Fallout 4 PC Ultra screenshots

I've been on media blackout since this was announced and this is actually my first time looking at the game. I just bought a new PC, so I decided to allow myself a sneak peek at some of the eye candy I could expect

Frankly, I think it looks absolutely terrible. I don't think I usually hold contrarian opinions on whether a game is nice looking or not, so I'm genuinely surprised at how many people think this looks acceptable

I don't think there's a single redeeming thing here. Everything looks a little bit off, though particularly the really jarring UI. That color and font they used? How in the world did they let that get approved?

Someone earlier mentioned that it looks like a last-gen game on a modern PC and I think that is a really accurate description. If Nvidia ever invented some sort of hypothetical "old game graphics enhancer" technology then this is how I'd imagine Fallout 3 might look
 
I assume you can also set opacity then?

If not in the base game, I'm sure it will either be in an INI somewhere or it'll be one of the first mods to come out.

I've been on media blackout since this was announced and this is actually my first time looking at the game. I just bought a new PC, so I decided to allow myself a sneak peek at some of the eye candy I could expect

Frankly, I think it looks absolutely terrible. I don't think I usually hold contrarian opinions on whether a game is nice looking or not, so I'm genuinely surprised at how many people think this looks acceptable

I don't think there's a single redeeming thing here. Everything looks a little bit off, though particularly the really jarring UI. That color and font they used? How in the world did they let that get approved?

Someone earlier mentioned that it looks like a last-gen game on a modern PC and I think that is a really accurate description. If Nvidia ever invented some sort of hypothetical "old game graphics enhancer" technology then this is how I'd imagine Fallout 3 might look

Have you looked at Fallout 3 recently? Really?

Also, I could literally say that last statement about anything. "Why does The Witcher 2 look so similar to The Witcher 3?"
 
Not really, it just looks sleeker. A shame there's no indication for ammo and weapon condition though, but I'm sure you can toggle it in the menu, right?


Right?

It shows ammo count when you're shooting (just noticed it doesn't show it when you're NOT - that's dumb) and weapon degradation is out completely, so no need for a HUD element for that

It's not a dealbreaker by any means, but I'm also not a fan of the UI. Has a strong placeholder feeling to it, like many have mentioned. Pip-boy feels a bit cramped, too.
 
Ammo appears on the right side when relevant. Weapon condition is not in the game.

No condition in the game? As in no condition entirely?

Huh, didn't know that. Don't know how I should feel. Weapons in Fallout 3 and NV seemed to break pretty fast, but not having it in completely...
 
If not in the base game, I'm sure it will either be in an INI somewhere or it'll be one of the first mods to come out.

There was a HUD opacity in the options menu for Skyrim I believe. Don't know why it wouldn't be in FO4.

No condition in the game? As in no condition entirely?

Huh, didn't know that. Don't know how I should feel. Weapons in Fallout 3 and NV seemed to break pretty fast, but not having it in completely...

Repair/Condition have been confirmed by leakers to be removed from the game entirely. Will most likely have to wait for mods to come out if you want that in the game gain.
 
I've been on media blackout since this was announced and this is actually my first time looking at the game. I just bought a new PC, so I decided to allow myself a sneak peek at some of the eye candy I could expect

Frankly, I think it looks absolutely terrible. I don't think I usually hold contrarian opinions on whether a game is nice looking or not, so I'm genuinely surprised at how many people think this looks acceptable

I don't think there's a single redeeming thing here. Everything looks a little bit off, though particularly the really jarring UI. That color and font they used? How in the world did they let that get approved?

Someone earlier mentioned that it looks like a last-gen game on a modern PC and I think that is a really accurate description. If Nvidia ever invented some sort of hypothetical "old game graphics enhancer" technology then this is how I'd imagine Fallout 3 might look

If you add some mods to the last gen Fallout games on PC I think you can get them to look better than this crap.
 
Wow, came in here expecting to see screens that looked miles ahead of the PS4 screens with these being on the highest settings. It doesn't look good on either machine and I suppose I shouldn't really be surprised by that looking because of their previous games,

Still going to buy the PS4 version though and I'll be pretty surprised if I don't really enjoy the game even though I am disappointed with how it looks.

Graphics aren't the most important thing in a game but they are often the primary form of communication that games have with us and they can make the experience more enjoyable.
 
