Starfield CPU & GPU limited, once again DX12/Vulkan fails to deliver

[BFG10K]

A few years ago in this very forum, people were telling us Mantle would allow AMD to dominate the Android platform (LMAO), and that low-level APIs would provide automatic performance gains to even unknown Indie developers just by flipping a simple switch to DX12, with zero effort (LOL).

Instead what we got is upscalers are now mandatory to make games playable, and this is a terrible place to be. This is the result of the collective failure of low-level APIs, along with the push to ray tracing (though the latter doesn't apply to Starfield).

Almost none of these games look significantly better than the best rasterized DX11 titles. And aside from a few outliers like Doom Eternal and Tomb Raider Shadow, the former perform vastly worse than the latter.

We were also told in this very forum "oh, once game engines are rebuilt from the ground up, we'll see the true performance of low-level APIs!" Yet DX12 is now nine years old, and even the brand new Baldur's Gate 3 can recommend switching to DX11 because it often runs better than Vulkan.

I said back then, anyone who thought the average game developer can optimize code better than GPU driver programmers backed by hardware engineers (ya' know, the people that actually build the things) was delusional, and I was right.

This is also exactly why VRAM requirements are ballooning. Because once again, it's lunacy to expect game developers to manage GPU memory better than AMD/NV engineers. In virtually every game that allows DX11 alongside Vulkan/DX12, DX11 uses far less VRAM.

 

[biostud]

A few years ago in this very forum people were telling us that Mantle would allow AMD to dominate the Android platform (LMAO), and that low-level APIs would provide automatic performance gains to even unknown Indie developers just by flipping a simple switch to DX12, with zero effort (LOL).

Upscalers being mandatory or else a game is unplayable is a terrible place to be. This is the result of the collective failure of low-level APIs, along with the push to ray tracing (though the latter doesn't apply to Starfield).

None of these games look significantly better than the best rasterized DX11 titles. And aside from a few outliers like Doom Eternal and Tomb Raider Shadow, the former perform vastly worse than the latter.

We were also told in this very forum "oh, once game engines are rebuilt from the ground up, we'll see the true performance of low-level APIs!" Yet DX12 is now nine years old, and even a brand new release Baldur's Gate 3, the recommendation is still to switch to DX11 because it often runs better than Vulkan.

I said back then anyone who thought the average game developer can optimize code better than GPU driver programmers backed by hardware engineers (ya' know, the people that actually build the things) was delusional, and I was right.

This is also exactly why VRAM requirements are ballooning. Because once again, it's lunacy to expect game developers to manage GPU memory better than AMD/NV engineers. In virtually every game that allows DX11 alongside Vulkan/DX12, DX11 uses far less VRAM.

Not to mention the hype of better SLI/CF and vendor independent SLI/CF...

 

[Shmee]

I am not sure...is it the failure of low level APIs? Or is it the fault of game devs and publishers? I personally think the fault lies with the game companies as of recent, not with the APIs themselves.

And though Mantle is a thing of the past, I do remember it working wonders in BF4, allowing for much smoother game play, particularly with CF, especially the newer iterations at the time that didn't use the CF bridge (I used CF with 2 Sapphire R9 290 Tri X cards). Also, with Vulkan, the spiritual successor to Mantle, It can do quite well. I use it personally when playing GZDoom, and other games.

I do tend to think that raytracing being pushed is kinda dumb, and part of the problem, along with some of the game companies themselves...some of them are probably just stuborn, or cutting corners, or influenced by stupid company/industry politics, and they end up with products that aren't as good as they could have been.

 

[KompuKare]

I am not sure...is it the failure of low level APIs? Or is it the fault of game devs and publishers? I personally think the fault lies with the game companies as of recent, not with the APIs themselves.

And though Mantle is a thing of the past, I do remember it working wonders in BF4, allowing for much smoother game play, particularly with CF, especially the newer iterations at the time that didn't use the CF bridge (I used CF with 2 Sapphire R9 290 Tri X cards). Also, with Vulkan, the spiritual successor to Mantle, It can do quite well. I use it personally when playing GZDoom, and other games.

