Everyone’s favourite technical specialist ‘Digital Foundry’ has run a number of their tests on the latest Fallout 4 expansion Far Harbor after reports of frame rate issues.
According to Digital Foundry, after the release of the 1.6 patch, the Far Harbor area runs at a measly 20 FPS but it can drop even lower than that.
“As things stand, PS4’s current performance profile sees the Far Harbor region present one of the most sluggish regions in the game, while Xbox One consistently runs at a higher refresh”
Fallout 4 currently aims to run at 30 FPS but it seems the games new fog effect is causing issues with the expansion. On PS4 the new area never gets above 20 FPS and even drops to 15 FPS at some points.
“It’s a thick layer of alpha transparency effects causing the issue, making any real-time targeting hugely difficult, something we noticed during an early woodland mission with ally Old Longfellow. Xbox One suffers fluctuations up and down the scale and is far from ideal, but it’s certainly Sony’s machine that struggles most right now.”
PS4 isn’t the only one suffering with the game however. The Xbox One has suffered stuttering problems since launch and even locks up now and again according to reports.
Bethesda is aware of the issue and had this to say last week.
“We made optimizations based on the Far Harbor beta feedback, but understand some people are experiencing issues. We are actively working on more improvements.”
These sorts of performance issues aren’t doing any favours for Bethesda or the longevity of the current batch of consoles. With rumours of more powerful consoles on the horizon it’s likely many gamers will be looking to upgrade from the current systems already.
You can find Digital Foundry’s full breakdown video below.
