The biggest problems reported on the game’s Steam Discussions forum lie in the 1.0 update’s lack of optimization, which is causing slowdown and general poor performance for many of the game’s owners regardless of their computer specs. Low end, high end – doesn’t matter.

I’m not running a monster rig and Starbound 1.0 is running terribly.. in the 64bit client.

Chucklefish removed the OpenGL option, hopefully temporarily, making this issue even worse for players who stuck to OpenGL on Windows. So what are you to do? Try ditching the CPU-devouring 64bit client.

There are any number of reasons the 32bit client could run more smoothly on your computer and at the moment I (and probably you) don’t care what any of them are. I care that the game runs smoothly, and it does a much better job of just that at the moment via the 32bit client.

How to launch the 32bit Starbound client

First and foremost: If you’re running a 32bit operating system, this isn’t going to work for you since you should already be launching the 32bit client by default.

You can only do this if you’re on a 64bit operating system, and you probably are. So first let’s find our way to the game’s folder, which will be in the following directory unless you installed the game to a custom destination, in which case you should go to your personal specified install directory:

C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\SteamApps\common\Starbound

From here there are a few folders to choose from, but the one you want is the win32 folder. The win32 folder is more cluttered than win64, but it doesn’t matter. All you’re looking for is the Starbound application file. It’s easy enough to find thanks to the penguin icon.


Hopefully this will make playing Starbound a little more bearable and at a higher FPS for you, like it did for me. Happy exploring! And be sure to check out the rest of our Starbound guides for more troubleshooting and general tips:

Starbound Beta: Stuck on the Chucklefish Logo? Try Letting It Sit! Starbound: Disc Write Error During Update Fix Starbound 1. 0 Not Launching For You? Try These Solutions