This game is from 2015 yet it requires a high end pc + Performance problems, how and why?

[Uncle Nelson]

2015 to this day is a pretty long time and yet just like the title, why? I also noticed that the options of this game is really limiting before i refunded this game sadly even tho i loved fallout because of New Vegas.

From reddit theres someone mentioned that one of the if not the main reason of this game poor performance is its ancient engine that also been used in skyrim but skyrim runs well/ That reddit post is in 2015 btw, the same year the game came out.

Another is the poorly implemented shadows, dynamic objects, and godrays.

I also found another comment on reddit of someone suggesting to use the mod "dxvk" where it changes fallout's engine to use vulkan instead of directx 11. Is direct x also plays a part in this game poor performance?

I also found that a claim that the game is also poorly optimized in every other platform.

For my on experience of playing the game i have changed the settings to lowest even tho the options in the settings are very lacking and yet i only reach at max 30 frames in native. Now while i do understand that i have a old and kinda broken pc, a 2015 game is still a 2015 game.

List of games from 2015 release that actually run better than fallout 4 based on my experience:
-Heroes of the Storm
-Life is Strange
-Grand Theft Auto 5
-Witcher 3
-Ori and the Blind Forest
-Homeworld Remastered
-Soma

Hell Dark Souls 3 a game from 2016 and Sekiro a game from 2019 ran better in my end.

I need some easy but detailed explanations in plain easy english on this matter.

[Langkard]

Your experience depends upon a lot of things.

If you're using an Nvidia gpu, then that can be part of it. Fallout 4 seems to have problems with some Nvidia cards, or vice versa, especially older ones.

Your screen resolution is also a factor. This game plays best in 1920 x 1080 for most systems. If you're trying to play it in a larger resolution, then you'll have problems without a more modern gpu which can upscale to some degree using DLSS or FSR.

Changing around the screen modes can help. Some systems run better in full screen, some in borderless window and some in windowed mode. Try each and see which works best.

God rays are often a problem. Even today, gpus and games still don't always get god rays right. It is best just to turn them off unless you're using a system which handles them better, pretty much just the current top end of Nvidia for that, the 4090, or to a lesser extent the AMD 7900's.

No matter what, the game physics are tied to the frame rate. To ever run at more than 60 fps you will need a mod which fixes the game so that the physics work at higher than 60 fps.

[tbloyzz]

It is unreasonable to expect an old game to run perfectly on a hardware that provides more power than the developers had at the time of programming.

[Uncle Nelson]

Originally posted by tbloyzz:

It is unreasonable to expect an old game to run perfectly on a hardware that provides more power than the developers had at the time of programming.

The game is made by a big company, not a indie company.

[hawkeye]

FO4 does not require a high end pc. I started playing it on an i7-2600 which was released in 2011 and gtx 970 gpu with a 1080p 120hz monitor. Later I replaced the 970 with a 1080ti. No problems at all.

Here are Gamers Nexus benchmarks -
https://www.gamersnexus.net/game-bench/2177-fallout-4-pc-video-card-fps-benchmark-all-resolutions
https://www.gamersnexus.net/game-bench/2182-fallout-4-cpu-benchmark-huge-performance-difference

I do turn off godrays, dof, motion blur as I don't like them. Everything else is set to max including shadows. My old pc will do way above 60 fps in the outdoors and only 60 fps in Boston which is what the game was built for.

With a modern entry level cpu and gpu there would be no problem at all.
As with all games, the gpu requirement is dependant on the monitor resolution as demonstrated in the gamers nexus benchmarks.

The Boston CBD area can suffer fps loss due to the complexity of the area. Especially when modded. Mods increase the cpu load and the cpu is responsible for producing the maximum framerate. The gpu can only match what the cpu produces or limit it. Mods also break the game's optimization systems, which can clobber fps completely in the CBD.

It uses the same optimization methods that other game engines use. The big difference is the reliance on scripts instead of compiled code. Scripts are much much slower. However they are what makes the game mod-able.

If you do have a modern pc then you should no performance problems at all even when heavily modded. Vanilla is even capable of achieving 120 fps at 4k resolution on current medium performance cpus and gpus.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VGK6MizjzzU&t=426s

As for the other games, who cares? The original version of TW3 had inferior graphics except that being locked to third person that wasn't obvious. FO4 is an open-world box sandbox that can be modded into your own personal game that suits your tastes. That's why people play Bethesda games.

[SkunkPlaysGames]

It definitely is a ♥♥♥♥♥♥ performer but its also a bit of a product of its time. It doesn't know how to make use of a lot of modern components. Hopefully the rerelease will help with a lot of engine bottlenecks.

The problem seems to be that it was a hungry game when it released, lots of people could barely get it to run well on low settings at the time of its release, and yet it hasn't been very good at making use of modern hardware either. So its a bit like they wanted the game to run on future hardware and yet it sort of can't.