What I dislike about FO4's HUD
  • HP and AP bars are too long / large
  • HP and AP texts aren't properly aligned with bars
  • Elements at bottom are quite up and centered from bottom and corners of the screen
  • Crosshair is fricking huge, what purpose that huge crosshair serves?
  • Bottom half of screen is super busy [HP, AP, compass, level up, XP, quest objective etc.] while upper half of screen is basically barren
I would
  • Move compass to top of the screen
  • Reduce size of crosshair noticeably
  • Aligns bars with text properly
  • Reduce overall size of general HUD elements so they would take less space
  • Move HP & AP tad downwards and towards corners of the screen
  • Throw in some opacity [hopefully this is in options]

Are you a UI designer? The crosshairs are fine. The text is aligned top aligned, appropriately. Making the HUD elements tinier would make it difficult to read on smaller displays or at a distance. Moving HP and AP ruins the spacing of the rest of the HUD. Additionally, keeping everything at the bottom allows for a noticeably cleaner, more immersive experience. I don't want graphic elements in every corner of the screen.

one of the first thing that i hope gets modded is the HUD, i don't like it at all. Looks like it was made in a day

Minimal =! lazy or quick.
 
one of the first thing that i hope gets modded is the HUD, i don't like it at all. Looks like it was made in a day, can you make it a bit transparent? if you can do that then its fine i guess.
 
If you add some mods to the last gen Fallout games on PC I think you can get them to look better than this crap.

Show us some screenshot comparisons then please. The onus is on you to show us that comparison if you're truly serious. Otherwise you're just shitposting.

Please show me the mod where most objects cast dynamic shadows in Fallout 3, I'd love to see it.
 
I'm fairly certain that textures will see a noticeable improvement on PC, but we have nothing to make any direct comparisons with yet.

And for the record that's what a lot of games of this nature look like when you get up close and personal with assets.

I just took these shots in Witcher 3, PC Ultra textures (alongside two I took earlier today, click for full size), and the game's got a fair amount of standard-res textures. The game benefits pretty greatly from having a sizable FOV, a further out third person viewpoint (that pretty aggressively keeps you from getting close up looks at most things), and lots of foliage.

Okay... don't be offended... but I wonder when we're finally going to have threads without somebody posting screenshots from The Witcher 3.

I mean, it's starting to get comical. It seems like every second thread you read somebody finds a wayto toss in a few screenshots of Geralt.

We've got an Elite Xbox One Controller thread going - I swear, if Geralt shows up in it I think I'll have to hang myself.
 
The crosshairs is fine.

Looks fine to me.

cs_office0001.jpg
 
Wow, came in here expecting to see screens that looked miles ahead of the PS4 screens with these being on the highest settings. It doesn't look good on either machine and I suppose I shouldn't really be surprised by that looking because of their previous games,

Still going to buy the PS4 version though and I'll be pretty surprised if I don't really enjoy the game even though I am disappointed with how it looks.

Graphics aren't the most important thing in a game but they are often the primary form of communication that games have with us and they can make the experience more enjoyable.
Honestly they should be called High screenshots not Ultra. Bethesda hides an obnoxious amount of settings in INI files.
 
Okay... don't be offended... but I wonder when we're finally going to have threads without somebody posting screenshots from The Witcher 3.

I mean, it's starting to get comical. It seems like every second thread you read somebody finds a wayto toss in a few screenshots of Geralt.

We've got an Elite Xbox One Controller thread going - I swear, if Geralt shows up in it I think I'll have to hang myself.

I think he was just trying to show that even games as graphically stunning as Witcher 3 can have low-res crappy textures just like the screenshot that was being discussed show.
 
The amount and quality of the content per dollar, plus the dedication to supporting modding puts them far above Call of Duty's business philosophy in my opinion.

Crafting or switching to a new engine becomes a giant cost benefit analysis. You need a lot of talented people to craft a brand new engine to fit your needs and then you need to re-train a lot of staff on how the development pipeline works. The same applies when you switch to another engine.

Bethesda has an enormous amount of control and they also have a ton of experience with their engines, even if their updates are iterative rather than a full blown upgrade.

Thanks for the responses.

I know that it wasn't available when they were developing Fallout 4, but now we have the new Unreal Engine pricing model. Hopefully the % model will encourage devs like Bethesda to use Unreal instead of releasing another Fallout 4: New Vegas or whatever it may be on old tech.
 
Are you a UI designer? The crosshairs is fine. The text is aligned top aligned, appropriately. Making the HUD elements tinier would make it difficult to read on smaller displays or at a distance. Moving HP and AP ruins the spacing of the rest of the HUD. Additionally, keeping everything at the bottom allows for a noticeably cleaner, more immersive experience. I don't want graphic elements in every corner of the screen.

UI/HUD designer? Me? HA! :D Just personal preference notes on FO4's HUD. When I look FO4 footage [e.g. official] in 1080p and fullscreen HUD elements feel too large and intrusive. Maybe it bothers less when playing and pulled into the game, but when just watching footage it feels too... "in your face".
 
No condition in the game? As in no condition entirely?

Huh, didn't know that. Don't know how I should feel. Weapons in Fallout 3 and NV seemed to break pretty fast, but not having it in completely...

Yeah, was pulled. Not that surprising to me after Skyrim did the same.

