StarfieldPrefs.ini Tweaks for Playing with an "Outdated" Rig

[shizo]

According to Bethesda and some "UltraHighDefinition" gamers, my 2015 MSI GT 80 with 4thGen i7 4720HQ and 32GB Ram , GTX980 SLI and SSD Raid is not recommended to play Starfield! And yet I managed to play the game with 45-60FPS. Due to the technology and in view of the massive size of 125 GB I have everything only on low, which is still enough for me. With the settings I chose a render size of 1280x720 which is then blown up by the AMD FSR2 to a full HD.

Here for you the StarfieldPrefs.ini in the folder C:\Users\YourUser\Documents\My Games\Starfield


[General]
uInterior Cell Buffer=12
uExterior Cell Buffer=48
iPreloadSizeLimit=2147483647
bPreemptivelyUnloadCells=1
iNumHWThreads=8
bUseThreadedBlood=1
bUseThreadedMorpher=1
bUseThreadedTempEffects=1
bUseThreadedParticleSystem=1
bUseThreadedAI=1
bUseMultiThreadedFaceGen=1
bUseMultiThreadedTrees=1
#iFPSClamp=30
SIntroSequence=0
uMainMenuDelayBeforeAllowSkip=0
[PostEffects]
fCASSharpnessValue=0.7500
[Display]
iSize W=1280
iSize H=720
bDynamicResolutionEnabled=0
fRenderResolutionScaleFactor=0.6500
bHasRunAutoQualitySettings=1
uiUpscaleTech=3
fFilmGrainIntensity=0.0000
bDepthOfFieldEnable=1
bTemporalAA_idTech7=0
bEnableVsync=1
sAntiAliasing=FXAA
iPresentInterval=0
bForceIgnoreSmoothness=1
fMaxAnisotropy=4
[Bethesda.net]
uPersistentUuidData3_Steam=3945904458
uPersistentUuidData2_Steam=2524820833
uPersistentUuidData1_Steam=3604172047
uPersistentUuidData0_Steam=1905607596
[Archive]
bInvalidateOlderFiles=1
[HAVOK]
fMaxTime=0.0333
[Volumes]
bShowVolumeGeometry=0
[Legal]
bHasUserAccepted=1
[Interface]
bGeneralSubtitles=0
bDamageNumbersEnabled=1
fHUDOpacity=0.7500
bShowOnlyActiveQuestTargets=1
[Audio]
fAudioVolumeVoice=0.8000
fAudioVolumeMusic=0.5000
[Controls]
bUseLocaleVoices=1
fMouseHeadingSensitivity=0.0265
[SaveGame]
fAutosaveEveryXMins=5.0000
[GamePlay]
uDifficulty=1
[MotionBlur]
bEnableMotionBlur=0
[Quality]
uGlobalRendererQuality=0
uVolumetricLighting=0
uParticle=0
uReflections=0
uGlobalIllumination=0
uShadows=0
uContactShadows=0
uGrass=0
uSAO=0
uCrowd=0
[Camera]
fTPWorldFOV=85.2000

[MJ1911]

iSize H=720...

U got a screenshot? I mean u got Shadows and grass and a lot of things turned off that I've got a picture of Minecraft running on a PS2 in my mind.

[Jaggid Edje]

Originally posted by MJ1911:

iSize H=720...

U got a screenshot? I mean u got Shadows and grass and a lot of things turned off that I've got a picture of Minecraft running on a PS2 in my mind.

When you play on a potato PC, you aren't exactly expecting all that much.

[shizo]

Originally posted by Jaggid Edje:

Originally posted by MJ1911:

iSize H=720...

U got a screenshot? I mean u got Shadows and grass and a lot of things turned off that I've got a picture of Minecraft running on a PS2 in my mind.

When you play on a potato PC, you aren't exactly expecting all that much.

How arrogant can you actually be? What are the specs of a potato PC? It's about showing that the specs are sufficient for the game. With a little more optimization, the requirements could definitely be adjusted downwards. But you Americans always have to have the latest and greatest! I don't like your comment

[shizo]

Originally posted by MJ1911:

iSize H=720...

U got a screenshot? I mean u got Shadows and grass and a lot of things turned off that I've got a picture of Minecraft running on a PS2 in my mind.

as I said, it's not about having the best graphics quality in the world, but about being able to play the game. I miss being able to adjust the resolution - in window mode I can even adjust the quality a little better to run smoothly at 25 - 30 fps, but window is just ugly. I set the render size to 65% Full HD (which corresponds to about 720p) with 75% sharpening - but the quality drops significantly in places due to dynamic rendering.

