Gaming

Not doing it also causes issues in the form of micro stutters when some but not other frames have updated physics or not. Frame pacing is hard, and locking everything down happens to be the only sure-fire way to completely eliminate display issues. But then, of course, you have a locked frame rate.

They better delivery that "visual fidelity" if you are already capping at 30 fps on a current-gen console.

People constantly complain about the engine that they use but no other game engine is as flexible when it comes to modding and no other game engine has the same level of complexity when it comes to being able to pick stuff up and move it around. You can take items off a shelf or desk in skyrim and fallout and stack them somewhere else. You can if you want decide to hoard a bunch of garbage you stole and stack them into a pyramid in your home base area.

Are their quirks? Sure the physics tied to framerate in skyrim was a problem, the games are always buggy, and they arent usually the prettiest games out there(though skyrim looked decent when it first came out and the graphical fidelity mods can work magic).

As for the premise does it have to do with fidelity? Of course it does. Setting a framecap on consoles means theyre able to use higher resolution assets, better lighting effects, and more complex models. I understand the preference of giving up fidelity for some smoothness and frames but 30fps isnt totally uncommon in console spaces and this is a bethesda game not a twitch shooter or a 2d fighter.

Outside the PC space gamers hardly ever talk about or think about framer rate. Graphical effects and details and fisual fidelity are a higher priority and more important in a game where generally you mostly just walk around and explore.

It would be nice if they had an option for a lower res mode or less detailed mode and 60fps target, but I get why they made the choice they did and ideally Im sure it'll run at a normal framerate on pc.

Now if it runs poorly on PC then we can riot.

Arm-chair babbling idiot who plays too much video games here, I am one hundred percent convinced that it has nothing to do with visual fidelity and everything to do with that asthmatic engine they've been dragging since Morrowind.

Code doesn't go bad with time, that's not really how it works. And game engines tend to be a Ship of Theseus situation, where just because it's still the same "engine" in theory, doesn't mean that large parts (or all of it), haven't eventually been replaced or refactored over the years.

Unreal Engine has been around for 30 years at this point, would you also consider that an "asthmatic engine"?

No, it's most definitely a choice. You can make any engine run at 60 FPS if you sacrifice something else for it. The RE engine runs beautiful games at 60 FPS, but they had to make all sorts of sacrifices to fidelity to get World Tour in Street Fighter 6 to run at all, let alone at 60 FPS on current gen consoles.

It sure reads like they are saying "more fps makes game look bad", but my assumption is that they mean " if we want this to run at higher fps we will have to reduce fidelity or the engine cant handle it". At least thats what I hope they mean

that asthmatic engine they’ve been dragging since Morrowind

I don't believe that's true at all, though. At least by Wikipedia, Morrowind was NetImmerse, Oblivion was Gamebryo (modified Havok), and Skyrim was Creation. And I remember in the announcements for Skyrim that they remade the engine for the game. And Starfield is an updated engine, Creation 2

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creation_Engine for more

I'm sure you're right about this. Probably the framerate bounces all over the place which feels much worse than simply locking it to 30fps and having a consistent experience. I think a PC has the potential to simply brute force it into 60fps, but an Xbox simply cannot. Which is probably fine. The game is said to run at 4k and 1440p depending on which Xbox you have, and for a game like this where exploration is going to play a big role, those visuals will do a lot of silent storytelling.

I would rather walk over a hill and see an incredible alien sunset on some moon, than have more frames, especially if those frames are bouncing around between 60 and 40 and going over that hill stutters and jerks spoiling the immersion.

If only players could make that choice themselves, perhaps through some sort of graphics settings menu. No, that's crazy and unprecedented, it could never work.

Yeah how dare consumers expect their products to be good

I agree up to a point. If a game is at 30 and feels good to play, then I’m OK. For example, Zelda feels great. Controlling Link is tight and snappy.

On the other hand, if the game has bad frame pacing (like Bloodborne), playing at 30 feels real bad.

I try not to get too crazy about frames, but sometimes some games just don’t feel good.

I will say, though, that while I really like channels like Digital Foundry, I sometimes wonder if them picking apart games to show the most minor frame dips is slowly teaching us to see these things, and as a result we kind of subconsciously will be like, “Well now I noticed this game had some moments where the frames dropped during an explosion. Obviously it’s a bad game.” I know that’s some hyperbole, but still.

I don't know, Bethesda's games have always been iffy when it comes to FPS. Skyrim for example breaks if you mod it to have over 60 fps if I remember correctly. Even on Fallout 76 movement speed was kinda tied to the FPS so players looking at the ground (so that less things render thus increasing FPS) would run faster than others.

I honestly wouldn't be surprised if they cap it to 60 FPS on PC as well.

yeah.. if you have not ever played anything 60fps or more.

They're a wildly different level of detail though. The NMS physics engine is pretty simplistic, mostly effecting NPCs and a very few physics objects. Starfield is like other Bethesda games, tons of little items and junk that all have their own physics and interactions.