Let's not beat around the bush: Fallout 3, Fallout: New Vegas, and The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim all launched in shameful condition on the PlayStation 3. All three games run on what is essentially the same, creaky old engine, which is one of the main reasons why many of you are understandably sceptical of Fallout 4's technical performance. In short, Bethesda simply doesn't have a good track record when it comes to Sony's consoles.
The studio's releases are infamous for bugs, glitches, and, worst of all, crashes, but even though Fallout 4 once again runs on a modified version of the developer's damned engine, there's always been hope that its performance will pull through because of the PlayStation 4's power. Indeed, Sony's last-gen machine was notoriously hard to handle, and an extremely stunted amount of RAM certainly wasn't ideal for Bethesda's often memory-intensive titles.
Meanwhile, the PS4 is essentially a reasonably powerful PC in terms of architecture, and is always being praised for its ease of use when it comes to game development. As mentioned, the hope that Fallout 4 runs well on the new-gen system is genuine – but is it justified?
We've spent just over 70 hours playing Fallout 4, and what do you know, we've actually got good news to share. In our entire time exploring the Commonwealth, we haven't encountered a single game-breaking bug, and the game hasn't crashed once. Has Bethesda actually released a fully functional, working game on day one? In our experience, yes – yes it has.
It's worth mentioning, however, that we've been playing with a pre-launch patch installed. Sitting at around 500MB, the update will obviously be available to download tomorrow when the game launches. The patch notes don't give any specific details, but we assume that you'll need it in order to optimise your experience.
Having said all that, Fallout 4 isn't perfect on the PS4, but its technical flaws aren't anything out of the ordinary when it comes to sprawling open world games. In particularly busy areas, or locations that feature a lot of stationary assets such as trees, the title can drop a few frames here and there, and you may hear your system's fan kick into higher speeds.
The frame rate drops certainly don't linger for too long, though, and they've never caused us problems during combat. Even when engaged in the most ridiculous of battles with explosions happening all around, the frame rate appears to hover at reasonable levels, which is a massive improvement upon what we've come to expect from the developer's console releases.
However, the one thing that has irked us a few times is that the game can stick momentarily – presumably as it loads a new area. It can be a jaunting little effect, especially if you're just happily jogging through the irradiated countryside. This split-second freeze can also occur when the title's busy autosaving.
Overall, it's easy to see that Bethesda's made a lot of positive changes to its engine. Fallout 4 feels far smoother and more responsive than Skyrim, for example, and there's a real sense that the studio's been able to broaden its scope thanks to the fact that it doesn't have to cater to last-gen hardware.
One particular thing that we've noticed is that your save file doesn't increase in size as you continue to play Fallout 4. For those out of the loop, all save files from prior Bethesda games would begin to balloon in size as you racked up the hours. Whether by design or not, it was a worrying sight, especially since many players reported that the technical performance of their game would gradually worsen relative to the time that they spent playing. With Fallout 4, our save file has sat at 10.49MB for the entirety of our playtime, which we reckon can only be a good thing.
And that's all there is to say, really. Of course, we can't speak for your own experience, but all we know is that we've had next to no major issues with Fallout 4 on the PS4. Yes, it isn't perfect, and yes, this should be the minimum that we ask for from a full price retail game in 2015, but anyone who's suffered through Bethesda's previously shoddy work will know just how important this is.
Sound good to you? Were you worried that Fallout 4 would be a total bust, or were you confident in the power of the PS4? Drop a few frames but remain playable in the comments section below.
Comments 27
Cant wait to get my copy in about 15 hours
Great insight thank you, i was worried too because i read on Wikipedia that the fallout series had launch issues,But thanks to this deep insight people can be at ease
Is 10.49 MB a standard block size for game saves on the PS4? I have noticed the overwhelming majority of my game saves (on the PS4) are exactly 10.49 MB (or multiples of 10.49 MB).
Ive been playing since thrusday and havent found anything broken yet. The games crashed once, but general gameplay is a vast improvement on the last two.
I can deal with minor bugs and frame rate drops but what I can't deal with is freezing/crashing. As long as that isn't a problem I'll be happy...
This makes me happy, thanks guys for braving the common wealth to bring us this info
May this continue to be the case when it comes to the inevitable Elder Scrolls VI. I played Skyrim on PC, but I'd really rather play those massive open world titles on a console.
Hey Rob,
I watched Digital Foundry video comparing both the PS4 and XO version and the PS4 seems to perform better for the most part. The thing that I'm curious is that they mentioned that a SSHD or SSD could improve performance of the game. I have a 1TB SSHD in my PS4 and I hope that will improve some of the performance.
Have you installed a SSD or SSHD in your PS4 and if so has it improved performance?
Cheers!!!
