Fallout 4 Discussion Thread

The one on the left or the one on the right?

 

Duh, one on the right of course.
I don't see why Assface would be angry - that name is on the supported names list.

 

How well does this run on 970m?

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Pretty well, everything maxed out (except motion blur and godrays on high) with around 50-60 fps

 

Nice. I like this port.

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FYI - You can buy this from Green Man Gaming for $48 by using the code SAVE20-NOVEMB-GAMING at checkout.

 

So, I gave a "demo" a try. Short verdict - (Bethesda) Fallout, (Bethesda) Fallout never changes.
Keep in mind that these are very very very early first impressions (~3h in). I was on the limb about purchasing this, and sure there are Steam refunds, but 2h is nothing to really test an open world game, so I went the old school way.

And I'm glad I did, because, well you know how people used to say that Fallout 3 was Oblivion with guns. Well, this is exactly Skyrim with guns. What was one of the biggest additions to Skyrim? Crafting! So this is like improved FO NV crafting + better gunplay.
I was actually expecting a better gunplay. I heard a rumour that supposedly id Software was behind gunplay mechanics. So naturally RAGE lit up in my mind, and boy was the gunplay fun in that game or what! Unfortunately it wasn't the case. It's definitely better than two previous iterations, but I still ended up using VATS more than shooting myself.

Now, about performance and looks. Oh my... Before driver update it was kinda crappy, afterwards - better. Don't ask me about the exact number, I usually go "by the feel" for such things. Textures and animations look like ****. At some point I thought that I was actually playing FO3. Effects are nice though. And draw distance is rather good.
Personally for me draw distance in such type of games is usually more important. There were too many times when crappy pop-in in The Witcher 3 ruined immersion completely for me. But on the other hand, it's 2015, and after DAI and (especially) TW3, FO4 animations and textures look bad. Really bad. I wonder if Bethesda plans on releasing High Res DLC, like they did with Skyrim. At least we can always count on SDK and mods. So overall in this section I would give FO4 an "Okay..." You (at least) I can works with such graphics, but seriously Bethesda, it's not 2012 anymore.

Lets see, what else did I see in these 3 hours of gameplay. Colours looks more vivid, but you already knew that by trailers. Not sure how this is gonna affect overall atmosphere, only visited a few locations, so this could go either way. But so far it wasn't a problem.
The way you loot stuff was weird at first, but in the end I ended up liking it. When you approach, for example, a body, you get a sort of pop-up with contents, so you don't get interrupted (unless you go into transfer mode). I dunno, felt more fluent.
Powerarmour. Powerarmour was also remade. Like the HUD and the way you have to get into it. Fun running around and shooting stuff (I also think that small objects get destroyed when you run in to them. Unfortunately enemy doesn't get hurt when you try running into them). Obviously had no chance to try to upgrade it, but it should be good. Biggest fear - it uses power cells, so it's a timed pleasure. It works without them, but it's not as good while running off power cells. Of course you can save up crap ton of power cells and go nuts, but I think once you level up significantly you deserve to permanently wear it.
Voice acting could have also been better. Again, played too many Bioware games and The Witcher 3, it's now weird to see these Mass Effect style dialogues with that kind of voice acting. And while we're at it, yes, I'm gonna talk about "answer wheel" or whatever it's called. Not a fan. Because it's sometimes hard to see what really hides behind that simple "OK" answer. This was also a problem for me in ME games.

I realize that these first impressions sound a bit too negative. I guess. But they are what they are. And do remember that even if gunplay is still not as good, it's still an improvement. And there's finally normal crafting. And this is (Bethesda) Fallout. You will get a chance to explore the world, go nuts, or explore the world while going nuts And did I tell you there was a dog? MGS V will be disappointed tough, Dogmeat, unlike D-Dog (TM), can't take a piss on your command...
For the likes of me this will be a buy once complete edition is released. By that time plenty of mods will be out there and FO4 will became a masterpiece. For people who like Fallout, well I don't think that they bothered to read this to this point, because their minds were already made up and the game was pre-ordered.
Good thing this is not an annual release, because it would go up there with all those CODs and ACs and etc...

