According to Hans-Kristian Arntzen, a prominent open-source developer working on Vkd3d, a DirectX 12 to Vulkan translation layer, Starfield is not interacting properly with graphics card drivers.

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[–] 213 points 2 years ago (8 children)

No, Todd Howard doesn't make mistakes, you just have to buy a more expensive graphics card!

/s

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  • [–] 81 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    Todd Howard doesn't do what Todd Howard does for Todd Howard. Todd Howard does what Todd Howard does because Todd Howard is... Todd Howard.

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    [–] 192 points 2 years ago (7 children)

    The problem is so severe, in fact, that the aforementioned translation layer had to be updated specifically to handle Starfield as an exception to the usual handling of the issue.

    "I had to fix your shit in my shit because your shit was so fucked that it fucked my shit"

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  • [–] 108 points 2 years ago (9 children)

    This is how games and drivers have been for decades.

    There are huge teams at AMD and nVidia who's job it is to fix shit game code in the drivers. That's why (a) they're massive and (b) you need new drivers all the time if you play new games.

    I read an excellent post a while ago here, by Promit.

    https://www.gamedev.net/forums/topic/666419-what-are-your-opinions-on-dx12vulkanmantle/5215019/

    It's interesting to see that in the 8 years since he wrote it, the SLI/Crossfire solution has simply been to completely abandon it, and that we still seem to be stuck in the same position for DX12. Your average game devs still have little idea how to get the best performance from the hardware, and hardware vendors are still patching things under the hood so they don't look bad on benchmarks.

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  • [–] 20 points 2 years ago

    I'll give a different perspective on what you said: dx12 basically moved half of the complexity that would normally be managed by a driver, to the game / engine dev, which already have too much stuff to do: making the game. The idea is that "the game dev knows best how to optimize for its specific usage" but in reality the game dev have no time to deal with hardware complexity and this is the result.

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    [–] 166 points 2 years ago (2 children)

    People figured out the performance issues with Starfield when it was first announced: the Bethesda logo

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  • [–] 62 points 2 years ago (3 children)

    Creation Engine 2.0.

    AKA Creation Engine 1.0 with more patches than a 1sqmi quilt.

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  • [–] 44 points 2 years ago (9 children)

    Evolution isn't wrong. It's not like Unreal Engine gets rewritten from scratch for each major version.

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  • [–] 21 points 2 years ago (9 children)

    Exactly, people forget that most of the well known engines today are as old or older than Creation Engine, they're all patched/upgraded as it fits, though Creation Engine has no apparent version numbers and it's made by Bethesda so you get free internet points and a feeling of superiority for hating on the popular thing.

    If you took these folks opinions as truth you'd think Bethesda games are massive flops that barely sell 10 copies and are a study case on how not to develop a game, but the real world is very different from the echo chamber...

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    [–] 100 points 2 years ago (10 children)

    Bethesda needs to start handing out checks to these people for fixing their fucking games dude

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    [–] 81 points 2 years ago (34 children)

    I'll play in a year after most of the bug and performance issues are fixed. Which seems like my typical response to any major game release these days; just wait a few months at first.

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  • [–] 27 points 2 years ago (5 children)

    Plus you'll get to see if they add all the post-launch microtransactions like games are starting to do these days.

    Launch to good reviews, and THEN rebalance and force players towards transactions and paid currencies.

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    [–] 73 points 2 years ago (2 children)

    only issue I see with the game at the moment is that they did not use those fly/land/dock sequences to mask the loading times. I think that would enhance the experience a lot

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  • [–] 60 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (30 children)

    As usual, it takes free labor for Bethesda to get their shit working the way it’s supposed to. What a garbage developer.

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    [–] 42 points 2 years ago (3 children)

    I preferred the Little Mermaid, the Ugly Duckling, and of course the Emperor's New Groove, but his commentary on graphics in Starfield is also a compelling work.

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    [–] 42 points 2 years ago* (4 children)

    "Just upgrade your PC bro"

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    [–] 42 points 2 years ago*

    Looks like Hans implemented a workaround in vkd3d-proton 2.10, using the open-source AMD vulkan driver on linux (RADV).

