Fallout 4 - Prepare thyselves

Skyrim definitely had trouble on the PS3.

 

Skyrim seemed pretty excellent on the Xbox 360 though.

 

If I recall correctly it was entirely due to the memory split in the PlayStation 3. The PS3's memory architecture is split evenly down the middle with 256MB for the CPU and 256MB for the GPU. If a game needs more than each side has to offer then it's basically out of luck.

By comparison the Xbox 360 has a universal memory architecture. A CPU-heavy came can thus gain more memory by freeing up GPU-side allocation and vice versa. Neither side is stuck at 256MB.

Edit: Here's a Kotaku article mentioning it.

http://kotaku.com/5885358/why-skyrim-didnt-play-nice-with-the-ps3

 

My body is ready.

 

Finished my download earlier. It only took about a day and a half at 300KB/sec.

 

So true, the first thing I did when that girl you get in Skyrim joins you (first companion, forgot her name) was to find some giants and make her fight them, while performing strategic retreat. Never seen her again.

 

So I was using Fallout 4 to justify the purchase of a PS4 and planning on picking one up this week - then I saw this.

Free Fallout 4 with new PS4...It's like...destiny.

 

Predownloaded and ready.

You guys jealous that I'm getting it first due to timezones? (I'm in Aus)

Just praying my 770 can run it well

 

One of the rare moments in gaming that we're glad to be Australian.

 

Yes, I'm hoping for this as well since I've got a loaner 770 2GB coming from a friend. Prior to that I was stuck on a 460 1GB and I'm fairly confident it would have struggled to run it. Rest of my computer really isn't much better off though.

 

I think I'm prepared enough, don't you think?

 

And then instantly shot down by the huge price tag.

 

FO4 is $60 USD in America, but $80 USD ($113AUD!) in Aus. And people wonder why Australians always pirate!

If you buy digital try ozgameshop.
Used these guys a couple times and haven't had any bad experiences. Green Man Gaming sometimes has good deals, too.

 

By the way in case someone doesn't have GeForce Experience installed, NVIDIA threw up a new driver today for Fallout 4.

 

JB HIFI - $69 AUD.

 

For me it was the opposite: my first companion was some guy with arrows, took him through the whole game (except final fight were he cannot join, parked him and picked him up again). Was basically cheating: I think he cannot die and enemies attacked him, so the game was much easier for me, just kill all while they attack him.

 

If anyone is looking for me, I'm....... busy.

​

 

I married Jordis the Sword Maiden and used her for a long time, until she somehow got stuck in a cave. I guess maybe I shouldn't have hit her with the dragon shout and knocked her into an area she couldn't get out of.

 

Played it for a while... gotta say Bethesda should really try to improve their skin shader (if they have one). When protagonist smiles on character creation screen, it is uncanny valley stuff.

 

That's just part of it's charm. I actually got up at 4:30am and played for a couple of hours until I had to take my kids to school.

 

I also woke up at 4:00, and gotta say with this kind of shader the moment when your character smiles during character creation is not for the faint-hearted.

While there is some charm, the game would certainly benefit from witcher 3 skin shader.

 

I think Bethesda are just bunch of filthy liars. F4 runs well on my Core2Quad Q9450 8gb ram GTX660 computer even though "minimal" CPU is supposed to be i5.

 

Why do you need two Tomb Raiders?

 

I thought the other one looked like a mosue pad or something.

 

It's just one of those "steelbook" cases. I didn't even know it was included. I don't really see the point of those things.

 

What settings are you running at? I discussed the system requirements with a friend and our consensus so far is that the processor recommendations are excessive but the graphics card is spot on. It's very dependent on video memory.

My system is currently a Phenom II X4 965 with 8GB memory and a GTX 770 w/ 2GB. I've had no trouble running the game at the highest settings (you have to manually force God Rays to Ultra).

By comparison a friend who is on a Phenom II X4 955 with 12GB of memory but only a Radeon 6850 w/ 1GB has had trouble running even low settings.

 

I play it on a GTX 670 with 2GB and have mostly let it on the default settings for "high". It runs fine generally but sometimes the movement feels a bit stuttery as if it's streaming assets in the background or something like that. Haven't measured frame rates yet, as it's not a big deal.

 

Same here. I played with Fraps for the first few hours to properly tune my settings and even though Fraps shows constant 60 fps, but the game microstutters a lot, which is probably asset loading like you say. Not a big deal, but annoying.

Either way the game runs great for me and I think it looks great as well. The atmosphere is fantastic. And the gun effects and sounds are some of the best I've ever experienced. Very early in the game (if you follow the story) you come across a guy with a laser sniper rifle. It makes the most wonderful sound. And one of the first weapons you find is a laser musket which behaves more or less like an actual musket except that it's a laser rifle. If all the weapons in the game are as amazing as this then we're in for a treat.

This is unrelated to this thread, but a funny thing I noted when tuning the graphics settings of Fallout 4: The lack of antialiasing is the biggest graphics complaint towards Unity and TAA is what the complainers want, but I realize just how subjective aliasing must be. I think Fallout 4 looks a lot better with TAA turned off than on. TAA looks just like vaseline on the screen. And when I played The vanishing of Ethan carter (I tried both the UE3 and UE4 version) it looked the same there. Everything just looks blurry. It almost looks like motion blur in action because I guess it interpolates frames together or something. It looks much better with no AA in my opinion. TAA obviously makes the image very smooth, but the loss of crispness and detail is worse than the flickering and jaggy lines in my opinion.

