Hey all. I spent a good few hours last night writing up a review of another game.. It should be with Tom now so hopefully soon it will go up
In the interim I decided to pen a few words about the High Definition pack for Fallout 3.
I don't know how many of you have seen this or used it but shortly after the release of Fallout 3 Bethesda decided to release it. Now obviously you can quickly work out that this is going to look prettier, and look prettier it certainly does. However, there are some drawbacks.
When disabling the frame throttle in Fallout 3 (which sadly turns off Vsync so you will get some tearing) I can hit 120fps at the high end quite easily. With the frame throttle on I obviously only hit 60FPS. However, with the regular install I have a minimum of 48FPS..
By installing the HD pack I still sit quite tightly at 60FPS however when things heat up I have dipped as low as five. I don't think it matters much how big and bad your hardware is for that, and I think that's why Bethesda did not leave it in the game. However, those moments of FPS like that are usually when entering or exiting VATS so it doesn't affect the flow of the game too badly.
The nice part is that you can literally install it and then toggle it on and off whenever you feel like it. In the Fallout.ini file there is a string called bInvalidateOlderFiles=0 . To enable the HD you simply change that to bInvalidateOlderFiles=1. Of course should things get sticky you can always just revert back by simply setting it back to default. Now I did take some screenys but sadly reducing them to JPG is going to hurt them. However, the difference should still be quite stark !
The first thing you will notice is what it has done to your Pip-Boy.
It seperates the different locations and gives them a colour. So for example military based locations are red with a star in, vaults are different colours as are normal locations.
Secondly, when hit with a load of fire you will notice that the blood spatter (or jam as I refer to it as) are also wildly superior to the original textures. They're actually quite revolting.
Looking around you also shows the difference in the ground and world itself. Here we can see a shot of the asphalt.
And the pebbled sandy type rubble.
And the world itself.
Footlockers are also dramtically different and instead of being metal plain boxes they are now painted green with a red military star on. Keep looking around and you will notice just how much has changed
Over all I would definitely give it a try. It's not like you can't very easily revert it back.
