Fallout 4 PC Ultra screenshots

I get the compromise in graphics... Large open world game with many interactive elements, and that you'll get worse graphics, but some of those screenshots... Particular the Diner and the one in Concord look pretty bad. Really muddy blurry textures even close up. That air conditioner is just a blurry muddy red color and the details around the rest of this image are pretty poor...

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Really doesn't compare well to other open world games released in the last couple years.

Meanwhile in 2009 (ARMA 2, open world game):

arma22009-06-2318-47-d1a6b.jpg
 
Oh dear god, here we go with the zoomed in screenshots from the game that hasn't even been released yet.

I actually didn't zoom in.. Just used snaggit on one of the screens in the 2nd post in this thread. I'm sure the program I'm using degrades it when saving, same with uploading to imgur, but I didn't doctor it intentionally, zoom in, or anything else

Yup

that kind of stuff is everywhere and I am almost conditioned to expect it in every open world game

I mean what developer painstaking gives amazing lifelike detail to every single individual asset in the game?

None that I know of. That said there are clever ways to make things blend well together to avoid having eyesores in plain sight to the player

Yeah, I don't expect everything to look good... But if you're looking for a developer that gives lifelike detail to many assets in the game, I think Rockstar does a great job. The PC Screenshot thread for GTA V is a good eample:
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1028674

It's crazy when you go to just random areas of the map, with no story line implications or anything, and just seen insane details on random buildings that make it seem much more realistic.
 
Sorry but... Are you serious?

Cause Fallout 4 is not a looker for sure but it's still leaps and bounds over those two, especially RDR.

Absolutely, RDR is one of the best looking open world games ever IMO and I would kill for a PC version. And while the desert isn't a one to one comparison with an apocalyptic wasteland it isn't that far off either so I think it's a pretty reasonable comparison to Fallout.

GTAV is insanely good looking by any standard and was really only marred by the framerate at times (which isn't what we are talking about here).

I agree with most of this post, except Skyrim. It was an improvement of Fallout 3, but mainly because the art was better, more polished. A example was the faces, for the first time they weren't horrendous.

Yeah, I think with Skyrim they just had the benefit of a lot more experience with the engine and the consoles to better match their artistic vision with the finished product. Oblivion and FO3 dated themselves incredibly fast and I think that visually Skyrim just kind of achieves what Bethesda set out to do with Oblivion but in a manner that holds up better long term.
 
While the visuals aren't impressive in screens, I can't see a universe in which I'll notice or care at all while playing. Fallout 3 being pretty ugly never bothered me in the least, other than the lack of shadows at all (which is much improved now, like it was in Skyrim).
 
Yup

that kind of stuff is everywhere and I am almost conditioned to expect it in every open world game

I mean what developer painstaking gives amazing lifelike detail to every single individual asset in the game?
Rockstar?

CD Projekt?


...Ubisoft even?
 
That ARMA 2 shot is a good example of how decent art can create the illusion of depth on a flat textured surface

doesnt work on everything though and you would have to handcraft it to look good from various angles and lighting
 
Textures are the easiest fix ever. Meshes are easy to mod in Bethesda games too. This really isn't worrying for PC gamers.

Do we know if hair moves yet though? Please tell me it isn't STILL 100% static? Vagrant Story on the PSOne had moving hair...

It really should be a worry that people accept sub par graphics and that the modders can just fix it. Your accepting there is an issue but the developer can let the modders fix it for them for free.

If its easy to mod in then why can't Bethesda do it themselves?
 
Also ENB added parallax to Skyrim textures, so we got ground like this (other mods added it to brick walls, rocks, road cobblestones etc too).

It really should be a worry that people accept sub par graphics and that the modders can just fix it. Your accepting there is an issue but the developer can let the modders fix it for them for free.

If its easy to mod in then why can't Bethesda do it themselves?

I'm not really excusing them, so much as saying PC gamers at least don't need to let this bother them because of the modding community.

I will however point out that Bethesda work harder than any other developer to provide the most amazing mod tools and mod-friendly games for their community, so while modders do a lot of the end work, you really can't forget that it's Bethesda's dedication to their community and hard work before and post launch that allows mods on this scale to happen at all.
 
Im sure if you picked apart those games you could find plenty of examples of cheap low quality assets used as filler in the same vein

The difference being the frequency of use and how easy it is to spot
Yes but lower res textures are usually on smaller objects, plus there's so much variety in textures, geometry and different objects all around you that it's not so easy to spot.

Fallout looks like it uses low quality textures on large surfaces that are easy to spot and there isn't as much detail to keep your eyes busy anyway. At least according to those pics.
 