 

Or be like me, and simply install a mod that gives all vendors tons of money.

 

Yo ho yo ho where's the best place to get a demo m80?

 

Nice try, FBI guy, but I'm not falling for that!

 

Just say you tried the cracked version then, no need to blow smoke up everyone's tailpipe Having said that I miss the good old days where we actually got demo's.

'Garr..Someone's sailing the 7 seas me hearty'

So I'm guessing disabling vsync will break the game over time like Skyrim then

 

I actually seriously considered that

 

Yeah I don't count that =D.

 

I'm guessing that discretion is not your strong side
Demos were pretty sweet back then. Especially now, since every big AAA title expects you to pre-order it without knowing what it will be like in the end.
Some games have trial periods, which is good (i.e. DAI) and now there's stuff like Steam refunds and other variations. Though in case of Steam refunds 2 hours is sometimes not enough to make up your mind on a game, i.e. an open world title (DAI, TW3, FO4). Such games usually open up (or start sucking) after at least 10 hours of gameplay.

I'm pretty sure he figured that out on his own, judging by his "yo ho hos."

Now back on topic. Another small nitpick I found yesterday is that when you holster your weapon it vanishes. Your char doesn't put it on his/her back or side, it's just goes away. Puff! Or maybe your char sticks it up his/her butt... Anyway, I dislike that. For some it's no big deal, but for me it kinda breaks immersion, especially if you switch to third person mode. In Skyrim it looked funny when you switched between sword and bow, for example. One appears while other disappears. Afterwards I found an awesome mod called Equipping Overhaul which showed all weapons on you which you had favourited. I remember how epic my Dovakhiin Kenny looked in his ebony armour with bow and two handed sword on his back and a one handed axe on his hip. Srs business.
I think they removed this due to multi layer armour system FO4 has, so that it wouldn't clip through, but I still wish there was something.
There will probably be mods, but again, this is something that should have been there in the first place.

P.S. they also recycled most of the radio music from FO3.

 

Online game reviews, and Let's Play videos are great sources of info. Between those two, and Steam's refund policy, I get a pretty good idea of whether I think I'd like a game. To me, that's a pretty fair system.

The best way I can describe Fallout 4 is this:
The Elder Scrolls: Oblivion was a great RPG. But Skyrim took that franchise to a whole new level. Skyrim gave you a wider, expansive world with more to explore. It created a level of "richness" and depth in that world that it made for a highly immersive experience where you could easily see how people would sink 100's of hours into that game, just exploring and getting lost in the world of Skyrim.

Fallout 4 does the same thing. The jump from Fallout 3 --> 4 is very comparable to the jump from Oblivion --> Skyrim.

 

With the detail turned up it's actually an nice looking game, the god rays do a lot for the atmosphere.

 

Yep, but I can't shake the feeling nor the look that it is FO3 with prettier looking lights on top of it. There is a limit to how far pretty textures and light can take you when the rest looks ancient.

 

For me let's plays are second hand experience. Sure they give you general idea of what the game might be, but only until I myself try it out I won't know if it's good or not. Previously I've made a few purchases based on let's play videos and unfortunately not all of them worked out.
As for reviews, good ones take time to write (unlike that dribble from IGN, Gamespot, etc.), so they are most of the time not there near release dates.

 

Oh, yes. Definitely.

34" ultrawide monitor. Graphics cranked to max. Lights off. Headphones on. See you in 6 hours!

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Meh. I wouldn't put too much credence in just graphics. This uses the same engine as Skyrim, which was absolutely incredible in terms of delivering an immersive other-world experience.

A game's quality isn't determined by graphics. Look at Ryze, Son of Rome. Fantastic graphics, garbage game.

