Yesterday we pondered over YouTubers testing Starfield on the Steam Deck, and sharing their mixed feelings. Today, there's an interesting video from budget video gaming centric Random Gaming in HD. In the video, the Starfield performance on two desktop APUs is tested: the AMD Athlon 3000G with Vega 3 graphics, and the Ryzen 7 5700G, with Vega 8 graphics.
Introducing his video, Random Gaming in HD admitted that Starfield was quite a demanding title, so gamers with an APU shouldn't set their expectations too high. Indeed, the Steam Deck itself features an AMD APU, albeit running in a much tighter power budget with less capable cooling.
|
APU |
Athlon 3000G |
Ryzen 7 5700G | Steam Deck (Valve Aerith) |
|---|---|---|---|
|
CPU |
Zen 1, 2C / 4T, 3.5 GHz |
Zen 3, 8C / 16T, up to 3.8 GHz |
Zen 2, 4C / 8T, up to 3.5 GHz |
|
GPU |
3 Vega CUs at up to 1.1 GHz |
8 Vega CUs at up to 2.0 GHz |
8 RDNA 2 CUs at up to 1.6 GHz |
|
Memory tested |
DDR4-2666 | 32 GB DDR4-3200 | 16 GB LPDDR5-5500 |
|
TDP |
35W |
65W |
Up to 15W |
Firing up the AMD Athlon system first, running at 720p with a multitude of performance improving choices in the game's settings, users still need to prepare themselves for potato mode. It may not be a slideshow, but it comes rather close.
Even with all the image quality reductions, 50% scaling, dynamic resolution, and FSR2 applied, Starfield limped along at between 10 and 20 fps. A screenshot from this Athlon 3000 APU run, above, shows how blurry and pixilated the imagery is. Random Gaming in HD says overclocking the integrated APU to 1.6 GHz didn't help break through the 20 fps barrier using the same settings.
Next up was the much more capable AMD Ryzen 7 5700G. RGINHD characterized this processor as "one of the best desktop APUs available," and it does indeed offer a well balanced mix of CPU and GPU cores for those who don't really need a dedicated GPU.
Using what appear to be the same settings as in the Athlon attempt, but pumped up to 1080p, the beefier Ryzen 7 5700G has an observed performance range of 20 to 35 fps in Starfield. The YouTuber noted his system might have done a little better with faster memory. FYI the system featured 32 GB of dual channel DDR4-3200 RAM.
In a repeat of yesterday's Steam Deck observations, Starfield performance held up nicely (~30fps) most of the time in open areas during less intense escapades. However, warned about visits to various cities challenging the APU performance. In New Atlantis City, for example, frame rates were typically well below 30 fps, sitting more in the mid- to low-20s.
Again this video ends with the hope that Bethesda, and graphics card driver developers, can improve Starfield performance in a meaningful way over the coming weeks and months.
