It’s no secret that a lot of Fallout fans were a bit disappointed with the visuals of Fallout 4. But does Fallout 4 actually deliver a generational leap in visuals over its predecessor? Well, you’ll be the judge of it as you’ll find below some comparison screenshots between Fallout 4 and Fallout 3. Kudos to Candyland for sharing this video from which these screenshots were taken. Fallout 4 is on the left whereas Fallout 3 is on the right. Enjoy!
John is the founder and Editor in Chief at DSOGaming. He is a PC gaming fan and highly supports the modding and indie communities. Before creating DSOGaming, John worked on numerous gaming websites. While he is a die-hard PC gamer, his gaming roots can be found on consoles. John loved – and still does – the 16-bit consoles, and considers SNES to be one of the best consoles. Still, the PC platform won him over consoles. That was mainly due to 3DFX and its iconic dedicated 3D accelerator graphics card, Voodoo 2. John has also written a higher degree thesis on the “The Evolution of PC graphics cards.”
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Hey at least the sun actually casts shadows now. That’s a big enough upgrade for me.
That’s the first thing I looked for! The leap from Fallout NV to the Creation Engine and Skyrim (one year later) was incredibly dramatic, mostly because of the use of global lighting.
“creation engine” huehuehue
“it’s a brand new engine” huehuehue
okay
In other news, FallOut goes high definition finally.
f4 looks like crap, ugly oversaturated colors, even uglier street lights, crappy models, same thing again, nothing new
and wtf is with that flying ship???? is this some kind of a joke?
The textures look really bad too
Really, you think the flying ship is out of place.. have you played the other fallout games or did you miss the godzilla footprint, Tardis, holy hand grenade, and other pop culture references in the games since 1997?
You are comparing easter eggs and jokes to something that is prominently displayed. At least say something like “an airship isn’t that out of place considering the existence of Vertibirds”.
I am amused you don’t think that ship is a fanservice/easter egg. it looks crashed and non operational, if it was operational like the zeppelin I would compare its reasonable usage in the setting to a vertibird.
edit- although in further thought it still wouldn’t feel too out of place if it did work in a setting with a giant anti communist robot, orbital nuke platforms, personal cloaking devices, and ghouls.
I assumed the zeppelin was the thing in question. If he meant the ship at 1:39 in the trailer then I don’t understand the reference if it’s supposed to be fan service or an easter egg.
The zeppelin fits in pretty nicely with the fallout universe they were used for the story set up of Fallout Tactics and they fit into the aesthetic of the setting pretty nicely really.
And what kind of “pop culture reference” should that ship be? Bioshock infinite?
If f4 looks like crap then how does f3 look? Compare the image with the dog, the models, textures, lighting etc. A huge improvement. It isn’t on par with the best graphics but were you expecting that?
I expected a real evolution, not just the bare minimum required to be considered a next gen sequel. Bethesda has a f’load of money on their pockets, and yet they refuse to spend it on a brand new game engine capable of great visuals, better and more fluid animations, and better combat mechanics.
It’s sad when devs with much less money put much more effort into their game’s overall quality, than Bethesda does. It’s even sadder when their fans put more effort into making Bethesda’s games better, than the devs themselves.
Given that Bethesda is a AAA developer with access to a lot of manpower, tech and budget I guess it’s only normal for people to expect some decent quality.
Their games sell because they are easy to mod. Bethesda know this and exploit it to their advantage, leaving the heavy lifting for the modders to do.
Not like PC is the only platform they sell games on so modding i s only a part of it. Their games have looked good, not stunning but maybe that’s just not their focus. Maybe it’s the engine and console limitations.
Maybe you’re right, considering Morrowind was the last decent Bethesda game (it was then just ported to xbawks IIRC)
>considering Morrowind was the last decent Bethesda game
That’s just pure BS.
Care to elaborate?
Skyrim was even more dumbed down and streamlined than Oblivion was.
Yes it was but it doesn’t take away from the amazing world which no other game has matched. Witcher 3 is amazing but doesn’t feel as personal and immersive. If you are looking for polished and challenging combat then skyrim isn’t for you. I get some of the complaints but oblivion and skyrim were both still incredible and there are probably a couple million people backing me up.
