Starfield Graphics Settings Optimization Guide

Bethesda’s latest AAA video game, Starfield stays true to its NASA-punk spirit because it’s so demanding, you’re going to need a NASA computer to run the game on PC. Hyperboles aside, Starfield’s hardware demand is quite blindsiding to a lot of PC owners. But with the help of our Starfield graphics settings optimization guide, you might just squeeze more performance out of your gaming rig.

In true Bethesda fashion, there’s plenty more tweaking you can perform on the settings in order to ensure the most optimal framerate. At the same time, we also aim to preserve as much of the game’s beauty and graphical fidelity with our Starfield graphics settings optimization guide. 

We’ll help you tweak each setting to ensure a good balance of image quality and performance– before mods are applied. So you can expect even more of a performance increase after modding.

Starfield System Requirements

Before we get to the settings, we’d like to remind everyone the requirements for Starfield on PC: 

Starfield minimum PC specs

• OS: Windows 10 version 22H2 (10.0.19045)
• Processor: AMD Ryzen 5 2600X or Intel Core i7-6800K
• Memory: 16 GB RAM
• Graphics: AMD Radeon RX 5700 or Nvidia GeForce GTX 1070 Ti
• DirectX: Version 12
• Storage: 125 GB available space
• Additional Notes: SSD Required

Starfield recommended PC specs

• OS: Windows 10/11 with updates
• Processor: AMD Ryzen 5 3600X or Intel Core i5-10600K
• Memory: 16 GB RAM
• Graphics: AMD Radeon RX 6800 XT or Nvidia GeForce RTX 2080
• DirectX: Version 12
• Network: Broadband Internet connection
• Storage: 125 GB available space
• Additional Notes: SSD Required

Sadly, those are not for a smooth 60 FPS on native resolution (without upscaling). You’re going to need something a lot beefier than an RTX 2080 in order to run the game at a consistent 60 FPS in a resolution higher than 1080p.

But with our following Starfield graphics settings optimization, you might just hit the right balance. We’re targeting mid-range hardware for these settings, by the way. Low-end hardware (anything weaker than an RTX 2060) might have to settle for the Low preset.

Graphics Settings Guide

Resolution should be native to your monitor and it’s up to you whether you want to use V-Sync or not, we do have a guide for V-Sync. 

In any case, these are our recommendations for Starfield: 

Dynamic Resolution – Off

Dynamic resolution will situationally decrease the game’s pixel count or resolution based on the framerate. While that might seem really helpful in action scenes, we still don’t want this setting turned on since Starfield is way too reliant on upscaling tech to achieve a stable or smooth framerate.

Pairing that with Dynamic Resolution will only further degrade the image quality and it might even hurt enemy visibility when you’re sniping or shooting from afar.

Render Resolution Scale – 75 to 80 percent

Render Resolution Scale is only enabled when you use upscaling and you’ll want to since the game is way too demanding. This setting determines how much upscaling will downscale the game’s resolution and then upscale it back to native through AI or a guesswork algorithm.

Sure enough, higher percentages result in more crisp images. And anything below 75 percent introduces aliasing, shimmering, blurring, or ghosting which the upscaling tech can’t expertly hide. In fact, anything below 80 percent is a noticeable degradation in image quality, so try to keep it in the 75-80 percent range. 

Higher is better if your hardware can afford the performance hit.

Graphics Preset – Custom

It will automatically be set to Custom if you tweak the individual settings so it’s best to leave it at this state.

Shadow Quality – Medium

There’s a somewhat dramatic decrease in crispness going from Ultra to High but Ultra is just too taxing on the hardware. You might get more defined shadow edges and darker shadows but you might also lose nearly double-digit FPS numbers in the process.

Meanwhile, High to Medium has an almost negligible difference but comes with a substantial framerate increase. Low is not worth it despite the massive FPS boost since the game’s visual atmosphere will suffer and shadows will be too pixelated.

Indirect Lighting – Ultra

Surprisingly, Indirect Lighting can have an adverse effect on the aliasing and pixelation in the low setting. You might be hard-pressed to find changes going from Ultra to High, but if you want a sharp image, it’s best to just leave it on Ultra.

The performance impact is next to nothing anyway.

