There I used to be pondering that I owned a killer gaming PC—a beast of a machine that had effortlessly conquered each aggressive title I’d thrown at it, from Dota 2 to VALORANT. Once I first constructed my gaming rig in 2016, with an NVIDIA GTX 1070, it was some extent of pleasure, a testomony to my dedication to my craft: Aggressive gaming.
Then got here Sept. 1, which introduced Starfield’s early access launch to thousands and thousands of gamers. I used to be able to embark on this interstellar journey with modest expectations. Regardless that I assumed extremely of my gaming PC, I knew it could be an uphill battle, and I used to be positive with no matter body price it might muster. In any case, my PC happy the minimum requirements of Starfield, so what might go improper?
I left my PC on in a single day to pre-load Starfield and awoke feeling excited—solely to be instantly humbled in essentially the most devastating means. As I attempted to launch Starfield for the primary time, error messages flooded my display screen, mocking my system’s meager capabilities. I started testing all of the potential fixes I might discover on the web, and each failed try solid a shadow of doubt in my thoughts.
“Has it actually been seven years since 2016?” I assumed. Was I unfit of enjoying Starfield as a result of I allowed a lot time to cross by me and my gaming PC? As I handled existential crises about my gaming habits, I lastly cracked my means into Starfield as a repair lastly got here by way of.
My pleasure was short-lived, nevertheless, as Starfield’s audio started cutting out, and my frames per second tanked to virtually zero. You see, my trusty SSD, a relic from 2016 when 250 GB was all I might afford, solely had 20GB accessible whereas I used to be putting in Starfield. That’s why I put in it on my HDD, which sadly couldn’t sustain with Starfield’s large universe.
A painful sacrifice adopted my storage issues: I needed to bid farewell to a few of my favourite video games on my SSD, consigning them to the digital void as I couldn’t be bothered to maneuver them to my HDD. In any case this was stated and accomplished, I moved Starfield to my SSD and was lastly prepared for a brand new starting.
Once I lastly loaded into Starfield, it had already been 5 hours since I awoke. My once-mighty gaming rig, now burdened by Starfield’s calls for, might barely muster 10 to fifteen frames per second. I’m used to enjoying video games above 144 fps, so my first hour in Starfield made my mind harm.
Ever since that day, I’ve been slowly chipping away at Starfield, making peace with the truth that I weaved the very net that I received caught in. However regardless of all the things, I nonetheless by no means anticipated Todd Howard to drop the reality bomb on me. In a current interview, Howard stated that Starfield was optimized for PC, and for individuals who assume in any other case, it’s time for an improve.
If rig-shaming isn’t a time period but, I want to coin it now, as I didn’t anticipate my gaming PC’s flaws to be thrown in my face like this. You may be questioning what’s subsequent for me: Will I improve my PC to maintain up with the occasions? For now, I’ll maintain my head up and attempt to end this recreation whereas attempting to keep away from ship fights in any respect prices, and hope that somebody creates a potato PC mode for Starfield.
They’ll by no means catch my rig alive.
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