Fallout 3 system requirements?

[Magister Lajciak]

Good point on the mods...

[Nightshape]

Absolutely. I totally hate games played in First-person view on a console. I'd totally feel helpless there when a mutated rat jumps at me and I always struggle with these stupid controller sticks.

 

Depends if the controls are optimized for a controller... I suppose I could get both but that would feel a bit silly... I'm tempted towards the Xbox because of my 50" TV, that said I prefer keyboard and mouse when the controls are optermized thus. I'm 60 - 40 in favour of the Xbox version over the PC version as I expect the PC version is more an afterthought, than the console version.

[Killian Kalthorne]

As a person who has played Oblivion both on the PC and the XBox 360, the Xbox 360 version is more fun to play but the PC version has all those mods one can experiment with. That being said I am getting the XBox 360 version first and if I like the game and some good mods come out I will probably get the PC version later.

[alanschu]

I don't know which version to buy... I get the feeling FO3 may work better on a console than on a PC.

unless you've got a state of the art PC with the latest graphic card, it's safe to say that FO3 will almost certainly run better on a console.

 

 

My PC Fanboyism must declare that it will play better on a PC though

[Hurlshort]

I originally bought Oblivion on the 360. I regretted it. I enjoyed it, but I definitely didn't feel as immersed sitting on my couch.

 

I later picked up a cheap copy of it for the PC with the expansion. I was much happier playing it there. It also lets you use the mods, and some will tell you that the game is night and day different with mods.

[Dark_Raven]

I don't know which version to buy... I get the feeling FO3 may work better on a console than on a PC.

unless you've got a state of the art PC with the latest graphic card, it's safe to say that FO3 will almost certainly run better on a console.

 

 

My PC Fanboyism must declare that it will play better on a PC though

Of course it would better on the pc, everything usually is.

Edited October 5, 2008 by Dark_Raven

[Bokishi]

USUALLY

[newc0253]

i have a 360, a year-old PC with a decent graphics card and processor, and painful painful memories of playing Crysis on settings that revealed it to be the distinctly-average shooter that it was (buried beneath the glossy graphics you saw in the ads, graphics that were apparently only available to the folk using the computer at CERN).

 

i also recall playing Oblivion when it first came out on a previous PC of mine that really wasn't that far behind the curve at the time - Oblivion ran very smoothly for the most part and looked excellent, except whenever i got near an Oblivion gate and the framerate slowed to a crawl....

 

when it comes to Fallout, i don't want to risk running into something similar so i reckon i'll get the 360 version - it is a shooter after all - and then do what someone above suggested, picking up the PC version for expansions.

 

and, to be fair, i've all of Bio's recent CRPGs on xbox: KOTORs 1&2, Jade Empire and Mass Effect, and they were all fine.

Edited October 6, 2008 by newc0253

[Strix]

unless you've got a state of the art PC with the latest graphic card, it's safe to say that FO3 will almost certainly run better on a console.

 

I disagree. Consoles run at a fixed frame-rate and lower resolutions than PCs and thus the performance is often better than low-end systems running the game at higher resolutions. If you expect to run Oblivion at 30 fps -if I remember correctly that is what the 360's cap is- and at 1024x600 with 2X AA you do not need a "sate of the art PC with the latest graphic card," and since Fallout 3 is going to use an optimized version of the same engine I would expect that you could easily match the performance of the console version with a mid-range PC.

[mkreku]

It used to be the way newc describes, but ATI has lowered the prices on their GPU's so much that their top end cards cost half now compared to two generations ago (two years ago)! If you buy a Radeon 4870, you can play Crysis with everything on max and 1280x1024 and 40 fps.

 

The price/performance ratio has never been better than it is right now.

[alanschu]

Why would the 360 be limited to running the game at 30 fps?

[Nightshape]

Why would the 360 be limited to running the game at 30 fps?

 

Easier to program for, as you can create budgets for textures, and meshes etc... Basically a fixed framerate on a console allows for a better final solution.

 

The 360 isn't limited, but it doesn't make sense to not limit it as you'd run at whatever FPS you aim for anyways, any console developer does this.

[newc0253]

i don't know what framerate the 360 is limited to but it looks great.

 

my PC has a GeForce 8600 GT graphics card and to my rough untutored eye, it looks about the same quality as the 360 (having regard to (i) the obvious differences in screen size and (ii) the fact that you sit a lot further away with a console than with a computer screen).

[Hurlshort]

I think I remember someone saying the human eye can't even distinguish anything more than 30 FPS. I imagine it's fluidity that is more important, 30 fps consistently is great but if you are dropping to 15 here and there, you'll notice.

