TECH NEWS – Starfield, the new monumental role-playing game developed by Bethesda, generally runs more efficiently on AMD GPUs than NVIDIA GPUs, according to a new in-depth analysis published online this week.

ChipsAndCheese analyzed the game’s performance on both NVIDIA and AMD’s latest flagship graphics cards, the RTX 4090 and RX 7900 XTX. Their results show that the AMD cards perform better at all resolutions, although the difference decreases at higher resolutions. Based on information gathered by Reddit user Mikereysalo, ChipsAndCheese highlights that the AMD graphics card has several architectural advantages in this game. These advantages include the use of cores with fewer but larger register files, which allows the GPU to handle more threads per core, resulting in higher utilization and thus better performance. In addition, higher L2 bandwidth and the use of Wave 64, which handles half as many threads as Wave 32 but offers some performance advantages, also contribute to the improved performance of AMD cards.

So in the case of Starfield, it is not the NVIDIA GPUs that are underperforming, but the AMD GPUs that are outperforming. ChipsAndCheese concludes that NVIDIA’s strategy in this game is due to the RTX 4090’s massive shader array. As a result, it measures 55.2 FPS and a response time of 18.1 ms on the frames tested, while the AMD 7900 XTX falls slightly short with a response time of 20.2 ms and almost 50 FPS.

The full analysis has a lot more interesting stuff, so be sure to check out the original material to understand how Starfield takes advantage of the unique architectural features of AMD GPUs.

Despite the fact that performance may be an issue for some, Starfield is a compelling RPG worth picking up for its engaging story, meaningful content, and sophisticated combat mechanics, which I’ve written about in my own review.

With well-developed characters, a deep story and rich content, Starfield is one of Bethesda’s most outstanding creations and one of the best RPGs of recent years. Although the game does not feature any innovations in Bethesda’s usual gameplay mechanics, this does not detract from the experience if you are able to accept these shortcomings. The game’s responsive and expansive sci-fi universe can keep you occupied for hours, even hundreds or thousands of hours.

Starfield is now available worldwide on PC, Xbox Series X and Xbox Series S. It is also available in the Xbox Game Pass library on PC and consoles.

WCCFTECH ChipsAndCheese