My Gift To You, RTX4000 Optimized INI files after 24-48 combined hours of researching and tweaking

[Rockford]

UPDATE 09-15-2024

INI file at bottom updated to 9-15-2024 values

The last few months I stopped exploring and doing quests and started doing community events. So in order to maintain my 90-120 fps I had to lower settings. Also since I was no longer exploring I wasn't focusing on the landscape and horizon as much so I became more tolerant of lower settings.

I think I got my ini set pretty good because I haven't changed it in many weeks.

I ended up using the HD Radrose mod with no effects.ba2 and only a portion of the normals.ba2. Most of the default normal and lights for the game are fine, except for metal surfaces. Metal surfaces tend to have very pronounced and irregular bump mapping so low res normal dds files stick out like a sore thumb.

Someone in the comments a few months ago said uiShadowFilter=3 is required to see player shadows. I did not realize this and switched it to 3 for my future play. Because I switched shadows to 3, which makes them more blurred, I was able to push my shadow render distance out further, and I settled on 60000 as a happy medium. Beyond 60000 and the shadows are cast on objects so far away you can't even notice.

With Shadows at 60000 distance, I ended up using fBlendSplitDirShadow=360.000

I don't remember what it was about fMaxFocusShadowMapDistance=0.0 but it was messing up shadows in some particular situation. (I think it was npc shadows during dialogue?) So I changed it to fMaxFocusShadowMapDistance=1.00 and this restored the shadows in that situation but still gave me the benefit of 0.0 vs 400.0

I noticed during the mothman event I was getting crazy lag from player activity. I ended up changing iMaxDecalsPerFrame to 10, iMaxSkinDecalsPerFrame to 3, and uMaxDecals to 100. These are the medium settings. This allowed me to still see my shots make dents in walls but not excess from other players.

I noticed that 2d tree LOD's in the very far distance were very jagged and pixelated looking. I wanted them to be smooth and blurred. I played around with depth of field and I really hated the way it functioned. I wanted the game to behave like most other games' depth of field setting, where it just gets blurrier the further away objects are. FO76 has a focus based depth of field and it is very extreme in some situations. The settings that worked best for me and allowed the distance to be slightly blurry but no focus effect are these:

fDepthOfFieldWST=0.125 and bDoDepthOfField=1

The in-game slider does depth of field of 0 to 100. So .125 is like turning it on but having it at bare minimum.

I used to play the game on Windowed mode because full screen mode would give me microstuttering. I read that this was a Windows 11 and FO76 incompatibility issue. I saw a youtube video that said to run Fallout76.exe with the properties "Run as administrator" and "Disable Fullscreen Optimizations". That seemed to work and I no longer could tell any difference between full screen and windowed. (Full screen was then running slightly better than windowed mode. This is the case for most games.)

UPDATE 06-07-2024

I ended up doing extensive testing on ram usage and enabling/disabling HD and UHD Radrose texture mods and playing with the texture ini settings. And ultimately I decided what worked best was the 1080p file versions of Radrose texture mod (not the 2k/4k ones). (I use the 'normals' texture, but not the 'effects' texture of the mod.)
And the game's default ini settings when you select Ultra which turns them to this:

iLargeTextureArrayMipSkip=0
iTextureMipSkipBC1UNormSrgb=0
iTextureMipSkipBC3UNormSrgb=0
iTextureMipSkipBC1UNorm=0
iTextureMipSkipBC5SNorm=0
iTextureMipSkipBC4UNorm=0
iTextureMipSkipMinDimension=1024
iLargeTextureArrayDim=2048
iTextureQualityLevel=3
iLargeTextureArrayCount=32

There are other settings I've changed in the last month and will make those updated in the code below.


