Starfield At 30FPS Is A Creative Decision, Says Xbox's Phil Spencer

If you care about performance in games, get a PC, where you have more control over the user experience.

Even if a console is the "most powerful in the world," you're ultimately at the mercy of the developer as to whether you're going to be allowed to put all of that hardware grunt toward performance. And, more often than not, 30fps with the visual settings jacked up will be the priority.

As long as the frame timings are really low along with light motion blur, I don't mind.

@Ralizah to be fair, PC gamers (including myself) have not been having a good time recently with poorly optimised games.

Personally I'm a bit bummed cause i think 1440p-60fps should be kind of doable, but with the scale they're going for, I don't have much qualms about it.

I'm just remembering playing RDR2 on my base PS4 in 2018 when it came out and how I was in awe of the visuals that the frames never bothered me. So with this, I'm sure it will be jarring at first but if the visuals hit, then it's not gonna be an issue.

I'm ok with this. All the other Bethesda RPG's I've played since Morrowind onwards were 30FPS so it's not like they're bucking a trend here.

@Ralizah TBH I tried AAA games in Steam Deck and my laptop for the first time and they seem to be hit or miss as far as performance goes. In FF7 Remake there is some sort of stutter a lot of time but RE4 Remake plays without issues.

What an odd statement to make, he's basically saying "it could have been 60fps but Bethesda decided not to and I'm cool with that".

Another Xbox exclusive that can't hit the framerates we were promised when buying the console.
I grabbed a 120hz TV to go alongside the Series X and now the exclusives can't even manage 60fps.
If I wanted to play games at 30fps I would play on the Switch not a current gen system

@Kevw2006 depends how you choose to read it. I read it as "we weren't able to achieve stable 60 fps so we opted for 30." That seems like exactly what every other developer does when they settle on the 30 lock.
Related, I can't play 30 frame locked FPS games, so this might be problematic for me. Given the scale and awesomeness presented in that showcase, I'll give it a go anyway. But I might be a casualty of "creative choice".

I guess it just means consoles aren't powerful enough

@Kevw2006 it could, if they reduced graphical quality. It was a creative decision to reduce framerate instead

@Chaotic_Neutral
Exactly!!

Given Starfield's magnitude I know it's difficult to run the game at stable 60 but I think they may have made a critical error as Bethesda may have thought about running it on 4k / 60 which they couldn't achieve most of the time. So decided to keep at 30. I know people are tired of 30 fps games in this age. But I hope they figure it out and run it 1440p 60. Option is always better. But I'm a PC player so I can't complain as PC is the Bethesda's most fans at.

@Chaotic_Neutral if you wanted current gen, should get a pc. As its upgraded every year or so. Consoles are upgraded every few years or so. At the time the xbox sx came out, it was still mid end compared to PC, I think.

You're telling me Starfield is going to look better than FFXVI while using BOTW's frame rate? Maybe if Bethesda used a modern game engine and didn't rely on Gamebryo they could get some more performance out of it.

@belmont @THE_VITTLER Definitely. PC isn't a perfect space in that regard. Although workarounds usually exist, you'll get stuff like fan patches and mods, etc. You have options, especially months and years after release.

Starfield is reminding people that developers can literally just go "lol no" to the prospect of a console performance mode, and there's absolutely nothing you can do about it other than choose not to play the game.

I’m sad that it’s only 30fps but it’s a game I can make an exception for. It’s not like Redfall that looked like dogshit and runs at 30 for some reason, there’s much more going on in Starfield. Just because they’re saying it’s 4K doesn’t mean it’s going to hold a 4K image either, we’ll have to wait until proper analysis can be done, so dropping it to 1440p or even 1080p @ 60 may not be so straight forward.

I think choice should also be an option in our current gen, tons of games have quality/performance modes, I’ll always choose performance but those not bothered don’t have to and that’s great. So I find it kind of bizarre that uncle Phil doesn’t champion choice to the developers under his umbrella. But that’s uncle Phil’s biggest weakness imo, he’s too hands off.

I'll wait until the Xbox Series Z to play the Anniversary Edition in 60fps.

It sucks, a lot. If we had any confirmation of a upgrded XsX for next year I’d wait until then before playing it so I could enjoy the game at 60fps.

If mods are anything like Skyrim then modders could just unlock the frame rate on console hopefully. I'm not too bothered about 30fps for this type of game though.

I've said it before and I'll no doubt saying it again. I prefer a locked and stable 30FPS over it hitting 60FPS "when it can". (obviously, a locked 60FPS would be even better)

As someone who modded previous Bethesda games I know the whole thing is a house of cards, Lexington in Fallout 4 is a prime example. I don't want Starfield to be 60FPS on barren planets than then chug when I get to a city.

