs to fully enjoy the experience, assuring them that it would be worth it.

Despite some players still being unsatisfied with PC performance, the day-one version of Starfield seems to be in a much better state than some of Bethesda’s past AAA RPGs. The studio’s decision to delay the game twice for additional polish likely played a significant role in this improvement. Howard also mentioned that the exclusivity deal with Xbox consoles contributed to Starfield’s overall quality, as it allowed the development team to focus more on a specific platform.

Starfield, like previous Bethesda open-world RPGs, is known to be fairly CPU-intensive compared to its AAA peers. This is partly due to the game’s feature of absolute object permanence, a unique aspect few other developers have attempted. Combined with the complex ship and outpost building mechanics that encourage player creativity, running Starfield at a smooth frame rate with maxed-out settings requires a high-performance PC.

Players with Ryzen processors and Radeon GPUs may have a smoother experience initially, as AMD is Starfield’s exclusive PC partner. Bethesda worked closely with AMD to optimize the game for AMD hardware, giving it an advantage over Intel and Nvidia products. For those not inclined to upgrade their PCs, there are also Starfield optimization mods available that could help improve the game’s performance.

In summary, Starfield is now available for PC and Xbox Series X/S, and while some players may face PC optimization challenges, Todd Howard assures them that the experience is worth the investment, encouraging them to explore potential hardware upgrades or optimization mods for a smoother gaming experience.