I do tend to think that raytracing being pushed is kinda dumb, and part of the problem, along with some of the game companies themselves...some of them are probably just stuborn, or cutting corners, or influenced by stupid company/industry politics, and they end up with products that aren't as good as they could have been.

In retrospect, I think @BFG10K is correct.

At the time I was impressed with what Mantle did, but I think that is mainly because especially DICE were really able to use it very well. Well, they had asked for it since they found DX11 limiting.

But with hindsight it really takes programmers able to write kernel scheduler to use low-level correctly.

And while I would not have infinite faith in the GPU driver teams*, the current situation is worse and getting worse. I guess, the hope is that UE5 or other big engines sort this out.

The question is how did we get there?

1. DICE wanting Mantle?
2. AMD being keen to please a major studio
   1. and having hardware which was often under-utilised while
   2. being resource poor enough that they could not throw huge number of people at the problem like Nvidia did
3. Nvidia while knowing that they had better software teams looking at the future when most of their revenue comes from data centre and that eventually low-level meaning they could get by with a smaller gaming driver team
4. Microsoft willing to let game handle more of the work and them having to do less?

And probably there were plenty of other factors.

* generally I do not like the "appeal to authority" fallacy of, for instance, normal developers not wanting to learn good SQL and instead expecting miracles from - for instance - Microsoft Entity Framework optimisers. Not exactly the same thing but still along the same lines.

 

[Shmee]

In retrospect, I think @BFG10K is correct.

At the time I was impressed with what Mantle did, but I think that is mainly because especially DICE were really able to use it very well. Well, they had asked for it since they found DX11 limiting.

But with hindsight it really takes programmers able to write kernel scheduler to use low-level correctly.

And while I would not have infinite faith in the GPU driver teams*, the current situation is worse and getting worse. I guess, the hope is that UE5 or other big engines sort this out.

The question is how did we get there?

1. DICE wanting Mantle?
2. AMD being keen to please a major studio
   1. and having hardware which was often under-utilised while
   2. being resource poor enough that they could not throw huge number of people at the problem like Nvidia did
3. Nvidia while knowing that they had better software teams looking at the future when most of their revenue comes from data centre and that eventually low-level meaning they could get by with a smaller gaming driver team
4. Microsoft willing to let game handle more of the work and them having to do less?

And probably there were plenty of other factors.

* generally I do not like the "appeal to authority" fallacy of, for instance, normal developers not wanting to learn good SQL and instead expecting miracles from - for instance - Microsoft Entity Framework optimisers. Not exactly the same thing but still along the same lines.

Hmm, some interesting questions here...but, if the API's are being used incorrectly, then that is not the fault of the API, but the fault of the programmers. So, BFG10K may be right in some ways, but if he is saying that the API's are at fault, well, I think we would both agree he is wrong there.

 

[BFG10K]

is it the failure of low level APIs? Or is it the fault of game devs and publishers?

The APIs move a lot of extra complexity and optimization onto game programmers when that burden should remain with driver developers. Driver developers are far more qualified and competent to deal with it. Nine years of results prove this.

Also no game developer is going to issue game patches forever, especially if the company folds. DX11/OGL is a lot easier to fix from the driver side because it does a lot more work on behalf of the game.

 

[KompuKare]

Well imagine you had APIs with which you could utilise your hardware. On a traditional computer you might call them kennel-level, user-level, and managed-code-level.

What you can do at each level is then somewhat inversely proportional to the difficulty of doing so. And the number of people who can actually do that job.

Anyway, with Bethesda's $100s of million budget for Starfield there was little excuse not to have spent the budget improving their engine. Mind you, I also suspect that the biggest problem with their engine is not the rendering pipeline but rather being able run their scripting for the NPCs etc. Certainly in Skyrim and Fallout 4 that was largely limited to one CPU and making that properly multithreaded without making life hard for the quest writers etc. probably requires some very good kernel-level developers.

 

[Mopetar]

Bethesda games have never run particularly well. Their engine is ancient and held together with duct tape and bubble gum. I question if there's much if any low-level work being done there.