@JON22 agreed, though I don't think mods will be there at launch for consoles (I feel like that would have been mentioned) but I'm sure they'll pop up ASAP. If it is like Fallout 4/Skyrim console mods someone will make one where it stays at a consistently higher rate, even if its 45 fps (like Plague Tale was)

Feels like this has to be said.. framerate issue is surely not (or it shouldn't be) caused by the scale of the game world. Agreed, just the currently loaded piece of the map is complex enough, but the fact there are 1000 worlds present unrendered does not task the system as much as you think.
As evidence, I'll use exhibit A: Tears of the Kingdom. It has a huge world that tracks if 2 branches interacted on the other side of the map due to winds.. and it works on a 10-year-old tablet. CPU-s in this day and age are far too powerful, with way too much computing power to be limited by such background tasks. (admittedly it could have been a problem 20 years ago, but with XSX/S issue should be in designing all that complexity, not executing it)

The worlds that they are creating are awesome and the game will look great but...

You don't have to. You can add an optional 1080p 60fps mode for those that prefer or even need that. My TV upscales from 1080p to 4K wonderfully. You can also add an unlocked frame rate mode for VRR screens (like mine). Why not settings like the PC version? Didn't you say that this game has been 25 years in the making?

I’ll choose to play one of the best games of the year, possibly of the entire generation. So long to the rest of you!!!

"creative vision" "play how you want"
Playing some ego game, give us damn options

@Cikajovazmaj @BBB I am 100% going to start playing Starfield but I don't know how it will be for me without a performance mode that I'm still hoping for. I have that same issue that depending on the kind of graphics and the camera, low frame rate makes me feel sick.

@abe_hikura A Tale's Plague Requiem is a good example of 40fps game that looks really smooth on VRR.

It is, sadly. How is The Initiative doing, anyone? Isn't Crystal Dynamics developing their first game?

@Banjo- at least personally, 40fps option has been blessing. It's enough to makes things feel smooth and keep decent fidelity (most of the time full).
However, I understand not everybody has such a display, and can see why it's not considered a primary target :/

I'm disappointed it's not 60fps. If they can downgrade it to run on the Series S why can't they have a 60fps mode on Series X? That said I'm still looking forward to this. The preview made it look amazing.

@BBB the game can also be played in 3rd person.

So many languages and Phil chose to speak facts.

@Cikajovazmaj I agree, I played that game in 40-45fps on my VRR OLED TV and I had no issues at all. It was a blessing after reading that the game didn't have a 60fps mode (when I played it).

Considering that Starfield is a huge game, probably the biggest game ever, with a huge audience and that it will be running on Windows on both PC and consoles, why not add some settings like frame rate, graphical fidelity, resolution, etc. or just two video modes, quality mode and performance mode. Since Rise of the Tomb Raider on Xbox One X, I've been seeing these modes in most games. An unlocked mode for VRR is another possibility.

The creative choice is to have 4k/30fps on X and 2k/30fps on S, if the game plays well I don't care for fps or résolution, anyway it's on gamepass, so I won't have to spend more money to try it.

@belmont The shader compilation stutter in FF7R is real, especially in the slums. UE is basically completely borked on PC until Epic reworks parts of the engine, which they are supposed to be doing, but it might take a minute. The unholy combo of DX12 and UE have just created some nasty shader issues over the last couple years. So a lot of the super broken games are ones built on UE, which is a fair share of games.

Hopefully we will hear more about mod support on consoles in todays extended showcase. Fallout 4 and Skyrim both had console mods that enabled 60fps. Hopefully they trash the whole “can’t get achievements with mods enabled” thing.

Else I will likely be buying me a new fancy PC tower just for this game. I’m lucky enough to be able to have the spare budget to do that but it really sucks for everyone. Plus PC don’t have Quick Resume.

@FenIsMightier The creative choice will change in the next-gen version. No, seriously, what he means is that they decided to sacrifice the performance for creative reasons, to make the graphics prettier. He also suggested that the many things happening on the worlds are the reason (that's not a "creative choice") but I'm not sure that that is an issue with Series S|X powerful and full-featured CPU, unless the Creation Engine that they are using needs some optimisation. I might be wrong but I think that there are options here.

@FenIsMightier Damn right

Tweet from Digital Foundry’s John Linneman about how even reducing the resolution would make 60 FPS impossible to achieve with everything the game is doing. But you know, everyone else is an expert.

https://twitter.com/dark1x/status/1668160646276431872?s=46&t=n557V_EC4EqditJsSEbq1A

I agree with his sentiment entirely. I will always take gameplay over frames as long as it looks nice enough.