Textures are the easiest fix ever. Meshes are easy to mod in Bethesda games too. This really isn't worrying for PC gamers.

Do we know if hair moves yet though? Please tell me it isn't STILL 100% static? Vagrant Story on the PSOne had moving hair...

There was a video with that follower girl with mid length hair and it was moving, so I think so, although the extent to which it moves I can't say
 
Maybe it's just me but I am getting a very Dishonored feel with the look of some of the stuff in this game.

Still going to play it though.

I understand what you are saying. If you look at some of the vidoes of the Super Mutant fights, there is a definite shift in art aesthetic to the modeling and the game world. And it's not all chalked up to the color filter although that helps.

I thought this since the first E3 footage. There is a shot of a radscorpion that looks like it was molded out of clay. I thought "Holy shit that looks sweet!"

The best I can liken it to is blank ink outlined art and just straight coloring. Like Little Mermaid compared to Toy Story (the first one).
 
Eh, while I am really excited for Fallout 4 release and don't mind the graphics generally, the Windows textures on buildings are pretty terrible, they generally look like they are painted on. That one is not really excusable. Come on, it's 2015, it shouldn't have taken that much effort on artistic, technical or performance level and it should have been done.

It's just Bethesda didn't care and cut a corner. Overall I think graphics are very serviceable (well, animations are still terrible and there is little impact from weapons on targets as seen by that Supermutant combat video) and that's ok. However, there are a few areas where they easily could have improved things without all that much impact on overall performance and it's unfortunate that they haven't. That AC schreenshot from above is another good example, just pretty terrible.
 
I'm starting to think a lot of you almost can't be excited about something. I guess I'm one of the few that never played a Fallout expecting over the top amazing graphics? Hell, even when 3 and New Vegas came out I wasn't in awe of the graphics, I was more in awe of the content, gameplay, and writing. Especially the new 1st person / 3rd person approach into the world of Fallout. Personally I think it's kind of sad how excited I am to be seeing so much vibrant color, haha.
 
Eh, while I am really excited for Fallout 4 release and don't mind the graphics generally, the Windows textures on buildings are pretty terrible, they generally look like they are painted on. That one is not really excusable. Come on, it's 2015, it shouldn't have taken that much effort on artistic, technical or performance level and it should have been done.

It's just Bethesda didn't care and cut a corner. Overall I think graphics are very serviceable (well, animations are still terrible and there is little impact from weapons on targets as seen by that Supermutant combat video) and that's ok. However, there are a few areas where they easily could have improved things without all that much impact on overall performance and it's unfortunate that they haven't. That AC schreenshot from above is another good example, just pretty terrible.

Its sad how far behind the curve they seem to be compared to their peers in the AAA space...

I get this game was built awhile ago but so were several other games this year. Maybe the Bethesda team is peaked talent-wise at the moment

Something is holding them back from pushing boundaries.
 
It really should be a worry that people accept sub par graphics and that the modders can just fix it. Your accepting there is an issue but the developer can let the modders fix it for them for free.

If its easy to mod in then why can't Bethesda do it themselves?

Maybe bethesda should hire those modders if they're not capable enough.

There's a massive difference between modding and actually creating the game guys. Alos these games need to work on consoles, one of the biggest issues of modding skyrim is how unoptimized it gets.
 
Yes, but they also take up a lot space as well. Nevertheless, for Skyrim these HD texture mods are pretty essential imo, and looks like the same thing will happen with Fallout 4.

And, since it's 64-bit, there won't be a ridiculous amount of instability from having so many.
 
Its sad how far behind the curve they seem to be compared to their peers in the AAA space...

I get this game was built awhile ago but so were several other games this year. Maybe the Bethesda team is peaked talent-wise at the moment

Something is holding them back from pushing boundaries.

Which game are you talking about? Fallout 4? It hasn't even been released yet!
 
There's a massive difference between modding and actually creating the game guys. Alos these games need to work on consoles, one of the biggest issues of modding skyrim is how unoptimized it gets.

Yeah PC mods come at a cost

Not to mention stability and troubleshooting.... my god the troubleshooting

Even with prebuilt tools to help dummies manage mods my buddy still spent HOURS trying to get modded Fallout3 up and running

Its not for people without time and patience to do it right
 
There's a massive difference between modding and actually creating the game guys. Alos these games need to work on consoles, one of the biggest issues of modding skyrim is how unoptimized it gets.

Well, they also don't have the money when they're modding on their own PC. If Bethesda gave them some money, maybe the optimization would get better.

All I am saying is, I hate the attitude 'Mods will fix that'.
 
They aren't the best but they are good enough of a jump over Fallout 3 and New Vegas. Looking forward to maxing it out and using DSR.
 