Hopefully their new Microsoft overlords force them to use something from the current century.

 

[DAPUNISHER]

The technical reasons make some sense. But escalating forced obsolescence to help spur sales in the same year as a historically low market fills in my bingo card.

 

[Frenetic Pony]

Bethesda games have never run particularly well. Their engine is ancient and held together with duct tape and bubble gum. I question if there's much if any low-level work being done there.

Hopefully their new Microsoft overlords force them to use something from the current century.

Sitting there and conspiracy theorizing about a developer that's never cared about tech much is rather silly.

Heck Starfield is clearly an improvement over previous Bethesda titles, so whatever. That being said I honestly don't get this hobby of people complaining about technical details they don't understand of games they'd rather kvetch about than actually play, so maybe I'm the wrong audience for this.

 

[KompuKare]

Bethesda games have never run particularly well. Their engine is ancient and held together with duct tape and bubble gum. I question if there's much if any low-level work being done there.

Hopefully their new Microsoft overlords force them to use something from the current century.

And Bethesda have gotten used to modders and fans fixing their bugs.

But it all comes back to what made Morrowind unique?

The Elder Scrolls Construction Set

That is IMO the main reasons the Elder Scrolls, later their Fallout games, and now Starfield have attracted to much attention: the community can extend the base game for years.

Almost no other games come close as a quick look at Nexus Mods shows:

Nexus Mods :: Games

A list of all of the games that we have mods for.

www.nexusmods.com

Sorted by number of mods, Bethesda have the whole top five.

Improvements to the engine would be welcome but it's the creation kits which make their games.

 

[Saylick]

That being said I honestly don't get this hobby of people complaining about technical details they don't understand of games they'd rather kvetch about than actually play, so maybe I'm the wrong audience for this.

It feels like people are spoiled and/or entitled now that upscalers are very prevalent in the industry, which was more or less has created a pseudo viscous cycle of sorts:
1) Consumers buy GPUs that support upscalers, so more of the addressable market supports upscalers
2) Game developers take the lazy way out and spend less time optimizing their game knowing that upscalers can alleviate performance issues
3) Reviews come out that conclude that upscalers are more or less needed to get good performance
4) See Step 1.

DLSS is arguably the best upscaler on the market, and it's so good that some people treat it as the golden standard such that failing to meet this standard means those people will straight up refuse to use an alternate solution. I get the impression that when DLSS is not available, people start whining because it seemingly breaks their ability to enjoy PC games. There have been people on Twitter who have these ridiculous hot takes about not buying a certain game simply because it doesn't have DLSS. That's how "essential" good upscaling technology has become in the eyes of the enthusiast. I've said this many times in the past, but Nvidia does NOT in any way guarantee its customers that upon buying an Nvidia RTX GPU will you get DLSS support for every important game that comes out, yet people treat it that way, that if they spend the money on an Nvidia GPU they somehow "deserve" to have best upscaler on the market for every game they purchase. This entitlement, if you will, is also reflected at how people raised pitchforks when PureDark wanted to monetize his DLSS mods, essentially claiming that it was immoral to charge for a feature that they believed should have been part of the game for free. Again, this behavior stems from the belief of "I payed the Nvidia tax already, why should I have to pay more?" It's like a rich person thinking they could buy their way to the front of the queue at a desirable restaurant, which normally works for them, but the moment they encounter a restaurant that is more fair and tells them they got to wait just like everyone else they throw a fit and threaten to never come back. In this analogy, what AMD have done by sponsoring a AAA title (the desirable restaurant) to use FSR as the primary upscaler is to set the rule that everyone has to wait, regardless of how rich you are, which pisses off the entitled rich people.

 

[ozzy702]

Speculation that Starfield is extremely memory/cache constrained. Wasn't Fallout 4 also very memory dependent? Knowing Bethesda their "new" engine is just duck tape and bailing wire on their age old turd of an engine. No clue why they won't either develop something decent from scratch or pay for a decent engine. They have fantastic IP that's massively held back by their engine.