There are likely millions upon millions of ‘people’ who would swear that Justin Bieber is the best thing ever. Doesn’t mean a thing.
The ‘amazing’ post-Morrowind Elder Scrolls world with its emptiness, copy paste dungeons, level scaling (no challenge whatsoever) and flat out boring NPCs pale in comparison to the carefully hand crafted, personal, dangerous and interesting world Piranha Bytes achieved with Gothic 1 & 2, for example. Have you played those?
Ok I know it wasn’t the best thing to say but you also know that these games don’t suck. Or then every game reviewer ever is a casual fanboy or paid to give good scores. I can see how people think skyrim is shallow etc but it’s a thing that matters to you or not. Some say the combat sucks, well skyrim is not about combat. I play skyrim for the immense feel of immersion and exploration. No other game can achieve the same. With mods it’s very good looking and combat is different. Btw oblivion was better than skyrim.
People say play gothic all the time but there is a problem. I never played those games back then and looking at them now in 2015… Can’t do it. The graphics are simply so ridiculously old that there is no way I’m ever going to immerse myself into that world made of 45 polygons and characters that look nothing like human beings. Morrowind didn’t have spoken dialogue and that did it for me, there isn’t a feel of conversation if no-one is talking and the world goes static. Then the animations etc… It’s just almost impossible to go back to those games for the first time now in 2015. Sorry but I’m not going to enjoy a black and white movie without sound in todays world.
Still, I bought Gothic 3 from the gog sale and I’m going to mod it and try after witcher 3. That seems little more modern and could work.
All mainstream reviewers gave Dragon Age 2 insanely high scores and that game sucked. Big time.
It´s your loss if antiquated graphics prevent you from enjoying really great games. Sadly Gothic 3 doesn´t hold a candle to G1/G2.
Metascore of 82 is pretty mediocre and you can’t take away points just because the first one was better and you got disappointed or something. It’s not bad and many people surely enjoyed it.
Skyrim is just bad, really bad, once you got over how big the world is it’s just a really shallow game with no creativity or originally at all. Personally I think Gothic 3 blows it away and Gothic 3 has no loading screens when you go around the world or into cites, towns, houses, it’s truely an open world game because it was made for PC only. My goodness, even The Witcher 3 first area is closed off to the rest of the world.
Really the witcher 3 talk? It doesn’t have one big area because the places you visit are just too far away. The two big areas are absolutely massive(multiple times skyrim) and even one is completely enough for the game on it’s own. So claiming something like it’s not true open world is just bs.
I just bought gothic 3 but I don’t have high expectations for that. Loading screens aren’t the problem, old and clunky graphics take you away from the game more. I love skyrim(and ES games) because it has that kind of lone wanderer feel to it. I want to explore what’s in that village etc. The witcher 3 has none of that but that’s mostly because your character is already set and it’s not in first person. I don’t care how much better dialogue, quests and story it has, skyrim has that something which has made it so popular and why people play it even today.
The they should connect the world so it flows together, the first area of TW3 is poor and immersion breaking that you can reach the end of the map instead of designing it with a land mass that stops you.
lol, Skyrim has old clunky graphics, only the mods saved it, practically noone would be playing it if it wasn’t for mods, so bad Skyrim was in the first place like most Bethesda games. Gothic 3 does have mods but not to the point where you have to mod the whole game to make it worthy of playing a while because it was so sh*t in the first place. In fact, if it wasn’t for mods, Skyrim wouldn’t have been what it is, thanks to Bethesda stealing mod ideas for it and making a new game out if them.
The only reason why Bethesda get any credit from the PC community is because they’re mod friendly, it gives them a free pass to make such sh*t, buggy dumbed down games and turn Skyrim into a console game.
I have to say it’s true that skyrim wouldn’t be the same without mods. I played it 120h first on an xbox back in 2011 and it was amazing then, but now I’m used to much better and matured after that. But one could argue the game itself is also so old… I play it for the immersion and exploration, not for deep characters or story really. Only used a bow for all my playthroughs too.
I wonder what do you think about the newer fallout games. Fo4 will show how bethesda has developed.
I quite enjoyed Fallout 3, more memorable in terms of characters.
True. It surely was better than Skyrim.
