# Fallout 4: Now Playing **URL:** \ **Category:** The Game Room\ **Tags:** video-games-e-games\ **Created:** [November 9, 2015, 6:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fallout-4-now-playing/737122 "2015-11-09T18:01:15Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![SenorBeef](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senorbeef/32/2220_2.png) [@SenorBeef](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SenorBeef)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2015, 2:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fallout-4-now-playing/737122/21 "2015-11-10T02:39:44Z")
> [@Sicks\_Ate](#): > > L > Considering that it was a PC on mega video settings, the consoles look pretty good. I have a feeling there will be plenty of PC players who have a similar graphics experience to consoles, if not substandard to them. The comparisons I’ve seen make the consoles look pretty bad, but even then, stock graphics are only temporary on PC. Skyrim [looks like this](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FpyKrDqJRt0) (for example, there are other graphical looks you could choose) or [this](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tktMryae6R0). And youtube doesn’t even show the differences very well, because of the low frame rate, resolution, and bitrate, youtube looks way worse than what it actually appears like on PC, reducing the full effect of the comparison. Anyway, does the game still use the retarded infinite-instant heal mechanic? I always hated in Bethesda games where you basically couldn’t die so long as you were carrying a bunch of potions/stimpacks/cabbages/whatever. “Oh, I’m in a fight with a death claw. Oh, I took a big hit. Time to eat 50 cans of food instantly. Oh good, I feel better. Oh, got hit again, time to eat 20 boxes of cereal” - it’s a ridiculous way to balance healing/survivability. I mean I mod that out, obviously, giving healing effects a cooldown and making them heal over time, but it’s so bizarre to me that the stock game behavior is so obviously silly. ---
**Author:** ![Kinthalis](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kinthalis/32/16084_2.png) [@Kinthalis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kinthalis)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2015, 3:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fallout-4-now-playing/737122/22 "2015-11-10T03:11:37Z")
I’m not sure if it’s 'cause I’m on the hardest difficulty, but so far, healing hasn’t been instantaneous. You can see how high our health will go after using a healing item, but it’s takes a bit for your HP to go up. So I couldn’t do what you mentioned above when I met my first deathclaw. It hit me, took me down to a quarter hit points, I healed up to full and tried to run away, but when it caught me, my HP still hadn’t gone up enough yet, and he killed me. The Steam controller is becoming my default controller for a lot of games. Unlike the previous fallouts, the 1st person shooting in this one feels like… well a first person shooter, and twin sticks just frustrated me. The UI leaves much to be desired when it comes ot mouse and keybaord though - it’s Skyrim all over again, so I actually don’t mind the rest of the gamepad controls, so switching to the Steam game pad I’m getting much better camera control, and I’ve got a few extra inputs which I’m going to probably set up to make building and crafting a bit easier. ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_Angel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/d26b3c/32.png) [@Johnny\_Angel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_Angel)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2015, 3:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fallout-4-now-playing/737122/23 "2015-11-10T03:46:09Z")
Stephen Fry’s show QI made me aware of this forgotten bit of Americana, though I would be surprised if the people who made New Vegas had not heard of it, because the toy rockets with actual isotopes seems to be too close to a true story to be a coincidence: > **[Museum of Radiation and Radioactivity](https://www.orau.org/health-physics-museum/index.html)** > > The ORAU Museum of Radiation and Radioactivity chronicles the scientific and commercial history of radioactivity and radiation. It has been deemed the official repository for historical radiological instruments by the Health Physics Society, and is... ---
**Author:** ![Ike\_Witt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ike_witt/32/283_2.png) [@Ike\_Witt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ike_Witt)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2015, 5:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fallout-4-now-playing/737122/24 "2015-11-10T05:23:37Z")
It’s a lot of waiting for something that was ‘pre-loaded’. ---
**Author:** ![MichaelEmouse](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/michaelemouse/32/101_2.png) [@MichaelEmouse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MichaelEmouse)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2015, 8:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fallout-4-now-playing/737122/25 "2015-11-10T08:20:13Z")
Is it possible to take a look at the mods without buying F4? How CPU-bound is it? I’ve heard of AMD GPUs doing badly because the CPU didn’t play nice with the AMD GPU: [Fallout 4 PC 1080p60 Ultra: GTX 970 vs R9 390 Frame-Rate Test - YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=15wOp7_dD8E) If someone else also has an old Phenom II CPU or something like it, how is it running for you? ---