Rob aka Graf
@Swiket Really? How so? I was actually worried about the PS4 version being like the ps3 version, but I bought it anyway cuz at the time I was not in possession of a Xbox. But I thought it would run better. What is going on with it?
@ricklongo these games a great with mods but back then I would still agree there's something different about playing on a console. But its cool to see mods come to consoles to enhance fallout 4.
@Swiket
Ya I wanna know too. My friend tried telling me to go with X1 version- said it was "built for X1 and ported elsewhere" but I stuck with my gut of "more power = better performance".
So what's the deal with the X1 version?
@GrafUlrich88 Nah, I'm afraid not. I played the game with my launch PS4, still equipped with its standard HDD. I imagine using an SSHD or SSD will probably boost the machine's performance overall, but I doubt it'll make a massive, very noticeable difference when it comes to Fallout 4 alone. Definitely an interesting topic, though.
@shogunrok Great coverage today!
People always complain that games are a broken mess on launch days, thankfully it doesn't seem that way with Fallout 4 but honestly their is a simple solution to this STOP BUYING GAMES ON LAUNCH DAY!!!
That's one of the reasons I don't buy games on launch day. Consumers don't realize that they are the problem here. If a company doesn't deliver by the date promise what happened people take to things like facebook, forums etc and complain on how this company lied blah blah blah. So what's a company to do? Well it's a simple case of damned if you do damned if you dont. Just wait a few months before buying a game, there is plenty of stuff out there to play in the meantime.
I'm going to wait until the game is actually out and word gets around from other users that it's stable. Not that the writers here have a reason to lie for Besthesda but it's entirely possible they just got lucky. Unfortunately, Bethesda hasn't earned the benefit of the doubt, at least in regards to its PlayStation versions of its games.
@Tasuki I agree, however games fade in and out of fashion.
@GrafUlrich88 yeah I watched that video too and the ps4 seemed pretty stable whilst the xbox was a mess. The ps4 seems to struggle in some fight scenarios but I would expect this to be patched out pretty quickly as it doesn't seem to be a console limitation. Just can't wait for tomorrow now
I trust u guys. So it's a purchase for me
Read from digital foundry that the ps4 version is "vastly superior" to the xbox1. When compared the ps4 runs at a higher and more steady framerate through out the entirety of the map, and they even said that one area, near diamond city, the xbox version had a hitch that dropped it to 0fps, for over a second. That's is just, wow. I mean Microsoft paid for the advertisement rights only to get the lesser version? Seems like they would have asked Bethesda if they could help steady it, if they even would have taken their help. Really glad I pre-ordered the ps4 version, but still hate it for my xbox brethren. A complete stoppage of game for over a second and 0fps everything you enter the major city hub of the game, bummer.
@Gamer83 I'll take digital foundries word for it. They have ever become the pre imminent site for checking game performance on launch day. They do not favor one machine over the other and have no bias. They themselves said the ps4 version is easily the best version(not including pc of course),which of course I'm glad about bc I pre-ordered for the ps4! Still though, I understand where your coming from, always smart to use the wait and see approach.
@Tasuki Amen dude. Starting to get to the point where you can't even trust Nintendo to not need a Day 1 patch for games. Just don't read spoilers, and get the game when everything is repaired down the road. And if they don't repair it - which does happen - save yourself some money and buy something else that works.
Crazy thing is, with any other developer I loathe bugs and glitches, but they never seem to bother me that much in Bethesda games. Maybe I am just conditioned to it, lol. Their games are just always so enjoyable and the atmosphere always so great that any little bugs or glitches rarely have any effect on me while I'm playing. I know I shouldn't give them a pass, but I have steadfastly stood by Bethesda ever since the DaggerFall days, and have been equal parts amazed and impressed with every main line game they have released since. Can't wait for tomorrow!
I've been playing all day, and asides from minor frame rate hitches its worked fine for me so far; absolutely zero glitches at my end.
@Swiket i heard from a friend he encounters framedrops in the single digits and the game just freezes for a second.
Robert will always tell you that there are no issues in a game, if this game is boring and repetitive.
By contrast, I bought my first CoD the other day in the form of Blops 3. It's crashed completely 6 times. It's been unable to read my save data until I restarted. It put me back to the end of mission 2 on a weird post-mission screen that claimed I'd killed 700 people and got over 1,000,000 points (on that level you'd get about 10k to 20k. It's failed to load a level and needed to be restarted (and then crashed).
In 2 days it's had more problems than every single PS3 and PS4 game I've ever played combined. I can't believe it's the biggest budget game series. It's crazy to be going into Fallout 4 actually expecting it to be less buggy than a linear FPS that's a rehash of a rehash of a rehash.
I've been having oodles of crashes when I try and go past HalluciGen, Inc. This really is unacceptable, and from what I've read online people have it much worse than me. It seems the writers here must have simply gotten lucky. Bethesda really needs to step their game up, because its simply old by this point.
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