I almost quit Fallout 76 until I realized Bethesda still hides its most important setting in a config file

GamesRPGFalloutFallout 76I almost quit Fallout 76 until I realized Bethesda still hides its most important setting in a config fileWhen you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.

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(Image credit: Bethesda)

Fallout 76

Like so many of us, I bounced off Fallout 76 back in 2018. Bethesda’s micro MMO wasn’t very good back then—an opinion that evenTodd Howard shares these days—but the studio stuck with it, reverse engineering its Appalachian aberration into anengrossing multiplayer wastelandcomplete with NPCs, settlements, factions, and years' worth of quality-of-life updates.

Bethesda made the call on Vsync originally because, in several modern Creation Engine RPGs, messing with the framerate also screws with speed and physics. Thankfully, Bethesda fixed this issue early on in Fallout 76, so there’s no downside to blowing past the 60 fps limit now (at least, not one I’m aware of).

Unlocking Fallout 76’s framerateis easy, but you’ll have to make a quick change to a config file outside the game.You should absolutely try this no matter how powerful your PC is.Make sure Fallout 76 is closed, then follow these steps:

Open Documents > My Games > Fallout 762. OpenFallout76Prefsin Notepad3. Hit Ctrl+F and search foriPresentInterval4. ChangeiPresentInterval=1toiPresentInterval=05. Save the document, and close

This will disable forced Vsync, freeing up your PC to run Fallout 76 past 60 fps well into the hundreds, if hardware permits. An unlocked framerate was an instant salve for my eyeballs, and did a lot of favors for Fallout 76’s combat, too. Bethesda’s lethargic gunplay is nothing worth celebrating, but at least it doesn’t get in the way of 76’s better qualities when the game’s running well and tracking targets is fluid.

For the best experience, you’ll also want to limit the game’s framerate to your monitor’s refresh rate. This is another setting that Fallout 76 doesn’t support in-game, but you can set a max fps in the Nivida Control Panel (or the AMD equivalent). Select Manage 3D Settings from the left nav menu, hit the Program Settings tab, find Fallout 76 in the dropdown, and scroll down to Max Frame Rate to set it.

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(Image credit: Bethesda)

Fallout 76

Now for those graphics settings…

If these framerate tweaks satisfy your Fallout 76 performance experience, feel free to stop there, but if you’d like to squeeze more frames out of this questionably optimized beast then it’s time to tinker with 76’s modest Display settings.

You’ll find similar tips all over the internet, but ourFallout 76 benchmarking guidefrom 2018 still has some good pointers. I also found this2021 post from Reddit user joshg125helpful, the main points of which I’ve outlined below:

Set the overall preset toMedium2. Manually setTextures, Lighting, andWaterto high or medium (depending on your graphics card’s VRAM)3. SetShadow Qualityto high, butShadow Distanceto low (distance shadows are one of the more demanding elements of the game)4. Max out theActor Fadeslider so that enemies and other NPCs can be seen from far away5. Keep other render distance sliders, likeObjects Fade,Grass Fade, andItem Fadelow, and only raise them if it doesn’t affect your PC can handle the extra load

I’ve only played a few hours since making these changes, but on my rig (RTX 2080 Super, i9-9900KS CPU, 32GB RAM), I can’t tell the difference between maxed-out Fallout 76 and this custom config at 1080p. The game looks nice enough, and most importantly for a shooter, it runs great.

(Image credit: Bethesda)

Fallout 76

More about falloutOG Fallout lead Tim Cain dusts off a trove of old development photos dating back to 1994 to show ‘what development looked like in the ’90s’Fallout’s original designer is fine with the direction of the modern games: ‘They’re both what they are, and a ton of people like it’

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OG Fallout lead Tim Cain dusts off a trove of old development photos dating back to 1994 to show ‘what development looked like in the ’90s’Fallout’s original designer is fine with the direction of the modern games: ‘They’re both what they are, and a ton of people like it’

Fallout developer Tim Cain seated at computer wearing brown paper bag on head in the ’90s

OG Fallout lead Tim Cain dusts off a trove of old development photos dating back to 1994 to show ‘what development looked like in the ’90s’

Fallout 76 - a player in a vault suit gives a thumbs up

Fallout’s original designer is fine with the direction of the modern games: ‘They’re both what they are, and a ton of people like it’

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Now for those graphics settings…#

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Now for those graphics settings…