Hi everyone.

My nephew saw me playing Fallout and wanted to play it as well. I installed it on his PC and it wouldn't even start on his Radeon HD 4670 card.

So I got him my previous graphics card, a GTX 750, and the game ran ok. I set all detail to minimum and left the resolution at monitor's native: 1920x1080. The thing is game runs fine outside at 35-60 fps, with rare frame drops, but it's playable....till I enter the city or a area with many buildings. It just kills the game, the framerate drops are below 1 fps, the game loads stuff for a couple of seconds then the framerate goes up to about 20-30 if I stay on the same spot. But if I move in any direction it's the same fps drop, unplayable. A lower resolution wasn't helping.

I believe it's mainly due to the memory of the graphics card (1GB) or the RAM. The rest of the system is:

MB: Gigabyte G41M Combo

Proc: Intel Core2Duo E8500

Memory: 4GB DDR3 533Mhz Dual Channel

HDD: 7200 rpm Seagate

What are the best mods for fixing the fps drops ? Anything over 20 fps would be playable I guess.

Thanks.

FPS Dynamic Shadows + Fallout 4 Texture Optimization Project + Faraway Area Reform.

Should see pretty good gains with that. If TOP isn't enough, there are 512 texture packs out there.

I can't post links, apparently. But they're all on Nexus.

What video card?

You won't like this...
Your least expensive solution is to get all his relatives to chip in on a console. By the time you upgrade his PC enough to play, you will have a lot more invested. A good graphic card alone is as expensive as a PS 4.

FPS boost as above.

Also the Fallout 4 Configuration Tool will help give you more control over some settings you can disable.

Well, FPS Dynamic Shadows + Fallout 4 Texture Optimization Project + Faraway Area Reform got rid of that 10 sec stuttering/freeze. Now it's more like 1-2 secs freeze in the city. Every 20 secs or so.

But way more playable. Thanx

A PS4 would be an option, but he uses the pc for other stuff too, so I'm gonna invest in it anyway. One of his relatives promises a 400 euros pc, but it's kinda tight for a gaming pc. Maybe a gtx 950 and a i3...but that would be outdated in 2 years. My hope is to bargain for ~200 more euros for i5 and gtx 960 OC. Or go amd radeon way.

Just go with a 760, it's cheaper and while not the most high-end card it's a good starter until they can afford a 970-980.

If you are going to upgrade anyway - get a quad processor, better than an I3. New MB, probably new PS. Modulars are nice.

Try to future proof him a bit by getting current gen parts. Z97 is good.

At least 8GB of memory - 16 if it is not too pricey.

Look seriously at the NVidia 900 line. If your fan does not have to spin at idle - it will never wear out... Very low power for what you get.

Good luck to you - and your nephew. He is lucky to have you for an uncle.

I would go for something like a Core i5 6500 and a H170 chipset motherboard. Much more future proof than a last-gen core CPU on a last-gen motherboard (even a Z97)