[Strix]

Why would the 360 be limited to running the game at 30 fps?

 

The game is capped, not the system, if I remember correctly.

[mkreku]

I think I remember someone saying the human eye can't even distinguish anything more than 30 FPS. I imagine it's fluidity that is more important, 30 fps consistently is great but if you are dropping to 15 here and there, you'll notice.

It's both true and not true. An ordinary movie at the cinema is shown in 24p (24 frames per second) and I'm pretty sure noone's complaining. But if you put someone in front of a screen switching between a white screen and a black sreen at 30 fps, that someone would probably get epilepsy. Also, everyone who's played a racing game knows what a difference it is between 30 fps and 60 fps.

[alanschu]

Why would the 360 be limited to running the game at 30 fps?

 

The game is capped, not the system, if I remember correctly.

 

 

You said straight up the 360 was capped:

 

I disagree. Consoles run at a fixed frame-rate and lower resolutions than PCs and thus the performance is often better than low-end systems running the game at higher resolutions. If you expect to run Oblivion at 30 fps -if I remember correctly that is what the 360's cap is-

[Strix]

You said straight up the 360 was capped...

 

 

Yes, in the case of Oblivion - the game in question.

[Enoch]

In other Fallout news, I encountered a surprise on my commute home today-- about half of the ads in the Metro Center subway station (the largest transfer station in downtown DC) are now devoted to the game. If I can get my camera to function properly, I'll take some snapshots tomorrow.

[alanschu]

Yes, in the case of Oblivion - the game in question.

 

 

No it wasn't.

 

unless you've got a state of the art PC with the latest graphic card, it's safe to say that FO3 will almost certainly run better on a console.

 

I disagree. Consoles run at a fixed frame-rate and lower resolutions than PCs and thus the performance is often better than low-end systems running the game at higher resolutions. If you expect to run Oblivion at 30 fps -if I remember correctly that is what the 360's cap is- and at 1024x600 with 2X AA you do not need a "sate of the art PC with the latest graphic card," and since Fallout 3 is going to use an optimized version of the same engine I would expect that you could easily match the performance of the console version with a mid-range PC.

[Strix]

You have forgotten that I specifically cited Oblivion in line two and explained why I did so. Both games use the same engine and, most likely, the same graphics settings on the 360.

Edited October 6, 2008 by Strix

[alanschu]

You have forgotten that I specifically cited Oblivion in line two and explained why I did so. Both games use the same engine and, most likely, the same graphics settings on the 360.

 

The flow of your post, and the words used, do not indicate that you are talking about Oblivion when referring to consoles having a cap on their FPS.

[mkreku]

You have forgotten that I specifically cited Oblivion in line two and explained why I did so. Both games use the same engine and, most likely, the same graphics settings on the 360.

 

The flow of your post, and the words used, do not indicate that you are talking about Oblivion when referring to consoles having a cap on their FPS.

What are you trying to prove here? The guy says he meant Oblivion on the Xbox 360. The post may be read in any way you want, and you keep on harping on about your own interpretation of it, despite him explaining it to you? Why? What's the point?

[neckthrough]

I think I remember someone saying the human eye can't even distinguish anything more than 30 FPS. I imagine it's fluidity that is more important, 30 fps consistently is great but if you are dropping to 15 here and there, you'll notice.

For artifically generated content, the limit is closer to 60fps. It varies from person to person, of course, but in general the difference between 30fps and 60fps should be noticeable especially in driving and FPS games.

 

The reason why movies and television get by fine with just 24-30fps is because they have natural motion blur, which acts as a form of temporal antialiasing. A frame in a movie is captured by exposing the camera's film/sensor to the scene for a finite amount of time, which removes a lot of the sharp temporal "edges". In contrast, an artificially rendered frame represents the scene at an exact instant of time, which is why it is "aliased in time" with respect to the frames before and after itself. To reduce the aliasing (i.e. jerkiness), you need to either increase the "resolution", which in this case is the number of frames per second, or add some form of supersampled motion blur (very different from the crappy pseudo motion blur you see these days in a lot of games).

[Strix]

You have forgotten that I specifically cited Oblivion in line two and explained why I did so. Both games use the same engine and, most likely, the same graphics settings on the 360.

 

The flow of your post, and the words used, do not indicate that you are talking about Oblivion when referring to consoles having a cap on their FPS.

 

I will admit that I could have been clearer than I was, however your continued fixation on the post is not warranted.