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A game's overal quality is not determined sorely by graphics, of course, but it definitely affects. It's not only graphics, but bugs, reutilizing a lot of assets. People give a pass to Fallout because there is hardly a game like Fallout, but don't kid yourself as if this was the most amazing experience ever. It does lack a lot, and in the case of immersion and atmosphere, you are definitely affected by graphics. They are not bad, as in OMG HORRIBLE, but they could have been much more, specially from a huge studio. Also, graphics is more than just textures or pretty lights.

The problem also is that graphics is an ever changing bar. There is no "good enough" because it is subjective. The more something improves, the more we find detrimental in older things, but nostalgia also affects how we judge some games. I would rather have current fallout the way it is, instead of literally Fallout 3 looks. But I don't want to settle for just a bit better. I really want to get into that world.

Fun is entirely subjective as well. For example, a lot of people have a lot of fun with minecraft, while I find it lackluster. Likewise, I like some games deemed mediocre by others, but I don't turn a blind eye to obvious lazy things.

For as much fun and immersion I had with skyrim back when it launched (the hours I did play not mod lol), I had much more immersion in the world of Witcher 3 (which I have played less compared to skyrim). I can tell you that I was much more immersed with the lush environments, characters and dynamic feel to it, far more than flying animals, silly faces and animations, that skyrim gave me.

Though to be honest, I mostly complaint because it is not nearly as much as an improvement, as a fan would want out of a game. This is much less of a disappointment, than lets say.... my absolute sadness that Monster Hunter is stuck on 3DS. Hell, not even Wii U now, just 3DS. Ugh.

Plus PC gamers have it much better with FO than console gamers.

 

Framerate drops, crashes, monsters clipping throughg floors, texture glitchs, rebinding key issues.

As expected, I'm sure there were be more bugs revealed, this is just from people on my steam list chumps who bought it full price on day 1.

 

GameGPU tests complete - interesting to see it utilizes up to 8 cores and 15 threads. I imagine strain on the CPU will be much higher after installing mods with scripting and increased spawns:

 

The real question is "who the f%*$ is playing at 720p on a 980 Ti?!" Who buys a $650 GPU to play at last-gen console res, not to mention physics break above 60 FPS so those high frame rates are meaningless. This is a 60 FPS game. The only thing that matters is hardware utilization at 60 FPS.

No, how about CPU load will be much lower when playing at realistically GPU-bound settings with the 60 FPS cap in place.

 

Perhaps you aren't familiar with how incredibly demanding this engine can be on the CPU. The vanilla game is already running numerous scripts on all the actors loaded in all the cells adjacent to the cell the player is in at the default uGrids = 5. Now that there is more stability at higher uGrids, the Nvidia article described running smoothly at 13 and 15 uGrids.

When you increase from the default setting of 5 uGrids to 7 uGrids, you are going from a grid of 5 cells by 5 cells (25 cells) loaded into memory, to a grid of 7 cells by 7 cells (49 cells loaded into memory). In the vanilla game, all of these cells are populated with various actors and rendered interactive objects with scripts running and AI patrol/combat routines, etc.

When you add mods that increase the spawns (more actors) and/or increase the number of scripts running on all those actors, my guess is this will even bring i7-6700K to its knees at 13 and 15 uGrids (169 cells and 225 cells loaded into memory - nearly 10x more cells loaded compared to uGrids = 5). Will be interesting to test now that the executable is 64-bit and FO4 seems to fully utilize up to 8 cores and 15 threads.

I usually play Bethesda games with mods that add lots more spawns, so you end up with some massive epic civil war battles in Skyrim, for example.

From some early tests, FO4 seems to be more stable than Skyrim with large numbers of actor spawns:

 

Doesn't matter. Read my post again. Those CPU measurements are worthless because they tested the game uncapped and this a 60 FPS game because of physics being tied to frame rate. CPU utilization easily doubles or more going from 60 to 120 FPS. I repeat, the only thing which matters is how much CPU the game uses at 60 FPS and realistic graphical settings.

 

Got an amazing deal, so I took the plunge FOR SCIENCE.