RDR2 is an example of a game that probably couldn't even have run on full ultra with virtually any hardware at the time of its release but now is probably making great use of i9s and 40-series cards out there while Fallout 4 isn't really capable of doing the same thing.

[Zekiran]

The developers didn't have a time machine to peer into the future - even the near future for them in the years they were making the game. They couldn't know that the sudden boom of higher end bitcoin mining video cards were going to exist, let alone dominate the market after bitcoin died...

A tiny moment of research on this would have helped you immensely but okay OP, game 'needs' high end equipment that can't run it.... >_> Or it 'needs' the user to understand game development just a touch, and do their due diligent research before buying and installing and subsequently complaining about things that can easily be fixed if only you'd expect an old game to be old.

[Longhaul]

lmfao

And yet the game ran perfectly fine on low to medium settings my old gt635 2gb, Literally a 10yo video card. Only area's it "might" chug is the obvious downtown core...

I got a one up on Hawkeye with the old video card usage.. in fact that old 635 card handled a lot of ♥♥♥♥ thrown at it surprisingly. Hell it even handled Metro Exodus on the lowest of settings.. it looked like ass but it was playable lol.

[-={LG}=-]

Originally posted by Wifi Orbit:

I need some easy but detailed explanations in plain easy english on this matter.

Sorry, can't help you.

[Excal]

bro has potato pc..... get good one run all games never cry about it again lol

[Bored Peon]

Originally posted by Wifi Orbit:

List of games from 2015 release that actually run better than fallout 4 based on my experience:
-Heroes of the Storm
-Life is Strange
-Grand Theft Auto 5
-Witcher 3
-Ori and the Blind Forest
-Homeworld Remastered
-Soma

None of those games physics for thousands of objects in the game world.

The real irony is the fact that the OP did not invest their time properly. All that time reading wrong forum topics and writing a forum topic to echo what was read could have been used to find topics that make the game run just fine.

Think about this, for a game that is eight years old and single player it still averages like 20,000 players. If you are unable to get the game to run then you are doing something wrong. Simply because after eight years you are not going to have some original issue that makes it unplayable, there is probably dozens of topics on how to resolve whatever your issue is.

[tbloyzz]

Originally posted by Wifi Orbit:

Originally posted by tbloyzz:

It is unreasonable to expect an old game to run perfectly on a hardware that provides more power than the developers had at the time of programming.

The game is made by a big company, not a indie company.

What is your point, if you have any?

[Uncle Nelson]

Originally posted by Longhaul:

lmfao

And yet the game ran perfectly fine on low to medium settings my old gt635 2gb, Literally a 10yo video card. Only area's it "might" chug is the obvious downtown core...

I got a one up on Hawkeye with the old video card usage.. in fact that old 635 card handled a lot of ♥♥♥♥ thrown at it surprisingly. Hell it even handled Metro Exodus on the lowest of settings.. it looked like ass but it was playable lol.

Yet i found a guy on reddit with a i9 and a 3080 who can run cyberpunk 1440p with ultra settings and high framerate struggles with this game. That is a optimization flaw isn't it? How is a game performance depended on RNG, doesn't make any sense.

Not only that i also found many articles criticizing fallout 4 performance, articles from 2015, the same year of the game release.

I could link them here but none of you will read it so it be a waste of time.

[Uncle Nelson]

Originally posted by tbloyzz:

Originally posted by Wifi Orbit:

The game is made by a big company, not a indie company.

What is your point, if you have any?

They're big a company, a company that is responsible for multiple great games with a big team yet somehow they can't optimize a game? Don't big companies have big budget too? Also why a newer game uses older engine?

[Uncle Nelson]

Originally posted by Zekiran:

The developers didn't have a time machine to peer into the future - even the near future for them in the years they were making the game. They couldn't know that the sudden boom of higher end bitcoin mining video cards were going to exist, let alone dominate the market after bitcoin died...

A tiny moment of research on this would have helped you immensely but okay OP, game 'needs' high end equipment that can't run it.... >_> Or it 'needs' the user to understand game development just a touch, and do their due diligent research before buying and installing and subsequently complaining about things that can easily be fixed if only you'd expect an old game to be old.

I found a guy with higher specs than me struggles with the game. It is an old fkin game, it should ran at least 60 frames in the lowest settings.

Theres literally articles criticizing the game performance. Google them if you arent stubborn.

[Bored Peon]

Originally posted by Wifi Orbit:

There are literally posts on reddit forums and many articles criticizing fallout 4 performance. I can link them here but i have a feeling that youre to stubborn and too biased towards the game and its company so you would not bother checking the links i've provided.

I did not read you post because you aint even the hundredth person saying the same thing in the last eight years.

I did not follow your clickbait links because none of those links are not going to tell me anything I do not already know and have not already heard dozens of times.

I never said the game was properly optimized, in fact I have said it aint for years,

The point I made was that you express no interest into even trying to make the game work. Which means you created the topic just to provoke an argument.