AMD claims there’s nothing stopping Starfield from adding Nvidia DLSS
By Sean Hollister, a senior editor and founding member of The Verge who covers gadgets, games, and toys. He spent 15 years editing the likes of CNET, Gizmodo, and Engadget.
AMD gaming chief Frank Azor is trying to thread a needle. He seemingly wants to say that AMD did notactually make Starfield, quite possibly the year’s biggest PC game, exclusively support AMD’s FSR upscaling technology at the expense of competitors like Nvidia DLSS.
But he clearly can’t. Azor says he can’t say what the contract includes. Instead, he repeatedly lands on this: “If they want to do DLSS, they have AMD’s full support.” He says there’s nothing blocking Bethesda from adding it to the game.
Azor, a co-founder of Alienware, has had many open conversations with me over the years, and this is the only thing he’s been cagey about all afternoon. AMD specifically prepped for this exact question, he says, because the situation’s a little delicate. “We want to be very careful not to put this answer onto our partners,” says Azor.
“If they ask us for DLSS support, we always tell them yes.”
He admits that — in general — when AMD pays publishers to bundle their games with a new graphics card, AMD does expect them to prioritize AMD features in return. “Money absolutely exchanges hands,” he says. “When we do bundles, we ask them: ‘Are you willing to prioritize FSR?’”
But Azor says that — in general — it’s a request rather than a demand. “If they ask us for DLSS support, we always tell them yes.”
Starfield will be bundled with AMD’s just-announced 7800 XT and 7700 XT graphics cards.
Azor says there’s another reason why Bethesda might have wanted to prioritize FSR, too. “Bethesda’s decision to use FSR is console leverage,” he explains. Starfield is also
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