As promised last week, Bethesda Game Studios has pushed the beta of the next Starfield update, version 1.9.47.0, on Steam. Anyone can switch to this build by selecting the beta tab on the Steam client.
Bethesda said the game includes over a hundred fixes and improvements, making it the largest Starfield patch released to date. There are several bug fixes for quests, of course, but also various visual improvements for lighting and shadows, not to mention resolved AMD FSR and NVIDIA DLSS artifacts. You can find the graphics highlights from the patch below.
- Improved widescreen support (32:9, 21:9 and 16:10).
- Added support for stars displaying sun disk geometry.
- Shadows can now be seen on planet rings from planet surface.
- Improved eyes and skin on crowd characters.
- Improved reflection on water.
- Improved contact shadows on character skin (Xbox and PC Medium/High/Ultra).
- Improved contact shadows on character cloth (PC High/Ultra).
- Improved contact shadows on first person (PC Ultra).
- Improved lighting in the character generation menu.
- Addressed various shadow popping, flickering and artifact issues.
- Improved the visibility of the sun’s lens flare during sunrise and sunset.
- Adjusted the appearance of bloom when activating the handscanner.
- Improved the appearance of clouds during weather transitions.
- Fixed rare cases where alignment of grass and wind could appear disconnected.
- Reduced bloom intensity effect while motion blur is active (PC).
- Fixed visible edge of the ocean in the distance when seen from a very high point of view.
- Fixed rare white flickering dots around characters’ hair during cut scenes.
- Fixed a brief Depth of Field issue that sometimes occurred when aiming, alt-tabbing or leaving a dialogue screen.
- Fixed occasional lighting transition issues after loading or exiting a location.
- Fixed an issue that could cause intermittent bands to appear in distance fog.
- Fixed a rare issue that could cause fog color to appear inconsistent.
- Fixed a rare issue that could cause rocks to disappear near the player on the surface of a planet.
- Fixed a crash that could occur when switching to DLSS with dynamic resolution active (PC).
- Fixed flickering and delayed shadows sometimes occurring after unpausing the game.
- Fixed various FSR2 and DLSS artifacts (noise, black dots, ghosting).
- Fixed flickering when using the handscanner with DLSS enabled.
- Fixed initial lighting conditions when landing on a planet.
- Improved lighting at 73 locations.
- Fixed various geometry, texture, and ghosting issues.
This Starfield beta update does not include AMD FSR 3 support. However, Bethesda previously said it would arrive in early 2024, so it might be coming with the next patch.
