FO4 launches windowed low res

[Wosator]

Hi all, I haven't played FO4 for many years. I just installed it but when I try to launch the game, it launches in some low resolution (can't figure which exactly), also when on main menu of the game, there is no mouse cursor.

I searched the internet and I found several suggestions. I have tried to manually change the configuration found in C:\Users\UserName\Documents\My Games\Fallout4\Fallout4Prefs.ini

I tried to change the resolution (changed Windows resolution along with it to fit the selected resolution each time). I have tried 2560x1440, 3440x1440, 1920x1080 but it's always the same. I tried also to run in windowed mode, with and without border. Nothing seems to help.

I tried to launch the game as admin, and with Win 7 compatibility.

At the moment I have no mods installed.

Also I tried to repair the game but again it didn't help at all.

My setup:
Windows 11 Pro 22H2 22621.3007
AMD Radeon RX 5700 XT with the latest adrenaline drivers
AMD Ryzen 7 3700X 8-Core Processor
Main monitor: 3440x1440 (currently set to 60hz)
Secondary Monitor: 2560x1440 (currently turned off)

Anyone faced similar issues and figured out a solution?

[363rdChemicalCompany]

This has happend to me last year. I try to remember how I fixed it.

If I recall correctly, the first step was to fix to correct the Resolution in steam settings on the steam site, the 2n posisbility  in the game .ini settings.

Instructions for both, I found on steam.

Sorry for the lack of details, but its all I recall.

[Wosator]

10 hours ago, 363rdChemicalCompany said:

This has happend to me last year. I try to remember how I fixed it.

If I recall correctly, the first step was to fix to correct the Resolution in steam settings on the steam site, the 2n posisbility  in the game .ini settings.

Instructions for both, I found on steam.

Sorry for the lack of details, but its all I recall.

Thanks for the reply. I have tried everything that came into my mind for the past couple of days but nothing seems to fix the issue. Could you please elaborate on what you mean fix  the the resolution in steam settings? Do you mean to add them as parameters when executing fallout?

[RoNin1971]

Within your falloutprefs.ini (or the custom one inside your documents\my games\fallout4) there is:

iSize W=3440
iSize H=1440
sAntiAliasing=TAA
iMaxAnisotropy=16
iPresentInterval=1
bFull Screen=1
bBorderless=1

 

?

Edited January 19 by RoNin1971

[Wosator]

37 minutes ago, RoNin1971 said:

Within your falloutprefs.ini (or the custom one inside your documents\my games\fallout4) there is:

iSize W=3440
iSize H=1440
sAntiAliasing=TAA
iMaxAnisotropy=16
iPresentInterval=1
bFull Screen=1
bBorderless=1

 

?

Yes. All these settings are present and have the values you mention. In addition to that, I have found a second file named falloutprefs.ini inside C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Fallout 4\Fallout4 and the same settings are applied there. The thing is that the game seems to ignore all these settings.

[RoNin1971]

A google search returns a lot of trouble with that GPU & FO4.

 

One solution I found could be this: "go into the GPU driver settings and set it so that Fallout's launcher and program both run using the GPU exclusively"

[363rdChemicalCompany]

15 hours ago, Wosator said:

Thanks for the reply. I have tried everything that came into my mind for the past couple of days but nothing seems to fix the issue. Could you please elaborate on what you mean fix  the the resolution in steam settings? Do you mean to add them as parameters when executing fallout?

I am glad Ronin answrered.

I am not sure i dare go into ym steam files right now to find the filepath for you.. there was a bad update on there and I dont know if its been fixed yet.

Also I just replaced the Beth HD DLC with Luxors HD upgrade and I worry if I log on to Steam it will run an update and reinstall it even though I untoggled it on Steam it seems ot retoggle itself on Stem.

Sorry man.

Dig aorund on steam a bit there are settings on there, that fix this issue about half the time.

[Wosator]

On 1/19/2024 at 3:27 PM, RoNin1971 said:

A google search returns a lot of trouble with that GPU & FO4.

 

One solution I found could be this: "go into the GPU driver settings and set it so that Fallout's launcher and program both run using the GPU exclusively"

I was not able to find my issue with my GPU, in fact I was not able to find many references. Also my PC doesn't have a second GPU. Has only one. My cpu does not come with an integrated graphics chip.

 

That being said after a lot of experimentation, finally I was able to run the game full-screen 3440x1440px. I am not 100% sure what worked. Today I woke up and went to try to debug the game again, and it worked out of the box.

I think it had something to do with the path of the documents folder. It was in OneDrive folder. Yesterday I melded a bit with the settings, and end up disabling the sync (well it was disabled in the first place, then while debugging I enabled it, and then redisabled it). Now the path to MyGames/Fallout4 is slightly different. It lacks the OneDrive folder in the path. I believe that this was the reason that had the issue in the first place.

It seems that even though Fallout Launcher was able to read/write to the file, Fallout had some issue, thus it was probably loading some kind of default fallback that had nothing to do with the Fallout4PrefsFallout4Prefs.ini file.

Besides that, these are the settings that worked for me in the C:\Users\<USERNAME>\Documents\My Games\Fallout4\Fallout4Prefs.ini:

iAdapter=0
iSize W=3440
iSize H=1440
sAntiAliasing=TAA
iMaxAnisotropy=16
iPresentInterval=1
bFull Screen=0
bBorderless=1

 

[RoNin1971]

bFull Screen should be 1

Currently you are playing "windowed" (matches screen size, no borders, so you don't see any difference). Playing true full screen might increase the performance.