Fallout 4 Benchmarked, Performance Review

[Steve]

What may be the biggest game of 2015 is finally here with the launch of Fallout 4 this week. Set in Boston 200 years after a nuclear war, Bethesda's latest open world action-RPG is the series' fifth major instalment. As expected, the game 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.

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 including depth of field. Learning that Fallout 4 is a Nvidia GameWorks title was a little cringeworthy, but developer Bethesda has remained adamant that there is no funny business going on here and that the game is also well optimized for AMD hardware.

Many eager PC gamers are undoubtedly waiting to see how the game looks and performs so we've put together our usual performance analysis to give you an idea of how Fallout 4 should play on your system.

Read the complete review.

 

[jonny888]

As a side note, you DON'T want the game to run any higher than around 85FPS/85Hz, as there is a known bug (which I have personally experience) where using terminals at high FPS causes you to get stuck inside them, and unable to perform any action, forcing you to reload to an earlier game save..... Yes, this is what you get your engine is directly tied to the refresh rate.

 

[vergilangleos]

And once again, there are some GPUs in the first page, but they're not in the charts...

 

[Burty117]

As a side note, you DON'T want the game to run any higher than around 85FPS/85Hz, as there is a known bug (which I have personally experience) where using terminals at high FPS causes you to get stuck inside them, and unable to perform any action, forcing you to reload to an earlier game save..... Yes, this is what you get your engine is directly tied to the refresh rate.

I got this exact issue on launch day, I have a 144Hz monitor and got the game running between 90-115fps and every time I went to a terminal I was stuck, after googling for an hour (game had only just released) I've lowered my screen refresh rate to 60Hz and v-synced it to that, works fine now.

Still, I hope they fix that, everything else in the game works fine at that high FPS just terminals are affected.

 

[yRaz]

I'm happy to see that my 680 still has enough kick in it to run this game maxed at 1080p. I do experience some major FPS dips I can't explain, but they last around 5 seconds then go away. Usually right before or right after something scripted happens.

i7-3770k
12GB ddr 1600
GTX 680

if anyone has any ideas I'd be more than appreciative.

 

[Burty117]

I'm happy to see that my 680 still has enough kick in it to run this game maxed at 1080p. I do experience some major FPS dips I can't explain, but they last around 5 seconds then go away. Usually right before or right after something scripted happens.

i7-3770k
12GB ddr 1600
GTX 680

if anyone has any ideas I'd be more than appreciative.

By any chance, have you got the game installed on a slow (WD Green class) spinning disk?
It seems this game is highly optimised to take advantage of SSD's which pretty much eliminated any stuttering for my brother

I personally used my SSD until I realised I only had like 1GB free and Windows Updates were no longer working, so I moved the game to my WD Velociraptor and loading takes a bit longer but still no stuttering for me, the odd (very) short "hiccup" now occurs though when I go near a populated area so I assume that's the game engine streaming all the details in.

 

[Steve]

And once again , there is some GPUs name in the first page , but they're not in the charts ..

It's horrible, I know. That said, do you mind pointing out which ones?

 

[Adhmuz]

"Before wrapping things up we thought it would be interesting to see how the dual-core G3258 perfoms once pushed past the default 3.2GHz operating frequency"

Thank you for doing this, I actually just finished putting together a portable rig built around the G3258 and a GTX580 to play Fallout 4 at my friends place. I haven't installed it yet but after I do I'll report back with what kind of frame rate I get with the 580. Very interesting how much the DDR4 memory speeds affect performance, it would be nice to see if the same issue correlates to DDR3 with tighter timings. I guess I'll have to test that myself on my first gen i7/GTX970 rig, my primary gaming PC. So far all the screenshots posted in the article look more impressive then what I've seen at my friends place, perhaps due to his xfire setup he had things turned down. Which is missing from the article unfortunately.

 

[gamerk2]

As a side note, you DON'T want the game to run any higher than around 85FPS/85Hz, as there is a known bug (which I have personally experience) where using terminals at high FPS causes you to get stuck inside them, and unable to perform any action, forcing you to reload to an earlier game save..... Yes, this is what you get your engine is directly tied to the refresh rate.

I know the first Dead Space had an issue like that too. The problem is the in-game physics get tied to the refresh, and above a certain point causes things to glitch.

 

[jauffins]

Yeah, this game and other recent titles are a great example of why I switched my Steam drive to an SSD a few years ago. HDDs are simply too slow to load all of this data.

 

[SuperVeloce]

The engine (updated or not) is showing its age imo. But still, a great game. I was shocked at memory performance. Will you have time to test some of the other speeds and timings? Sometime it happens that there is a big jump from 1333 to 1600 or 1866, but not much more after that.

And what happened with 4690k, being slower than lower clocked ivy 3470... Is memory to blame? haswell i7 is clearly faster than ivy bridge (at the same clock).

