Todd Howard asked on-air why Bethesda didn't optimise Starfield for PC: 'We did [...] you may need to upgrade your PC'

Yeah so on the 4th of July lightning hit the utility pole about 2 doors down, sent a voltage surge throughout the house ( and a few of my neighbors.)

This blew out a number of devices fully (IE: Router, Switch, rokus' etc), others it caused partial issues. For example My modem would boot but it blew out the DOCSIS module so it couldnt connect. My TV works, but thinks 3 HDMI devices are plugged in that arent and now tosses me warnings its running hot at 90C. The PS4 had the USB interface, wifi and HDD blow out only and the HDMI port seems to work on some TV' s (IE: the one it was connected to, but not the Samsung Plasma TV in our living room). So I was able to restore that from backup, but cant connect it to the internet now and cant connect more devices...I even had ome cables went out as well. The DP to HDMI cable from my RTX3060 to my TV went out, a couple HDMI cables also are now bad etc.

That said, no my computer wasnt plugged in. I actually play on a laptop these days when i upgraded off my i7-4790/1070 build. So i use an eGPU when im at home. This had the 3060. It either took the voltage through the UPS, or more likely through that DP cable connected from the TV (which wasnt on UPS power). Either way, after the storm the 3060 would only spin fans at 100% and would not be recognized, either in the eGPU or in my old desktop that was in the attic now. I popped that old 1070 into the eGPU it ran fine. So the eGPU, its boards, and the PSU in it were fine but the 3060 are effectively dead.

That said, the UPS's I use are just line interactive ones you get at Best Buy, not expensive double conversion. The difference is that with line interactive there is a relay switch, and when it detects voltage changes it will switch from power off the AC/wall to battery (in under a second). Thats typically fast enough that capacitors can still deliver power to their devices. But a VERY fast voltage change (ie: from a lightning strike) can get passed through.

Schneider Electric/APC does have a warranty on their devices and those connected to it. So i did open a case with them. its still ongoing. I am not sure if they will honor it. They probably should but who knows. They did have me send the UPS devices back to them (and sent me new ones to swap out, which was nice). Whether they replace the stuff blown out...i dont know. It was pretty expensive, but not enough to hit my Insurance deductable, which I have to keep really high to get any coverage these days in Florida.

That put me in a weird spot for this game release. I waited a while for APC to get back (its still in limbo) but finally just replaced the GPU. So i have played this game on the same laptop, but with 3 GPU's now. The 1650ti Max-Q that is onboard the laptop (it only has 4GB of vram). The Strix 1070 8GB that is basically my old card but was used as my main for a couple months. And the 4060ti 16GB that i just got a few days after release.