VRR and 40 fps on120Hz are viable options too, Bethesda...
Middle range TV got these options since Series X exist.

@SplooshDmg Thanks for the info. From what I gathered in a quick search a lot of games have this issue on PC but ship with precompiled shaders on consoles. Still, it doesn't explain why FF7 Remake performs bad in the Steam Deck where the shaders are automatically downloaded, and the game is verified. RE4 Remake and Village that play well in my laptop and the Deck but they run in the RE Engine.

The most bad recent game on PC could be Atelier Ryza 3. It plays horribly regrdless of settings.

@CutchuSlow Bring on the Pro models in 2024. I will for sure snag a PS5 and Series X Pro. I want the power and the base models will sell for a good amount, so i will only be a little bit out of pocket for them. Should start to hear more on them after holiday 2023. They will want to sell as many consoles this holiday without the buzz of new hardware coming.

@belmont Yeah, I'm not sure what the issue on FF7R on Deck is. For what it's worth, the HDR on FF7R for PC has been broken since day one and is STILL broken. I had to go to SDR and just use ReShade to make the game look halfway decent. It's definitely a troubled port, but it was plenty playable.

Gust has a history of just grueling bad optimization, basically on any platform. Consoles usually fare better than PC, but even the PS5 version of Ryza 3 leaves a lot to be desired, which is the version I ended up buying. But the games are pretty low budget, so I imagine they just aren't getting the best optimization in the world. Blue Reflection: Second Light absolutely worked my 3080ti at 4K60 on PC, even though really, it's not a visually demanding game at all. So, I wouldn't call it a bad port, exactly. It's just... A Gust game.

Lets be honest 30fps will probably be the least of their problems at launch. In fact if they manage a stable 30fps out of the gate they've outdone themselves.
I'm actually not that bothered about the frame rate as we all know performance will be garbage but the game will be good enough that we won't care. Z:TotK is one of the best games I've ever played and doesn't perform perfectly.

@BBB I take it you could never play videogames without getting sick up until this generation then? You act like 60fps was normal in previous generations...

Amen to that. Give me a great 30fps game, haven't you learnt anything from the RedFall fiasco?

Sometimes 30fps is the right call. It seems like this is one of those games. There would be constant pop ins and blur otherwise. With how they mention locking it at 30 even though it is often higher gives them a cushion makes me think they have it perfectly optimized.

I will try it on PC too but I'm guessing the unlocked frame rate will be over the place. Dipping from 60+ to 30-40 constantly can be a worse experience IMO.

“Do I look more cinematic?” Ubisoft and MS probably

How will 95% of gamers play game under 60 fps. Their eyes are not capable of deciphering an image that is less than 60 fps. It looks like blank screen.

@Chaotic_Neutral I guess when starfield arrives on the Switch you'll be all set then.

They really should force specs on devs. There are many requirements forced on a game to be certified for a console. Things like achievements. Supporting a 60fps OPTION should be a mandatory requirement for all certifications. Doesn't mean the devs can't deploy their "vision" as the standard mode, but they need to be required to offer 60fps even if the result is awful visuals it at least needs to be there.

I thought this gen that's what we were finally getting, consoles that would have a 60fps mode available as standard. it was a big deal back at launch. Now we're right back to "oh, devs can targeting marketing-friendly resolution and cast aside smooth motion same as 15 years ago." As long as devs just keep pushing prettier graphics over performance because it markets better there will never be a standard on performance in consoles that matches what we had in 1987!

@Green-Bandit Nononono, you want to buy new consoles you pay full price, you don't pass the trash and sell your old junk to some unsuspecting fool that doesn't know better so that you come out ahead and they come out behind. You own your $2400 in consoles and advise those poor sods they shouldn't bother with the terrible launch consoles, and especially not your old used trash! That's that apple mentality "haha, I get the latest toy almost for free because some poor sod that doesn't know better will buy my old junk for near full price, mwahaha!" Gotta' screw 'em all!

@Savage_Joe When the direct talked about how "cinematic" they wanted to make it I gagged. I don't want things to look like a cinema. I want things to look real. That's why I play immersive games like Bethesda's. To pretend I'm in another place and time. If I wanted to pretend I'm watching a modern move I'd buy Naughty Dog's games instead. Plus I knew it was a sugar coated way of saying "lol 30fps."

But look on the bright side, you can buy a watch! I bet the watch is 60+ fps.

