Imagine Starfield running on a potato, for no reason at all. The new Bethesda RPG game is massive, and undoubtedly not all of our PCs can handle it. This is where a brand new Starfield mod comes in, as in the spirit of Portal 2’s GLaDOS, you can see what the game would look like if it ran on a potato of its own.
Not everyone can have the best graphics card or a PC that costs more than a spaceship with a functioning grav drive, so the Starfield settings might be their best bet for getting the most out of Bethesda’s newest adventure. That said, you can actually make Starfield look bad, like really bad, on purpose.
So if you surpass the Starfield system requirements but want a less-than-optimal experience, the ‘Starfield Potato Mode’ mod from ‘BulwarkHD’ is exactly what you need. It turns every single Starfield texture into a 128bit size version of itself and can be done for performance, or for fun, the choice is yours.
“Does your PC have 1 GB of VRAM?” BulwarkHD writes. “Is it so old your grandpa used it to play Morrowind? Or do you hate high-resolution textures and want to get rid of them? Try this mod out and see if it works for you!”
Now, with over 1,000 Starfield planets and a serious case of object permanence in Bethesda’s space game, of course, it’s not just high-resolution textures that might be hindering your PC’s performance. In fact when I first downloaded Starfield my entire game was so blurry it was like looking around without glasses until I reinstalled the game and tried again. So, there could be absolutely anything up with your files to make them sub-optimal (although in my case I have no idea why reinstalling the game fixed the issue).
Of all the mods I’ve seen for Starfield so far, making it look like it runs on a potato is by far the weirdest. Then again, we’re already getting a mixture of incredibly helpful Starfield UI mods and joke ones that turn your flashlight into Phil Spencer, for some reason.
You can install Starfield Potato Mode on your own PC right now, but be aware that it will actively hinder your experience, rather than enhance it like other mods being released at the moment.
If you’re deep in Bethesda’s newest RPG and want some help we’ve got everything you need to know about each Starfield companion, alongside the best Starfield weapons you can currently find in the vastness of space.
Still looking for more? While a good Starfield wiki can be a handy source of information, our new Starfield Database goes further, offering you daily news, searchable databanks, and even interactive tools.