Original Post (with ini value updates)

My rig:
5 years old but I just upgraded GPU
i5-9600k overclocked to 4.9 ghz, a couple SSD's, 32gb ram, and Asus Dual RTX 4070 12gb VRAM

INI location:
C:\Users\ "" \Documents\My Games\Fallout 76\Fallout76Custom.ini
C:\Users\ "" \Documents\My Games\Fallout 76\Fallout76Prefs.ini

NOTES:
This is not a guide to get more fps. This is an optimization guide to get Fallout 76's Ultra settings to play nice with your RTX 4000 card.
My FPS is capped through Nvidia control panel at 120. My personal preferred minimum is 90 fps. I can't see above 90. So my target fps for my video card and these ini settings is 90-120.
Putting a semicolon before text disables it from being read. I use these to turn off and turn on stuff in the ini's when I'm testing.
You can change the name of .ba2 texture files and they will still work fine. But those file names must match up when you put them in the ini file code. I got tired of working with extremely long named texture files in the ini so I abbreviated them.
Fallout76Custom.ini is a notepad file you manually create along side Fallout76Prefs.ini
It supposedly takes priority over Fallout76Prefs.ini because it reads it last. But when I was using both, there were commands that did not seem to work in one vs the other. For example, bBloodSplatterEnabled=0 only seemed to work in Custom.ini and bPresentInterval=0 only seemed to work in Prefs.ini
The only mod I am using now is texture files in .ba2 format and it is:
https://www.nexusmods.com/fallout76/mods/1420
My data folder contains both the 1080p versions of Radrose textures as well as the 2k / 4k versions. I am still not sure which set I will ultimately use since I'm on a 1080p monitor. (Update: I went with 1080p versions, and included the texture normals but excluded the texture effects.)

The ini command lines with default values listed below them as a note, are settings I played with or am still playing with.
I deleted alot of extra lines out of my Prefs.ini so it wouldnt overwrite your non-graphical settings. I apologize if this makes implementing these settings more troublesome.
Supposedly if you have repeat commands in ini file it will just use whichever one comes last so I guess you could copy and paste these values at the end of yours and it would work.
If you want to do your own testing and need help with an ini command, I highly recommend trying one of the new A.I. engines. I've never really used them for anything until now. The microsoft A.I. keeps staring at me in Windows 11 so I tried it for .ini command lines and I was impressed at how well it was able to explain them and how they interact with other settings. (It gets almost all its info from forums like these, but it did a very good job of getting it fast and combining it together.) (Be careful to make sure its talking about Fallout 76 vs 4. There are many .ini commands that dont work on 76 but do on 4.)

WARNING: Be careful how you name your files and your mods. I copy and pasted Fallout76Prefs.ini and mistakenly named it Fallout76PCustom.ini (with a P) and it took me a week to finally realize why I wasn't able to visually notice all the UHD texture mods I downloaded.

C:\Users\ "" \Documents\My Games\Fallout 76\Fallout76Prefs.ini
-------------------------INI CODE BEGINS------------------------
[Display]
bWetnessOcclusion=1
iMaxAnisotropy=16
fShadowDistance=60000.0000
;ultra 150000, high 120000, med 90000, low 60000
fDirShadowDistance=60000.0000
;ultra 150000, high 120000, med 90000, low 60000
iShadowMapResolution=16384
;1024 2048 4096 8192 16384 (32768 does not work, disables shadows)

uiShadowFilter=3
uiOrthoShadowFilter=3

fBlendSplitDirShadow=360.0000
;48.00 default. This blurs the transition between your first tier of shadow quality and the second tier thats further away, sometimes this shadow quality change can be abrupt and noticable. A range of 48 to 256 worked but I settled on 192.000 as best. (I changed shadow distance from 16k to 60k and bumped this from 192 to 360 to compensate for that.)

