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[LakeOf9]

These two along with BG3 are my favorite games of the year, and in thinking about them this question came to me that I wanted to see what GAF thought about.

In absolute and objective terms, Starfield is probably a more technically impressive game just because it’s on hardware that’s so much stronger and better than the Switch.

However, taking the limitations of the hardware into account, which of these two is the more impressive game?

Tears of the Kingdom was praised for its technical engineering, with its seamless massive open world, persistent world states, the ability to pick up and manipulate almost anything in the world. Developers across the industry praised the game for being able to do things that they have been unable to even on much stronger hardware.

Starfield of course has significantly better graphics tech, moddability, and great world permanence of the kind that no other game in the industry manages (except other BGS games).

I think it makes for an interesting comparison between the two games - which do you think is more technically impressive?

 

[GymWolf]

Tokt of course, except for the worse framerate and graphic.




This topic should not even exist tbh, starfield has nothing on zelda tech and if zelda wasn't limited by switch hardware, the comparison would be 100x times worse.

 

[LakeOf9]

This topic should not even exist tbh, starfield has nothing on zelda tech and if zelda wasn't limited by switch hardware, the comparison would be 100x times worse.

Honestly that’s what blows my mind, TOTK is an insane technical marvel and it’s running on the fucking switch. More than anything else TOTK makes me wish Nintendo made actual good consoles because imagine their developers not limited by whatever ten year old chip Nintendo found on the shelf and decided to use in their systems

 

[Raven117]

What are you trying to do with this thread?

 

[AV]

What tastes more like chocolate, chocolate or cardboard? You decide!

 

[LakeOf9]

What are you trying to do with this thread?

I outline in the OP, totk is technically great but limited by Switch tech, starfield is technically more modest but on the most powerful console on the market. I think the comparison is interesting

 

[Freelance Yakuza]

Op, you don't need to compare Starfield to anything to make it look bad, it already does this to itself

 

[Black_Stride]

Another Starfield thread.

P.S TOTK is most technically impressive game of the year.

 

[LakeOf9]

Another Starfield thread.

P.S TOTK is most technically impressive game of the year.

More than Burning Shores and FF16?

 

[Tal Shiar Agent]

Neither are particularly impressive.

 

[SlimySnake]

Starfield has better tech, but the devs just dont have the creativity to make use of it. They do a fairly decent job with some anti gravity sequences, but the full potential of its amazing physics system is not utilized like the geniuses over at Nintendo did.

Just imagine what Nintendo devs couldve done with this instead of slaving away using PS3 era hardware in 2023.

 

[bbeach123]

Oblivion ofc

 

[GymWolf]

Honestly that’s what blows my mind, TOTK is an insane technical marvel and it’s running on the fucking switch. More than anything else TOTK makes me wish Nintendo made actual good consoles because imagine their developers not limited by whatever ten year old chip Nintendo found on the shelf and decided to use in their systems

I think looking like that is the secret to have all that amount of physics.

Realistic looking graphic need realistic looking physics and that is super heavy even for state of the art pc gaming.

 

[Mr.Phoenix]

Okay... seriously, why or what makes SF technically impressive? Object retention? potatoes?

The more it's said the more it feels like some sort of narrative that's subliminally being planted into our brains.

 

[West Texas CEO]

Anyone voting totk needs a check up from the neck up.

 

[GymWolf]

Okay... seriously, why or what makes SF technically impressive? Object retention? potatoes?

The more it's said the more it feels like some sort of narrative that's subliminally being planted into our brains.

Spawning objects with an editor and basic havok are uber-impressive.

 

[Mr.Phoenix]

Spawning objects with an editor and basic havok are uber-impressive.

Apparently.

 

[acm2000]

TOTK is just nuts N bolts v2.0 and the blood moon resets most of the object "permanence"... not exactly permanent.

 

[GymWolf]

Anyone voting totk needs a check up from the neck up.

Anyone who vote for starfield should check their head for fecal infections because i don't think that todd's rectum is THAT clean...

 

[Hudo]

I know this is bait but what the hell..

I was and still am far more impressed with Tears of the Kingdom. Nintendo managed to make an engine that curb stomps Bethesda's engine, which actually holds back Starfield in its design. And the fact that they got it running on the Switch with solid framerates (most of the time, anyway) is even more impressive. Yes, they use some cheap tricks for the renderer, like having Link's position be the center of the cube map for all (object) reflections, or the utilization of the Stencil Buffer to approximate a 3D portals effect (for the shrine entrances, for example) or that the physics handler obviously uses a significantly higher framerate for physics computation (especially collision solving) in order to have robust physics (it's a rather brute-force approach, but it works), or that they still use fog to cover up LOD switching. But damn, all of it is solidly implemented. You can really tell that this one additional year of polishing and bug fixing is what makes the difference.

