Fallout 4 Benchmarked
Results: Full HD With Low And Medium Preset
We’re using a more mainstream setup with AMD's FX-8350 for the next two benchmarks. Compared to a Core i3, this machine benefits from its four modules scheduling eight threads. As mentioned, Fallout 4 scales well when you give it more cores and threads, regardless of whether they're physical or logical (through Hyper-Threading).
Even older graphics cards like Nvidia’s GeForce GTX 770 are bottlenecked a bit by our mid-range CPU, so we skip testing the fastest boards. If you have a big GPU in your machine, complement it with a well-balanced host processor.
1920x1080, Medium Preset
We're forced to drop to the Medium quality preset in order to achieve decent frame rates using lower-end graphics cards.
Disabling v-sync often makes the difference between playable and unplayable performance, since the frame rates fluctuate above and below 60 FPS. Which experience is better? It comes down to personal preference; we recommend trying both ways.
At the bottom of the range, graphics cards like Nvidia's GeForce GTX 750 and AMD's Radeon HD 7850 provide a barely-playable experience.
1920x1080, Low Preset
Now we're scraping the bottom of the proverbial barrel, meaning we need to make some cuts at the top of the field one more time. The Low preset allows integrated GPUs like AMD's APUs and Intel's Broadwell-based CPUs to hit playable performance levels.
In spite of bearable frame rates, the overall gaming experience ranges from mediocre (Intel's Broadwell) to somewhat below that (AMD's APUs).
Almost everything that impacts performance is now turned off or manually disabled. This is what that looks like:
The integrated graphics solutions' low performance is predominantly due to low IPC throughput. Plus, they'd need significantly faster memory to facilitate higher average FPS.
More likely it's hamstrung by GameWorks BS.
The game runs horribly, I get dips into the high 40's with GodRays set to low (1440P). It confounds me why I get better performance from Crysis 3, Witcher 3, Metro LL...all of which make this 2015 title look like a re-skinned Skyrim.
Their decision to use the creation engine was horrendous, and highlighted by their poor GameWorks implementation (but I blame team green for that forceful marketing).
If low frames, $hit textures and models werent bad enough...the game is boring as Sunday Night Church. 7 hours into it, I had a wonderful variance of "clear the raiders" missions to enjoy...and too many hours played for a Steam refund.
If I sound butthurt, it's because I am...Fallout 3 was one of my favorite games, and Fallout New Vegas was an incredible addition to the franchise.
The way this was done you cannot compare results from the same GPU between, for example, Ultra and Medium.
I'm with you on the vsync. I thought it would be cool to run around at over 200 fps and then I saw what happens lol. It's reminiscent of those comedy skits that play in fast forward with some benny hill theme playing.
Anyway, the most relevant information for these benchmarks is the minimum fps, and that's not included.
The performance of the game also is dynamic just like the game world. Early in the Main Quest, the world isn't as dynamic as later. There's a lot more going on later. Areas that were previously empty now have NPCs, etc. Enabling Invisibility in the console might also remove CPU calculations for the NPCs like pathing and collision, which would certainly have some impact on performance.
I heard a rumor that Bethesda's Creation Engine license expires with this title. They could certainly license it again for the next titles, if that's the case. Who knows?
As far as Gameworks goes, I'd get used to it. Nvidia has something like 80% of the AIB market, and it seems like a lot developers don't want to hire more people to code their own solutions, so it might be around for awhile. Let's hope it gets better.
4690K (4.5 Ghz) / Twin 970's @ 18% OC
4770K (4.6 GHz) / Twin 780's @ 26% OC
2600K (4.8GHz) / Twin 560 Ti @ 28% OC
Trying to diagnose problems, the following have been attempted
1. Played as above
2. Played w/ SLI disabled
3. Played w/ GFX cards at stock
4. Payed w/ both CPU and GFX cards at stock
The problem is that they will be sailing along quite nicely and then performance drops to single digit fps. Right now, they've stopped playing in the hope that patches will resolve the problem.
**Braces for downvotes**
I agree. Some of the textures are fine (e.g. Maxson's (sp?) Battlecoat), but they're wildly inconsistent, especially if you go off the beaten path or take a look at unimportant NPCs clothing. It's especially evident in architecture, the rubble, and the super mutants.
I've got about 40 texture and model mods and Reshade/ENB running and it looks pretty solid now. Hell, some of the texture mods are less performance heavy than the defaults . Vivid Landscapes, Rock On, and some WIP Commonwealth retexture pack I can't quite recall the name of are really great.
Could be interesting. You type these in console in the game. Or make a batch-file.
//enable CPU multithreading
tMta ON
tMtrdfl ON
tMtr ppld
thighprocess on //multi AI
SAM 1 //multi audio
Could also be interesting to compare Intel vs AMD
And as said, turn off Godrays. Loose 1/3 of the FPS for something that is barely noticable = bad idea.
For those having problems with stutter and shadows, I recommend Shadowboost over at
http://www.nexusmods.com/fallout4/?
Not too easy to search on the site so heres the page for shadowboost: http://www.nexusmods.com/fallout4/mods/1822/?
Theres tons of visual detail updates out there as well (at nexusmods) if you want higher detail textures etc in the game, usually with no FPS penalty. Just increased VRAM usage.
I'm running tons of mods as well, just as above poster.
Enhanced Wasteland, for better colors.
Realistic Lights
True Storms
Vivid Fallout - Landscapes
Texture optimization project
To name a few
Call me crazy, but I think Skyrim (with the HD texture pack) looks much better than FO4. Maybe it isnt as technically impressive, but there is an awful lot of blatant ugly textures and bad LoD in FO4. Skyrim, despite being really outdated, is still very pleasing looking to the eye.
It wouldnt go well for AMD's cpus. The creation engine is notorious for only fully utilizing a couple of cores, and we know Intel slaps AMD silly in those poorly optimized game engines.
I can tell you firsthand that my 9590 oc'd to 5ghz constant is still noticably jittery vs my new 4790K at stock speed, using a 290x. But that wasnt a shock given the creation engine's known shortfalls. Now, a game like GTA5, which is about as good as it gets for mainstream multi-core optimization, its nearly identical in everyday gaming between that 9590 and the 4790K.
Just a heads up, only the original Titan had good dual precision performance. The Titan X does not and was only released to milk Nvidia fanboys.