As for Fallout 4 itself, I've played it for a few hours and I absolutely love it. The settlement building mechanic is absolutely insane and almost makes me sad this isn't a multiplayer game. I can't see myself spending a lot of time building settlements for myself, but if I was able to do it with friends it would be amazing.

The only thing I don't like so far is the new dialogue system where you can't see what you're about to say until you actually say it and the fact that we're playing a voiced character now. I much prefer a silent protagonist for the sake of immersion.

 

I like it as well, it looks and feels great. The charm is there (body's in bed with mannequins etc.)

Very disappointed they took skills out though & they could have learnt a lot more than they did from Fallout New Vegas, just in terms of dialogue and skill checks.

That said, the new perk system is almost equivalent to skills I guess.

 

Also, this!

 

I guess I'll have to get Fallout 1 early next year and check it out. I'll be too busy rest of this year building my Christmas game to seriously play a new game. Sounds like they are some cool games though and FO1 actually looked 2D in the screenshots I saw.

 

Yes, all prerendered 2D sprites, same as Fallout 2 and also Fallout Tactics I think. I always liked that look in games.

 

They were all 2D until Fallout 3.

Share your characters! =)

 

I feel really boring, I was so excited to play I just took the default guy!

 

I just realised mine looks like the default woman with make-up......HOW?! I SPENT AN HOUR AND HALF ON THIS!

 

I think you can change your appearance later somewhere, I've seen screenshots of people in the customization screen but in different backgrounds. (not the house)

You can also rename your character via the console, but from what I hear it resets your stats.

 

Time well spent ^^.
In Fallout 3 there was a plastic surgeon that you could use to customize your face again, I'm sure something like that will be possible in Fallout 4 too.

 

You get one last chance to adjust your skills before you leave the vault, maybe you can change the character too. I didn't go into it so I'm not sure.

I was kind of torn by the fact that I bought it for Xbox One and I thought I might rather enjoy it on PC, but then again my wife is always using my PC. But, I discovered the best of both worlds. I tried out the new Xbox app for Windows 10 last night with the Streaming. It is wicked sick. I'm all hardwired gigabit so I was able to set the streaming quality for video and audio to the highest.

Plugged my Xbone controller into my PC via usb, connected to the xbox, and bam. It was just like I was sitting in front of the xbox and tv. Super responsive, no input delay and no stutter (other than the normal gameplay stutter). The stream is slightly soft in appearance but it works great.

Ignore the little princess in the lower left corner. She just wanted to hang out and watch me slay some bloatflys.

 

I always think the PC version is kind of essential for Bethesda games - Mods!

 

Am I understanding correctly that you stream from the xbone to your pc? To me that sounds like the worst of both worlds - no mod support and inferior hardware but without the comfort of sitting on a couch or in bed.

 

It was mainly in jest, though I do think it's cool. See, I can't leave my kids upstairs by themselves (I have twin 4 year olds), so it gives me the ability to still play my xbox.

That being said, mods will be coming to the Xbox One. In fact, the PC Mods will be coming to the Xbox One. Windows 10 for Xbox One will be released in a few days and Bethesda and Microsoft have both said that the PC mods would be available for the console as well.

Edit: This will also apply to PS4

 

Yes, but at the same time there will be restrictions that wouldn't affect you on the PC. Some of the really useful mods for past games, like user interface overhauls, have required a script extender. I doubt console manufacturers would allow it.

http://kotaku.com/how-fallout-4-mods-will-work-on-console-1711829641

 

Maybe, and that will likely be the case for ultra complex mods that require actually hacking the game. However, Bethesda put an emphasis on modding when they announced the game and built it. It's all going to come down to the power of the modding tools. I'm betting the tooling will allow a lot more robust modding out of the box. Of course, if Bethesda is planning to host the mods and make them portable, there will have to be restrictions and quality control. Personally I have very little interest in the mods. By the time I finish the game and the DLC I may be tired of it. I'll come back and play mods down the road.

 

By the time we get mods I'll probably be starting the main story.

 

I love the new object container system. Being able to see what is in a container through a live, diegetic selection (as opposed to the old overlay), was probably the first thing I've noticed. And it's my favorite part of the game so far.

 

Doesn't matter to me... I always take everything anyway. "Why yes, I will have that shadeless lamp, thank you."

 

Hah, well I do until I run out of carry capacity. Then, I stop picking up rusty tin cans and battered clip boards - at least.

But the great thing is that you can say "take all" without having to really interact with the container. You just sort of point at it, click the key, and off you go.

 

Considering that everything can break down into components for crafting and building, I've been hoarding everything.

Glass cup? Yes please. Fork? Oh indeed. Fan? SMASHING!

 

I'm pleasantly surprised how few bugs there are. I haven't even seen a single one.

I know they exist, sure. I've just been a little lucky. I've noticed some people (not here) complaining about the quality assurance, but I want to mention that Bethsoft has one of the largest QA teams in the industry, with some of the best testers you would find. Ultimately, 99% of all the bugs you find in this game were caught by QA, the question normally becomes "Do we want to fix this; 1. Do we have time? 2. What resources are involved?".

As an interesting example -the bug where the Giants in Skyrim cause your character to launch into the sky - I remember someone saying "How could QA not catch this?". The interesting thing is that they did, but the decision was made, literally, that we should "leave it, it's funny."

I know that because I was a tester - mostly on Dishonored, but I had 2 days on Skyrim.