Guide for Improving Fallout 4 performance on AMD R9 Newer Generation GPU's

[donta1979]

This guide is to help those with AMD that have cards that should be getting a nice steady 50-60 FPS, but keep hitting a wall.

First lets cleanup and get the latest drivers Crimson 16.1.1 Hotfix

Latest AMD Crimson Drivers 16.1.1 Hotfix

Before you install the latest drivers I would suggest a clean install use both the AMD Clean Install Utility followed by DDU

*note if your gpu is not supported on the supported gpu list, you will not be able to use Crimson, this guide will help but you will have to get the latest driver for your GPU/APU that are available, you will also have to know what GPU you have so you can manually select the right drive for your video card manually since Hotfix amd gpu drivers are normally not in the WHQL list for the auto detect*

Between using RadeonPro, Shadow Boost . First you need to set the game to use 4 cores or however many cores your cpu has and priority using the Fallout 4 Configuration Tool I am getting about a steady 57-60 FPS. If you want to try shadow boost"I highly suggest it" its a big help make sure you set your shadow distance to Medium in game launcher, then in the shadowboost INI my sweet spot for my hardware ill post below. Unless they make it use multi/cores and threads or done on the GPU no one will be able to run Ultra Shadow Distance nor get 60 FPS without shadow boost to help with the transition dynamically changing shadow distance. So if you want to maintain a nice 50-60 FPS and still have your game looking good Shadow Boost is a must.

Set tessellation in Crimson Global to override, set it to 6x, have not tried setting it back to AMD optimized or 8x or 16x again yet.

God Rays unfortunately we cannot turn off in the latest patch game puts them on auto low.

Using HBAO+ seems to increased my min FPS over the other method. The shadows unfortunately are tied to Bethesda's old method... but for many it will hinder performance AMD side, and it will increase your load times.

We need to bombard Bethesda to implement GPUOpen honestly better than gameworks, opensource, and both AMD and Nvidia gpus can use it, with it being open source it will let Bethesda make performance improvements directly for both Card Manufacturers.

Those that wish to use TAA because it takes care of the major AA issues in the game but the texture blurring is drive you crazy you will need to get Reshade

Then follow this reddit post to apply LUMASHARPEN - SweetFX to unblur the textures.

1. Download the ReShade Framework package and extract its contents. http://reshade.me/#download

2. Launch Mediator.exe under the main ReShade directory.

3. Click the Add button, browse to C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Fallout 4, and select Fallout4.exe and click Open.

4. Make sure Direct3D 10/11 is selected, and click the Confirm button.

5. Now close the Mediator utility, and launch it again, then select Fallout 4 from the drop-down box.

6. Select the Pipeline tab, then tick the 'LUMASHARPEN - SweetFX' box.

7. Click the 'LUMASHARPEN - SweetFX' text itself to open the sharpening settings. Raise the 'sharp_strength' slider to 2.0 and click the Apply button at the top right. You can come back and re-adjust the strength of the sharpening later to better suit your taste.

ShadowBoost.ini

[MAIN]

fTargetFramerate=57.0

fDistChangeSpeed=5

fShadowDrawDistMin=2000.0

fShadowDrawDistMax=7000.0

Now for Radeon Pro setup to keep your gpu from downclocking in the game increasing performance inside and outside. Here is the Original Post

I've found a workaround using RadeonPro: http://www.radeonpro.info (may work on other applications as well)

Quick How-To:

- Download & Install RadeonPro

- Open RadeonPro and create a new profile pointing to Fallout4.exe

- In the 'Overdrive' tab check 'Enable graphics overdrive' and 'Always use high performance clocks while gaming' (<< this one actually forces the proper clock speeds onto the GPU)

- Apply these settings

- Launch Fallout4.exe with RadeonPro running (NOT the launcher, you need to run the game executable or else this workaround won't work has to be done each time you play)

*note you may have to restart your pc after installing/making changes like this for them to take affect in game. Only should have to restart your PC once. Remember for now on always launch the game using RadeonPro or you will get downclocking, lowered performance and fps. This is pretty much manditory just like shadow boost, but in a sense more so since this method lets the game utilize our gpus fully with overdrive.*

If the game is crashing remove all your game changing mods, like weapions/armor/settlements/game mechanics. Next depending on what version of windows you have you will need to remove the Fallout 4 config files. Documents>My Games>Fallout 4 Remove all INI files in that directory, now go to your steam folder Steam>steamapps>common>Fallout 4

You will need to delete the Fallout4_Default.ini then there should be a Folder called Fallout 4 in your Fallout 4 directory go into it, now delete the Fallout4Prefs.ini as well.

Once you do this Launch the game via steam, let the Fallout 4 launcher scan and configure the game, Once it is done go into options, set your Shadow Distance to medium, turn Godrays to low, set the depth of field to low, uncheck motion Blur.

I just had someone who has an AMD R9 390 do all of this and his game is now running butter smooth just like my Fury X. This should help a ton of you out there. I found out about Radeonpro on the AMD forums for Fallout 4 the missing piece of the puzzle in my own and others performance issues.

There will still be minor FPS drops in game that will last a split second or so due to of course shadows, and the LOD manager not working correctly in game that we brought up in beta and got ignored. But for the most part as long as there are no LOD issue spots, this guide will greatly improve your Fallout 4 gaming experience on AMD video cards.

I think the Nvidia side is also suffering from the gpu downclocking, I have heard if you go into your steam settings>In Game> Enable the overlays FPS counter AND HIGH CONTRAST color it should help you guys using Nvidia gpus to some degree. That was discovered during the beta. Just confirmed with my 980 TI. Titan and 780 TI. It does work but only if you use Shadow boost as well.

I will try to keep this updated will be making the jump to 1440p and Freesync soon on or after the 4th, already have an idea how to get it working fully with Fallout 4 but not going to post it until I do it myself get it ironed out then I will share how to setup the game for it to help others.

Yes I know there are more methods from the texture mods, and so on, but this is to address issues with those that have issues for the AMD R9 series gpus that are running into big fps dips that should not be with mid to high range AMD gpus.