Starfield Gameplay Reportedly Renders At 1296p Despite 30FPS

Microsoft recently showed Starfield gameplay running on the Xbox Series X. Following the event, the game looked so appealing that it quickly became the best-selling game on Steam.

Todd Howard also revealed details about the game’s resolution and frame rate.  Fans were disappointed that the game would not run at 60FPS on Xbox Series S|X. Still, they were glad to learn that the Xbox Series X version would run at 4K resolution.

However, the latest gameplay was reportedly rendered at 1296p, using temporal upscaling to achieve the 4K target.

Why it matters: The Xbox Series X is the most powerful console in the world, and 4K was a huge marketing point for the current generation. However, most games cannot run at a native 4K on recent consoles.

Following the gameplay reveal, Digital Foundry carried out pixel counts on the gameplay.

Alex from Digital Foundry found that one scene featured an internal resolution of 1296p despite the locked 30 FPS. Starfield is being upscaled to 4K from this render resolution.

However, this is a surprisingly low render resolution. As pointed out by Digital Foundry, 1296p is just 60% of 4K resolution. As such, this can be compared to FSR upscaling using balanced mode.

It should be noted that upscaling is not rare in modern games. While the current-gen consoles offer plenty of value for the cost, they struggle to reach the 4K target resolution without upscaling solutions.

Some fans have argued that this low resolution should allow the game to reach higher frame rates, but Starfield appears CPU-bound. The game is massive, with 1000 planets and several gameplay mechanics.

While Digital Foundry’s testing was limited, the final resolution will likely be similar to the 1296p render resolution.

However, Bethesda Game Studios could optimize the game further to improve the resolution target. The game is still a few months away, but the anticipation around Bethesda Game Studios’ latest IP is already at an all-time high.