Does Starfield have ray tracing?

Does Starfield have ray tracing? If you’re asking yourself that, you’re far from alone.

Bethesda’s space-faring RPG has been one of the most popular games of the year. When it first launched, however, there were a few features that PC gamers were calling out for. These included ray tracing and DLSS support, as well as some other graphic setting options such as an FOV slider.

DLSS was especially desirable for anyone gaming on a Nvidia GPU, as it would offer a significant performance increase on Nvidia RTX hardware. It was even rumored that it was Bethesda’s association with AMD that was blocking the feature, though AMD denied this.

Well, towards the start of November, Bethesda announced an update with many of these features, that has now been fully released. Let’s get into it.

Does Starfield have ray tracing?

There is still no ray tracing within Starfield, which will come as a letdown for some players. However, the latest update to the game does bring with it Nvidia DLSS support, alongside new display HDR controls. These new features, especially the inclusion of DLSS compatibility have the potential to significantly improve the graphics of Starfield, both in terms of colour, adjustability and performance.

DLSS is a feature exclusive to the more recent generations of Nvidia GPUs from 2018 onwards. It uses AI and deep learning algorithms combied with RTX GPU’s Tensor Cores to generate extra frames, without the need to utilise the normal amount of extra computing power. This means that, in compatible games, performance and efficiency are improved.

Despite lacking this feature, Starfield is still a demanding game. If you’re thinking of upgrading your system to make it more suited to the game, you can find the full system requirements for Starfield here, and also check out our choices of the best GPU for Starfield to ensure you can make the most of this space-faring RPG.

What is ray tracing?

Ray tracing is a rendering technique used in 3D computer graphics. By rendering physically accurate shadows, reflections, refractions, and indirect lighting, ray tracing can produce incredibly realistic lighting effects. Essentially, ray tracing enhances in-game lighting features to make the graphics as real as possible.

Although ray tracing can do a lot for enhancing the visual aspects of a game’s graphics, it can have a big hit on its performance, slowing frame rate and causing stuttering. Ray tracing in games can be divisive, so while some players might want the possibility of having ray tracing, keeping it as an option setting allows them to optimize game performance as they wish.

So will Starfield have ray tracing? We sitll can’t say for sure, but it seems quite possible that if we don’t see support for it on launch, we’ll see support for it some time after. If you’ve not had your fill of Starfield news yet though, we’ve been covering all the latest Starfield updates, from a Starfield weapons guide to outlining the Starfield story and plot for players looking to immerse themselves.