iMaxFocusShadows=4
;4 default

iMaxDecalsPerFrame=10
;ultra 100, high 100, med 10, low 0
iMaxSkinDecalsPerFrame=3
;ultra 25, high 25, med 3, low 0
bVolumetricLightingEnable=1
bSAOEnable=1

uWaterShadowFilter=3

iVolumetricLightingTextureQuality=2
iSize H=1080
iSize W=1920
iLocation X=0
iLocation Y=0
bFullScreen=1
bFull Screen=1
;still dont know which full screen is the right one
bBorderless=0
iGraphicPreset=0
fShadowBiasScale=1.0000

iDirShadowSplits=4
;tried using different values for this and it would make shadows not work

uShadowExpirationMS=5000
;never noticed any changes when playing with this value

uPointLightShadowMapMaxResLog2=14
;been using 14 forever and it worked great

fTessFactorMaxDistanceScale=500.0000
fTessFactorMinDistanceScale=100.0000
;never tried playing with these values since I could never find any info on them

flocalShadowMapHalveEveryXUnit=500.00
;never noticed it when I'd change this value, but 500 is what I kept it on for months

fLeafAnimDampenDistEnd=4600.0000
;this is the distance at which trees have 0% movement from wind blowing
fLeafAnimDampenDistStart=3600.0000
:this is the distance at which trees still move 100% from wind but after that will begin swaying less until you get to DistEnd value.

fDepthOfFieldWST=0.125
;this gives trees and mountain tops in the very far distance a slight blur like what most games do with depth of field

iMaxFocusShadowsDialogue=4
;4 default

bComputeShaderDeferredTiledLighting=1
uFaceGenTextureResolution=1024
uPipboyTargetHeight=700
uPipboyTargetWidth=876
;doubling these resolutions from default was causing my pipboy to lag when pulling it up, it was annoying, and i found in the end that keeping the resolution at default values was a blurrier pipboy, but was alot less annoying
iTiledLightingMinLights=1
;had this on 10 originally, switched it to 1 at some point and I must have forgot, so it performed well and i never noticed light popping in
fRainOccProjRadiusRejectionSize=0.0100
fRainOccObjRejectionSize=100.0000
fSMProjRadiusRejectionSize=0.0200
fSMObjRejectionSize=250.0000
uSMObjRejectionSplit=2
bFadeInCulledGeometries=0
;fade in vs pop in, seems to be very noticable when zooming in sniper rifle scope
bEffectShaderAllowPBRShadows=1
sAntiAliasing=TAA
iPresentInterval=0
;this is a critical setting, turns off bethesda vsync which lags hardcore
bAllowShadowcasterNPCLights=1
;this makes npcs and turrets show shadows, cant remember if its off by default, i think it is

fMaxFocusShadowMapDistance=1.0000
;450 default, 1.0 works best
;450 was making shadows of my turrets dissapear when you got within like 15 feet, 0.0 was making npc shadows dissapear when I spoke to them in dialogue focus mode, 1.0 fixed that and worked best

[Decals]
bDecals=1
bSkinnedDecals=1
uMaxDecals=100
;ultra 1000, high 250, med 100, low 0
;I don't need 1000 bullet holes in the walls, 100 seemed like enough
uMaxSkinDecals=100
;ultra 100, high 50, med 35, low 0
[TerrainManager]
fBlockMaximumDistance=250000.0000
;ultra 250000, high 180000, med 100000, low 100000
;this setting makes the difference between having naked mountains and mountains with low res trees on them, I think its a low cost to make looking in the distance look way better
fBlockLevel2Distance=75000.0000
;ultra 110000, high 110000, med 80000, low 75000
fBlockLevel1Distance=25000.0000
;ultra 90000, high 60000, med 32000, low 25000
fBlockLevel0Distance=15000.0000
;ultra 60000, high 30000, med 20000, low 15000
fTreeLoadDistance=10000.0
;put this down to 10000 and you cant even tell, just more performance
fSplitDistanceMult=1.5000
;supposedly this just multiplies all the numbers above, so keep in mind those low values may all be turning out to be 50% further
bShowLODInEditor=0

