The main way that a game goes exclusive is via platforms, but it can also do so in terms of software. Starfield has made headlines by deciding to form a partnership with semiconductor company AMD leading up to its release. Although AMD has a reputation for quality graphics cards, the partnership has many players concerned about how it will affect Starfield performance. The space-faring game will be one of the biggest releases of the year, and since it will only be appearing on Xbox and PC, people want some guarantee that it will run as well as possible.
Starfield and AMD FSR Technology
Since Starfield revealed its Microsoft exclusivity, people have been following its development quite closely. With PC being much more accessible and common than Xbox, how it’s going to run on computers was a primary focus. However, Starfield has agreed to an exclusive partnership with AMD to run its expansive universe.
The problem, according to Games Radar and Kotaku, is that many players are worried and even angered over the fact that AMD may not have the necessary tech to support everything that such a huge game would require. AMD exclusivity means the game may not support Nvidia technology such as DLSS and XeSS, and may even have problems with ray-tracing or delivering a smooth performance. Instead, the game will use AMD’s own FSR technology.
Similar to No Man’s Sky, Starfield is boasting a huge universe with countless planets that players will be able to visit during the story and at their leisure. Space travel that feels huge definitely takes a lot of processing power, and even previous games that tried to capture it struggled with trying to get it to play effectively. Now that AMD is the choice for Starfield, players will not be able to run it using Nvidia’s superior DLSS, which is a big draw for PC users with Nvidia graphics cards.
Everyone is watching what Starfield does very closely, especially when it comes to how it will perform when it releases. With several AMD-focused features, concerns will continue to grow, especially among players with Nvidia hardware. We can only hope that some sort of alternative will reveal itself — or at least that AMD’s tech is up to the job.
