Bethesda Confirms DLSS 3 for Starfield Next Week, FSR 3 to Arrive Soon

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Everybody likes the new Starfield announcement

Starfield for PC, Game Pass and XBox X|S
(Image credit: Steam)

Bethesda Games posted an update via X (formerly Twitter), finally announcing support for Nvidia's DLSS 3 for Starfield. This will be initially introduced as an opt-in Beta patch via Steam by next week. The studio also said it will add AMD FSR 3 in the future. 

This comes as a relief for Nvidia RTX users, namely RTX-40 series owners, as Bethesda hasn't said anything about its intention to provide Nvidia Upscaler support until now.

Steam users can enable the opt-in update by default via the game's settings in its library. They'll need to right-click on the game in the Steam launcher, slide toward properties, and enable Beta participation under the Betas tab. Xbox Series X|S users must wait for the FSR 3 support. 

The story so far...

Starfield was released for the PC via Steam, XBox Game Pass, and XBox Series X|S. The game came with high expectations before the launch, so it's understandable when most PC gamers felt let down by the lack of DLSS support at the time of release. Bethesda's silence was deafening, leaving speculation that it has no plans to include it as AMD is an exclusive PC hardware partner.

There was a workaround for DLSS 2 -- PureDark posted an unofficial patch in NexusMods, which also showed a performance improvement. This mod replaced the in-game FSR 2 support with DLSS 2.0 and XeSS. The free version was released in September, but the modder added a paywall to Nvidia's upscaling technology's advanced frame-generation features via Patreon. It didn't leave a good taste when a DRM was added to deter non-Patreon users from having this unlocked. 

This was only seen as a stop-gap solution, as people expected this to be included in the game. Puredark didn't include DLSS 3 support, either free or paid, an offering with the RTX 40-series graphics cards. At the time, AMD's Frank Azor stepped in to say they did not block the gaming studio from including Nvidia DLSS support as a part of its exclusivity contract. It was also unknown why the studio didn't have AMD FSR 3 at the time of launch, too. This absence gave some benefit of the doubt that maybe the game studio was not ready to implement these new upscale features exclusively from Nvidia and AMD Radeon.

If there's one thing that needs to be learned, it is knowing when and how to communicate with its core audience base. Some would see Bethesda's silence as valid since they did make a tweet when it was ready with the Beta launch. 

Other Fixes

The game studio also assured it will also include an FOV slider and 32:9 ultra-wide monitor support. Suffice it to say that next week's Beta update should make many Starfield players with Nvidia RTX 40-series with ultrawide monitors a happy space camper, boldly going where Bethesda didn't go until now. 

At the time of writing, Intel mentioned they're still working on the Dynamic Resolution Scaling issue with Starfield under its graphic driver's update log.

Roshan Ashraf Shaikh
Roshan Ashraf Shaikh
Contributing Writer

Roshan Ashraf Shaikh has been in the Indian PC hardware community since the early 2000s and has been building PCs, contributing to many Indian tech forums, & blogs. He operated Hardware BBQ for 11 years and wrote news for eTeknix & TweakTown before joining Tom's Hardware team. Besides tech, he is interested in fighting games, movies, anime, and mechanical watches.

7 Comments Comment from the forums
  • MiniITXEconomy
    I don't even play this game, anymore... imagine how much fun it would've been had the whole map been capped to a single solar system! Uff, missed opportunity. Well, only ten more years until Elder Scrolls 6.
    Reply
  • Dr3ams
    I could care less anymore what Bethesda adds to this game.

    After playing around 300 hours, I've decided that Starfield is crap. I really wanted this game to be good. I've seen a lot of YouTube videos where the posters complain about the lack of mission content and immersion, and I agree. There are around 9 million species on Earth and I haven't found a planet (from a thousand planets) in Starfield with more than 10. Most of the discovered buildings are duplicated on other planets, making going to these places monotonous. And the amount of loading screens is ridiculous. But my main gripes are the lack of content and options in habitat building and storage. I spent over 6000 hours in Fallout 4 and the main reasons why I kept going back are because of settlement creation and the amount of storage options in the settlements. Starfield has only about 10% of the building materials and building options that you would find in Fallout 4. Waiting for Bethesda to release the Creation Engine some time next year and release DLCs you have to purchase to add for the lack of content, is pure B.S. and pathetic.
    Reply
  • randyh121
    Dr3ams said:
    After playing around 300 hours
    I'm sorry for your loss :(
    Reply
  • JoshS5811
    300 hours before you realized you didn't like it? Seems like you got your money's worth. I can only think of one or two games I have ever played 300 hours and I have been playing games since the 80's!
    Reply
  • Dr3ams
    JoshS5811 said:
    300 hours before you realized you didn't like it? Seems like you got your money's worth. I can only think of one or two games I have ever played 300 hours and I have been playing games since the 80's!
    I need 300 hours to kick the tires. I was trying mods and my own tweaks to see if I could squeeze more out of Starfield. For the games I really like: I have 6309 hours on Fallout 4, 3594 hours on Skyrim, 2350 hours on The Division 2 and probably over 2000 hours on C&C Generals and Zero Hour. :cool:
    Reply
  • atomicWAR
    Dr3ams said:
    I need 300 hours to kick the tires. I was trying mods and my own tweaks to see if I could squeeze more out of Starfield. For the games I really like: I have 6309 hours on Fallout 4, 3594 hours on Skyrim, 2350 hours on The Division 2 and probably over 2000 hours on C&C Generals and Zero Hour. :cool:
    Fair(ish), I personally enjoy/love it but then I am not a fallout fan (save 76 and then its ONLY because I can play with my wife) either so I get it. But 300 hours of tire kicking is a decent time sink for the amount of cash even if you didn't like it in the end. I can think of plenty games/movies where the last handfull of minutes/cut scenes ruined the experience for me. Starfield DOES ride a fine line in that respect and the exploration leaves something to be desired, that I cannot deny...(which is very un-bethesda like IMO).
    Reply
  • evdjj3j
    Dr3ams said:
    I could care less anymore what Bethesda adds to this game.

    After playing around 300 hours, I've decided that Starfield is crap. I really wanted this game to be good. I've seen a lot of YouTube videos where the posters complain about the lack of mission content and immersion, and I agree. There are around 9 million species on Earth and I haven't found a planet (from a thousand planets) in Starfield with more than 10. Most of the discovered buildings are duplicated on other planets, making going to these places monotonous. And the amount of loading screens is ridiculous. But my main gripes are the lack of content and options in habitat building and storage. I spent over 6000 hours in Fallout 4 and the main reasons why I kept going back are because of settlement creation and the amount of storage options in the settlements. Starfield has only about 10% of the building materials and building options that you would find in Fallout 4. Waiting for Bethesda to release the Creation Engine some time next year and release DLCs you have to purchase to add for the lack of content, is pure B.S. and pathetic.
    I love Bethesda games too, I always upgrade my PC when a new one comes out but I also agree this one has been a bit of a turd. I put about 160 hrs in and compared to the FO 3 and 4 it just wasn't much. 2 months is too long for the first real patch to come out too.
    Reply