Hello friends!
The most anticipated AAA game of the decade so far, Starfield, was released recently. And, of course, it’s not without its problems. This is to be expected really, launch day bugs are, unfortunately, a perfectly normal thing these days.
The most common issue I see people reporting on Steam and so on is the fact that Starfield does not launch in full screen for some people. For those people, the game does launch and run perfectly on their machines, except they cannot see the game.
Thread Contents:
The following are resolved & fixed in this thread.
- Starfield does not go full-screen
- Starfield does not have any sound when using WeMod
- My character moves very slowly when using WeMod.
- Starfield Script Extender (SFSE) does not work with WeMod.
Starfield does not go full-screen - Fixes
1) Quit Grammarly.
This first fix sounds rather stupid, I know. But if you have Grammarly installed on your PC, make sure that you quit it properly. Either by right-clicking the Grammarly icon in the Hidden Icons area of your Taskbar or by ending the task in Task Manager.
Grammarly is, somehow, preventing Starfield from going full screen if it is running in the background on your machine, as shown here in an error message from the Nvidia Control Panel.
This was the fix for my issue of Starfield not launching in full screen. However, not everyone uses Grammarly, of course.
2) Launch Starfield from Desktop as Administrator
Create a Desktop shortcut for Starfield. You can do this:
- In Steam by right-clicking the game in your Steam library, going to “Manage”, and then clicking “Add Desktop Shortcut”.
- From the game’s install location on your PC (the Steam default is
C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Starfield). Right-click the Starfield exe/application icon in that folder, choose “Send To”, and then “Desktop (Create Shortcut)”
I do not have Xbox Game Pass, but I’d imagine you would be able to create the shortcut using a similar method as the first bullet point. The game’s installation folder on your PC for Xbox Game Pass Games is hidden.
Now, right-click the shortcut that was just placed onto your desktop, and choose “Properties”. Under the Compatibility tab, tick “Run As Administrator” and save.
From now on, launch the game from this desktop icon instead of through the Steam launcher. But make sure Steam is still running so that your saves can be backed up to the Steam cloud.
3) Tweak Starfield’s compatibility settings
If the issue is still not resolved, right-click the desktop icon again that you just made in Step 2, then go back to the Compatability tab.
There should be a button there labelled “Run Compatability Troubleshooter”. Click this and allow the troubleshooter to do its thing.
It should then suggest some compatibility settings for you. Agree to let Windows automatically set these compatibility settings. And then launch the game from the desktop icon.
4) Update your GPU
With Starfield being one of the most spec-demanding games that Bethesda has released it may be a simple case of your GPU needing an update.
However, do not rely on Windows’ built-in update checker tool. It is utterly useless.
To check what GPU you have:
- Type “Device Manager” into your Start Menu search box. Click the top result.
- Look in the list for “Display Adaptors”.
- Expand the Display Adaptors list by clicking the arrow/chevron next to it. You’ll now see your GPU.
If you right-click your GPU from here, you will see the option “Update Driver”. You can try this if you want, but as already said, this tool is generally useless. Windows’ automatic update checker misses a lot of GPU updates.
However, the best thing to do is to go to the official website of your GPU manufacturer and check whether there is an update for your GPU. If there is, download and install it manually.
Make sure that you only download driver updates from the official website of your GPU’s manufacturer. Any other website (or torrents) may be extremely dangerous to download software from - they may be malware, crypto miners, or ransomware.
5) Have patience
As said at the top of this post, launch day bugs are to be expected these days.
I know you want to dive into Starfield right away, but Bethesda’s developers likely need to release an update to resolve some of the issues with the game not launching in full screen for some people. This could potentially take a few days, as developers will usually try to fix as many launch day bugs as possible in one single update on a single day, rather than several updates across several days.
If you do choose to get the Early Access version refunded so you can buy the non-Early Access version, beware that Steam (and I assume Xbox) will not refund any games that have 2+ hours of “play time”. Even though you cannot see the game because it refused to go full screen, it is still running when you launch it, counting as “play time”.
Hopefully, this troubleshooting helped you to launch Starfield in full screen so that you can actually play this highly anticipated game.
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Happy exploring, Spacefarers! 