I am still trying to analyze how they exactly implemented the terrain (especially the underground). Since it's obviously still the height-map-based algorithm used in Breath of the Wild but they either cleverly merge custom-made instances of concave terrain features (overhangs, caves, etc) or they use some sort of voxel map that is cleverly smoothed and blended (I am inclined to believe the first one).

 

[Black_Stride]

More than Burning Shores and FF16?

In regards to what OP is asking.
Burning Shores and FF16 arent even in the conversation.
Pretty games sure.....but not technically impressive, they arent doing anything that impresses me beyond looking pretty (yes the cloud tech is cool, but again, it just looks pretty)

 

[RoadHazard]

Starfield looks better on a technical level (well, at times - a lot of outdoor environments look pretty bad), but TOTK does a lot more impressive stuff gameplay-wise, and has a pretty much fully seamless world (the only exception being shrines).

 

[LakeOf9]

I know this is bait but what the hell..

No bait, legitimately interested in the discussion, and thank you very much for your very detailed reply

 

[West Texas CEO]

A

Anyone who vote for starfield should check their head for fecal infections because i don't think that todd's ass is THAT clean...

Todd is a Greek god ; don't ever forget that .

 

[bender]

Technically impressive and Bethesda are like oil and water.

 

[Hudo]

No bait, legitimately interested in the discussion, and thank you very much for your very detailed reply

Well, then my apologies. Maybe I am too jaded. I meant no offense.

 

[winjer]

Considering how weak the Switch hardware is, Zelda is by far more impressive than Starfield.
Zelda is probably the best optimized game of the year. And Starfield is one of the very worst.

 

[Mr.Phoenix]

Starfield has better tech, but the devs just dont have the creativity to make use of it. They do a fairly decent job with some anti gravity sequences, but the full potential of its amazing physics system is not utilized like the geniuses over at Nintendo did.

Just imagine what Nintendo devs couldve done with this instead of slaving away using PS3 era hardware in 2023.

This is not an example of better tech to me. We just have hardware that can handle that now. How is this any different from spawning rubber ducks on the PS3?

Ah well, maybe my idea of technical achievement is different from others I guess.

 

[Gaiff]

TOTK is technically more impressive than most games. No knock on Starfield there.

 

[Guilty_AI]

On a purely technical level, Starfield. However TotK makes better use of what it has from a game design perspective. The fact its running on the switch doesn't really impress me that much as we had similar physics on much older games running on much older hardware. And screw off with that bridge thing, its running on a specific scenario under a controlled enviroment, its not purely a result of the game's systems.

 

[GymWolf]

Todd is a Greek god ; don't ever forget that .

Greek gods got erased by a baldy with daddy issues, just saying...

 

[Ammogeddon]

Is this another thread designed to elicit “Starfield is shit” comments?

 

[ByWatterson]

LOL, come on.

If TOTK was on Xbox, it'd STILL be more technically impressive. But on Switch? Miraculous.

 

[Gaiff]

More than Burning Shores and FF16?

 

[LakeOf9]

Is this another thread designed to elicit “Starfield is shit” comments?

People need to be less defensive. I love starfield and the only things I’ve posted about it since it came out have been positive and celebrating its success. I’m not trying to shit on it or to get others to do that. I find the comparison interesting and want others’ thoughts. That’s it.

 

[Chukhopops]

People will say TotK but to me the way Starfield handles stuff like different gravities, time dilation, atmospheric conditions is more impressive. The first time I fired a shotgun in zero G and was pushed back several meters while the casing (or w/e it’s called) stayed floating next to my initial position was a wow moment.

TotK is great though and it’s a wonder how they made it work on the Switch. There are some shortcuts in the physics system, like how Link doesn’t rotate when he stands on a rotating object for example.

 

[SlimySnake]

This is not an example of better tech to me. We just have hardware that can handle that now. How is this any different from spawning rubber ducks on the PS3?

Ah well, maybe my idea of technical achievement is different from others I guess.

What? it absolutely is. The engine can clearly handle these thousands of object each with their own physics applied on top of the game's gravity physics. Just because the devs dont use it doesnt mean the tech is not there.

There is a reason why 99.99% of the game last gen didnt have destruction or any kind of physics. Its because their engines just couldnt do it despite the power available. What Nintendo has shown is that the power to do physics was there even in the PS3 era hardware, no one bothered designing games around them.