 

[yRaz]

I'm happy to see that my 680 still has enough kick in it to run this game maxed at 1080p. I do experience some major FPS dips I can't explain, but they last around 5 seconds then go away. Usually right before or right after something scripted happens.

i7-3770k
12GB ddr 1600
GTX 680

if anyone has any ideas I'd be more than appreciative.

By any chance, have you got the game installed on a slow (WD Green class) spinning disk?
It seems this game is highly optimised to take advantage of SSD's which pretty much eliminated any stuttering for my brother

I personally used my SSD until I realised I only had like 1GB free and Windows Updates were no longer working, so I moved the game to my WD Velociraptor and loading takes a bit longer but still no stuttering for me, the odd (very) short "hiccup" now occurs though when I go near a populated area so I assume that's the game engine streaming all the details in.

I'm using a WD raptor aswell so our problems may be related. It's not game breaking so I'll just put up with it until it's patched or until I finally treat myself to an SSD for Christmas

 

[cldmstrsn]

Gamebryo. Gamebryo never changes....

 

[Capaill]

Search for Gabi's Fallout 4 tweak guide on Steam for lots of tips that might improve your gameplay on PC. The tip on the Invisible Lockpicking bug may help those having issues at high framerates.

 

[Nobina]

And once again , there is some GPUs name in the first page , but they're not in the charts ..

Its horrible I know. That said do you mind pointing out which ones?

750 Ti is what I've noticed.

 

[Evernessince]

As a side note, you DON'T want the game to run any higher than around 85FPS/85Hz, as there is a known bug (which I have personally experience) where using terminals at high FPS causes you to get stuck inside them, and unable to perform any action, forcing you to reload to an earlier game save..... Yes, this is what you get your engine is directly tied to the refresh rate.

I got this exact issue on launch day, I have a 144Hz monitor and got the game running between 90-115fps and every time I went to a terminal I was stuck, after googling for an hour (game had only just released) I've lowered my screen refresh rate to 60Hz and v-synced it to that, works fine now.

Still, I hope they fix that, everything else in the game works fine at that high FPS just terminals are affected.

That'll never be fixed on fallout 4 as the same issue has persisted on every game they made on the Gamebryo engine.

 

[Alster37]

"No doubt some of you will look at the screenshots and claim that Fallout 4 is poorly coded and optimized. I would have to disagree."

I agree that there is lots of detail to see with the large viewing distance, but at the end of the day, Fallout 4 is benching at the same fps at 2160p as the Witcher 3, both are large open world games. The graphics of the Witcher 3 are far superior to that of fallout 4. So there is an obvious lack of optimisation.

 

[Squid Surprise]

I'm running the game on the Titan X - with i75960... and installed on an SSD... game runs like butter at 1440p (really need to get myself a 4k monitor) with all details on high...

Wondering about that refresh rate bug thingy... haven't hit it yet, but haven't really played that much yet (just installed yesterday, and I DO have pneumonia which this game is NOT helping me recover from!)...

Are there any plans to add the Titan X to the benchmark?

 

[EEatGDL]

And once again , there is some GPUs name in the first page , but they're not in the charts ..

Its horrible I know. That said do you mind pointing out which ones?

The 750 Ti, I was looking for it because a cousin has that card and it was nowhere to be found in the charts.

 

[SuperVeloce]

I'm running the game on the Titan X - with i75960... and installed on an SSD... game runs like butter at 1440p (really need to get myself a 4k monitor) with all details on high...

Wondering about that refresh rate bug thingy... haven't hit it yet, but haven't really played that much yet (just installed yesterday, and I DO have pneumonia which this game is NOT helping me recover from!)...

Are there any plans to add the Titan X to the benchmark?

You have the 980ti on the charts, which is more or less the same chip, with a few cuda cores less and usually higher frequencies on custom coolers. I doubt this game needs more than 6gb of vram in any situation or resolution.

 

[Steve]

And once again , there is some GPUs name in the first page , but they're not in the charts ..

Its horrible I know. That said do you mind pointing out which ones?

The 750 Ti, I was looking for it because a cousin has that card and it was nowhere to be found in the charts.

Try refreshing it should be there.

 

[EEatGDL]

Try refreshing it should be there.

Thanks Steve.

 

[Myk61088]

Just want to say, what a a brilliant and thorough article. Very informative

 

[Myk61088]

I'm happy to see that my 680 still has enough kick in it to run this game maxed at 1080p. I do experience some major FPS dips I can't explain, but they last around 5 seconds then go away. Usually right before or right after something scripted happens.

i7-3770k
12GB ddr 1600
GTX 680

if anyone has any ideas I'd be more than appreciative.

I would imagine slow RAM/HDD from what you said =)

 

[ShadowDeath]

The Memory Benchmarks are way wrong. AMD CPU's do not support DDR4. There are no AMD motherboards that support DDR4 yet... and to top it all off there is no such thing as a DDR4-1333.

Edited for nicer language.