I would play Bethesda games even if they didn’t have mods (and I do) because the sheer amount of content in their games. True, their graphics aren’t the best, but that’s the price to pay for content. Bethesda would rather put their money into content rather than photo-realistic graphics, which are terribly expensive both in terms of money and processing.
I do love Bethesda games, but I’m not above criticizing them. Their user interface for Skyrim still angers me when I think about it! What the heck were they thinking? I hope someone got fired for that.
Sure, I don’t consider myself a graphics whore, especially when it comes to RPGs where other areas are so much important, but the issue is not just graphics with Bethesda, it’s with hyping non-existant features like ridiculous dumb ‘Radiant AI’, ‘breathing, living worlds’, some of the worst writing I have ever seen in videogames, almost no reactivity at all in quests, zero choices & consequences (you can become the master of EVERY guild? Really?), hyping ‘revolutionary’ features like the NPC schedules in Skyrim, when Gothic 1 implemented those perfectly already in early 2001, etc, etc…
So it’s not just the bland graphics and terrible animations in GameBryo, there are many problems with these games.
What I’m saying is this is only a slight improvement bundled with a loss of artistic value. Moreover I have no illusions about the size of playable area or skill system either.
if you mod new vegas it looks the same.
You simply wont have as much stuff and the models wont be that good. The lighting with some ENB may look good but it still looks like a mod, t doesn’t look good everywhere, may be hard to install, may have problems, has a big fps impact etc.
” it doesn’t look good everywhere,”
Because you played fallout 4 and you know it does?
There are higher quality models you know and enb has huge fps impact but new vegas is a old game, anyone can max it out 1080p. So it doesnt matter
” it doesn’t look good everywhere,”
”Because you played fallout 4 and you know it does?”
Because games on this scale are carefully though out to give a consistent look. A mod may make some areas great and ruin others. That was a problem when I tried to choose an ENB for skyrim.
I like to mod bethesdas games and yes you can make them look much better but it’s not that simple. Take oblivion for example. You can cherrypick some great screenshots all you want and show how it looks better than vanilla skyrim but in reality it isn’t even close.
Higher quality models and textures exist but they have an inconsistent look, there aren’t mods for everything and they arent made by the same people.
I have learned that people who claim stuff like ”fo4 looks worse than fo3” or some similar cr*p are just biased, angry haters, cherrypickers or just stupid. Usually all of those.
“Because games on this scale are carefully though out to give a consistent look.”
Nope, the last 2 werent so what are you talking about?
“Higher quality models and textures exist but they have an inconsistent look,”
Implying fallout 4 is consistent.
“and they arent made by the same people.”
Implying that everyone does the same thing in bethsda.
“I have learned that people who claim stuff like ”fo4 looks worse than fo3” or some similar cr*p are just biased, angry haters, cherrypickers
or just stupid. Usually all of those.”
I didnt say it looks worse i said heavilly modded vegas is on par with what was shown.
Let me tell you what looks better than fallout 4, the last few cod games.
”Let me tell you what looks better than fallout 4, the last few cod games.”
That’s enough for me. You are comparing tubular fps shooters to an open world rpg.
i am also comparing 60 fps to 30 fps, i am also comparing last gen graphics with an next gen game.
Quit licking bethesdas balls, the game looks ancient.
It doesnt and you can try to prove me otherwise. Fo3 looks ancient.
fallout 4 graphics are also ancient.
If I understood correctly they are using basically the same engine as Skyrim; my thoughts were that overall it looks better than FO3/NV with an ENB, but with exceptions. Compared to Skyrim with an ENB I would say there are even more exceptions; particularly with textures (not an ENB thing I know) character models, skin and indoor environments looking much better with ENB lighting and shadows. I also think a lot of textures in the trailer looked muddy/low resolution which I find kind of disappointing for 2015, but I’m hoping they do like Skyrim and have a high resolution DLC.
Not even close, especially when comparing the lighting.
Vegas lighting is crap, but still if you use enb and textures it looks close.
http://i.ytimg.com/vi/LfaGzpdxiP0/maxresdefault.jpg
http://static-8.nexusmods.com/15/mods/130/images/55076-3-1393105976.jpg
http://static-6.nexusmods.com/15/mods/130/images/47632-1-1346457510.jpg
https://farm3.staticflickr.com/2476/12983256163_8f0f55bb71_b.jpg
http://static-7.nexusmods.com/15/mods/130/images/48203-1-1361779994.jpg
FO3 wasnt that great looking for its time, FO4 looks like a last gen game.
