Need help buying a PC for FO4

[ryanjp89]

Hello. I am currently looking around to buy a new system, mainly to play Fallout 4 using any graphic mods, or high res textures.

I am not sure what the minimum specs that is required to run FO4 using any of the graphics mods, texture mods, etc.
I would be playing on a 1080p resolution, and want to make sure the system I get is capable of doing so.

P.S. I also will need it to be able to run my art programs like Photoshop, 3ds Max, Substance Painter, Sound Forge Audio Studio and a few others.

Any help would be greatly appreciated, and any other advice on buying a PC as well. :happy: Thank you.

(Hopefully I am posting this in the correct forum. If I am not, I apologize.) :ohmy:

[bajs11]

I've discovered that this game with a lot of mods is very demanding even at 1080p.

When I was playing GTA Online on ultra at 4k I was able to get 60fps 90% of the time and about 40-60fps when playing RoTTR in 4K.

So far I have installed about 220 mods and only a few high res texture mods and not the free high res texture mod by Bethesda which doesn't even look that much more higher res than the vanilla textures and yet I experience stutters in some areas or even ctd every now and then, usually in places that have been added by mods.

So yeah, I would say you need a fairly high end rig to play this game with a lot of mods installed.

 

I suggest:

i5 8600K or i7 7700K or equivallent AMD Ryzen cpus

a good air or water cooler

16gb RAM

GTX 1060 6gb (ideally gtx 1070 or higher)

with a high quality PSU

Edited January 5, 2018 by bajs11

[Zzyxzz]

A fast RAM brings a lot of performance for Fallout 4. There are also videos about that topic. This is something you really should have a look at.

Ryzen may brings issue with Fallout 4, at least i read something like that. I could also be wrong...

A fast CPU is advised, as shadows are calculated by your CPU.

4-8GB graphics card is also good, if you plan to play 2k+

Don't fall for the high priced power adapter. Don't buy a silver or gold one. They dont bring you any benefit. They only want to earn more money. There are also many topics about it. You also won't need one with 700W.

[bajs11]

no, RAM speed doesnt much at all. What's important is that they should be in pairs like 2 or 4 sticks of the same speed and size like 2x 4gb or 4x 8gb

https://www.youtube.com/Watch?v=D_Yt4vSZKVk or ask around in the Tom's Hardware forums if you are looking for proof

 

as for graphic memory or VRAM, gpus with more vram are not necessarily better

just look at the AMD rx470 8gb and compare it to the gtx 1070 8gb

both have the same amount of ram but yet the 1070 is significantly faster

 

Higher quality PSU are better because they are able to give you more constant output AND usually last much longer.

I've had a no brand name psu that died on me after a year while my current 500W 80+ gold has been working for the last 3 years

 

again if you have questions about that just Google for reviews or ask around in computer hardware forums like Tom's

Edited January 5, 2018 by bajs11

[Crosstieger]

I personally would go for a Ryzen build. All in all you just get more for your money. A R5 1600x (or non x) with a decent cooler will do wonders. You can easily overclock it to 3,9 or even 4 GHz. Pair it with at least two sticks of memory that are capable of min 2900 MHz and a GTX 1060 (or better) will server you more that "just fine". As for PSU, get a good one! This is absolutely essential. Sure it won't give you more fps but it'll make sure that your pc doesn't blow up. More or less any "good" brand will sell you a decent priced psu. Example:

 

• Ryzen 5 1600X
• Mainboard of your choice (ASUS and AsRock seem to get the most stable overclock in my experience)
  May I suggest ASUS ROG Strix B350-F Gaming
• At least 8 GB of ram (Always get two or four sticks to enable dual channel) Make sure it supports at least 2900 MHz. Ryzen loves fast memory.
• GTX 1060 (or better) of your choice
  May I suggest the ASUS Dual GTX 1060
• A GOOD power supply from a trustworthy brand! (be quiet, EVGA, SilverStone, Cooler Master)
  May I suggest EVGA SuperNOVA GS 550

 

Why Ryzen? Since you do more than just gaming, the additional threads (12 as for the R5 1600X) will help you greatly. Plus they are much cheaper than their Intel counterparts.

 

 

But as always you should get what you can afford. Depending on your budged we might need to change a few things.

Edited January 5, 2018 by Crosstieger

[jones177]

Hi

 

For 3Dmax it depends what type of projects you do.

 

For CPU go with one that has 4 cores 8 threads or better. 3D max will use 99% of the CPU no matter what you get. That is the main reason I use 2 computers at home & at work. I can work on textures(or play) on one computer while the other computer is rendering.