[shizo]

https://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561198055252043/screenshot/2136453395977043160/

https://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561198055252043/screenshot/2136453395977042514/

[EzRyder]

gratz, thats some impressive 'tuning'

im glad your able to play but kinda sad for your seeing the game in that manner, the game looks good when its on fair settings and i can only guess your missing that aspect
but im a realist and i know we all do what we can
so im glad you got it going- great job
cheers

edit
after seeing the pics its really not as bad as i thought it would be, a bit bland but hey playable is playable

[Jaggid Edje]

Originally posted by shizo:

How arrogant can you actually be? What are the specs of a potato PC? It's about showing that the specs are sufficient for the game. With a little more optimization, the requirements could definitely be adjusted downwards. But you Americans always have to have the latest and greatest! I don't like your comment

The irony of you being upset with my comment is that in your very next post, you confirmed exactly what I said:

Originally posted by shizo:

it's not about having the best graphics quality in the world, but about being able to play the game.

"Potato PC" is just a term for a PC on which you need to sacrifice visual quality for playability. I'm sorry if your PC is hyper-sensitive to being labeled.

[shizo]

Originally posted by Jaggid Edje:

"Potato PC" is just a term for a PC on which you need to sacrifice visual quality for playability. I'm sorry if your PC is hyper-sensitive to being labeled.

I hope you read the Specs of this Machine... The minimum for Starfield is 6th Gen i7 CPU communicated, but the technical jump from Intel 4th Gen to 6th Gen was not incredible! So its not clear why the tech specs for a Game so High ... And i can show you that it run good on my Machine. I don't want to have to explain why I want to run the game on my hardware - The games are made for gamers and not for the chip industry.

[SylenThunder]

Originally posted by shizo:

I hope you read the Specs of this Machine... The minimum for Starfield is 6th Gen i7 CPU communicated, but the technical jump from Intel 4th Gen to 6th Gen was not incredible! So its not clear why the tech specs for a Game so High ... And i can show you that it run good on my Machine. I don't want to have to explain why I want to run the game on my hardware - The games are made for gamers and not for the chip industry.

Just a note here. I had a 3rd-gen i7-3930k that I overclocked. It would run on-par with an i7-8700k. If you have the right base CPU, you can do a lot with it using just a little bit of tweaking. The primary limitation with that system was the RAM being only 1800Mhz, and the efficiency of the data bus for the hard drives. Since I bought a top-tier motherboard, it wasn't as bad as it could have been with most of the hardware of that generation. That system served me well until about two years ago when then motherboard died. I still have a system around here with that CPU though I could set up for testing.

[shizo]

Another small correction for stability (note the diamond to exclude the option)

The CAS Upscaler work a bit more stable than the FAS2 | Also the dynamic Resolution OFF brings a bit more details and sharper graphic - The interior/exterior Cell Buffer Option dont bring better stability but the preload size limit works nice by detailed scenery - a can now also run the Crowd settings to Medium for more People in place

You can also experiment to change settings in the Low|mid|high|ultra .ini in the Ingame Folder for finetuning the Engine settings for your rig - but these ini files are everytime replaced by Updates or Recheck the integrety of the Gamefiles!

[General]
iNumHWThreads=8
bUseThreadedAI=1
uInterior Cell Buffer=16
uExterior Cell Buffer=25
iPreloadSizeLimit=26214400
bDisplayCreditCTA=0
uiMarketplaceUpdatedHash=0
bEnableMessageOfTheDay=0
bDisplayCreditCTA=0
[PostEffects]
fCASSharpnessValue=0.5000
[Display]
fRenderResolutionScaleFactor=0.6500
uiLastVersionAutodetectRun=1
uiMigratedRendererSettingsFlags=3
uiUpscaleTech=4294967295
iSize H=1049
iSize W=1920
iLocation X=-8
uDisplayHash=1447668589
fFilmGrainIntensity=0.1500
uiUpscalingTechnique=2
sAntiAliasing=FXAA
fMaxAnisotropy=4.0000
bLayeredMaterialAllSamplersForceUseAnisotropic=1
bEnableVsync=1
bDynamicResolutionEnabled=1
[SaveGame]
fAutosaveEveryXMins=10.0000
[Interface]
fHUDOpacity=0.7500
bDamageNumbersEnabled=1
bDialogueSubtitles=0
bDialogueEnable=0
bGeneralSubtitles=0
bShowOnlyActiveQuestTargets=1
[CreationsMenu]
bMusicOn=0
[Controls]
bUseLocaleVoices=1
[Audio]
fAudioVolumeMusic=0.5000
[Camera]
fFPWorldFOV=80
fTPWorldFOV=80
fTPShipFOV=80
bDisableAutoVanityMode=1
[GamePlay]
uDifficulty=1
bSaveOnRest=1
bSaveOnWait=1
bCheckForMissingContentOnStartup=1
[Bethesda.net]
uPersistentUuidData3_Steam=1134633691
uPersistentUuidData2_Steam=2618260931
uPersistentUuidData1_Steam=652298050
uPersistentUuidData0_Steam=349679189
[Legal]
iHasUserAcceptedVersion=1
bHasUserAccepted=1
[Volumes]
bShowVolumeGeometry=0
[Quality]
uVolumetricLighting=0
uParticle=0
uReflections=0
uGlobalIllumination=0
uShadows=0
uContactShadows=0
uGrass=0
uSAO=0
uCrowd=1