I wish all you guys upset at 30 FPS would read the tweets out there from the entire Digital Foundry team talking about why it should/needs to be 30 FPS. There’s a lot more to it than just resolution. But whatever, hope everyone enjoys playing something else. I’m excited for Starfield!

@NEStalgia HAHAHA, i will say when i do resell my Apple products they fetch good resale prices and even trade in prices. So i can normally upgrade for a decent price.

I'll make the same two points that I made to my brother when he text me in a flush about the FPS.

1 - You played Red Dead 2 at 30fps and consider it one of the best games of all time.

2 - it's Bethesda, they'll be releasing this game on every future console for the next 10 years, just wait, they'll be a 60fps version at some point.

@Green-Bandit Exactly...it benefits you, it's kind of a con job on the poor fools that buy old used tech with wearing batteries at near new price. I swear resale of apple products should be banned. Or come with s Proposition 65 warning equivalence about how stupid anyone buying it is for being the sucker of people like.....you....

@NEStalgia i thought the Apple stores and cell phone stores refurb them and sell them. Some stores say if it’s too old they just give you like $50 bucks to recycle it. So i am not sure they end up as is in customers hands. Now years and years ago i used to sell them online as is, until the people showing up at my house for them were let’s just say questionable folks. So i stopped doing that, my wife don’t like them here at the house. I even sold my 2 year old Sony LED TV online to a nice guy that drove over 1.5 hours to come buy it. I used the money and the sale price and got my C1 Oled for dirt cheap. My used Tv i sold him was in really good condition. Heck i might even sell my C1 when the C4 comes out next year. I did move into a bigger house this past spring and we bought a 55 inch LG C2 oled for the downstairs living room, man is it nice. I want to get another Series X for it. Upstairs in the Game/Media room is where the 65 inch C1 is. I try and be smart with my upgrades and also make sure i am not selling abused things or things that are going to die off, now GameStop selling used consoles are the rip off, they are barely cheaper and who knows what type of environment they were in. I have never bought a used console or controller in my life. Not a fan.

@Green-Bandit Uhuh...

Apple in particular is the worst of that, because it's this awkward economy that the used ones end up selling for nearly new price except you don't get a new product and they guarantee something like 80% of new battery life which is...really not good... if it were really discounted it would be one thing but it has this ecosystem of people like yourself that keep flipping them, and people buy the used, worn ones with almost no discount, or a discount that's not really proportionate to even the natural wear on the device.

Granted, I used to buy phones full price, then they jumped from $400 to $700 to $1000 to $1200. Samsung. I buy them from the used flippers months after launch and it's like $300-400 off. Not with Apple. You save $60. If you're lucky.

That gameplay in the starfield deep dive looked great so I've no concerns if that's what i will be playing. Wasn't super hyped about starfield but after watching the show I'm really looking forward to it.

I am soo bummed, the game looks amazing, and there's no doubt a power of work has gone into making this game, but to say that it's a 'creative decision' to not aim for something playable at 60 feels a bit arrogant. The xbox is sold as a gaming device capable of 60fps games. Lord, they even made a point of introducing frame boost for older games to make that target. Yes, they are a different beast as they're older, but the point stands that Xbox have pushed 60fps gaming with this gen and then announce that their biggest game by far won't be 60. At least give us the option to unlock it if we have vrr displays. I think it was ghostwire toyko that was like 'this high framerate mode may cause tearing etc' and i was like, ok cool. At least i know and can make my own choices.

It also sounds like any hope of them looking at implementing a 60 mode before release is off the table too. It's a real shame

If it's a very solid 30 fps, I'm good. Bad frame pacing is what kills it for me. I just finished AC Valhalla on my series s on quality mode and it ran very well. I barely even noticed the 30fps

@NEStalgia https://knowtechie.com/heres-why-apple-really-wants-you-to-trade-in-your-old-iphone/

I’ve never bought a used phone, so i am not sure what they even cost. I don’t flip every year, but after about 2-3 years is when i want a new iPad or iPhone. But there’s a market for them for sure. I was always under the impression apple takes the used phones and sell’s them in different countries and recycles the really damaged ones. Here’s a link of the robot they used name Daisy, she recycles part’s that is either bad for the environment or of value. Apple is making carbon neutral parts and most of their devices now use recycled aluminum and other materials. Kind of like the Xbox Series X controller but on a million times larger scale. I knew a guy that worked for Apple for a while and he later took a job with Google, he said they used to spend a boat load of boxes to India with refurbed iPhones. Not sure how true it is, but that was what I linked in the article. 😊

@MayaMousavi I appreciate what you're saying but I think if you (not YOU personally) put so much stock into frame rate you're setting yourself up for disappointment constantly. I don't understand when frame rate became the be all and end all. If anything it should be the cherry on the cake. Modern warfare 2 ran at 60 but Bad Company 2 ran at 30. I know which was vastly superior.