 

[Fanatical Meat]

A few years ago in this very forum, people were telling us Mantle would allow AMD to dominate the Android platform (LMAO), and that low-level APIs would provide automatic performance gains to even unknown Indie developers just by flipping a simple switch to DX12, with zero effort (LOL).

Upscalers being mandatory or else a game is unplayable is a terrible place to be. This is the result of the collective failure of low-level APIs, along with the push to ray tracing (though the latter doesn't apply to Starfield).

Almost none of these games look significantly better than the best rasterized DX11 titles. And aside from a few outliers like Doom Eternal and Tomb Raider Shadow, the former perform vastly worse than the latter.

We were also told in this very forum "oh, once game engines are rebuilt from the ground up, we'll see the true performance of low-level APIs!" Yet DX12 is now nine years old, and even the brand new Baldur's Gate 3 can recommend switching to DX11 because it often runs better than Vulkan.

I said back then, anyone who thought the average game developer can optimize code better than GPU driver programmers backed by hardware engineers (ya' know, the people that actually build the things) was delusional, and I was right.

This is also exactly why VRAM requirements are ballooning. Because once again, it's lunacy to expect game developers to manage GPU memory better than AMD/NV engineers. In virtually every game that allows DX11 alongside Vulkan/DX12, DX11 uses far less VRAM.

Gotta agree here, I have yet to play a game that works noticeably better on DX12 than DX11. Same with Vulkan and such, waaaay too much hype with extremely little gains and high probability of having a problem.

 

[A///]

Typical bethesda.

 

[Ranulf]

Speculation that Starfield is extremely memory/cache constrained. Wasn't Fallout 4 also very memory dependent? Knowing Bethesda their "new" engine is just duck tape and bailing wire on their age old turd of an engine. No clue why they won't either develop something decent from scratch or pay for a decent engine. They have fantastic IP that's massively held back by their engine.

FO3 and 4 if I remember right were fans of high speed ram.

AT thread:

[Part 3] Measuring CPU Draw Call Performance in Fallout 4

Previous Thread The most significant hit to framerates in large games, open world games especially, is caused by excessive draw call counts. And this isn't a new thing; as far back as 2006 with Oblivion, performance would utterly die during raining weather, as NPCs would take out their...

forums.anandtech.com

OCUK thread:

Fallout 4 CPU benchmark thread(need some Zen3 and Zen4 results!)

Background A few of us still play some of the old Creation Engine based games such as Fallout 4. Annoyingly a lot of reviewers don't seem to test older games anymore,and these generally benefit the most from better single threaded performance,faster memory speeds,etc. Fallout 4 tends to be...

forums.overclockers.co.uk

 

[H433x0n]

It feels like people are spoiled and/or entitled now that upscalers are very prevalent in the industry, which was more or less has created a pseudo viscous cycle of sorts:
1) Consumers buy GPUs that support upscalers, so more of the addressable market supports upscalers
2) Game developers take the lazy way out and spend less time optimizing their game knowing that upscalers can alleviate performance issues
3) Reviews come out that conclude that upscalers are more or less needed to get good performance
4) See Step 1.

DLSS is arguably the best upscaler on the market, and it's so good that some people treat it as the golden standard such that failing to meet this standard means those people will straight up refuse to use an alternate solution. I get the impression that when DLSS is not available, people start whining because it seemingly breaks their ability to enjoy PC games. There have been people on Twitter who have these ridiculous hot takes about not buying a certain game simply because it doesn't have DLSS. That's how "essential" good upscaling technology has become in the eyes of the enthusiast. I've said this many times in the past, but Nvidia does NOT in any way guarantee its customers that upon buying an Nvidia RTX GPU will you get DLSS support for every important game that comes out, yet people treat it that way, that if they spend the money on an Nvidia GPU they somehow "deserve" to have best upscaler on the market for every game they purchase. This entitlement, if you will, is also reflected at how people raised pitchforks when PureDark wanted to monetize his DLSS mods, essentially claiming that it was immoral to charge for a feature that they believed should have been part of the game for free. Again, this behavior stems from the belief of "I payed the Nvidia tax already, why should I have to pay more?" It's like a rich person thinking they could buy their way to the front of the queue at a desirable restaurant, which normally works for them, but the moment they encounter a restaurant that is more fair and tells them they got to wait just like everyone else they throw a fit and threaten to never come back. In this analogy, what AMD have done by sponsoring a AAA title (the desirable restaurant) to use FSR as the primary upscaler is to set the rule that everyone has to wait, regardless of how rich you are, which pisses off the entitled rich people.