[ImageSpace]
bDoRadialBlur=0
iRadialBlurLevel=0
bDoDepthOfField=1
;this setting only works if fDepthOfFieldWST= is greater than 0
;I put this on 1 and set fDepthOfFieldWST=0.125 to get soft blur in distance
bDynamicDepthOfField=0
bMBEnable=0
;once I got my game settings dialed in really really good, motion blur started to be the framerate bottleneck so I turned it off
bLensFlare=1
bScreenSpaceBokeh=0

[LightingShader]
bScreenSpaceReflections=1

[LOD]
fLODFadeOutMultActors=15.0000
fLODFadeOutMultItems=1.25
;this setting has a major impact on your VRAM usage because the game has to keep all the items in this radius of your character loaded in VRAM incase you turn around and see it, so if you have VRAM issues, the smaller you can tolerance, the better.
fLODFadeOutMultObjects=7.000
;I had this on 7.000 for a long while and then I was at the dried up lake area and noticed rocks appearing and disappearing when I would zoom in on scope and it annoyed me so I tested what I had to set it at so I'd never see anything pop in or out from scope and it was 16.8 (this is about where uGridstoLoad=5 is set to)
;I switched to heavy weapons and power armor and stopped zooming in scopes so I was able to switch this to 7.00 and not see object popin. So if you use scopes, you want 17.000 if you dont use scopes 7.0
fLODFadeOutMultSkyCell=1.0000
;this is set to 1 for ultra, high, med, and low, so not sure what it does

[Grass]
fGrassStartFadeDistance=8000.0000
;this is about as far as I can see grass and notice it when using scope
;this setting does not affect fps too much so set it at 8k and forget about it
fGrassMaxStartFadeDistance=30000.0000
;this changes the max value your in-game setting slide bar goes to
fGrassMinStartFadeDistance=1000.0000
;this changes the min value your in-game setting slide bar goes to

[Water]
bUseWaterHiRes=1
bUseWaterDisplacements=1
bUseWaterRefractions=1
bUseWaterReflections=1
bUseWaterDepth=1

[Texture]
iLargeTextureArrayMipSkip=0
iTextureMipSkipBC1UNormSrgb=0
iTextureMipSkipBC3UNormSrgb=0
iTextureMipSkipBC1UNorm=0
iTextureMipSkipBC5SNorm=0
iTextureMipSkipBC4UNorm=0
iTextureMipSkipMinDimension=1024
;with Radrose HD (1080p) textures all 0's and 1024 ended up working best (had the least texture load stutter)
iLargeTextureArrayDim=2048
iTextureQualityLevel=3
iLargeTextureArrayCount=32

;The way these texture values work is kind of complicated. The mip skip types are different kinds of textures, I never really figured which ones were which in the game. But the way it works is, if you say mip skip =1, that means when your character is 10 feet away from a texture 1024x1024 texture, and the game would normally show you a mipmap of that texture of say 256x256, it will instead show 128x128. It skips a mip level and shows you a lower one depending on the value you entered. The MipSkipMinDimension is the smallest mip dimension that the game will skip. So if I am looking at a scene and I see a textures: A-4096x4096 B-2048x2048, C-1024x1024, and D-512x512, then if my mipskip is set to 2, and mindimension is 1024. then I will see those textures as A-1024x1024, B-1024x1024, C-1024x1024, and D-512x512
;This allows you to make all your textures downgraded by one or two mips, but once it gets to a certain value you will have it stop downgrading. These settings have a big effect on using HD or UHD texture mods. If you use a 4k texture mod and use mipskip=1, your game will end up performing like that 4k texture mod is a 2k mod.
;I recommend using the games default values for ULTRA setting, and then using a Radrose HD textures, not UHD. I ended up making a custom package of textures from that mod