I'd be willing to bet right now that GTA 6 isn't 60fps, and I'd also be willing to bet that it will be fantastic and be the biggest selling "thing" ever.

Regarding standards, I'm definitely the minority when I say this but we've already lived through the golden age of video games, my standards dropped a while ago haha.

In my case, it depends on the type of graphics and camera. The more realistic the graphics and the more the camera moves, the worse for my brain is anything under 60fps. I'm younger than BBB so I don't think age is the reason in my case.

It was last generation when I had both PS4 and Xbox One when I realised this because of the realistic graphics and the increased importance of the camera. There are hundreds of examples but Dishonoured 2, Fallout 4 and the more recent Tears of the Kingdom are some. TotK is not realistic but the graphics are kind of brown and blurry and battles are a slideshow so those are the reasons.

I algo get dizzy when playing racing games in cockpit view but I don't have any issue driving in real life and I don't have a camera over my car to show me another angle. It's not the same in real life when your eyes see in real 3D and can focus on real 3D objects depending on the distance than looking at a screen. Funnily, some 3DS games like Ocarina of Time 3D are nice-looking for my eyes in stereoscopic 3D.

I'm still hoping that Starfield will be patched and get a performance mode before Series X2 is released. Finally, a private bit, the ophthalmologist checked my eyes and said that my sight is really good but I need more time than average to focus on a different plane so that might be related somehow.

I love Series X because it has more 60fps games than PS5 on top of being more powerful, more efficient, quieter and smaller. I just said that Starfield should win the Game of the Year awards on Nintendo Life so I'm not downplaying it and I will check it out it at launch on Series X thanks to Game Pass. I just wanted to say that we all have slightly different brains and perceive things differently.

Remember when all the gaming sites told us the series x would be the most powerful console ever thanks to its 12 teraflops of power which was 20% more than the PS5? You know how many AAA ps5 games only have a 30fps mode? ZERO of them, and there are many more of them than AAA Xbox games. Wtf…I’m starting to feel lied to about my Xbox that has been collecting dust for months now.

yeah in the end to be lazy you sometimes need to be creative xD

Two generations from now there will still be games running at 30 fps simply because some developers choose to focus on fidelity over frame rates. And Bethesda wants you to look at the stars in Starfield.

@Dalejrfanfreak FWIW if Microsoft never bought Bethesda, starfield would be on PS5. At 30fps. This is Bethesda. It's not Xbox vs playstation. It's pc master race vs console plebs.

It would be better if it was 60FPS but it’s still Starfield and i’m going to enjoy it at 30FPS. It’s a shame the announcement has affected so many people (in different ways). I do think people love to just whinge whinge whinge.

Sorry for those who get motion sickness but everyone else whinging will be there day one regardless. It’s just drama for the sake of it.

Reminder call of duty was 60fps on the Xbox 360, Bethesda really don't want to publish games at 60 for console.

@Dalejrfanfreak Because those PS5 games that have a 60fps mode are also on PS4, they are not current-gen but cross-gen. Sea of Thieves (also cross-gen) has a 120fps mode on Series X and the graphics are stunning. Ratchet and Clank Rift Apart (PS5 exclusive) was 30fps until it was patched to run at 40fps and it's a linear game. Demon's Souls is a PS5 exclusive but it's a PS3 remake and it's also linear and don't hit 60fps flawlessly in performance mode.

Series X is more powerful indeed. Redfall will be patched to have a 60fps mode. Microsoft Flight Simulator, a real current-gen open world flying simulator, unlocks the frame rate above 30fps when VRR is enabled.

@Retron This, I am awaiting to see if Unreal Engine 5 manages to knock games out at 1440P to 4K 60FPS, with ray tracing and stunning graphics. Fortnite looks pretty darn good using it but I'm not sure what resolution that is on Xbox.

@Ralizah I have a PC, i want to play the game on my series X i should be able to do that at a playable framerate, 30fps in 2023 for a shooter is not acceptable when call of duty was 60fps on xbox 360.

I have to buy more ram or play at 30fps thank you Todd I really enjoy my series x already being made useless.

@Cikajovazmaj Cyberpunk can reach stable 60 so a game like redfall which looks terrible and starfield there is zero excuse, sounds like Bethesda just back at it with their broken releases built on lies!

They're already planning for a Switch release? I'll pass.

There's no excuses here other than Bethesda being lazy the most powerful console in the world can do it it's just todd Howard can't be bothered that's all