AMD says it's not blocking Starfield from getting Nvidia's superior performance-boosting tech
Starfield DLSS would get AMD's "full support"
Starfield could get Nvidia's performance-boosting DLSS tech if Bethesda wanted to add it, according to AMD's gaming boss.
"If and when Bethesda wants to put DLSS into the game, they have our full support," AMD gaming lead Frank Azor tells The Verge. Azor goes to some lengths to avoid discussing whatever the specific terms of AMD's contracts with developers look like, but says that in most cases "Money absolutely exchanges hands. When we do bundles, we ask them: ‘Are you willing to prioritize FSR?'" Yet he adds, "“If they ask us for DLSS support, we always tell them yes."
Back in June, Bethesda announced that AMD would be Starfield's "exclusive PC partner," which instantly got fans worried that the RPG would not support the DLSS upscaling technology offered by rival graphics card maker Nvidia. DLSS tends to offer better visuals and performance gains than AMD's own FSR upscaling solution, and while Nvidia-sponsored games tend to support both DLSS and FSR, AMD-sponsored games usually only have the latter.
There's been no indication that Starfield will get official DLSS support, though at least one modder is planning to step up - for a price. The modder behind that project expects to have it done very shortly after launch.
AMD might be closing the gap with DLSS with the next version of FSR, but that refined tech isn't due out until this fall - and Starfield's only using FSR2, anyway.. AMD also recently revealed details on its new Radeon RX 7800 XT and RX 7700 XT GPUs.
Check out the Starfield system requirements if you're getting your PC ready for Bethesda's latest.
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Dustin Bailey joined the GamesRadar team as a Staff Writer in May 2022, and is currently based in Missouri. He's been covering games (with occasional dalliances in the worlds of anime and pro wrestling) since 2015, first as a freelancer, then as a news writer at PCGamesN for nearly five years. His love for games was sparked somewhere between Metal Gear Solid 2 and Knights of the Old Republic, and these days you can usually find him splitting his entertainment time between retro gaming, the latest big action-adventure title, or a long haul in American Truck Simulator.
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