Starfield does do some stuff with these physics. It just doesnt go as far as ToTK does. But the tech is there built into the engine and you can test it without ever spawning any objects. Just go to any room or a cafeteria and do a anti-gravity push. All the pickable objects in that level will float up along with any enemies. literally dozens if not more. The tech is there.

 

[diffusionx]

Starfield has better tech, but the devs just dont have the creativity to make use of it. They do a fairly decent job with some anti gravity sequences, but the full potential of its amazing physics system is not utilized like the geniuses over at Nintendo did.

Just imagine what Nintendo devs couldve done with this instead of slaving away using PS3 era hardware in 2023.

As you point out, it isn't incorporated into the game in any meaningful way. Spawning a gazillion things using a console command and watching the physics doesn't really impress me at all. The genius of TOTK is the way everything is seemingly integrated and how the game operates as a whole, and, it needs to be said, you can navigate the map including the sky without loading.

 

[DrFigs]

Nintendo's so unambitious. but i wasn't impressed by anything in starfield

 

[nemiroff]

Well, I'm not surprised to see that people here are underestimating the item persistency framework and physics engine (not to mention all the additional subsystems baked into the game). It's par for the course.

Disclaimer: I enjoyed TotK.

 

[LakeOf9]

Well, I'm not surprised that gaming forum armchair experts are underestimating the item persistency framework and physics engine of Starfield. Not to mention all the additional subsystems baked into the game.

Disclaimer: I enjoyed TotK.

Didn’t developers also overwhelmingly praise TOTK for its tech?

Of course, I’m sure they did the same for Starfield too, because it has some great tech behind the scenes

 

[Del_X]

ToTK is impressive as hell given the tech.

Although I'm really enjoying it, I couldn't play Loadfield on XSX. My fast CPU and gen4 drive makes it completely tolerable.

 

[cireza]

Both games are doing things so different that comparing them is stupid.

 

[GymWolf]

What? it absolutely is. The engine can clearly handle these thousands of object each with their own physics applied on top of the game's gravity physics. Just because the devs dont use it doesnt mean the tech is not there.

There is a reason why 99.99% of the game last gen didnt have destruction or any kind of physics. Its because their engines just couldnt do it despite the power available. What Nintendo has shown is that the power to do physics was there even in the PS3 era hardware, no one bothered designing games around them.

Starfield does do some stuff with these physics. It just doesnt go as far as ToTK does. But the tech is there built into the engine and you can test it without ever spawning any objects. Just go to any room or a cafeteria and do a anti-gravity push. All the pickable objects in that level will float up along with any enemies. literally dozens if not more. The tech is there.

The tech is literally basic havok, i'm really not sure why are you so impressed by it.

Being capable of spawning so many objects is just that, a neat cheat engine trick, it has no gameplay implications and for the last fucking time, starfield didn't invented zero g gameplay, many games did it before and if you could use the same trick to spawn objects they would act the same because zero g or havok is not black magic to implement nor something new.

In the meantime, the game is uber static and has no destruction whatsoever, not even glass that pray to be broke, infamous 3 on a damn ps4 has way more destructible objects.

 

[Bernoulli]

Starfield has better tech, but the devs just dont have the creativity to make use of it. They do a fairly decent job with some anti gravity sequences, but the full potential of its amazing physics system is not utilized like the geniuses over at Nintendo did.

Just imagine what Nintendo devs couldve done with this instead of slaving away using PS3 era hardware in 2023.

2013

 

[SlimySnake]

2013

It's 2023.

Show me one game since 2013 that has implemented this.

 

[Buggy Loop]

TOTK is just nuts N bolts v2.0 and the blood moon resets most of the object "permanence"... not exactly permanent.

It resets even by walking a tad far. TOTK has no persistence, it’s a local bubble.

Can’t find a video now but it’s very small distance.

It’s impressive for 11W of power that is Switch, I can’t remove that from the engineers at Nintendo, but it’s not like world changing from BOTW physics either.

 

[SlimySnake]

The tech is literally basic havok, i'm really not sure why are you so impressed by it.

Being capable of spawning so many objects is just that, a neat cheat engine trick, it has no gameplay implications and for the last fucking time, starfield didn't invented zero g gameplay, many games did it before and if you could use the same trick to spawn objects they would act the same because zero g or havok is not black magic to implement nor something new.

In the meantime, the game is uber static and has no destruction whatsoever, not even glass that pray to be broke, infamous 3 on a damn ps4 has way more destructible objects.

I never said starfield invented zero g, and i literally said bethesda doesnt utilize this tech well. i dont know what else you want me to say.

 

[Dynasty8]

More than Burning Shores and FF16?

When I think "impressive", the last game that comes to mind is FF16.

 

[Bernoulli]

It's 2023.

Show me one game since 2013 that has implemented this.