Games is pretty much locked at 60fps at all times. I do get dips into the mid-50s when overlooking certain vistas.

Really nice game world as well. Exploring the land is cool.

Can't wait for the HD texture mods though.

 

Just reged to reply to this as I was smiling when reading it.

You know there's Thieves guild quest line so you're able to sell more crap right, I think the cap was around 4k... also there's nice little bug that when you go to your "favorite" merchant, sell crap, save, head-arrow the guy, reload then he respawns and has the gold again. Put too many hours in the Skyrim world (not as much as in DarkSouls [can't wait for April]) to end up with like 300k+- gold.

Anyhow, to not hack the post:

Does anyone know (or had it tested) what the lowest specs would be for FalloutBook to be playable vanilla @ least on 30ish frames on let's say @ least on 1280 as I think not all of FallFans have the power of some high-end AlienwareBook etc.

 

I know someone who's playing it well on a GTX 660M, with a mix of medium and high settings, 900p.

 

I`ve launched Fallout 4 on my old 5739G with medium-low graphics settings and with 1366x768 resolution. It is 30FPS stable (90% of the time). Sometimes it lags because of location loading, but it is really playable. So the requirements are quiete high.

 

Tried to play this last night on laptop in sig, Nvidia GeForce Experience said I didn't meet minimum system requirements and game crashed on startup

 

GeForce experience thinks I should run Titanfall on medium and battlefield 4 on ultra.

GeForce experience is retarded.

But you probably just experienced a Bugthesda minute.

 

Haha, yeah I thought it was a bug. It was late so didn't feel like fault finding, will give it a try tonight.

 

Was running pretty well for me but whenever it dropped below 60 it would stutter a bit, I'm guessing due to Vsync. I disabled Vsync and capped the fps at 60 with NV Inspector and it ran nice and much smoother when it dipped below 60. I came back a day later and it was chugging and stuttering like crazy, with atrocious input lag and really spiky GPU usage.

I forgot that the FPS limiter setting resets after a reboot so I set it to 60 again and bam it runs like a dream again. Weird.

After playing around with it I'd definitely recommend setting Godrays to low. Also consider setting shadow quality and distance to medium. You will thank me when you hit built up cities - the framerate TANKS unless you do. Bethesda have some work to do on the performance front.

 

Thanks for the tips sniffin, will try the settings tonight. Have you got your graphics card overclocked whilst playing this?

 

What price did you pay for it?
Few weeks back I saw it go for ~€35 on CDKeys, but since then it jumped up to around €43.

 

I haven't but I'm considering it as the game definitely seems GPU bound.

 

This game needs a performance patch. I really hate to say this because I'm a huge Bethesda fan but this game just doesn't make me feel like Witcher 3 did. I think TW3 is the best game I've played in years ;/

This can't be said enough times.

 

how does it fair on a 980m?

 

Single? According to Kevin, it is fairly stable maxed at 60fps or something like that. Drops here and there, but nothing too jarring.

 

Hmm, might be a particular setting that is causing your game to crash.

Were you able to open the launcher? If you can try manually reducing the resolution to 1280x720, changing all the settings to the lowest possible and then start again.

I'm playing on the ancient hp laptop in my signature, well below minimum specs. The game is quite stable but frame rate is low, fluctuates between 15-25 fps.

 

Lol, I bet even my old laptop with 240m would be able to run FO4. After all, it had no problems running GTA V .

 

Yes, I was able to get the launcher to start and get to the game options, but as soon as I hit play, the game wouldn't load and crashed.

 

No idea if this was due to the latest beta patch, but I got a boost in frame rate yesterday. Was over 30fps in some spots. Really wish they had a setting to completely turn all shadows off.

 

Just started this game, glitch after going into the vault and looking at computer. Won't let me move.

 

yeah nah will pass on this...couldn't get through fallout 3 and i found it too stat heavy for my liking.

 

Target acquired:

 

Dem are some new technology rocks there. Must be that radiation.

 

The rocks are sentient omg