**Author:** ![Max\_the\_Immortal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/6de8d8/32.png) [@Max\_the\_Immortal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Max_the_Immortal)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2015, 8:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fallout-4-now-playing/737122/26 "2015-11-10T08:53:07Z")
I’ve played it for about two hours now, and barely got out of the starting area. So far it runs really well for me, and the atmosphere is great. I’m not quite sold on the new dialogue system, though. I’m also trying to decide whether I want to backtrack and distribute my SPECIAL points differently. I know you can boost your stats when you level up, but the perfectionist in me wonders about things like whether maxing out one’s endurance early on gives better maximum health than starting low and building it up. ---
**Author:** ![Grumman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/43a26b/32.png) [@Grumman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grumman)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2015, 9:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fallout-4-now-playing/737122/27 "2015-11-10T09:00:23Z")
> [@MichaelEmouse](#): > > Is it possible to take a look at the mods without buying F4? There’s the [Fallout Nexus](http://www.nexusmods.com/fallout4/) for starters, and I assume that the Steam Workshop will have some too. ---
**Author:** ![Kinthalis](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kinthalis/32/16084_2.png) [@Kinthalis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kinthalis)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2015, 11:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fallout-4-now-playing/737122/28 "2015-11-10T11:41:38Z")
I spent all last night building up Sanctuary. I’ve barely explored much territory outside that. Compare that to me spending all of maybe an couple of hours in all of Skyrim’s 200+ hours playing around with my home bases. This is a lot more fun. ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Kobayashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4af34b/32.png) [@Mr.Kobayashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Kobayashi)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2015, 1:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fallout-4-now-playing/737122/29 "2015-11-10T13:58:42Z")
I was lukewarm on the idea of the new SPECIAL/perks system replacing the skills, but I’m finding it pretty intuitive so far. I don’t know whether or not to look up bobblehead locations…on the one hand boosting all your SPECIALs early on will be a big advantage, on the other I’m extremely wary of spoilers - one of the bobbleheads in Fallout 3, energy weapons IIRC, was only obtainable during the penultimate main story quest. Anyone know if they are just out in the open, or are the locations of one or more really spoilery? Already picked up the PER one, it’s in the room where you first meet Preston Garvey. ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_Angel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/d26b3c/32.png) [@Johnny\_Angel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_Angel)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2015, 2:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fallout-4-now-playing/737122/30 "2015-11-10T14:08:50Z")
In Fallout 3, it was worth making the careful run to Rivet City to get the INT bobblehead early, because I hated missing out on 1 skill point per level. Here there doesn’t seem to be any such pressure, unless there are bobbleheads that will give you things you’ll turn out to have spent points already. I generally never boosted my skills over 90 unless I’d already gotten the bobblehead for them, because I hated to miss out the free 10 points, as little difference as it makes in the end. ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_Angel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/d26b3c/32.png) [@Johnny\_Angel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_Angel)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2015, 2:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fallout-4-now-playing/737122/31 "2015-11-10T14:40:08Z")
[Conan O’Brien does a little Fallout 4 Cosplay.](http://teamcoco.com/fallout4coldopen) ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_Bravo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_bravo/32/493_2.png) [@Johnny\_Bravo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_Bravo)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2015, 2:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fallout-4-now-playing/737122/32 "2015-11-10T14:44:43Z")
Out, damned spoilers! _grumbles and unsubscribes from thread_ ☹ ---
**Author:** ![gnoitall](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/bb73d2/32.png) [@gnoitall](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gnoitall)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2015, 2:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fallout-4-now-playing/737122/33 "2015-11-10T14:51:42Z")
> [@Johnny\_Bravo](#): > > Out, damned spoilers! > > _grumbles and unsubscribes from thread_ ☹ Somehow, you overlooked the very real possibility of spoilers in a “Now Playing” thread? 😕 Maybe a kindly mod can be prevailed upon to add “[spoilers]” to the title. ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_Bravo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_bravo/32/493_2.png) [@Johnny\_Bravo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_Bravo)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2015, 3:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fallout-4-now-playing/737122/34 "2015-11-10T15:02:11Z")
I was being facetious - obviously there are going to be spoilers here. ---