Maybe bethesda should hire those modders if they're not capable enough.

Except that it would be a huge waste of money to hire people to create assets that only the PC version can use. Even then, only high-end PCs would benefit.

If we don't want to compromise on graphics or interactive objects, then people had better be willing to pay a lot more than $400 for the next generation of consoles. Parity is the law of the land now, like it or not.
 
Well, they also don't have the money when they're modding on their own PC. If Bethesda gave them some money, maybe the optimization would get better.

All I am saying is, I hate the attitude 'Mods will fix that'.

What's the alternative? Having Bethesda shit-can the console versions and have it exclusive to PC?

You have to balance your expectations for multi-platform games.
 
Well, they also don't have the money when they're modding on their own PC. If Bethesda gave them some money, maybe the optimization would get better.

All I am saying is, I hate the attitude 'Mods will fix that'.

I completely agree. If you think this looks good or bad I don't care, everyone has an opinion. However if you say it looks bad but it's OK because it will be modded I think this is wrong and is giving the developer a free pass. You acknowledge an issue with the game but say that the responsibility is not on the developer to fix because someone else will do it for free.
 
It really should be a worry that people accept sub par graphics and that the modders can just fix it. Your accepting there is an issue but the developer can let the modders fix it for them for free.

If its easy to mod in then why can't Bethesda do it themselves?

Bethesda is a relatively small studio despite its major successes. They're only ~100 or so people, which is pretty minuscule for an AAA developer. And that hasn't changed much since Oblivion or even Morrowind I think. For reference CDPR is over 200 people. Bethesda have a huge budget most likely but money only goes so far when you have a fixed dev team and you're making a huge ass game. I don't think people realize just how massive these games are and the amount of stuff that is in them. You may question the quality, but quantity and shear magnitude should not be up for discussion and takes a crazy amount of time to put together.

Not to mention they are making the game for three systems. That probably means the weakest link sets the pace and they likely don't have time or manpower to duplicate resources and assets to push more capable hardware as much as it can. So we get flat geometry, low res textures in less important areas.

Gamebryo/Creation Engine is probably becoming a liability at this point, but a new engine isn't going to fix everything. They've likely handcrafted so many tools and systems into it over the last decade and half using it that it's hard to just recreate that from scratch. A new engine would be very disruptive as some things won't make it into it and a lot time will be needed for them to get back into an efficient work flow as they learn the new tools and differences, which will either mean a game coming out later, or more likely a game coming out with reduced features. Cut what isn't essential and add that in at a later date for a future title.
 
Except that it would be a huge waste of money to hire people to create assets that only the PC version can use. Even then, only high-end PCs would benefit.

If we don't want to compromise on graphics or interactive objects, then people had better be willing to pay a lot more than $400 for the next generation of consoles. Parity is the law of the land now, like it or not.

Is it really a resource issue or a developer issue?

This is why comparisons to other open world games come up man. You can play the performance card when other developers are making prettier open world games work just fine on "weaker" hardware

Bethesda is a relatively small studio despite its major successes. They're only ~100 or so people, which is pretty minuscule for an AAA developer. And that hasn't changed much since Oblivion or even Morrowind I think. For reference CDPR is over 200 people. Bethesda have a huge budget most likely but money only goes so far when you have a fixed dev team and you're making a huge ass game. I don't think people realize just how massive these games are and the amount of stuff that is in them. You may question the quality, but quantity and shear magnitude should not be up for discussion.

Not to mention they are making the game for three systems. That probably means the weakest link sets the pace and they likely don't have time or manpower to duplicate resources and assets to push more capable hardware as much as it can. So we get flat geometry, low res textures in less important areas.

Gamebryo/Creation Engine is probably becoming a liability at this point, but a new engine isn't going to fix everything. They've likely handcrafted so many tools and systems into it over the last decade and half using it that it's hard to just recreate that from scratch. A new engine would be very disruptive as some things won't make it into it and a lot time will be needed for them to get back into an efficient work flow as they learn the new tools and differences, which will either mean a game coming out later, or more likely a game coming out with reduced features. Cut what isn't essential and add that in at a later date for a future title.

Finally! This seems to be what the reality it


So my question is now.... Is it just because Bethesda is keeping itself so conservative and not investing more money in expansion?

I thought for sure after Skyrim blew up that they would have the money to push things forward.
 
Except that it would be a huge waste of money to hire people to create assets that only the PC version can use. Even then, only high-end PCs would benefit.

If we don't want to compromise on graphics or interactive objects, then people had better be willing to pay a lot more than $400 for the next generation of consoles. Parity is the law of the land now, like it or not.

What's the alternative? Having Bethesda shit-can the console versions and have it exclusive to PC?

