Starfield – Optimizing Sensitivity, FOV and Other Settings

Optimizing Settings for Starfield: a step-by-step guide. Enhance your Starfield gaming experience by adjusting mouse sensitivity, FOV and other settings of your preference. Follow these simple steps to optimize your play!

Step 1: Locating Your StarfieldPrefs File

1. How to find it

Begin by finding the Starfield folder in your documents directory, which is generated when you launch the game. You can usually find it at:

C:\Users[your_user]\Documents\My Games\Starfield

2. Editing the file

Right-click on the StarfieldPrefs file and choose “Edit.” If you are using Windows 11, you may need to click “show more options” to reveal the “Edit” button.

Or open it on your File editor of choice. I always use VSCode.

Step 2: Speed Pitch and Yaw

Inside the StarfieldPrefs file, search for the [Controls] section.

Then, add/modify the following four lines with the recommended values:

[Controls]
fIronSightsLookSpeedPitch=0.9
fIronSightsLookSpeedYaw=0.9
fIronSightsPitchSpeedRatio=0.9
fPitchSpeedRatio=0.9
fLookSpeedPitch=0.8
fLookSpeedYaw=0.8

Step 3: Mouse Heading Sensitivity

1. Add a new line

Create a new line and paste in the following text under same [Controls] section.

fMouseHeadingSensitivity=

Here you have two options, either use your sensitivity from past games (like FO4) or convert your sensitivity. FO4 sensitivity should do the trick, but if you don’t have it or you want to adjust it again, follow the next steps.

2. Convert your sensitivity

In order to convert to your preferred sensitivity, I’ve found mostly valid a formula to convert the sensitivity from other game to Starfield.

First, get your Aim Lab sensitivity. If you don’t have Aim Lab, find a comfortable in-game sensitivity in another game and use a sensitivity calculator to convert to it (considering your mouse DPI), for example MSC.

Then, use the conversion formula:

Starfield sensitivity = (Aim Lab sensitivity) x 0.2

Example: If your Aim Lab sensitivity is 0.15, your Starfield sensitivity becomes:

(0.15) x (0.2) = 0.03

3. Apply your mouse sensitivity

Once you’ve know your Starfield sensitivity, enter it into the five lines you found or created within the StarfieldPrefs file, under the [Controls] section:

fMouseHeadingSensitivity=0.03

4. Adjust as needed

After that, if the sensitivity is still too high/low, I often recommend multiplying/dividing it by 2, seeing what happens, and trying again. Then adjusting as needed to intermediate values.

(Personally, with a mouse with maxed out setting of 26K DPI, I use a very low value of 0.001).

Step 4: Ship Sensitivity

For this I think it depends on your personal preference.

However in my case I’ve tried using around 20x-25x the value of my mouse heading sensitivity, and for me it does the trick.

For Example:

[Controls]
fMouseHeadingSensitivity=0.0010
fShipReticleMovementSensitivity=0.025

You can try it too and see if it works for you, and then adjust it more if needed.

Step 5: Vertical and Horizontal Sensitivity

To normalize the vertical and horizontal sensitivity, add/modify these values on the [Controls] section:

[Controls]
fMouseHeadingYScale=X/2
fMouseHeadingXScale=X

Where X is any of these values, based on your Aspect Ratio:

0.03738 for 16:9
0.042 for 21:9
0.028 for 4:3
0.0336 for 16:10

For example, for 21:9 aspect ratio of my 3440x1440p 34″ monitor:

[Controls]
fMouseHeadingYScale=0.021
fMouseHeadingXScale=0.042

Step 6: Disable Mouse Acceleration

Inside the StarfieldPrefs file, add/modify the following lines in the same [Controls] section:

[Controls]
bMouseAcceleration=0

Step 7: Modify FOV

In order to fix the FOV, specially when playing on wide screen, add/modify the following lines under the corresponding sections of the Inside the StarfieldPrefs file:

Display Settings:

[Display]
fDefaultFOV=110
fDefaultWorldFov=110
fDefault1stPersonFOV=110

Camera Settings:

[Camera]
fFPWorldFOV=110
fTPWorldFOV=110

Flight Camera Settings:

[FlightCamera]
fFlightCameraFOV=110

(Personally, I’m using the value of 110 with an ultra-wide monitor of 34″ with 3440×1440 resolution).

Step 8: Display Settings

1. Exclusive Full screen

If you wish to play the game on exclusive full screen instead of borderless mode, you can try with these settings:

[Display]
bBorderless=0
bFull Screen=1

2. Disable film grain

Although this can be changed in-game, I want to add it here because this is one of the things that changes a lot the way you see the game. So you can either set it to 0 inside the game settings / display, or modify the value inside StarfieldPrefs:”

[Display]
fFilmGrainIntensity=0.0000

Step 9: Optional Settings

These are optional settings that may improve your game experience.

1. Disabling intro

If you wish to disable the intro and the menu delay, add/modify these settings:

[General]
sIntroSequence=0
uMainMenuDelayBeforeAllowSkip=0

Unfortunately, this doesn’t disable the initial text and bethesda logo, only gives you the opportunity of skipping the later animation.

2. Autosave more often

If you wish to autosave more often, add/modify these settings with the value in number of minutes:

[SaveGame]
fAutosaveEveryXMins=2.0000

Last Step: Save and Enjoy!

Save your changes on StarfieldPrefs file and enjoy!