Starfield doesn't have Nvidia's DLSS at launch, but there could be hope for it in the future

Starfield character Sam Coe facing the camera while standing in a space ship interior.

(Image credit: Tyler C. / Bethesda)

Starfield doesn't support Nvidia's DLSS supersampling tech, which is commonly used to help games run better on low graphics settings, but that doesn't rule it out from being implemented in the future.

When Bethesda's sci-fi RPG launches later today, you will only find AMD's version of the AI-powered resolution upscaling tech in the graphics settings. You can only use AMD's FidelityFX Super Resolution 2 (FSR 2) or its FidelityFX Contrast Adaptive Sharpening (CAS) to try to improve performance.

Although AMD is Bethesda's "exclusive PC partner" for Starfield, the company said last week that there's nothing stopping the developer from adding support for Nvidia's DLSS. Other recently released AMD-partnered games are inconsistent about including both versions of the tech: Star Wars Jedi: Survivor doesn't support DLSS, but Immortals of Aveum does.

Nvidia graphics card owners can still get some performance benefits from AMD's FSR 2. If you struggle to run the game at your monitor's resolution, you can flip it on to see if it increases your frame rate without making the game a fuzzy mess. You can play with the sharpening setting to alleviate this, too.

Bethesda hasn't said whether or not it plans to add DLSS to Starfield. The inevitable influx of mods might be the only way to ever run the game with it. DLSS 3.5 is set to drop in the next few months with new solutions to reduce visual noise and increase frame rate over previous versions. Unfortunately, DLSS 3.5's new features require work on the game developer's side, so if Starfield ends up with an older version, you won't be able to drag in some files to update it yourself.

In our Starfield review, Chris said, "Starfield is plenty janky and a bit buggy, but I also found it extremely stable." The rest of the staff at PC Gamer who have been playing the game seem to agree that the game might be Bethesda's least buggy release yet. Outside of some open world jank, Starfield runs fine on a variety of rigs.

Starfield will launch for early access players today, and will release for everyone else next week.

Tyler has covered games, games culture, and hardware for over a decade before joining PC Gamer as Associate Editor. He's done in-depth reporting on communities and games as well as criticism for sites like Polygon, Wired, and Waypoint. He's interested in the weird and the fascinating when it comes to games, spending time probing for stories and talking to the people involved. Tyler loves sinking into games like Final Fantasy 14, Overwatch, and Dark Souls to see what makes them tick and pluck out the parts worth talking about. His goal is to talk about games the way they are: broken, beautiful, and bizarre.