Nvidia has people on payroll that develop these features and will implement them for game studios for this reason. The manpower to support DLSS exists, Nvidia would’ve done it themselves for Starfield, RE4, Jedi Survivor, Callisto Protocol, etc. They know that people buy their graphics cards because of their features like DLSS and if majority of AAA titles no longer support these features then their biggest selling point ceases to exist. That’s the point of all of this, taking away Nvidia’s biggest advantage.

Those who bought Nvidia cards aren’t enthusiastic to be collateral damage. There’s a reason why the DLSS mod for Starfield has 200k downloads on NexusMods and the game is still in early access.

but the moment they encounter a restaurant that is more fair and tells them they got to wait just like everyone else they throw a fit and threaten to never come back. In this analogy, what AMD have done by sponsoring a AAA title (the desirable restaurant) to use FSR as the primary upscaler is to set the rule that everyone has to wait, regardless of how rich you are, which pisses off the entitled rich people.

How is this situation more fair? The logic is that people who own AMD cards are stuck with FSR so it’s only fair that you have to deal with it too? I’m not under some moral obligation to support Radeon. Buy AMD! Bread lines for everybody! Down with the bourgeoisie!

 

[Saylick]

Nvidia has people on payroll that develop these features and will implement them for game studios for this reason. The manpower to support DLSS exists, Nvidia would’ve done it themselves for Starfield, RE4, Jedi Survivor, Callisto Protocol, etc. They know that people buy their graphics cards because of their features like DLSS and if majority of AAA titles no longer support these features then their biggest selling point ceases to exist. That’s the point of all of this, taking away Nvidia’s biggest advantage.

Those who bought Nvidia cards aren’t enthusiastic to be collateral damage. There’s a reason why the DLSS mod for Starfield has 200k downloads on NexusMods and the game is still in early access.

Game sponsorships have existed since the dawn of gaming, from both sides of the aisle. It is what it is. I suppose the only difference today vs. days of old are that DLSS is really a game changer technology while all the exclusive features in the past have been "nice to have" rather than "need to have".

I still think a consequence of this is that game developers are just getting lazy. There's a quote about how software expands to fit the box it's in, and it would be true here. If every GPU is now has 30% free performance, it's a 30% lower target the developer has to optimize towards.

How is this situation more fair? The logic is that people who own AMD cards are stuck with FSR so it’s only fair that you have to deal with it too? I’m not under some moral obligation to support Radeon. Buy AMD! Bread lines for everybody! Down with the bourgeoisie!

I'm not saying you have to buy Radeon. I'm just saying the mentality of "I spent more money, therefore I should be treated better" just reeks of entitlement in my opinion, especially when there's no guarantee of better treatment. When those privileges get revoked, equality starts feeling like oppression, doesn't it? Arguing that it's not fair for Nvidia owners to have to use the plebian FSR seems like misplaced ire when the true source of the issue is game developers doing squat for game optimization, thus leading to this belief that DLSS is fundamental in the first place.

Look, AMD and Nvidia will do whatever they deem is beneficial for their business (even if it doesn't work out that way), but people are blaming their problems on the players, not the game (quite literally in this case).

 

[H433x0n]

Game sponsorships have existed since the dawn of gaming, from both sides of the aisle. It is what it is. I suppose the only difference today vs. days of old are that DLSS is really a game changer technology while all the exclusive features in the past have been "nice to have" rather than "need to have".

I still think a consequence of this is that game developers are just getting lazy. There's a quote about how software expands to fit the box it's in, and it would be true here. If every GPU is now has 30% free performance, it's a 30% lower target the developer has to optimize towards.


