just played about with the settings again. i did this inside diamond city going up the elevator.
Shadow Distance is eating a lot of FPS. i don't know but i think it's bugged. no matter what settings i have if Shadow Distance is on high then it drops to as low as 37fps. i tried to turn down some settings to get some FPS back but no luck.
I can have textures on high/ultra, shadow quality on medium/high, decal/lighting on medium/high, god rays OFF/low, tessellation override or not (in CCC), SSAO on/off, sliders @ 50/100%. damn, it doesn't matter if the resolution is 720P/1080p. it really doesn't matter because it WILL drop to 37fps no matter what as long as Shadow Distance is on high.
i just hope it's bugged or they improve performance. the difference between medium/high is huge. i hate seeing shadows render right in front of me but it looks like I need to just deal with it. it's either keep it at high and play at 30fps or set it to medium and play at 40fps.
right now my settings are:
specs:
i5-4590, 16GB, R9 290 4GB (overclocked ~11%)