You realize FO3 was last gen right? That’s what last gen looks like. This series and open world games in general don’t look as good as some other games, that’s a fact.
Yes, I never said otherwise. Fo3 wasnt great looking for its time. For a last gen game it wasnt that great at all graphically, -even- especially on the PC. FO4 looks about how id imagine last gen FO would look. Even Rage with its puke textures looks as good if not better than FO4 does.
Well you can look at this list and tell me which of those looked so much better than FO3 at its time.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_in_video_gaming
The graphical epitome of this time was the first Crysis and if you mod the sh*t out of it, I am sorry to bring you back to reality, but most games released these days would still not hold a candle to it.
As PC gamer I am actually quite curious about how good a current gen game actually should look like, since until now we mostly only had pretty looking pre-rendered trailers.
You can mod Crysis as much as you want but it wont stop FO3 looking like a*s …thats reality for you.
There are a few last gen games on that list that looked better than FO3. I doubt you need me to tell you what they are and im not here to answer to your difference of opinion anyway.
FO3 looked like a game built on a game engine that was designed for the gen before it, because that is exactly what it was.
It looks like FO4 is following suit.
So pretty similar then.
If you willfully ignore the hundreds of differences, yes.
So it is similar then.
All games are similar, especially when you shut your eyes*
Just use your imagination*
I imagine your head shaped like a watermelon. Then that comedian guy hammers it across the crowd.
Keep it vague that’s what I say…
It’s amazing how hyper critical fans have become. Kind of sad really. I mean some people were boycotting The Witcher 3 because the color palate wasn’t their personal preference.
Simply put, people are spoiled. They complain and spew criticism over the internet then buy it anyway.
This times 100. You know all the ones who were furious over the downgrade of Witcher 3 are playing it now with a chip on their shoulder.
Is CDPR still paying shills this late after launch? No, the people who saw Witcher 3 for the dumbed down console game it was certainly didn’t buy it and probably aren’t playing it. I’m one of them and I wouldn’t waste my time pirating that game.
Yes, I’m a shill because I have a different opinion. False equivalency bruh
And everyone who criticizes a product are hypocrites and have no right to do so.
Strawman back at ya.
Are you retarded? Where did I make that point or even allude to that?
Quite clearly in your earlier reply to MMajor. I’ll quote it here in case you’re to stupid to find it:
“This times 100. You know all the ones who were furious over the downgrade of Witcher 3 are playing it now with a chip on their shoulder.”
How am I calling anyone a hypocrite? My point was it was just a charade, feigned angst if you will. I hear its all the rage these days.
But it wasn’t. Witcher 3 is a mediocre game, even more casual than its predecessor, and plenty of people including myself (who did buy Witcher 2) did not buy it due to reasons such as the obvious downgrade and reviewers noting the easy combat. Where do you get the idea from that the same people first complained about a downgrade and then went on to buy (or even play) the game any way? This always comes up and it’s just not true. The vocal minority that was outraged over the downgrade needn’t have changed their views at launch in the slightest. Most sales of Witcher 3 were on consoles whereas Witcher 2 was still a somewhat PC-oriented game. PC fans from way back complained about the downgrade, console newcomers didn’t hear or care and bought the game.
That’s subjective
When features become simplified from one game to the next, no, that’s not subjective.
It is if I disagree with you.
How could you disagree on the fact that features got simplified from Witcher 1 to 2 and then again to 3? For starters the second and third game are easier to beat according to everyone. Do you want to be that one guy who claims that Witcher 3 is a hard, skillbased game and more challenging than its predecessors? Come on now.
Lol little child. You don’t know what you are missing. But it’s kind of cute how stupid you guys really are.
I do know what I’m “missing”. I saw plenty of gameplay before choosing not to buy.
It’s not just them, it seems like even review sites have forgotten how to review a game seeing how GTAV got a 10/10 on many sites. GTAV is literally a big joke wrapped in pretty graphics and built for last-gen consoles.