I'm not saying you have to buy Radeon. I'm just saying the mentality of "I spent more money, therefore I should be treated better" just reeks of entitlement in my opinion, especially when there's no guarantee of better treatment. When those privileges get revoked, equality starts feeling like oppression, doesn't it? Arguing that it's not fair for Nvidia owners to have to use the plebian FSR seems like misplaced ire when the true source of the issue is game developers doing squat for game optimization, thus leading to this belief that DLSS is fundamental in the first place.

Look, AMD and Nvidia will do whatever they deem is beneficial for their business (even if it doesn't work out that way), but people are blaming their problems on the players, not the game (quite literally in this case).

Okay, let’s say Microsoft purchases ARM. Shortly after they release Windows 12 and it no longer supports x86 performance extensions and avx512 was dropped with the excuse that they had a really busy development schedule.

Are the people who own x86 powered processors entitled?

 

[DAPUNISHER]

Okay, let’s say Microsoft purchases ARM. Shortly after they release Windows 12 and it no longer supports x86 performance extensions and avx512 was dropped with the excuse that they had a really busy development schedule.

Are the people who own x86 powered processors entitled?

You're getting way offtopic now. Please stop.

 

[DAPUNISHER]

GN has new testing including GPU busy. Ram speed once it gets to a good level doesn't change performance that much. At least not with their modules. It likes clockspeed, and overclocking will benefit older CPU owners especially.

Looks like the lower power usage on cards is due to waiting around on the CPU to feed it. The high end LGA 1700 CPUs shine in this game. Nothing spectacular, but still getting the W when CPU bound.

 

[Saylick]

Okay, let’s say Microsoft purchases ARM. Shortly after they release Windows 12 and it no longer supports x86 performance extensions and avx512 was dropped with the excuse that they had a really busy development schedule.

Are the people who own x86 powered processors entitled?

Just to make sure I'm on the same page, you're saying that in this scenario MS buys ARM and then drops all optimizations for x86 and focuses Windows exclusively for ARM processors, assuming that x86 is still supported, just not prioritized for optimization?

If I described the scenario correctly, then I don't think x86 users deserve anything unless MS explicitly guaranteed that x86 processors would get optimizations for the foreseeable future, which they clearly do not. Even today, MS makes no guarantee of that. If x86 users started complaining with some belief that they "deserve" X number of years of Windows optimization, I'd laugh.

But why hypothesize when we have a more concrete example: Apple. Apple eventually phased out x86 in favor of their own ARM processors a few years ago. Do you think the Mac owners with Intel processors "deserve" some kind of special treatment during that transition? There's literally nothing that stopped Apple if they wanted to do the transition abruptly and said to its customer "Sorry, sucks to suck" and it would've be in their total legal power to do so. However, for the sake of keeping their customers and developers happy, they offered a transition over the course of a year via Rosetta 2, but don't confuse that move with Apple feeling like customers should be rewarded for their loyalty and thus "deserve" it. That move was purely business.

Now, before you say I am pro-corporate, all I wanted to point out is that businesses will do whatever they deem necessary. That's all it is. It's fact. AMD will sponsor games, as will Nvidia. Hating one company over the other is a fool's errand when the system itself is flawed. Again, people are hating the players instead of hating the game.

 

[DAPUNISHER]

@Saylick

You were likely typing your reply when I posted. You two are way off topic. Please stop.

 

[VirtualLarry]

The APIs move a lot of extra complexity and optimization onto game programmers engine developers.

Fixed that for you.

 

[psolord]

I am only here to post some screenshots of the game, on my ancient 2500k paired with a rx6600, lol (tertiary system for silly tests). High preset, fsr2 and resolution slider to minimum.

Yeah, it still manages some frametimes at 16.66ms. It ain't much, but it's honest work. I swear to God, I played whole indoor fights and was very smooth. It tanks outside tho. Considering that on Gen 9 consoles, all frametimes are locked at 33.33ms and this is a Gen7 era system, I'm impressed.

Also come on guys, the game looks great. It's true next gen (aside from the mediocre npcs). You are forgetting how previous bethesda games looked. They must have used a damn good duck tape. xD