That was one of Bethesda's additions to Fallout anyway, but I imagine that now with a different use for spare weapons and weapon micromanagement in modification / upgrades, they found it unnecessary.
 
Thanks for the responses.

I know that it wasn't available when they were developing Fallout 4, but now we have the new Unreal Engine pricing model. Hopefully the % model will encourage devs like Bethesda to use Unreal instead of releasing another Fallout 4 NV on old tech.

But the Unreal Engine 4 has not been used for something to the scale and scope that Fallout 4 demands. They would have to do a LOT of work to make something like that work the way it wants them to do.
 
Thanks for the responses.

I know that it wasn't available when they were developing Fallout 4, but now we have the new Unreal Engine pricing model. Hopefully the % model will encourage devs like Bethesda to use Unreal instead of releasing another Fallout 4: New Vegas or whatever it may be on old tech.
I don't see a Fallout game doing well on Unreal. Bethesda has plenty of money, it's not really a price issue for them.
 
But the Unreal Engine 4 has not been used for something to the scale and scope that Fallout 4 demands. They would have to do a LOT of work to make something like that work the way it wants them to do.

Right -- but that work would make me a buyer of their product instead of a guy nagging on forums :) I could be the minority, but unlikely.

I don't see a Fallout game doing well on Unreal. Bethesda has plenty of money, it's not really a price issue for them.

Why do you think it would be a bad fit for Unreal?
 
Right -- but that work would make me a buyer of their product instead of a guy nagging on forums :) I could be the minority, but unlikely.

If they had to scale the content of the game down, but it looked better graphically, that would be ok with you?

Why do you think it would be a bad fit for Unreal?

Because most engines target a specific scope and genre when they're being created. You can't just dump an open-world game on something that wasn't ever intended to be open-world.
 
If they had to scale the content of the game down, but it looked better graphically, that would be ok with you?

I hope I am not derailing, but this already happened. Karma system and Dialogue options, etc with not much graphical payoff IMO.

Because most engines target a specific scope and genre when they're being created. You can't just dump an open-world game on something that wasn't ever intended to be open-world.

I would point to this:

http://www.gamepur.com/news/19699-d...wered-unreal-engine-4-debut-ps4-gameplay.html
 
Modability is such a huge part of their games, they can't just say "let's use UE4 or Cry Engine from now!"

I hope I am not derailing, but this already happened. Karma system and Dialogue options, etc with not much graphical payoff IMO.

Crafting system is also greatly improved.
Let's wait until the game is out before saying it's been dumbed down.
 
Yeah, was pulled. Not that surprising to me after Skyrim did the same.

That was one of Bethesda's additions to Fallout anyway, but I imagine that now with a different use for spare weapons and weapon micromanagement in modification / upgrades, they found it unnecessary.

Well repair was in FO1/FO2 but it was used to repair stuff like water pumps and computers. FO3 botched it in regards to repairing weapons to a certain degree and it came in handy for certain parts of quests. New Vegas let you repair weapons to 100% regardless of your stat and there were plenty of things you could fix in game as part of quests with high repair skill while adding new crafting recipes.

Kind of glad they got rid of it as in FO3 it was just another stat dump and with stats gone in this game it makes sense they removed it.
 
I hope I am not derailing, but this already happened. Karma system and Dialogue options, etc with not much graphical payoff IMO.



I would point to this:

http://www.gamepur.com/news/19699-d...wered-unreal-engine-4-debut-ps4-gameplay.html
Dragon Quest is in nowhere near as deep a game as Fallout is. No one has ever made a game similar to Fallout on Unreal, the engine isn't suited for it. I would also never be behind an engine transition unless it was at least as modable as the current engine is.
 

Why didn't they just make the best looking, biggest, most bug-free well-performing game of all time? GOOD QUESTION, WHY NOT??

Probably because realistic AAA development doesn't take place in a vacuum where time and money are infinite and all consumers everywhere are automatically 100% happy with the final product.

Cost/benefit. Not a difficult concept. You can disagree with their priorities, but saying "WHY NOT BOTH" is just dumb.
 
Well repair was in FO1/FO2 but it was used to repair stuff like water pumps and computers. FO3 botched it in regards to repairing weapons. New Vegas was like a mixture of the two ways and let you repair weapons to 100% regardless of your stat and there were plenty of things you could fix in game as part of quests with high repair skill.

Kind of glad they got rid of it as in FO3 it was just another stat dump and with stats gone in this game it makes sense they removed it.

Right, I meant weapon condition specifically. Repair is fine as a Skill, but with Skills gone those functions can get moved into more specific Perk checks (Science-related, gun-related, robotics-related, armor-related, etc).

The main function of weapon condition in Fallout 3 was to make weapons themselves a sort of resource and give you something to do with duplicate items aside from sell them, and put some maintenance into weapon usage. Those abstractions are essentially being moved into weapon modification now (but more using positive force instead of negative force).
 
