Texture/lighting issue. Grey shadows and textures sometimes a bit 'off'

[Harmonica]

I've been experiencing this issue off and on since the game came out. At times in the game it seems like the lighting or gamma is slightly off, so that there's not as much contrast between light and dark areas (technically it's like the game is incorrectly clipping the contrast range so there's no very dark areas). Shadows around object edges and object textures appear washed out and grey rather than properly lit and defined. Also, textures may or may not be less than full detail. It's really hard to tell about that given that the game textures are not exactly high-res even on Ultra.

edit: may have stumbled upon a solution, see fourth post below for details.

Overall, everything just seems a bit 'flat', almost like fullbright mode has been put on. However, it doesn't affect character models - they always appear to be in full res and lit properly when this is happening. It's not so absolutely broken that I'd describe it as a major glitch, but it's hard to ignore and I have no idea what triggers it or how to stop it.

At first I thought it was a weather thing, because sometimes the bloom in daylight is so strong and can apply some kind of texture blur effect, but I've noticed it remain through weather transitions. This seems to happen at all times of the day, and indoors and outdoors. However, importantly, I don't think it affects all areas of the game. Some of them (notably, underground subway areas like the first Nick mission, or The Dig) seem to have forced lighting effects that always look good (have a full range of lighting from dark shadows to light, and high-res textures) no matter if I was noticing this 'low contrast' lighting issue going into it.

It's possible it's related to fast-traveling or sleeping, or certain triggering locations. Saving and reloading the save doesn't fix it. I'm also not sure that even loading an older save fixes it, it might just be affecting the game engine as a whole - but quitting and reloading a save with the issue will have the issue start up again.

I've noticed this with streamers who are running on the absolute highest settings, to people on medium systems, and also on consoles. I've played the game on both console and PC and I've seen this 'grey textures/flat lighting' thing happen in exactly the same way, so it seems like an engine issue.

So.. I kind of just want to know that others out there have seen this issue, so I know I'm not just imagining it. Or maybe it's not an issue? It's just some weird 'atmosphere' thing that happens and Fallout is meant to look like this sometimes? I dunno.

[pike]

you dont own the game on pc , so you dont need help with the pc version of the game

[Harmonica]

Thanks, that's super creepy.

Not that it matters, but as I said, it affects all versions of the game. I'm mostly playing on console but I'm also now cooping it on PC, so I'd like to hear about PC fixes if there are any. And more general in-game fixes apply to both.

I actually assumed it was a console only thing until I saw it happening on PC too.

[Harmonica]

Okay, wow, I think I have had a massive breakthrough with this whilst playing today!

It seems to me like something suddenly snapped my game into properly loading the highest res textures and proper lighting. All of a sudden I'm seeing the game 'stream in' the highest quality textures when it never bothered before. Looking around the world I'm seeing better definition textures on everything close up and going off into the distance on things like bridges. Even using the workshop build menu shows higher quality thumbnails! (stupid thing to notice but it's there).

I believe it was possibly getting into T51 power armour and entering dialogue or using the pip boy using the armour that triggered the fix. After that I had amazingly hi-res textures and models like I hadn't had for a week or maybe ever. I spent the next ten minutes staring at things like the metal shack walls and the muddy ground and the wet wood steps. And even Piper's model had loaded in the highest detail textures so I could see her scarf swishing properly. Seriously, it was like night and day. If this is the game's way of simulating head injuries and healing (even if it's completely bugged) it's AMAZING. Like some kind of cataract surgery.

If it wasn't the power armour that did it, it was spending Christmas Day in a shack with my companion. That may or may not be a harder fix to attempt :)