In the wake of the massive success of the Fallout TV series, Fallout 4 has received a free next-gen upgrade for PC, PS5 and Series X/S, which aims to bring the nine-year-old game up to modern standards. The prospect of native PS5 and Series games is tempting, but unfortunately the update brings with it a number of problems – and even at best the result is somewhat disappointing.
The patch notes mention two main graphics modes on the console: a dynamic 4K 60fps performance mode running on ‘standard’ settings and a 4K 30fps quality mode running on the PC’s ultra preset. The game itself actually presents this as an on/off switch for performance mode, with the off setting actually being the quality mode referenced in the comments. In addition to these two basic options, Bethesda is also adding additional modes for those running the game at 1440p and/or 120Hz from your console’s system menu. In addition to these new options, the patch notes mention bug fixes, new quests, new weapons and, on PC, official 21:9 ultrawide support.
To briefly summarize the PC situation: it’s a disappointment on a number of levels. For starters, the new ultrawide display support is seriously lacking, with certain UI elements expanded from 16:9 instead of offering a native 21:9 presentation. Worse still, I’ve noticed visual bugs in the UI at some points, such as when naming your character or setting your SPECIAL stats – it looks wrong and needs a fix.
On a more general level, there are widespread reports that the update is breaking support for a range of mods on PC. While testing this version, it’s also clear that major issues dating back to its launch nine years ago remain unresolved: 60fps remains the maximum frame rate for Fallout 4 on PC here, with no official means of going higher. Additionally, Nvidia’s PhysX weapon scrap support is still offered as a setting in Fallout 4’s front-end menu, but using this option with an RTX graphics card will cause crashes. There are no additional graphics features either, so at the moment the biggest change seems to be the incompatibility with existing, popular mods – so it’s no surprise that the most popular recent Fallout 4 mod is one that ‘downgrades’ to the previous available version .
On the console, there to have have actually been meaningful changes, but these are quite limited in scope. There’s nothing like RT support, which might have made the 30fps mode more appealing, and no HDR support either, with the game continuing to run in SDR instead. Furthermore, the Xbox Edition’s performance mode switch doesn’t actually do anything at the moment – you’re always stuck in 60fps performance mode on medium settings, regardless of the apparent setting you’ve chosen.
On PS5, performance switches do function properly, with the ‘off’ setting activating the 30fps quality mode with its ultra settings and higher average resolution. Comparing PS5 to Series it is more similar to the PC ultra preset as it should be. The Xbox issue is seen by Xbox users as a bug that nevertheless needs to be patched Bethesda tweets the opposite.
This same performance mode bug affects the Xbox Series S in much the same way; the switch doesn’t work and you’re left running at 60fps, default settings – exactly on par with Xbox Series X (with a known lower limit of 2016p on each in incriminating scenes). Still, this feels reasonable for the 4TF system.
Comparing all three machines, one thing is clear: not all settings match the PC’s ultra presets, as seen on a high-end RTX 4080 PC. Even on PS5, where higher settings actually apply to the performance disabled mode, there are clear limits, including a shadow cascade that doesn’t match the highest PC preset. Instead, what we have on PS5, Series X and S – regardless of the mode selected – is always equal to the PC’s medium shadow draw setting. It is also the same as last generation machines. Likewise, close-range shadow quality falls below the ultra preset, while geometry LODs around the world still don’t match PC at best.
Despite these cuts, the next-gen update brings a significant resolution increase to the console. We’ve had mods that enabled 4K 60fps on Series For example, on Xbox Series Based on pixel count, true 4K is the most typical resolution number on the Series
Manage cookie settings
As for performance results? While the Series There are also streaming disruptions of more than 100ms when fast charging through downtown Boston. It’s still not ideal as a combined optimized next-gen experience, and these issues are closely mirrored in the Series S – mostly 60fps with drops in the same places.
The most glaring problem, however, is that because the Xbox consoles are stuck in this ‘performance’ mode, the visual settings – such as the LODs for leaves, objects and terrain – actually lower than what we had when playing the last-gen Xbox One We now get 4K at 60fps, but the draw distance settings are worse than before. And now that the Xbox app has been upgraded, there’s no way to switch back to the last-gen app to restore these settings.
The situation on PS5 is more positive. For starters, it’s a particularly big upgrade compared to the last-gen PS4 Pro code we’ve been using on PS5, which ran at 1440p 30fps via back-compat. That makes 4K 60fps a bit of a revelation on Sony consoles, although the core world settings – in tree and object LODs – are only very marginally improved from what we had before the update.
Take for example the 30fps mode on PS5, with performance mode disabled. This should give us the best settings; the promised ‘ultra’ presets. If we compare it to the older PS4 Pro version running on PS5, we get the exact same shadow quality and textures. Even the shadow spacing remains the same, with a matching cascade to shadows right in front of the player. Even drawing distance settings for trees and objects (the ones pushed to ultra on PS5) are close to the older PS4 Pro version. Switching between the two there’s a slight difference in the distribution of the leaves, but it’s really the jump from 1440p to true 4K that’s most noticeable.
The PS5’s performance in 60fps mode is largely stable, but like the Series look below, and there is stuttering while running full=fur through complex environments. The 30fps quality mode avoids most of these drops by lowering the overall performance ceiling, but it’s quite a blow to swallow.
Interestingly, PS5 offers a number of additional ways to play in addition to these two modes, as Bethesda changes Fallout 4’s settings depending on the video output of the console itself. For example, if you have 120Hz set as output on the PS5 and performance mode is disabled in the game, you will get 4K resolution with the higher ‘ultra’ settings for drawing leaves and objects, but it will all run at 40fps instead of 30. Also flawless in this way, without drops as we see in the 60 fps modes. The settings here are unchanged from the normal 30 fps mode.
Then setting the console to 1440p changes the game logic again. If 1440p is set in the PS5 system menu, the game will always run at 60fps regardless of in-game mode, with the higher tree and object LODs. Unfortunately, there are dips below 60 fps at some points, and the Corvega factory sees a hit into the low 50s. There are also traversal stutters. Overall, this gives us a total of four modes on Sony’s machine – with Xbox once again not appearing to change its setup when 120Hz or 1440p is selected.
The turnout for this next-gen patch on PS5, Series X and S will undoubtedly be disappointing. At least there are a few wins here: the ability to officially run at dynamic 1440p 60fps on Series S is a nice improvement, while being able to run at 60fps on PS5 is a real breakthrough after being limited to 30fps on the older PS4 app for so long. But there’s still so much on the table for a definitive console experience. The fact that the core settings, world details and shadows, are still not on par with the PC’s best – even when running in the PS5’s 30fps mode – is a surprise.
More clearly, something needs to be done about Xbox systems not working as stated in the patch notes, with a non-functioning performance mode switch and missing 120Hz and 1440p modes. I fully expect Bethesda to come back to this in due course, to fix the obvious and obvious issues on Xbox. It’s a free update, but one that comes with some compromises – and in some ways it’s a step back from the older One X app.