Starfield Update Adds 60fps, 40fps, Uncapped Modes for Xbox Series X, Improved Maps; Land Vehicle Coming

Bethesda has been promising the next update for Starfield would be a big one, and it turns out they weren’t exaggerating! The latest Starfield update lands in mid-May, although it’s available in beta right now and brings a lot of requested improvements. You can check out a video running down all the improvements below, or scroll on for our rundown.

The big news is that Starfield’s 30fps cap on Xbox Series X/S is now history. In fact, Bethesda is giving players console players unusual freedom to tinker with their performance settings. Going forward, Starfield on Xbox Series X will have 30fps, 40fps, 60fps, and uncapped framerate options. Unusually for a console game, players can also choose to prioritize visuals or performance independently of the target framerate they’ve chosen, although Bethesda recommends performance mode if you’re looking to run the game at 60fps or above.

• Frame Rate Target: You can now choose between 30, 40, 60 or an Uncapped frame rate on VRR displays. If you do not have a VRR display running 120hz, you will still be able to select from 30 or 60. Screen tearing may occur at times when selecting 60 on a non-VRR display.
• Visual Settings: You can now prioritize between Visuals and Performance while trying to maintain the frame rate target. If you’re choosing a frame rate target of 60 or above, we recommend changing this to Performance. Prioritizing Visuals keeps the highest resolution while maintaining full detail for special effects, lighting, and crowds. Prioritizing Performance lowers internal resolution and detail for special effects, lighting, and crowds. Both modes may adjust internal resolution dynamically when scenes or action get heavier as well. When switching between modes, you will see the lighting change briefly as the system catches up to the new mode.

In addition to the new visual settings, Starfield ver. 1.11.33 also ushers in other improvements, like more detailed and readable surface maps, the ability to decorate the inside of your ships, more options for finetuning difficulty, and more.

• Improved surface maps - We’ve heard your feedback, and we’ve made some big improvements to surface maps, so you’ll always know just where to go and no longer “get lost” on the way to your parents’ place (and they weren’t buying that excuse anyway, you should really go visit them).
• New gameplay options - For those of you who like a bit of an extra challenge or want to make some aspects of the game easier, you can customize your experience with brand new options in the Settings menu. Want to make ground combat harder but ship combat easier? You can do just that!
• Added Ship Decoration mode to the interior of Ships – now you can decorate your ships just like you can with Outposts!
• Added Tabs to Container menus to make managing your inventory easier.
• Added the ability to change Traits and appearance after entering the Unity.
• Added Dialogue camera toggle in the Settings.

A meaty update to be sure, and this isn't the end of the new features, as Bethesda is promising a land vehicle for planetary exploration, official mod support, and, of course, the Shattered Space expansion will arrive in the Fall. Of course, this latest Starfield update also includes a long list of bug fixes. If you need to know about those, you can check out the full, unabridged patch notes here.

Starfield can be played on PC and Xbox Series X/S. The latest update is available in beta and will roll out to everyone on May 15.

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