Reflections – Medium/Low

This one is more noticeable in environments such as New Atlantis (especially in front of the MAST office). Cranking Reflections down from High to Medium introduces a noticeable increase in framerate (around 2-4 FPS if you’re in the 40 FPS range). That’s enough to keep the framerate from dipping below 40 FPS.

If you don’t want to notice too much of a visual impact, then you can just settle for Medium Reflections. 

We’d also like to note that even on High, the reflections aren’t ray-traced so their quality is far from aesthetically pleasing, meaning High isn’t worth it for the framerate loss.

Particle Quality – High

It’s hard to gauge and measure the impact of this setting since there’s virtually none even in areas with lots of particle effects. Visual impact going from High to Low is also difficult to spot.

So you might as well set this one to High.

Volumetric Lighting – Medium

As with most next-gen games, Volumetric Lighting is quite the performance hog. In Starfield, Volumetric Lighting on High and Ultra offers identical performance and visual impact.

Going down from High to Medium yields a substantial framerate increase (around 5 FPS or more). And the visual difference is negligible, thankfully. Unless you’re looking for the differences in the brightness of the light sources under a hazy smog or smoke effect, there’s almost no difference going from High to Medium.

Crowd Density – High/Medium

Crowd Density is more complex than it appears since this setting is more reliant on the CPU for pathing a locale’s pedestrian. 

You can safely set it to High, but if you find yourself in settlements with unacceptable framerate, then you can try setting it to Medium to see if the frame rate will improve.

Motion Blur – Preference

No performance impact for this one. It’s up to you whether you like it or not. It merely simulates realistic eye focus where sudden perspective shifts will blur the details during motion. Some find it annoying.

GTAO Quality – Ultra/High

GTAO or ambient occlusion is another setting you want at the highest, possibly. It simulates the effect of light and small shadows around objects and crevices or corners. Simply put, it makes environments look less flat.

Turning it down to either Medium or Low will make the game look too outdated. The good news is that it’s not a demanding setting. You might lose around 1-2 FPS going from Low to Ultra.

Grass Quality – Medium

This setting obviously only impacts areas with grass and extensive vegetation but the effect is more pronounced in the aforementioned locales. 

Ultra is unnecessary unless you’re looking to push your gaming PC. High is a good balance between quality and performance, but it’s still quite a hog. You can save around 2-3 FPS more if you turn it down from High to Medium and you’ll likely not notice the difference unless you’re sensitive to polygon pop-in.

Contact Shadows – Ultra/High/Medium

Contact Shadows affect how different shades and intensities of shadows blend on surfaces. Medium, High, and Ultra all look too homogenous to consider one over the other and there’s virtually no performance difference. 

Just go with Ultra if you want.

Upscaling – FSR 2.0/DLSS

FSR 2.0 does a good job of maintaining the image quality despite the downscaling and upscaling. As we mentioned before, you need this setting enabled if you want smooth gameplay– the native resolution in the game also uses TAA so the image will be blurred out anyway, just pick the tastier poison, which is FSR 2.0 with around 75 to 80 percent resolution scale.

There is one glaring issue with FSR 2.0, however. The image ghosting is oftentimes unbearable (check the moving LED letters in the New Atlantis Spaceport station). Moreover, it works better on AMD GPUs.

If you have an Nvidia GPU, you can download the DLSS mod for a better performance yield and a lot less motion ghosting compared to FSR 2.0.

Sharpening – at least 70 percent

Sharpening is the compensation method you’ll mandatorily use if you have FSR 2.0 or any kind of upscaling. That’s because any upscaling tech will blur the image since it downscales the resolution and upscales (or rebuilds) it for more framerate. Just leave this one at default as too much Sharpening can make the game look cel-shaded.

Enable VRS – On

VRS can help performance by dynamically reducing the detail around the center of the screen or the periphery since most players will usually only focus on or near the crosshairs anyway. 

This might help during fights and you might find it hard to notice the difference in quality so just enable it. You need any FPS boost you can with this game otherwise gunplay will feel sluggish.

Feel free to tweak and install mods

At the end of the day, it’s up to you whether you find out settings satisfactory. Perhaps your hardware can spare more framerate and can handle higher Shadow quality or more grass; in that case, feel free to try out what works for you.

More importantly, you can also test out further improvements by downloading some custom .ini tweaks and presets from the true heroes of Starfield, the modders.