There is a new interesting rumor that looks like Starfield’s partnership with AMD is going to pay off, for Bethesda and for PC players.
It all started with a rumor shared by Youtube account Moore’s Law is Dead. This is the transcript of the rumor that was shared to him:
“AMD just notified us (OEM) to expect FSR3 briefings this week. It’s supposedly going to be ready by Q4, and most likely in September!
Their goal is to have it out for Navi 32 reviews.”
FSR3 stands for FidelityFX Super Resolution 3. It will be the latest iteration of AMD’s upscaling technology. Right until now, the public did not have a clear idea of how much longer AMD would be working on FSR3 and when it would be releasing. Given that Nvidia has been hyping up their own upscaler, DLSS3, for around a year now, FSR3 threatens to ruin Nvidia’s good time.
As this explainer on XDA Developers points out, while DLSS uses AI for its image upscaling, FSR uses traditional upscaling techniques and technologies. It’s strength is an asset for the broader swathe of gamers, as opposed to the smaller subset of PC users who can use AI technology on their computers.
On a technical level, FSR doesn’t make HD images even higher quality. Instead, it specializes in making lower resolution visuals look even more higher resolution, with its main trick being generating additional animation frames.
As for Navi 32, that’s simply the name of AMD’s latest GPU. It’s built with RNDA 3.0 architecture, and is being manufactured with TMSC’s 5nm production process. With Navi 32 GPUs arriving to the market as soon as next month, it may hit the market with only a few days gap from Starfield’s launch.
As reported by Overlock 3D, this ties in nicely with a rumor that they had also heard. It’s possible that FSR3’s launch game will be no less than Starfield. If that rumor is true, it would be a gigantic benefit to AMD, Bethesda, and Microsoft.
This will make both Starfield and AMD’s newest Navi 32 GPUs huge selling points for each other. If you’re playing Starfield on PC, you can get the best performance, better than on Xbox Series X, if you pay for AMD’s latest GPUs. Subsequently, if you’re on the fence about upgrading to AMD’s GPUs, the selling point is Starfield. You will already be using that state of the art GPU on one of the biggest games of the year.
Some fans may not want to hear it, but this seems like ample justification for Bethesda to partner with AMD after all. If this was part of the deal from the onset, than Bethesda just happened to pull the trigger on what could be a very big deal for PC gaming. As it turns out, just because Bethesda was bought to make Xbox games, doesn’t mean they still couldn’t have an impact on PCs.
Starfield releases on September 6, 2023, on Xbox Series X|S, and on Windows via Steam. It will also be Day One on Game Pass.
