November 21, 2015

New Fallout 4 Dynamic Shadows Mods Greatly Improves Average FPS

Posted on November 21, 2015 by Rae Michelle Richards

Are you still wandering through the wastes of Boston weeks after release? Are you playing the Windows PC version on mid-range hardware? If you answered yes to both questions, then I might have the right mod for you! Don’t worry Vault-tech isn’t involved in any way!

“FPS dynamic shadows” mod by creator Shadow Beast adds the ability for the game engine to dynamically shadow draw distance and level of detail based upon your desired frame rate. The mods creator offers the following description of it:

Many of you may have noticed that in some locations of Fallout 4 fps gets low even with a good hardware, like in the City, mostly it happens in theareas with lots of objects. Since the game isn’t properly optimized, almost everything that it does with objects which it renders takes more time thanit actually should. One of the most time consuming operations in Fallout 4 is shadow rendering and because the game has only predefined shadow drawdistance, which applies everywhere in every location just the same, we have a choise either we set it to high value with having a good picture but eventually facing fps drops in locations with lots of object or we lower the value to make fps more stable in general. And this is exactly the pointwhere this plugin comes handy!

With this mod installed I saw my frame rate increase in diamond city from 35 FPS on average to a respectable 55. Outdoor areas like the commons faired even better never dipping below my target of 60 frames per second even during intense battles. Before installing the mod I was ranging between 40 – 50 during intense firefights with super mutants. I don’t know all the technical ins and outs of this mod but it seems to work wonders.

If you’re wondering what kind of rig and graphical settings I am running to achieve these results – I’ve got everything except Godrays set to ultra with maximum draw distance enabled. My system specs just meet those recommended by Bethesda with probably my graphics card being the weakest component.

My system:

4.0 GHZ 8-Core AMD Processor
16GB DDR3
Radeon R7 270 2GB Overclocked
Fallout 4 installed on a mechanical hard drive

Installation of the dynamic shadows mod is really easy as well. If you’ve installed mods for Fallout 3 or Fallout New Vegas you might be familiar with having to use tools like the nexus mods manager or even the built-in plugin loader to ensure everything worked without a hitch. To install the dynamic shadows mod you just drag the files into your games directory and you’re good to go!

Users on Reddit are reporting similar findings to mine in terms of performance on cards as high as the Geforce 970. Interesting posters on the Reddit thread are also comparing the capability of this mod to 2011’s RAGE which featured a dynamic graphics performance system designed to optimize the user’s experience on lower end hardware.

We’ll keep you posted on any other interesting Fallout 4 mods as they continue to emerge.

[Source]

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Modder Discovers Unused Weapon in Fallout 4 Data

Posted on November 21, 2015 by Broken Joysticks

A modder that goes by the name xxdeathknight72xx has found an unused weapon in Fallout 4’s data and has since released it as a mod on NexusMods. This may be something from an unreleased DLC, or simply something they chose not to include in the final game for whatever reason. The gun is a sweet looking “underwater” weapon that’s basically a harpoon gun in both appearance and function. The mod itself overrides the Railway Rifle, as it is a direct replacement for the time being. I’ll include a video from a YouTube user named Tyrannicon featuring the mod at the bottom of the post right after the mods’ link.

You can find the gun/mod here.



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Screenshots Released for Attack on Titan Game

Posted on November 21, 2015 by Broken Joysticks

Attack on Titan

Attack on Titan is getting a game and Koei Tecmo has uploaded a bunch of screengrabs and videos sans audio on its official website. The footage features some of the characters interacting with each other, while the screengrabs focus mostly on showcasing the Titans, as well as the maneuver gear.

Alright, so let’s get this out of the way: The Titan’s look incredibly freaky in these. A lot of people are slagging it off for that but….I think that might be a good thing? In the original series, the titans are given purposefully weird faces and walking cycles, with frames cut out to make their movements seem stilted or unnatural. They are meant to be off-putting in a way that’s kind of comical but also creepy. From what I can tell, these designs try to do the same thing, which is neat! I also like the gameplay, which seems to be reminiscent of the free Attack on Titan webgame. Attack on Titan is going to launch sometime in 2016 for PS3, PS4, and Vita. I’m looking forward to it.

 

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Pay Day 2 studio apologizes

Posted on November 21, 2015 by Fionna Schweit

Unless you have been living under a rock the past few weeks, you are probably aware that there was HUGE controversy over Pay day 2’s developer Overkill adding micro-transactions. The drama itself was long, drawn out and complex to explain, but there is a pretty good summary here. The long and short of it is that a TF2 crate type system was added to the game, with the crates containing among other things better weapons.  These crates wereopened with special “drills” available on the steam marketplace for real dollars only. This upset the community because the developers had promised never to make anyone who paid for the game pay for its content. gy2NyIxPTkPv.878x0.Z-Z96KYq

So it came as no surprise that in an AMA on Reddit  most of the questions focused on this uncomfortable reality.  Several users outright accused the developer of a money grab and other were even less kind. you can readthe full response in the earlier link but its basically we updated now we need money so we can pay people. Despite the studios apologies, they seemed to lack any real caring Pay Day 2 continued to allow the microtransactions. despite leaving them in it seems they at least might feel bad about doing so? Overkill has issued a frank apology on Steam.

“The past few weeks have been some of the most challenging in the history of this community,” the statement reads. “Players have been angry with us, media have written about us en masse and our volunteer moderators went on strike. For all the distress we’ve caused the past few weeks, I’d just like to take the time and say that we’re sorry. We’ve done a lot of things right in the past, but these past few weeks we screwed up. “We need to get better at many things, and we will do our best to improve as soon as possible.”

this was likely at least partially motivated by a strike which was undertaken by several of the moderators on that steam page. The whole discussion where in this strike and the reaction is discussed is available online right here if you really want to watch it all. A safe summary is “we fucked up we know were going to try and make it right”

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GameStop Pre-Black Friday Deals Revealed

Posted on November 21, 2015 by Fionna Schweit

GameStop has always been a leader in Black Friday video game deals. This year it seems will be no different. Offering stellar door busters beginning Tuesday, November 24, the retailer will offerPlayStation 4 hardware bundles with various extras and 50 percent off a variety of games.

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One of the “Door buster” deals, good November 24 and 25 only, is the Call of Duty: Black Ops III PS4 bundle with a free copy of Destiny: The Taken King – Legendary Edition. You can also get a free console carrier backpack with the purchase the Star Wars Battlefront PS4 system. Other deals include a perplexing set of LED video game themed watches for 5$ the Zelda Hyrule edition New Nintendo 3DS for $199.99, and a set of Tritton Kama headlets for Xbox one and PS4. Select games will also be 50% off for the duration of the sale.

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Also of note are is he Borderlands Handsome collection for 399$ and over 2500 games for under 20$  I also personally think the line of backpacks (perhaps an addition from the lineup of Thinkgeek?) also look really cool. Dont miss these and other great deals on Black Friday, and keep it tuned to Brokenjoysticks for all your needed Black Friday deals coverage!

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