Nvidia DLSS support for Starfield teased alongside stability-improving update

By Tomas Franzese September 13, 2023

Bethesda Game Studios just released the first update for its sci-fi issue Starfield. It’s a smaller hotfix-level patch mainly focused on improving the game’s stability and fixing some quest-blocking bugs. A message from the developer also confirmed that a lot of major features that are in the works for future patches, including Nvidia DLSS support on PC.

Sarah Morgan in the lodge looking at the player. — Bethesda

The list of patch notes for Starfield update version 1.7.29 explains that it made “various stability and performance improvements to reduce crashes and improve frame rate,” including one related to installations on Xbox Series X/S. Also, quest-blocking issues in All The Money Can Buy, Into the Unknown, and Shadows of Neon are now all fixed. While that list isn’t long, a blog post and tweet from Bethesda explains that it’s just the start of “a regular interval of updates that have top community-requested features.”

The features players should expect more imminently in updates are brightness and contrast controls, an HDR calibration menu, an FOV slider, Nvidia DLSS support on PC, 32:9 ultrawide monitor support on PC, and an eat button for food. Looking at the longer term, Bethesda Game Studios says it’s “working closely with Nvidia, AMD, and Intel on driver support,” and that it would love to add city maps to the game in the future.

For now, though, Bethesda Game Studios says its main priorityies are “making sure any top blocker bugs or stability issues are addressed, and adding quality-of-life features that many players are asking for.” Starfield is available now for PC and Xbox Series X/S.

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Tomas Franzese is a Staff Writer at Digital Trends, where he reports on and reviews the latest releases and exciting…

Gaming

Bethesda is responding to negative Starfield reviews. And that’s a good thing

An astronaut explores a planet's surface in Starfield.

Imagine leaving a bad review on Steam only to log on one day and find that the creators of that game had responded. That’s exactly what’s been happening to Starfield players as of late. Currently saddled with a Mixed status derived from over 80,000 user reviews, Bethesda has gone into damage control mode to respond to its harshest critics. Reviews that call the game boring have been met with direct responses as the publisher explains that perhaps that’s the point.

“Some of Starfield’s planets are meant to be empty by design -- but that’s not boring,” one especially bold reply from Bethesda reads.

Gaming

A field-of-view slider headlines Starfield’s latest update

An astronaut explores a planet's surface in Starfield.

Bethesda just released Update 1.7.36 for Starfield, and it officially added a highly requested feature: field-of-view (FOV) sliders.
Even though Starfield is a game that can be entirely played from a first-person perspective, it did not have this feature at release. Fans had to previously resort to mods to add this functionality to the game. Bethesda did promise it'd add FOV sliders to the game shortly after it launched, though, and now this feature has finally arrived. By going into the Accessibility tab of the Settings menu, players can adjust the FOV of both the first and third-person cameras on both console and PC.

This update does bring some other improvements as well, like fixing a progression-blocking issue in the Echoes of the Past quest and improving stability and performance. In particular, Bethesda claimed stability with Intel Arc GPUs will now be better for PC players. For most players, though, the FOV slider is the most important new feature included in this update.
Starfield isn't the only Bethesda game to get a notable update this month. Last week, Redfall finally received a patch that overhauled the game's encounters, tweaked its stealth system, and added a 60 fps Performance Mode. While this Starfield update isn't as large or monumental as that one, it does show Bethesda's commitment to improving Starfield and adding heavily requested features. Hopefully, updates that add things like Nvidia DLSS support, an HDR calibration menu, ultrawide monitor support, and an eat button for food aren't too far off.
Starfield is available now for PC and Xbox Series X/S.

Gaming

Major Redfall patch adds 60 fps performance mode, a stealth overhaul, and more

Redfall Cover

Xbox exclusive Redfall just got a major patch. The update adds a long-awaited 60 frames per second (fps) mode to the game, as well as a heap of quality of life upgrades and an overhaul to stealth gameplay.
Among lots of other problems, the dame infamously only ran at 30 fps at launch on Xbox Series X and S. While Arkane Studios promised a performance mode patch was in the works prior to release, it didn't arrive until today.

On October 6, Arkane Studios and Bethesda dropped Update 2 for Redfall. The most notable addition is Performance Mode, which lets players prioritize frame rate over resolution to finally get the game to run at 60 fps on consoles. Simply navigate to the Video tab within Redfall's settings menu to activate it. The patch notes for this update claim it brings improved stability on PC, in addition to solutions to memory-based crashes and AMD GPU-related graphics corruption. The update also contains some new gameplay tweaks to hopefully make the experience better.
Redfall will now encourage stealth more, as Arkane added the ability to sneak up on and do stealth takedowns on enemies and made it clearer which weapons are silenced in menus. It also added more options for players to fine-tune aim assets and dead zones while aiming, increased the number of enemies wandering the game's open world, and added unique ping colors for each player in a multiplayer squad. You can check out the full list of patch notes to see the additional tweaks and bug fixes made.
Redfall had a notoriously rocky launch this year, so it was hard for anyone outside of Microsoft to truly know whether or not improvements to the game would actually be delivered. Bethesda's Pete Hines had previously claimed it wouldn't abandon the game, and this update is our first real indication that it's true. While this isn't a Phantom Liberty-level rework for Redfall, it certainly seems like the game is now in the best condition it's been in since launch.
Redfall is available now for PC, Xbox Series X, and Xbox Series S.