Dragon Quest is in nowhere near as deep a game as Fallout is. No one has ever made a game similar to Fallout on Unreal, the engine isn't suited for it. I would also never be behind an engine transition unless it was at least as modable as the current engine is.

I would care less about modability if the baseline tech was at the Unreal Engine level (just my preference). I also don't think that we know enough details to blatantly say that Unreal cannot work for open world games at this time. There are people making sidescrollers, RPGs with vast worlds, MMO's etc.
 
Right, I meant weapon condition specifically. Repair is fine as a Skill, but with Skills gone those functions can get moved into more specific Perk checks (Science-related, gun-related, robotics-related, armor-related, etc).

The main function of weapon condition in Fallout 3 was to make weapons themselves a sort of resource and give you something to do with duplicate items aside from sell them, and put some maintenance into weapon usage. Those abstractions are essentially being moved into weapon modification now (but more using positive force instead of negative force).

Yeah then I agree with what you said :) I'm glad they got rid of the repair weapon condition function personally and added in weapon modification instead. Would be nice if they kept repair in and made it more like the original Fallouts instead.
 
Why didn't they just make the best looking, biggest, most bug-free well-performing game of all time? GOOD QUESTION, WHY NOT??

Probably because realistic AAA development doesn't take place in a vacuum where time and money are infinite and all consumers everywhere are automatically 100% happy with the final product.

Cost/benefit. Not a difficult concept. You can disagree with their priorities, but saying "WHY NOT BOTH" is just dumb.

Other companies do it, though. MGSV looks great, has a huge open world, and top tier game mechanics. They could have used the fortune they made from the success of Fallout 3 and New Vegas to invest in new tech instead of smearing lipstick on a pig.


Because things take money and time. Go lookup what a cost benefit analysis is.

Yeah, I ran a cost benefit analysis on me buying Fallout 4 and decided I'll buy it when it drops to budget prices because it is a budget game.
 
I would care less about modability if the baseline tech was at the Unreal Engine level (just my preference). I also don't think that we know enough details to blatantly say that Unreal cannot work for open world games at this time. There are people making sidescrollers, RPGs with vast worlds, MMO's etc.
A large vocal community would care however. And if you've ever used Unreal, you would know the engine isn't suited for large scale persistance and physics on every object like Creation Engine does.
 
Other companies do it, though. MGSV looks great, has a huge open world, and top tier game mechanics. They could have used the fortune they made from the success of Fallout 3 and New Vegas to invest in new tech instead of smearing lipstick on a pig.




Yeah, I ran a cost benefit analysis on me buying Fallout 4 and decided I'll buy it when it drops to budget prices because it is a budget game.
MGSV isn't even finished. It's open world is huge but empty with very little to actually do aside from missions and no discernible atmosphere despite us being told "there are rebels" which would make exploring actually fun and interesting. And for the last time, they have invested in new tech, no matter how many times you try to paint the narrative that they didn't they have invested in improving their engine. It's not a budget game because the graphics weren't the main focus of the game's development, (and advertising). Jesus christ.
 
I would care less about modability if the baseline tech was at the Unreal Engine level (just my preference). I also don't think that we know enough details to blatantly say that Unreal cannot work for open world games at this time. There are people making sidescrollers, RPGs with vast worlds, MMO's etc.

Well at GDC 2015 they talked about open world games for the engine. Before most didn't use the previous engines for open world games for various reasons.

Off Topic: Here is the video I was referring to: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=clakekAHQx0

(Warning: The video is almost an hour long)
 
Please continue, this is my entertainment for the day.

You must seriously be blind if you think Fallout 3 looks anywhere close to Fallout 4. Literally insane.

windowslivewriterfallout3pcreview-11002fallout3-2008-11-18-20-57-18-61-2.jpg

2015-11-02_00004.jpg


These are the same? These are anywhere close to the same graphically? Try harder dude.

I'd argue that these screens are at least somewhere close to the same graphically. The bottom one is of course better, but it is not the leap one could hope for, Moore's law and all, considering the top screenshot is seven years old.

Anyway, to me it looks like the TES/Fallout team create their worlds asset by asset, from top left to bottom right, without much regard to overall texture and geometry consistency. The result is a rather "hand made" look (in contrast to games like Watch Dogs, Far Cry 4, etc.), and I kind of like it.
 
I don't really like it, but its probably more art style and to be honest just the post apocalyptic setting than the graphics
 

But it's true imho.
I put MGS V down after 54 hours, so repetitive. I know, you're supposed to treat the open world as your playground, but it's not for me. I'm not a creative person, I'm an explorer. And I believe FO4 is just a perfect fit for me, like the previous games.
 
Top Bottom