For modding this game the stronger the cores(IPS) the better the framerate(lows) in places like Boston. I use i7s

 

I use Nvidia cards for Cuda rendering. My GTX 1080 it is really fast. It is faster than the old Quadro card I use at work. Although I like the Quadro's 64X AA in Opengl previews . Gaming cards are 16X in Opengl previews.

There are no big performance jumps between cards for Cuda rendering. So for hobby rendering a GTX 1060 6gb would be a good choice & your modded games would be happy at 1080 resolution.

 

If you render for print output you need more ram. I use 32gb ram at work & that is fine for output 3 meters tall, 6 meters wide rendered at 72ppi. For 8k output 16gbs is fine.

 

For Photoshop 16gbs of ram is ok for creating textures 4 & 8k for games or prototypes but for print output you need 32 or more.

 

Build your own computers. Large computer manufacturers leave features out that your art productivity software may need or only have the feature in their workstation models. I learned my lesson years ago.

 

Keep your old computer. Your rendering computer can easily get tied up rendering animation frames for a day or 2. Your old computer or laptop can play older games & brows the internet while you wait.

Also if you pick up clients for your artwork you will need the other computer in case your main computer breaks at a bad time. Keeping older components is a good idea as well.

 

Later

[ryanjp89]

Thank you very much, everyone. I was able to learn a lot from what everyone posted, and will definitely act as guidelines for my build. I will most likely use PC Part Picker website to see what I can come up with. I unfortunately don't have a huge budget, but hopefully I can put together a build that will at least be able to run some graphics mods, but if my budget is too low I will just go with a build that will run Fallout 4 with regular mods, without using any graphics mods, and upgrade in the future.

I most likely will spend a lot of time creating mods, and often focusing on community mod requests, including mod requests for consoles.
I know how frustrating it can be for players who use a console to play FO4 on. (Especially PS4 users)

I bought Fallout 4 about a year later on PC just to create mods for my PS4 version.
I was really mad at Sony's external assets restrictions. They pretty much ruined mods on the PS4.
Also my current laptop won't even start Fallout 4, so to test the mods I created for ps4 required me to upload any mods I was working on, then download it on PS4 to make sure it worked.
It is quite a long trial and error process whenever I came across any bugs.

I am very grateful for everyone's advice, I am quite behind on hardware these days so it really helps me a lot.

Thank you again, everyone. :happy:

[ryanjp89]

Hi

 

For 3Dmax it depends what type of projects you do.

 

For CPU go with one that has 4 cores 8 threads or better. 3D max will use 99% of the CPU no matter what you get. That is the main reason I use 2 computers at home & at work. I can work on textures(or play) on one computer while the other computer is rendering.

For modding this game the stronger the cores(IPS) the better the framerate(lows) in places like Boston. I use i7s

 

I use Nvidia cards for Cuda rendering. My GTX 1080 it is really fast. It is faster than the old Quadro card I use at work. Although I like the Quadro's 64X AA in Opengl previews . Gaming cards are 16X in Opengl previews.

There are no big performance jumps between cards for Cuda rendering. So for hobby rendering a GTX 1060 6gb would be a good choice & your modded games would be happy at 1080 resolution.

 

If you render for print output you need more ram. I use 32gb ram at work & that is fine for output 3 meters tall, 6 meters wide rendered at 72ppi. For 8k output 16gbs is fine.

 

For Photoshop 16gbs of ram is ok for creating textures 4 & 8k for games or prototypes but for print output you need 32 or more.

 

Build your own computers. Large computer manufacturers leave features out that your art productivity software may need or only have the feature in their workstation models. I learned my lesson years ago.

 

Keep your old computer. Your rendering computer can easily get tied up rendering animation frames for a day or 2. Your old computer or laptop can play older games & brows the internet while you wait.

Also if you pick up clients for your artwork you will need the other computer in case your main computer breaks at a bad time. Keeping older components is a good idea as well.

 

Later

I normally use 3ds max to sometimes model, or crate smoke/fire textures using FumeFX. I very rarely use it for rendering anything else.

My laptop is running on 6 gigs of RAM, and surprisingly it isn't that bad when I work on high-res textures, but if I run any other programs it definitely has a hard time, and will freeze often.

 

I do however render images often in Terragen. I use it often to create cloud textures/skyboxes for games, and it looks very close to actual photos, but requires quite a while to render sometimes.

 

Hopefully I can put together something that is within my budget, that will at least run Fallout 4 without using any extreme graphic/texture mods.