You have to balance your expectations for multi-platform games.

I am playing on console. I don't want that.

I am also playing on PS4, so who the fuck knows when we will get mods and what those mods even will be. I just want a studio, that sold a ton of games to make a game pretty looking with nice animations.
 
Should work wonders for Fallout's brick walls too! Those buildings definitely need more depth. Comparison image of POM for people who don't know what it does (warps parts of a texture depending on your viewing angle, creating the illusion of a detailed mesh on a flat surface):

That really looks like it's just stretching textures. Not really a fan of stretching textures.
 
Also ENB added parallax to Skyrim textures, so we got ground like this (other mods added it to brick walls, rocks, road cobblestones etc too).

I'm not really excusing them, so much as saying PC gamers at least don't need to let this bother them because of the modding community.

I will however point out that Bethesda work harder than any other developer to provide the most amazing mod tools and mod-friendly games for their community, so while modders do a lot of the end work, you really can't forget that it's Bethesda's dedication to their community and hard work before and post launch that allows mods on this scale to happen at all.

That's a very good point and for all the bitching about Gamebryo and Bethesda's engine, it's by far the most open modding engine in the business pretty much (at least amongst larger devs). Which is great for PC gamers and hopefully would be good for console gamers as well (to an extent as mods would have to be quite limited on consoles)
 
Is it really a resource issue or a developer issue?

This is why comparisons to other open world games come up man. You can play the performance card when other developers are making prettier open world games work just fine on "weaker" hardware

But Bethesda games still feel more alive than most open-world games. Even The Witcher 3 couldn't come close to that, everything felt pretty artificial.

Bethesda open world games absolutely nail exploration and they put a lot of time into AI routines and shit and I'm sure it's hard on the CPU.

As the poster above said, it could also be related to their aging engine.
 
We all should stop making excuses for Bethesda and what they try to sell us at a very premium price. It's not the graphics if they're super great or not that great, the graphic quality are a sign that the underlying technology is old as well. They polished it up a bit with better lighting, but e.g. texture work is still very bad. I doubt they did that on purpose or that they couldn't find the right people to come up with proper textures. The only explanation I can think of is that their tooling (and thus the engine) is simply not up to it and they refused to update it with systems that do. I wouldn't be surprised if the same memory leak aspects, corrupt world data (so the game CDTs when you go to a specific part of the map), and an endless stream of buggy quests which can't be completed are present at launch. Especially considering they try to hide the state of the engine so furiously by take-down notices of screenshots.

This. Absolutely.

This is my issue as well. Their seeming unwillingness to improve their core technology. They stuck with what works and slowly patched up their leaky ship. I sure hope that FO4 is considerably less buggy than previous iterations as this engine and its quirks should be well trodden ground for them.
 
Defiantly an improvement over the console screens. The biggest improvement seems to be the draw distance, which I expected. Let's just hope we can get the mod community similar to skyrim in this and you could have one of the best looking games this gen.
 
This. Absolutely.

This is my issue as well. Their seeming unwillingness to improve their core technology. They stuck with what works and slowly patched up their leaky ship. I sure hope that FO4 is considerably less buggy than previous iterations as this engine and its quirks should be well trodden ground for them.

Yeah i dont get it

As pointed above they are a small studio as far as AAA goes... But they have also had some pretty large successes

Why have that not doubled down and invested more money for bigger and better games? Is expansion not in their interests?

Im just gonna chalk this up as this being a cross gen effort thats scuttling over the finish line.
 
Yeah i dont get it

As pointed above they are a small studio as far as AAA goes... But they have also had some pretty large successes

Why have that not doubled down and invested more money for bigger and better games? Is expansion not in their interests?

Im just gonna chalk this up as this being a cross gen effort thats scuttling over the finish line.

I should also note that despite their small size, they're approximately 140 people. For most of development of the Witcher 3 (production) that was the size of the team. CDPR then took people off Cyberpunk to speed up development of the Witcher 3.
 
Does anyone know if the config file is available for viewing somewhere? I'd like to know if mipmap skipping is still available (should be due to Gamebryo, but still).
 
Well it's not much of a looker, but that doesn't bother me too much.

It's the animations I really want to see improved in Bethesda games. Hasn't been much much movement on that front since Oblivion. But on the other hand big change in these areas make them less modder friendly.
 
I should also note that despite their small size, they're approximately 140 people. For most of development of the Witcher 3 (production) that was the size of the team. CDPR then took people off Cyberpunk to speed up development of the Witcher 3.

I mean every open world game has to pay the Open World tax somewhere

I know for Witcher 3 it got a lot of crap for its combat, animations, and some other things mentioned in here.

Cant have it all i guess?
 
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