Starfield

I want to know how the hell I am lucky enough to not have any real performance or graphical issues...

I'm not even using a supported GPU (1660 Super) and it's still very playable with the lowest fps being 27 and the highest being about 70.

Outside is on the low end. Interiors are higher, with empty interiors (IE no NPCs) being the fastest. Just dropping a single NPC into a space I am getting 72 fps in drops the frame rate to 50. NPCs aren't handled by the GPU; they are CPU bound.

My CPU is a Ryzen 5 3600x; the exact AMD chip Bethesda lists as the recommended. In fact, other than my GPU, the rest of my system meets recommended requirements.

Edit: I kinda wonder if it's simply how things are tested in QA. For years, I see users claiming to have high end systems having tons of problems across various games, and I am starting to think if they aren't simply lying about their specs (which seems an odd thing to do if you want real support), is that they are simply too new and the focus was more on hardware more users use. Going by Steam hardware survey stats, most people have pretty old stuff while only a small fraction are on super high end systems.