Lol what how so if this was true people wouldn’t have bought it like crazy it was one of my favorite games for sure. Graphics were better then watch dogs which made me want to puke i remember watch dogs tree’s it reminded me of Need for speed underground 2.
went right over your head.
He said it was a joke yet many bought it making him the minority.
I love being the minority – the majority of people are stupid.
http://sd.keepcalm-o-matic.co.uk/i/keep-calm-you-got-me-5.png
I don’t understand that first part, but I’m not entirely sure I agree with that second part. Watch Dogs had some really great graphical effects going for it – Ubisoft’s textures are sharper, some of their shaders and rain effects are better than in GTAV, but GTAV had a bigger and more diverse worldspace and better physics and overall lighting. They both have their pluses and minuses, but I would say GTAV has the advantage because it is better optimized than W_D, which ran like a stuttery mess.
Watch dogs to me looked so horribly bad many claim GTA5 looks better i was so disappointed i mean even look at the ART for the cars looks horrible. Some things did look better to me like the building’s.
Well, you’re a very unreasonable person to talk to. So I’ll stop now.
For what stating GTA5 deserves a high score and the graphics look better then watch dogs? To quote this own site “All in all, Grand Theft Auto V performs amazingly well on the PC platform and is the best looking open-world title to date.”
For being unreasonable towards Watch_Dogs. You seem hell-bent on not giving them an ounce of credit – you can dislike the game all you want, but some of the artwork in that game is incredible. If you can’t acknowledge that then you’re not worth talking to.
WatchDogs looked good even on PS4. There were times it almost looked photorealistic. FO4 looks like a cartoon. I will still get it eventually (probably will wait a bit, on launch it will have megatons of bugs).
Yeah I really hope this cartoony art-style is only for trailers and maybe cut-scenes.. If not…ill go to bethesda and puke over their offices
If you don’t like the Fallout 4 graphics don’t buy. PS. Trailer is in-game
Fallout 4 looks like a painting*
Like I said, photo-realism costs lots of time and money – games have budgets – would you rather have a photo-realistic game or a game with hundreds of hours of content? That is the trade-off.
I truly do enjoy the game i would give it a 7.5/10 and i beat it twice but in know way i’m i going to support such crappy art not to mention in GTA5 you can stare at a person and they will say something the characters just seem more life like not to mention DSOgaming agree’s with me anyways lol. One area i think watch dogs did ok in is probably in their lighting(thinks to Nvidia) and some textures as well but they demanded crazy specs(thanks to Nvidia).
I find really very more sad that there are already preorders for a game we now literaly nothing aside the name.
I thought about this, too. It’s kind of insane to buy it now, but in Bethesda We Trust, I guess.
Honestly if I had the money right now I would be totally stupid and drop it on a pre-order, but only because I’ve not been let down by a Bethesda game in about a decade. I just really dig their brand of RPG’s and support of the modding community. For their modding support alone I want to throw money at them.
a decade you say? you sir i guess have never played IHRA Professional Drag Racing 2005
I’m not sure what you’re trying to say here. Did that game have good modding support?
its stupid but hey at least you can get refunds for pre orders without much hassle
Won’t they be shocked when Fallout 4 turns out to be a Farmville reskin?
Yep its absolutely ridiculous and utterly childish
pretty sure it was more than a “color palate” issue. lets also not forget the fact that the devs from the witcher never even admitted a downgrade till like the game was already out (and they still couldnt really admit it)
The color palate was one example. I was literally reading comments of people talking about how they hated the colors and would not play it.
I think they were boycotting The Witcher 3 because right up until just after release they were still advertising with those original shots from 2013 because they looked so much better than what they wound up with.
I think you are grossly oversimplifying what many people were mad about with The Witcher 3.
I said some. Learn to read. There were some or a small number of people simply protesting the colors in the game.
more like vertical slice vs. reality!
Textures are actually worse in places. But it’s better overall.
There’s no doubt Fallout 4 looks way better than both 3 and NV and i even dare to say it look’s better than the modded versions, i see i whole new fallout here. Mark my words if you have the horsepower to run this at 4K + SweetFx (SMAA, Color Correction, whatever… it’s optional) + Draw Distance Tweaks (which should be avaiable right on release date through .ini tweaks i supose), i’m telling you it’s gonna look awesome and if we, or at least me, can have iron sigths since the start, i don’t need anything else. Looking foward to this beast! 😀
Meh… not impressive for me
I prefer what I saw in this trailer over the lies that ACU, Dark Souls 2, Watch Dogs and The Witcher 3 were.
