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[DF] Starfield Reveal Analysis: Next-Gen Scale, But What About Performance?

adamsapple

Or is it just one of Phil's balls in my throat?
interiors.jpg


Starfield-gameplay.jpg

Right.



And this is what late-gen PS3 FPS games looked like, and these aren't even youtube captures like Starfield, they're direct feed images from Digital Foundry:

boss_001.bmp.jpg


ps3_013_uX2kky6.png
 

Markio128

Member
I noticed you say that you enjoyed VATS, did you think the standard combat was also good? Because if you did its odd you didn't think starfields combat look good because it looked very similar to Fallout4's.

The visuals of Skyrim and fallout4 is a similar situation to starfield. Looks good enough but lacking visual features other games have.

The creature comment my have jumped at you, but that does not stop it from not making sense.
They look like robots? How do robots move? How do you know the aliens dont move like robots?
Crabs in real life move pretty robotic anyway. Your comment dont make much sense when robota can now move like this.


No, I didn’t think the standard combat in Fallout 4 was good and I doubt I would have enjoyed Fallout 4 had it not been for vats. I also doubt I would have enjoyed Skyrim if it wasn’t for the combat freedom.

I think in general, the Starfield visuals are pretty decent. I only have an issue with the last gen looking characters.

And I did recommend that you not dwell on the creature comment, however, you decided to focus mostly on this. If I had to describe how that section appeared to me, it was almost like they were 2D creatures as they scurried by. I’d have thought that they‘d have showcased a more interesting encounter.
 

Sosokrates

Report me if I continue to console war
The ground on this picture looks really bad. Very low resolution, and textures stretched and warped.

We cherry picking now. Granted this game has a lot of cherrys, but you can find ugly things in even the best looking games.
 

Oof85

Member
This game looks insane to me and I'm not even a scifi guy like that.

My only issue is the perspective. First person literally makes me nauseous.

If this was 3rd person perfected I'd buy an Xbox by launch.

It looks THAT good. And I'm not saying this as a warrior or anything but watching the reveal it reiterated to me that frankly, all games are not in fact created equally.

The sheer density of the systems and ambition of scale would have me put this as the first AAAA game I've ever seen.

Rdr2 is the closest to that from last gen, but the rigid mission structure hurt.

It stands alone in that classification from what I've seen.

The faces are horrific to me but I admittedly normally dislike games that seek photorealism. Past that though, it's literally breaking my brain.

To Bethesda and another 40+ million sold.
 
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Hendrick's

If only my penis was as big as my GamerScore!
I am just going to put this out there,

I think i have around 250 hours in Fallout 4, and I honestly believe I don't think i would have got to twenty hours if it was not for the vats system.

I love the system and somehow IMO it really makes the game special.

I have tried to play it without, but everything feels so janky and floaty.

I really hope starfield has vats as a perk or a skill, i will be super dupah disappointed if it does not
VATS was just a workaround for poor FPS gameplay and it sucked all the fun out of the game. Booo vats 👎🏻
 

SF Kosmo

Al Jazeera Special Reporter
Good analysis. I think he is dead on that the characters need subsurface scattering to feel more alive. And the performance needs work. Stuff like RT GI is probably a pure fantasy wishlist item at this point but considering it will be coming to PC as well who knows.
 

Hendrick's

If only my penis was as big as my GamerScore!
This game looks insane to me and I'm not even a scifi guy like that.

My only issue is the perspective. First person literally makes me nauseous.

If this was 3rd person perfected I'd buy an Xbox by launch.

It looks THAT good. And I'm not saying this as a warrior or anything but watching the reveal it reiterated to me that frankly, all games are not in fact created equally.

The sheer density of the systems and ambition of scale would have me put this as the first AAAA game I've ever seen.

Rdr2 is the closest to that from last gen, but the rigid mission structure hurt.

It stands alone in that classification from what I've seen.

The faces are horrific to me but I admittedly normally dislike games that seek photorealism. Past that though, it's literally breaking my brain.

To Bethesda and another 40+ million sold.
It will be playable in third person.
 

Mister Wolf

Member
Good analysis. I think he is dead on that the characters need subsurface scattering to feel more alive. And the performance needs work. Stuff like RT GI is probably a pure fantasy wishlist item at this point but considering it will be coming to PC as well who knows.

Maybe a 30fps mode with some performant raytraced lighting.
 

Gavon West

Spread's Cheeks for Intrusive Ads
Come on guys, this does NOT look like a 720p PS3 game, texturing and lighting alone. While those shots may be the upmost cranked to the max circumstances at the moment, and it remains to be seen how the final product will fare, PS3, it is not.
Those are TRUE shots from the video. The game looks EXACTLY like that. You guys gotta be trolling right now.
 

Killer8

Member
I think the game looks incredible when you consider its background. Bethesda have never really made particularly impressive looking titles to me - I guess you could say Oblivion back near the 360 launch was a good looking game, but it aged rapidly and looked very mediocre by the end of the generation. Skyrim unmodded and un-Special Edition is also a particularly dull looking game. Starfield on the other hand looks like it easily stands up with any other next-gen title that's been shown. I'd put it up there with the likes of Cyberpunk. Considering the duct taped Creation Engine powering this thing, and the huge scale, plus coming after Fallout 4, this is a pretty big visual leap forward.
 

Yoboman

Member
Performance aside, everything looks really static, why are none of those trees or foliage animated? And as far as city environments go you'd at least hope they'd get on the level of Cyberpunk. Instead it seems a couple gene back in terms of the NPCs and what's going on to make things interesting

Also disappointed how big of a step down it seems to be from the initial faked teaser trailer especially in terms of lighting
 

Gavon West

Spread's Cheeks for Intrusive Ads
Reading comprehension is hard, I know. I have not been trolling this game either.
I've written shit you've probably seen. WTH? Lol.

