Best settings for Fallout 4 – from low-end to ultra graphics

The best settings for Fallout 4 may require a little bit of tinkering to find the right fit for you and your system. When it comes to tweaking graphics settings in any game, you always have to consider the kind of hardware you’re working with. Luckily, this is an older game at this point, so anyone with a decent PC should be able to run it without too many worries as hardware has progressed far beyond what is recommended in the Fallout 4 system requirements.

Having the best GPU for Fallout 4 fitted in your system obviously won’t do any harm, especially if you want to push those ultra settings and truly immerse yourself. In this guide, we’re going to cover the best graphics settings from the low-end to the very best on show to suit a wide range of gamers – finding that perfect balance of visuals and performance is key.

How we picked the best settings for FO4

Performance in Fallout 4 can vary quite a bit depending on the area you’re playing through, with noticeable FPS drops in areas such as, infamously, Downtown Boston as a result of the developers pushing the engine to its limit. Regardless, we tested the game with a number of different settings at our native 1440p resolution.

On PC, settings are actually housed in a separate launcher rather than in-game, so make sure you navigate to the Options Menu via the Fallout 4 Launcher to find them. We’d say that the test rig we used to find the best settings is a pretty capable one, but don’t worry if your specs aren’t quite as good. Here’s the hardware we used:

• CPU: AMD Ryzen 9 5900X
• GPU: AMD Radeon RX 7900 XT
• RAM: 32GB DDR4 @ 3200Mhz
• Storage: Samsung 980 NVMe SSD
• PSU: Corsair RM850x
• Motherboard: ASUS ROG Strix X470

Best low-end settings

Even if you are working with some pretty outdated hardware, there is a good chance you’ll be able to run the game given its age. To do so smoothly, you may want to stick to lower settings that will offer solid performance without the need to buy a brand-new gaming PC or upgrade your system.

Fallout 4 does miss out on official support for some standard modern features such as DLSS, FSR, or XeSS upscaling. These would help boost framerates given the right implementation – and there are mods for this – but let’s focus on pure rasterization. Again, we’ve used our native 1440p resolution, but if you’re targeting low-end, this may instead be 1080p for you.

Best medium settings

Moving on up to medium settings, which always give us a good balance of visual fidelity mixed with performance. We didn’t see much of a drop off in terms of framerate here, but this will differ depending on your own hardware and target resolution. So, even with a low-end system, it’s worth trying out some improved settings like the ones below if you think you can afford a few less frames in the name of better graphics.

There are always some settings you can tinker with at your own leisure, such as motion blur or lens flare if you prefer to have these kinds of effects turned off no matter what. The same goes for any level of graphics settings.

Best high settings

If you have decent hardware in your system from the past few generations, this game shouldn’t be too demanding at higher settings. Our test rig is more than needed for this and we found the game running smoothly with these high settings. It did result in around 10-15 less frames per second, but still comfortably above 60 FPS at native resolution.

Best ultra settings

Anyone blessed with a high-spec system can easily afford to max out Fallout 4 for the best visuals possible. If you have a 4K monitor and the hardware to back it up, we’d fully recommend playing at native resolution for the best experience possible. Plus, with the introduction of support for ultrawide monitors with the next-gen update, FO4 has never been so immersive. On our 1440p setup, we didn’t actually see much of a performance change between high and ultra, so it’s definitely worth the bump up.

How to optimize Fallout 4 for your system

One of the best things about choosing PC as your platform of choice is the wide amount of customization. The options menu in Fallout 4 does a good job of providing this, even if we are missing out on more modern graphics and performance boosts such as ray tracing and upscaling respectively. In terms of optimization (and gaining high frame rates), there are a few things you can do.

• Enable V-sync if you are experiencing screen tear. Or better yet, use FreeSync or G-Sync solutions to sync your monitor’s refresh rate to your framerate to ensure smoother visuals.
• Make the most of mods if possible. There are plenty of mods that aim to improve performance and/or boost FPS. These may be impacted by the new next-gen update, but it’s worth a try. Check out the performance category for Fallout 4 on Nexus Mods for a closer look.
  • Upscaling via DLSS, FSR2, and XeSS has been achieved via the Fallout 4 upscaler mod.

Outside of the game itself, we always recommend the usual tricks such as keeping your graphics drivers up to date or closing other resource-heavy programs/applications while gaming. See our update Nvidia drivers and update AMD drivers guides if you aren’t sure on how to do the former.

Final word

Now coming to the end of our guide to the best graphics settings, hopefully you’ve find the right combination for you. Whether you’re targeting a pretty basic 1080p config or high-spec 4K (and now ultrawide) resolution, Fallout 4 should perform well on a wide number of systems given its age and large advancements in hardware since it released way back in 2015.