Bethesda went about developing Fallout 4 all wrong. Why did they not build a new games engine?
They trying to go the cheap route by making minor upgrades to Gamebryo instead of developing a new engine. This doesn’t make sense, especially in this age of GTA5 and Witcher. The new paint job in the trailer doesn’t cut it, even the dog animation looks funny and floaty.
Yes it costs money to develop a new engine, but with the large fan base of Fallout, recouping their investment is not in doubt. I dare say that Fallout has a larger fan base than witcher which has sold 4 million copies in 2 weeks.
Anyway I will still buy it when it goes on sales, cause that’s the price that will be commensurate to their efforts.
What? Why would you even expect them to use a different engine? The engine they have does exactly what needs to be done to create the kinds of games they want to make.
What does the Witcher sales have to do with the engine it uses? And what does a dog’s animation have to do with the engine? Do you even know how graphics engines work?
So sorry you did not understand my comment
The lighting is the biggest difference. It adds so much to the realism of the atmosphere. And on top of that, the character models and textures are still much improved. Can’t wait.
Also, with this improvement from Fallout games, we should expect the same with Elder Scrolls. Skyrim is still my favorite game and whatever the next Elder Scrolls is (Hammerfell?) it is going to look SO GOOD on PC, PS4 & XboxONE.
I need to slow down though. One step at a time. It is now Fallout’s turn.
get ready for next gen stiff animations and characters
ENB just adds vibrance and color, it’s not even close.
You might wanna read what enb does, it affects shaders as well as other things.
Yes I’m quite aware but it still doesn’t add true world shadows or even the same lighting.
no but lets see fallout 4 first and then talk about lighting, it always looks good in pre release footage.
I don’t think a lot of people would even consider that the reason the game looks like that is because its MEANT to look like that. It carries on from the previous games and is keeping in line with those sorts of graphics. They could’ve made it look more polished and look like Skyrim, but why should they? Fallout is Fallout, not Skyrim. They did this deliberately and just think that some people don’t pick up on that cows they are looking for a game that has TEH BEZT POSSABLE GRPHX EVA!!!1!!! /rant
it looks great, it will run at 1080p/60fps on a toaster, you’ll be able to pump up supersampling and have pristine image quality
thats easy. mirrors edge
I knew it looked a lot better. I was wondering why a ton of people said FO3 was just like 4. They are not even close. FO3 looks pretty dull and ugly at most places (imho).
I was hoping that FO4 would look like a better Skyrim and it does.
Instant buy for me.
P.s. Yea, it doesn’t look very next genny(looks good overall), but its 15 gens (imho again) past FallOut 3.
NO
http://i.imgur.com/DGz1WE1.jpg
Its an improvement but i’ve been spoilt elsewhere…
It IS a generation leap ahead of Fallout 3/NV but still a generation behind open world games out nowadays. Never really played Fallout for it’s graphics though. If I did, I wouldn’t have played it at all and missed out on a great game 🙂
Big improvement honestly only a graphic hungry fool would want more outta this.
Custom Lighting Overhaul is essential for fixing outdoor lighting. I’ll never understand why it’s so underrated.
If it’s only graphics you care about, go watch a f’ing movie. Quit b*tching about a games graphics. What a pathetic existence you must live if THATS what’s bothering you.
Yeah, those guys saying there’s no difference are right. No difference at all.
Well, except for everything.
How do people find it in their day to complain about everything
How do people possibly say that this game looks like they didn’t try
I don’t get it, and I don’t think I ever will
The game looks great
these comments make me cringe, like the graphics arent good enough? its a bethesda game, did you honestly expect crysis 4 or something?
Dangit; looks like the draw distance is still crap. Textures look a little muddy. Looks a lot better than vanilla FO3/Vegas though.
tessellation and HairWoks is kicking since 2012… some improvement, yes, but not amazing… poor textures and tecnology applied to this game.
dogmeat should have hairworks to make its fur looks like fur, and hair looks like hair.