[Weather]
iRainOcclusionMapResolution=512
;512 1024 2048 4096 8192 16384
;had this on 16384 for a while and just switched back to 512 to see if i notice a difference, im not sure it does

uGridsToLoad=5
;default for all graphics settings is 5
;supposedly you should only upgrade this in odd numbers, 5,7,9
;going beyond 5 is just too costly in terms of performance for what you gain

[Enlighten]
;bethesda didnt like people getting rid of the enlighten so I guess they removed ini ability to tweak it

[Culling]
bMultiThreadedLODCulling=1
;1 default

[MAIN]
fImageContrastHDR=1.7500
;tried changing this a few times but it would revert back to 1.75
fImageContrastSDR=1.0000

[Particles]
iMaxDesired=375
;default is 750, I moved it to 375 to get more performance in community events and never noticed a difference but lower number means equal or better performance so i kept it there

-----------------------------------INI CODE ENDS-------------------------------

C:\Users\ "" \Documents\My Games\Fallout 76\Fallout76Custom.ini
---------------------------INI CODE BEGINS--------------------------

[EnlightenDebug]
;enlighten settings stopped working at some point

[Display]
;bDisableShadowJumps=0
;fSunUpdateThreshold:Display=1.0
;fSunShadowUpdateTime:Display=1.0
;none of the three commands above seemed to do anything but I saw them here and there ini guides. Maybe someone can explain why some of them have the :Display suffix?

;fSunUpdateThreshold=0.0005
;0.05 = 1 second
;1 = 20 seconds
;Best = 0.025/0.5
;Good = 0.01/0.25, 0.0125/0.25

;fSunShadowUpdateTime=1.0
;0.25 = 0.25 seconds

;These lines in [Display] all have semicolons infront of them because I want them in my ini file but I'm currently using the games default settings. After alot of testing of these shadow behavior values, I ultimately decided that bethesda's default settings were the best for me. I am leaving them in my ini file because they are useful settings that you have to manually add, and I wanted to show what values I thought were worth trying.

[ScreenSplatter]
bBloodSplatterEnabled=0
;this setting seems to only work if its in custom.ini and not in prefs.ini so its important that its here

[Archive]
bInvalidateOlderFiles=1
;the texture files below are the files from nexus mods /fallout76/mods/1209 and /fallout76/mods/1420 but I renamed them cuz they were all long af. I tried swapping between texture packs so thats why they are all listed the way they are.

;Fallout 76 Radrose HD
;sResourceIndexFileList=I ended up using the non-normals, and non-effects HD Radrose pack with all weapons textures and ammo textures removed, and then just a few categories for the normals (vehicles, walls, and other metal things).

---------------------------------INI CODE ENDS----------------------------


If you are still reading this far and appreciate my post, then here is a little treat for you:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I2In7GfZpGU

This is a video I made of the aquaducts in Whiterun. They were VERY impressive graphics for 2011. I spent many, many days tweaking ini settings for Skyrim when it first came out, and then was finally able to play the game in graphical peace.

[Froge]

Fallout 76 Split Screen / Co - Op two instances
Has anyone figured out how to do this? I want to have my girlfriend play on her controller and I play on keyboard and mouse with two different monitors.

Furthest I got was changed an INI file to let me control the game with controller while tabbed out but then the game keeps automatically tabbing in.

Borderlands 2 easily was able to be done by a simple -alwaysfocus and -controlleroffset, anyone got advice?

[Stone]

You'll need two PC bro.

[Serath]

Originally posted by t.tv/FrogeTV:

Fallout 76 Split Screen / Co - Op two instances
Has anyone figured out how to do this? I want to have my girlfriend play on her controller and I play on keyboard and mouse with two different monitors.

Furthest I got was changed an INI file to let me control the game with controller while tabbed out but then the game keeps automatically tabbing in.

Borderlands 2 easily was able to be done by a simple -alwaysfocus and -controlleroffset, anyone got advice?

What does this have to do with the OP?

[cristianhurtado82]

thank you!