That said, this game looks really good, especially at this scale. I'm just not seeing the issue aside from performance. I've said before, its the best looking Bethesda game they've ever made. No hyperbole.
 

DeepEnigma

Gold Member
I've written shit you've probably seen. WTH? Lol.

That said, this game looks really good, especially at this scale. I'm just not seeing the issue aside from performance. I've said before, its the best looking Bethesda game they've ever made. No hyperbole.
I wasn't trolling, and I agree with you.

Stop viewing everything with a chip on your shoulder.
 
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SlimySnake

Flashless at the Golden Globes
They could for sure optimize performance, but I think we're seeing a rough cut on PC, so who knows what the XSX version will look like at launch, unless this is captured running from an XSX (I didn't see the usual disclaimer about that during the live stream or any of the 4K uploads).
They said everything after the first hour was running on the xsx. So Diablo 4, Starfield and Kojima was rendered on the XSX using machine learning A.I.
 

DeepEnigma

Gold Member
I live with a chip on my shoulder. That's how I stay dope. Lol

Genuine question: whats your honest opinion on the visuals? Performance needs work. Certainly. But the visuals are a huge step up.
Yeah, I really dig the art direction. Reminds me a lot of Interstellar.

If they sure up that framerate and tone down some of that ancient GeForce 3 bloom (or a mod to do so), this will be sublime looking.
 

Warablo

Member
I thought the gameplay was nice. Obviously there's some concern. Being the 24 fps, and combat lacking punch. Some of the city ground textures look flat.

The building of your own ship, having your own crew all look nice and was my favorite part.
 
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Redneckerz

Those long posts don't cover that red neck boy
I like how the ''It looks like last-last-gen'' argument actually scales linearly as generations progress with a difference of exactly 2 generations inbetween.
  • PS360-generation: ''That game looks like PS1 quality. Ew.''
  • PS4/XBO-generation: ''Honestly that games looks PS2 level. I mean look at those textures and lighting. Ew.''
  • PS5/XSX/S-generation: ''I mean the game looks nice but some shots look like they are from a PS3 game. Ew.''
Interesting phenomenon.

Anyway,
Come on guys, this does NOT look like a 720p PS3 game, texturing and lighting alone. While those shots may be the upmost cranked to the max circumstances at the moment, and it remains to be seen how the final product will fare, PS3, it is not.
It obviously on the whole does not look like a PS3 game, especially not in terms of interactivity.

One could argue that certain static vistas from late-gen PS3 have a similar vibe, but they are just that, static vista's. Those games are also fairly linear (I am thinking of Uncharted, or Beyond).

There are, however, aspects that give off a feeling of being there, done that:
  • Character rendering is rather improved, but the dead-eye animation is all too reminiscent of well, PS360 Creation Engine.
  • Certain movement animations clearly curtail that Creation Engine 2 takes a hint at previous games.
Notice how i am predominantly talking about animation. Creation Engine 2 does also seem to take hints from iD Tech 6 (Indoors, weapon reloading/bobbing, and animation)

There was one shot in the trailer (The light foresty one) that did look rather bad however, even when trees casted shadows. That stuck out to me like a sore thumb and reminded me of OG Crysis on medium settings (And there is a generational difference between medium and high here!). I realize that's a fluke, but it was noticeable.

Character model wise (like every Bethesda game) it comes close unfortunately.
No, not really. Rendering wise its a full blown PBR model that takes better account of its materials than Fallout 76/Fallout 4 did.

What is notable, is the aforementioned animation and eye-rendering. This looks incredibly similar to previous experiences and is really a pet peeve on Bethesda's end. In a world where characters now make subtle eye movements and little twitches to convey micro-emotions, Starfield's blank stare characters stand out.

DF is getting annoying. Now we are having performance breakdowns 9-12 months before it releases?
The comments are more annoying. ''It looks like a PS3 game.'' Surejan.gif.

Why are we not addressing that circlejerk? Because this occurs every generation, and the same back and forth arguments creep up.
Those are TRUE shots from the video. The game looks EXACTLY like that. You guys gotta be trolling right now.
But not a PS3 game, rather, shots from a indevelopment build of Starfield, stressing indevelopment.
 

MScarpa

Member
The comparisons with Fallout 4 and Halo really makes the game look better than my initial impression (but those are really rough looking games), I think that the first planet they chose to show really does the game a disservice, it's so ugly and uninspiring. Overall very uneven, sometimes it looks really bad and sometime it looks good.

30fps is still a bit unbelievable given what we are seeing, let go of native 4K. 30fps on a game that can be played in first person? Come on.
I think they game looks fantastic! Can't wait to play it. To each their own. 😘
 

Swift_Star

Banned
You complain about people trolling Sony threads yet here you are doing the same.
Bait GIF

I already gave my two cents on this subject. DF and everyone else saw performance was rough. This is not trolling, is reality.
As I don’t have anything to add to this thread and I don’t want to engage in this futile back and forth with you, I’m putting the thread on ignore.
 

ChiefDada

Gold Member
This was a fair analysis. I was hoping to be wowed with this first gameplay demo but unfortunately that didn't happen. Doesn't mean all hope is lost. Just have to wait longer for definitive answer.

DF is getting annoying. Now we are having performance breakdowns 9-12 months before it releases?

DF, NX and others have been doing this. It's cool to document performance status prior to release and makes for interesting analysis once the final product ships.
 
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