Starfield’s 60FPS Mode Put Through Its Paces On Xbox Series S

Digital Foundry has the answers

by Ben Kerry 7:30pm

During Gamescom 2024, Bethesda announced that its recent Xbox Series X performance options for Starfield were also coming to Series S – with 60FPS becoming an official target in both Xbox versions of the game. Well, as you’d expect, Digital Foundry has been testing things out on Series S since the update dropped – delivering all the juicy details on how the console handles high-frame rate Starfield.

To nobody’s surprise, it doesn’t perform quite as well as Xbox Series X, turning in some fairly low resolution figures to hit those higher frames. Here’s what the outlet had to say about the visual hit:

“The visuals mode remains at 900p internally, but the performance mode gets a substantial cut – down to just 432p in my counts. Dynamic resolution is a possibility, though I didn’t encounter it in my tests… but both modes do use variable rate shading.

The visuals mode is then being reconstructed to something like 1440p here, while the performance mode appears closer to 1080p. There’s an obvious difference in image clarity, though the bigger issue comes down to how the performance mode struggles to resolve fine geometry, and elements like backlit signs.”

The team goes on to test performance levels here, which ultimately depend on where you are in the game world. Indoor areas stay pretty close to 60FPS in the performance mode, while outdoor regions play out at a more varied frame rate – although much higher than the only launch-day option of 30FPS of course.

DF also notes that Xbox Series S does support the Series X’s 40 and 120FPS caps too, which is good to see, even if you’re unlikely to get anywhere near 120 on Microsoft’s all-digital machine. Anyway, if you’d like to see all of this in action, alongside a much more tech-y explanation for all of this, feel free to check out the video at the top of this article.

Series S users, are you going to test this out for yourselves? Hit us up down in the comments.

[source youtu.be]

Ben is a News Writer at Pure Xbox, and is a fan of action, racing and straight-up shootin’ in any Xbox game he can get his hands on. When he’s not clutching an Xbox controller like his life depends on it, Ben spends his time listening to music that’s far too old for him, watching football on the telly and probably eating somewhere.

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