    Device generated commands for compute

    With NV_device_generated_commands_compute we can efficiently implement Starfield's use of ExecuteIndirect which hammers multi-dispatch COMPUTE + root parameter changes. Previously, we would rely on a very slow workaround.

    NOTE: This feature is currently only enabled on RADV due to driver issues.

    I don't imagine it will take long for this to make its way into a Proton experimental release. Folks with AMD graphics who are comfortable with linux might want to give it a try.

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  • [–] 41 points 2 years ago* (7 children)

    I wonder if this has anything to do with not being able to load my saves. I went to mars and exited the game after a long gaming session. Came back the next day and I get a full system crash upon trying to load the exit save. Tried the autosaves, same deal. Tried my last normal save, same deal. Every once in about 5-6 full system crashes I can reload one of the saves from just landing on mars but if I try to enter caledonia then it's a full system crash. It's weird too, I can still hear the game running in a loop but I can tell there is no input and the graphics fully fail. Very frustrating. I finally got back to my main rig to be able to play and the game has just been straight not playable since about the day after it came out. Can't even get a hotfix from Bethesda. Bummer. I'll just have to wait to play it again. I'm not going to restart a new character just to run into the same thing.

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    [–] 36 points 2 years ago* (3 children)

    Do we know for sure that the Starfield devs weren't able to figure out the problems with performance? I find often with companies, the larger they are, the more bureaucracy there is, and the more prioritization of tickets becomes this huge deal, where you even end up having meetings about how to prioritize tickets etc.

    I would be surprised if the devs didn't know what was wrong already, I think it's more likely that management and higherups doesn't care about them fixing it right now.

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  • [–] 26 points 2 years ago

    Game devs have many teams all with different jobs, for a big game like this you'd typically have multiple teams dedicated to optimization in different areas (and between them). The specific problem in this case was how the game was communicating with graphics drivers (among others), which for any graphics heavy game is very fundamental to performance optimization. The problems aren't even an after-the-fact optimization sort of thing that teams should have to identify and follow-up on, batching jobs is standard practice when interacting with GPUs whether or not there's a translation layer.

    When the devs of a core translation API between two supported graphics drivers that are commonplace in the gaming ecosystem have to write code to specifically fix issues with your application you've done something fundamentally wrong.

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    [–] 35 points 2 years ago* (6 children)

    I'm amazed that Bethesda has one of the premier game developers in their stead in id Software and didn't bother to just use their shit. Instead they actively chased their staff away.

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  • [–] 26 points 2 years ago (4 children)

    Bethesda the publisher and Bethesda the developer are different things.

    The publishing arm seemed to know what they were doing, certainly enough for MS to buy them.

    The developing arm is nothing if not consistent. You know what you're getting into. An RPG, with lots of character build possibilities (even if a particular build overpowered enough for 90% of players to accidentally stumble across it, like Skyrim's stealth archer build), a handful of memorable NPCs, no real character development, so-so performance, and a shitload of bugs.

    If people are still buying them and still not enjoying them I don't know what to say. It's like watching Fast and Furious 10, and going "well that's fucking dumb".

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    [–] 34 points 2 years ago (2 children)

    Nah, Bethesda will just do the same as they did with the Creation Engine. Let the community patch their crap and never fix it.

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    [–] 33 points 2 years ago

    developer working on Vkd3d

    I.e. graphics driver developer. Listen what he says, Bethesda, not many driver developers will point out where gavemdevs act stupid.

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  • [–] 30 points 2 years ago (1 child)
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    [–] 29 points 2 years ago (9 children)

    I'm eagerly awaiting the radio silence from all the people blaming it on obsolete hardware lol

    Overall I like the game though, it has a lot of very entertaining ideas.

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    [–] 21 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    I'd assume an issue possibly at the engine level isn't something that a mod can fix?

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  • [–] 19 points 2 years ago* (1 child)

    The end of the article seems to say as much. However, it seems the Vkd3d developers are trying to improve what they can.

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