Variable Rate Shading (VRS) is a setting for Starfield that can be toggled on and off. Learn more about VRS and what it does.
You will find the option to enable or disable VRS in the Display settings while playing Starfield.
Starfield – What is VRS?
VRS is a feature introduced with NVIDIA’s Turing RTX 2000-series GPUs. It allows the GPU to alter the rate of how many pixels are shaded in 16×16 areas of a scene, depending on what is taking place.
The GPU can take advantage of VRS to focus the shading rate on detailed areas of a scene as set by the game developer to improve the way things look. At the same time, it ensures that less detailed scenes around the player’s periphery, which aren’t being focused on, have a lower shading rate. As a result, the frame rate and performance of the game are vastly improved.
It is recommended to enable VRS while playing Starfield, provided you have a compatible GPU.
However, if you do not find yourself struggling with a low frame rate, then disable VRS.
Which GPUs Support VRS?
VRS is supported by NVIDIA graphics cards based on the Turing and Ampere architecture, as well as Intel’s Gen11 graphics architecture. This includes the following:
NVIDIA RTX 20 Series
- GeForce RTX 2050
- GeForce RTX 2060
- GeForce RTX 2060 (12 GB)
- GeForce RTX 2060 Super
- GeForce RTX 2070
- GeForce RTX 2070 Super
- GeForce RTX 2080
- GeForce RTX 2080 Super
- GeForce RTX 2080 Ti
- Nvidia Titan RTX
NVIDIA RTX 30 Series
- GeForce RTX 3050
- GeForce RTX 3050 Ti Laptop
- GeForce RTX 3060 (8 GB)
- GeForce RTX 3060
- GeForce RTX 3060 Ti
- GeForce RTX 3070
- GeForce RTX 3070 Ti
- GeForce RTX 3080
- GeForce RTX 3080 (12 GB)
- GeForce RTX 3080 Ti
- GeForce RTX 3090
- GeForce RTX 3090 Ti
For users running AMD cards, there is an alternative option known as AMD FidelityFX Variable Shading (VS) which is supported by the above GPUs as well as GCN and RDNA 2 cards.
Starfield is an action role-playing game developed by Bethesda Game Studios and initially released worldwide in 2023 for PC and Xbox Series X|S.