**Author:** ![DCnDC](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dcndc/32/2842_2.png) [@DCnDC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DCnDC)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2015, 3:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fallout-4-now-playing/737122/35 "2015-11-10T15:13:16Z")
> [@asterion](#): > > I’d add one caveat. If you are going to get FO3 or NV, it’s probably best to get it on PC. Caveat to this: FO3 doesn’t play well with Windows 7 and up. It can be made to work, but it takes some doing. I was never able to get FO3 to work properly with Windows 8.1 (random freezes, crashes, and eventually wouldn’t even open at all), and NV ran, but it was a pain in the ass and still experienced pretty frequent performance issues. ---
**Author:** ![Max\_the\_Immortal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/6de8d8/32.png) [@Max\_the\_Immortal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Max_the_Immortal)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2015, 3:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fallout-4-now-playing/737122/36 "2015-11-10T15:13:48Z")
Played a few more hours. It’s very immersive. Combat feels more dangerous than in previous Fallout games, but maybe that’s just on account of my still being a lowbie. There’s something oddly satisfying about wheeling around and capping a mole rat that’s just surfaced behind you; it’s weird when it happens ten times in a minute, though. Ghouls are pretty tricky to fend off. Sources of radiation seem much more common (IMO a good thing). ---
**Author:** ![Kinthalis](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kinthalis/32/16084_2.png) [@Kinthalis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kinthalis)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2015, 3:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fallout-4-now-playing/737122/37 "2015-11-10T15:16:04Z")
> [@DCnDC](#): > > Caveat to this: FO3 doesn’t play well with Windows 7 and up. It can be made to work, but it takes some doing. I was never able to get FO3 to work properly with Windows 8.1 (random freezes, crashes, and eventually wouldn’t even open at all), and NV ran, but it was a pain in the ass and still experienced pretty frequent performance issues. This was an issue with the Games for Windows service I believe. When they shut it down, you couldn’t even play the game anymore as the GFW executable was outdated and it wouldn’t autopatch. But I believe they recently removed this from the steam version of the game, and now it runs fine on modern OS’s. Same with New Vegas. ---
**Author:** ![Kinthalis](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kinthalis/32/16084_2.png) [@Kinthalis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kinthalis)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2015, 3:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fallout-4-now-playing/737122/38 "2015-11-10T15:20:28Z")
> [@Max\_the\_Immortal](#): > > Played a few more hours. It’s very immersive. Combat feels more dangerous than in previous Fallout games, but maybe that’s just on account of my still being a lowbie. There’s something oddly satisfying about wheeling around and capping a mole rat that’s just surfaced behind you; it’s weird when it happens ten times in a minute, though. Ghouls are pretty tricky to fend off. Sources of radiation seem much more common (IMO a good thing). The AI is MUCH improved from the previous titles, and so is encounter design. Before, all enemies did pretty much the same thing: stood around waiting for you, then bee-lined straight for your position, or if they had ranged weapons, would stay planted where they were and fired in your general direction (maybe moving forward a bit if you tried to run). Now? Merlocks ambush me from behind when I try to poach their eggs, Mole rats come popping out of the ground around you, enemies take cover and move from cover to cover, either to maneuver closer to you, or to fall back if you’ve got a lot of firepower. They also split up and flank you! Had several “Clever girl” (Jurassic Park!) moments with all manner of beasties and raiders. Can’t wait to play again tonight! ---
**Author:** ![madsircool](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/madsircool/32/3432_2.png) [@madsircool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/madsircool)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2015, 3:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fallout-4-now-playing/737122/39 "2015-11-10T15:22:29Z")
> [@DCnDC](#): > > Caveat to this: FO3 doesn’t play well with Windows 7 and up. It can be made to work, but it takes some doing. I was never able to get FO3 to work properly with Windows 8.1 (random freezes, crashes, and eventually wouldn’t even open at all), and NV ran, but it was a pain in the ass and still experienced pretty frequent performance issues. That certainly wasnt my experience. It played great on Win 7. Maybe it was some other hardware problem? ---
**Author:** ![DCnDC](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dcndc/32/2842_2.png) [@DCnDC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DCnDC)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2015, 3:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fallout-4-now-playing/737122/40 "2015-11-10T15:23:33Z")
> [@Kinthalis](#): > > But I believe they recently removed this from the steam version of the game, and now it runs fine on modern OS’s. Same with New Vegas. Huh. Yeah I remember to get it to run I had to delete and reinstall GFWL then mess with the permissions and some other bullshit. Guess I’ll try it again tonight. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fallout-4-now-playing/737122.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fallout-4-now-playing/737122.md?page=3)