Bethesda's latest big RPG has been out for just two days and reports on Fallout 4 performance are starting to flow on a regular basis.
Digital Foundry has published their analysis for the PC version of the game, and there's at least one very surprising aspect: it seems like Fallout 4 performance might be heavily influenced by RAM speed.
For a long time, RAM speed has mattered very little for gaming. However, that's what Digital Foundry wrote about it:
If sustaining 60fps is proving challenging, we have some advice for you: consider faster RAM. We ran through a series of traversal sequences using a Core i5 4690K paired with a Titan X running at 1080p - in short, a scenario designed to remove the GPU as a bottleneck and stress the CPU. We then re-ran the test with faster memory. Below you'll find our lowest and average frame-rate results from three different configurations:
1600MHz: 36.0/54.6
2133MHz: 39.0/61.0
2400MHz: 44.0/66.9
That's a 22 per cent increase in performance with faster RAM comparing the slowest to the fastest. Now, this scenario is an exaggeration as the GPU is a major limiting factor in performance and by using a Titan X at a low resolution, we have removed that bottleneck. So are there any real-life applications?Well, click on the shot above to see that - yes - faster RAM can make a difference in general gameplay, even with Fallout 4's v-sync cap, and without an outlandish lack of balance in system components. Essentially, when the CPU is the bottleneck, faster RAM can provide an often dramatic increase in performance. However, before considering an upgrade, make sure your motherboard is compatible with faster memory. Usually this functionality is reserved for the top-end chipsets.
Unfortunately, we are unable to try this ourselves at the moment, but it's certainly something that caught our interest. Could the case of Fallout 4 performance be just the first one towards a future where RAM speed finally matters? It's hard to say right now.
As for the rest of the conclusions published by Digital Foundry, it's worth reminding that Fallout 4's biggest performance issues are concentrated in one specific area of the game: Boston. Within the ruined city, even powerful hardware like 980Ti has issues running the game smoothly on Ultra settings at 1080P, which is why you should keep in mind that any benchmark made elsewhere in the game is not fully representative of Fallout 4 performance. Stay tuned for our full review on Bethesda's latest Fallout installment.
About the author: With over two decades of experience in gaming journalism, Alessio Palumbo has led the gaming vertical at Wccftech since August 2015. He started working at a young age for Italian websites like Everyeye.it, Gamestar.it, Nextgame.it, and Multiplayer.it before kickstarting the indie English-language publication Worlds Factory as its founder and Editor in Chief. In the last decade, he has coordinated the overall output of Wccftech's gaming section, managed PR relations, assigned reviews, produced daily news coverage, edited gaming content as needed, and delivered game reviews. Arguably, his trademark content is the long series of exclusive developer interviews that have been cited by Wikipedia and by the biggest news media and gaming publications. His passion for technology also makes him knowledgeable when it comes to gaming hardware and tech. His favorite genres include RPGs, MMORPGs, and action/adventure games.
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