Starfield Now Runs On Ancient Hardware, Courtesy Of A Modder

A potato's size matters not, it's the utilization that makes all the difference.

By Saad Ali September 7, 2023

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A new mod for Starfield is live, allowing Bethesda’s latest IP to run on outdated hardware.
The mod functions by turning all of the game’s textures into 128-bit size, freeing up a sizeable porting of VRAM. In conjunction with lower graphics presets, this provides a fair boost in performance.

Mere days after its release, Starfield received its very own Potato Mod, allowing Bethesda’s latest opus to run on hardware from the dark ages. The modding community continues to impress us with its ingenuity, as the author of this mod, BulwarkHD, explains how his invention achieves such a feat. You can find their work over on Nexus Mods.

Does your PC have 1gb of Vram? Is it so old your grandpa used it to play Morrowind? Or do you hate high resolution textures and want to get rid of them? Try this mod out and see if it works for you!”

Stripping it down to the basic level, the mod simply turns all textures in Starfield into 128-bit size. Lowering these textures to such a low level frees up VRAM allowing the game to run with greater smoothness and higher overall consistency albeit with a rather prominent dose of downgraded visuals. Nevertheless, you would have to sacrifice something of great importance if you intend to run such a game on outdated hardware.

It’s also worth noting that while the mod severely dials back the textures in Starfield, it doesn’t do away with its more taxing elements. These include volumetric lightning, physics simulation, etc. If you wish to get a greater boost in performance, changing these settings from the in-game menu or the .ini files is a valid option. It goes without saying that those changes in conjunction with the mod should yield favorable results.

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Starfield is Bethesda’s first new intellectual property in 25 years. Having launched exclusively on Xbox Series X|S and PC with Day One availability on Game Pass, it has garnered positive reviews with a rating of 87 on Metacritic. Furthermore, it has exceeded 1 million concurrent players across all platforms clearly indicating that players have welcomed Bethesda’s new universe with open arms.