[tkwoods]

Originally posted by shizo:

Originally posted by Jaggid Edje:

"Potato PC" is just a term for a PC on which you need to sacrifice visual quality for playability. I'm sorry if your PC is hyper-sensitive to being labeled.

I hope you read the Specs of this Machine... The minimum for Starfield is 6th Gen i7 CPU communicated, but the technical jump from Intel 4th Gen to 6th Gen was not incredible! So its not clear why the tech specs for a Game so High ... And i can show you that it run good on my Machine. I don't want to have to explain why I want to run the game on my hardware - The games are made for gamers and not for the chip industry.

First, I commend you for sharing this information. Many would not attempt to do what you have done.

But please note, most PC uses are not in this technically oriented position.

Bethesda needs to account for the average player. That is why they set the requirements as they do.

As far as optimizing the game for lesser hardware, there is no reason for them to spend any time on it. Most systems are changed out making it unnecessary. Creating a game to run on current technology helps the longevity of the game going forward.

[shizo]

Originally posted by tkwoods:

First, I commend you for sharing this information. Many would not attempt to do what you have done.

But please note, most PC uses are not in this technically oriented position.

Bethesda needs to account for the average player. That is why they set the requirements as they do.

As far as optimizing the game for lesser hardware, there is no reason for them to spend any time on it. Most systems are changed out making it unnecessary. Creating a game to run on current technology helps the longevity of the game going forward.

Yes i Know - but the reason for the insability is only the bandwith of Loading - if you tweak the Game .ini so its not the problem to play the Game - and that should also be in the interest of the manufacturer that his game is playable. The access time of an M2 SSD is 550MB/s and there is a reason why Bethesda as well as CD Red currently write that they recommend SSDs and not HDDs - but you should also consider that not every rig has an NVME installed and optimize for that. 120 GB for a game is already a great number, but of course it also looks mighty great - even on the lowest detail level.

I must also add that I still have problems with the latest NVIDIA driver. In-game is not even the problem but my system has microrukler in normal desktop operation with it and therefore I can only use the driver 528.49 from February. Nvidia has analyzed it and I hope that the next one after 545.92 fixes the bug.

I also reset the Intel chipset drivers to the "recommended by Microsoft" - not every new driver works better. But I can still play with 30-60 fps. Even the 6th Gen i7 doesn't have a great increase in performance. I really hope that they are still working on the stability of the engine.

Until then I just run slowly - then the system has enough time to preload and calculate ^^

[Mountain Man]

Originally posted by shizo:

So its not clear why the tech specs for a Game so High ...

It's perfectly clear why: Bethesda was unwilling to sacrifice visual fidelity in order to make the game playable on obsolete computer hardware.

[shizo]

Originally posted by Mountain Man:

It's perfectly clear why: Bethesda was unwilling to sacrifice visual fidelity in order to make the game playable on obsolete computer hardware.

it runs 30-60 FPS

[MJ1911]

Sorry Shizo about the ignorance of my comment. I was responding to you while the game was downloading. I just thought that all those values at zero meant they were turned off, but they weren't. Zero in this case just meant low.

Dont worry, did my time at 720p low, 30fps myself, but the good news is I got myself out of that rut without any hardware upgrades. I undervolted CPU and GPU, I created custom resolutions (ie, i turned my 2560x1440p monitor into a 2560x1080 one) to improve performance. And i fully utilised Radeon Chill and VRR together so that I don't need to have a solid 60 for a smooth experience. Got it running 1440p no FSR, medium settings. Not a total win, but i'll take what i can get.

P.S.
potatoes are awesome.