Bethesda details the graphics tech and effects in Fallout 4

Scorpus

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Fallout 4 is easily going to be one of the biggest gaming launches this year, with many PC gamers waiting eagerly to see how the game looks, performs and plays on their system.

Ahead of the game's launch, developer Bethesda Game Studios is giving us an insight into the graphics technology used in the game. As expected, Fallout 4 uses a modified version of the Creation Engine (first used for Skyrim in 2011), which now includes enhanced dynamic lighting thanks to a physically-based deferred renderer, allowing the developers to create natural reflections based on an object's material.

Fallout 4 also uses volumetric light effects from Nvidia, which creates a natural atmosphere in the game depending on the time of day and the weather. This effect uses hardware tessellation, and although it was developed in partnership with Nvidia, Bethesda claims they've "made it work great regardless of your platform."

The updated Creation Engine includes a range of other new graphics features, such as an updated materials system and new cloth simulations, as well as dynamic post-process techniques, and upgrades to the virtual camera that include depth of field. Bethesda has even listed some of the new features to expect in Fallout 4:

  • Tiled Deferred Lighting
  • Temporal Anti-Aliasing
  • Screen Space Reflections
  • Bokeh Depth of Field
  • Screen Space Ambient Occlusion
  • Height Fog
  • Motion Blur
  • Filmic Tonemapping
  • Custom Skin and Hair Shading
  • Dynamic Dismemberment using Hardware Tessellation
  • Volumetric Lighting
  • Gamma Correct Physically Based Shading

Fallout 4 will be released on November 10th on PC, Xbox One and PlayStation 4, but to take advantage of all of these new graphics features, you're going to need to play on PC.

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My sister has this on preorder and when she comes down on the 10th, she plans to pick it up here. I may pick up the PC version and keep my 'PC vs Console' joke with my sister. Thanks for helping me bring it up again, Bethesda, even if I don't play Fallout 4 after she leaves.
 
My sister has this on preorder and when she comes down on the 10th, she plans to pick it up here. I may pick up the PC version and keep my 'PC vs Console' joke with my sister. Thanks for helping me bring it up again, Bethesda, even if I don't play Fallout 4 after she leaves.
PC always wins, better graphics ;)

Can't wait to actually see with my own eyes what this will look like, even got my and my fiance's GPUs updated so that both of us now run a R9 390. Now all that's needed is more ram and a better CPU cooler for her so that I can it overclocked a bit.
 
My sister has this on preorder and when she comes down on the 10th, she plans to pick it up here. I may pick up the PC version and keep my 'PC vs Console' joke with my sister. Thanks for helping me bring it up again, Bethesda, even if I don't play Fallout 4 after she leaves.

Love that you will buy the game just to troll your sister.
 
Already got this preloaded on my Xbox one. lookimg forward to getting back to the wilderness
 
Once again, I see nice graphics but no breakthrough-jaw-dropping-fabulastic graphics on those screenshots. Last game that did that, in my opinion, was launched 8 years ago: Crysis.
My only hope now is HTC Vive and VR gaming...
 
It's not all about the graphics. If it's anything like previous efforts it will be massive and endlessly replayable.
 
Hopefully my system will cope, 780 3GB, 4770K and 16GB RAM. I am eagerly waiting for late 2016 to upgrade or sometime in 2017. Will go full out and re-jig the whole system.

My hipster cousin can have my old setup or some "console peasant".

Haven't played previous Fallouts but this one looks great!
 
Graphics in Fallout 3 were reasonable but certainly not spectacular, some serious modding could bring them up to "good". Fallout 4 is looking very nice so far though!
 
Once again, I see nice graphics but no breakthrough-jaw-dropping-fabulastic graphics on those screenshots. Last game that did that, in my opinion, was launched 8 years ago: Crysis.
My only hope now is HTC Vive and VR gaming...

VR gaming is incredible. Everything life size and with stereoscopic depth. I don't play games without it now.

Can't comment on Vive. I use Oculus DK2 currently.
 
Once again, I see nice graphics but no breakthrough-jaw-dropping-fabulastic graphics on those screenshots. Last game that did that, in my opinion, was launched 8 years ago: Crysis.
My only hope now is HTC Vive and VR gaming...
You're the type of person who looks at Minecraft and says "Call of Duty has way better graphics"
 
Hopefully my system will cope, 780 3GB, 4770K and 16GB RAM. I am eagerly waiting for late 2016 to upgrade or sometime in 2017. Will go full out and re-jig the whole system.

My hipster cousin can have my old setup or some "console peasant".

Haven't played previous Fallouts but this one looks great!
It should but if past console to PC ports are anything to go by...
http://www.gamespot.com/articles/fallout-4-pc-minimum-and-recommended-pc-specs-conf/1100-6431267/
 
It's not all about the graphics. If it's anything like previous efforts it will be massive and endlessly replayable.
True, but only if the main story ends up being optional. Hopefully someone will make a FO4 version of the Skyrim mod "Alternate Start: Live Another Life."
 
Hopefully my system will cope, 780 3GB, 4770K and 16GB RAM. I am eagerly waiting for late 2016 to upgrade or sometime in 2017. Will go full out and re-jig the whole system.

My hipster cousin can have my old setup or some "console peasant".

Haven't played previous Fallouts but this one looks great!

Just gonna say this, Nvidia have been throwing 780 owners under the bus. It's one hell of an expensive card yet it's been getting whooped by way cheaper cards on the latest benchmarks. Avoid GameWorks features because those rely on maxwell's architecture in order to get good frames.
 
Hopefully my system will cope, 780 3GB, 4770K and 16GB RAM. I am eagerly waiting for late 2016 to upgrade or sometime in 2017. Will go full out and re-jig the whole system.

My hipster cousin can have my old setup or some "console peasant".

Haven't played previous Fallouts but this one looks great!

Just gonna say this, Nvidia have been throwing 780 owners under the bus. It's one hell of an expensive card yet it's been getting whooped by way cheaper cards on the latest benchmarks. Avoid GameWorks features because those rely on maxwell's architecture in order to get good frames.
I've got a 780 and actually done some testing (I had some saved videos of Battlefield 4 on 64 player maps from about 4 months before the 980 launched).

Before the 980 launched I was getting around 90-100fps in a particular part of a map I hang out in.
I stopped playing BF4 for a while jumped on every so often, then, recently, about 3-4 months ago, I was in the same spot and recorded a video as well, when I went to check my vids later on I noticed in the past I was getting around 10fps more.

Nothing has changed, Hardware identical, Software exactly the same, nothing extra running in the background. Bizarre, what I find even stranger, my brother who has similar proof with a 770 but it's like 2fps if that, in some places it was actually better with newer drivers the 770 but the 780? It is noticeably worse now.

Why Nvidia? I spent a fortune on my 780 and you've decided to make it perform worse over the years? Nearly on the same level as a 770 even though it's considerably more powerful? What Logic is that?
 
Yeah I gotta say, I love my 4770k (could OC better) but not too happy with 780. Il wait for the next generation or two of CPUs and GPUs and overhaul, too poor right now ^^
 
Yeah I gotta say, I love my 4770k (could OC better) but not too happy with 780. Il wait for the next generation or two of CPUs and GPUs and overhaul, too poor right now ^^
I'm still fairly happy with my 3770k and GTX 680. Still don't feel that I need a CPU upgrade, but a GPU upgrade is in order fairly soon. I'm hoping there aren't many delays with Pascal
 
Agreed, my 4770k I'm fine with, I barely make it sweat really, the 780 though? It's rare it's not at 100% usage. If Pascal is as good as it's looking, I will be dropping some serious money on a top end Pascal card.
 
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