Skip to main content

Fallout 4 minimum and recommended specifications released

fallout 4 pc specs fallout4specs02
Image used with permission by copyright holder
Are you ready for Fallout 4? Announced at E3 2015, it has been one of the most hotly anticipated titles of the year. It’s also very pretty, so it will likely take a pretty powerful system to run it — or so you might have thought. As it turns out, the graphical requirements for this game aren’t so hefty that it locks all but the uber-rich out of its high-end settings.

Of course you can’t expect to run this at full tilt on a decade old graphics card and processor, but neither do you need a Titan X just to turn on anti-aliasing. As usual, the minimum specifications are quite tame, requiring as little as four year old Core i5 CPU and a graphics card that wasn’t even the best of the best three years ago.

  • Windows 7/8/10 (64-bit OS required)
  • Intel Core i5-2300 2.8 GHz/AMD Phenom II X4 945 3.0 GHz or equivalent
  • 8 GB RAM
  • 30 GB free HDD space
  • NVIDIA GTX 550 Ti 2GB/AMD Radeon HD 7870 2GB or equivalent

See? You can handle that. What about the recommended specifications though? Those are obviously a little more taxing, but even then you don’t need anything top of the line. Sure, an i7 CPU is recommended, but it’s a 4790. That’s powerful, but it’s not a Broadwell or Skylake part. You don’t have to worry about having the absolute latest gear to play it.

Likewise the GPU recommendation is a few years old; it’s practically pedestrian by some people’s standards.

  • Windows 7/8/10 (64-bit OS required)
  • Intel Core i7 4790 3.6 GHz/AMD FX-9590 4.7 GHz or equivalent
  • 8 GB RAM
  • 30 GB free HDD space
  • NVIDIA GTX 780 3GB/AMD Radeon R9 290X 4GB or equivalent

Again, none of this is bargain-bin hardware, but neither does it mean you need to throw your whole PC out and spend thousands on a new system.

There’s no guarantee that running a PC matching those specifications will allow you to play the game at full tilt, but it probably won’t take a lot more.

How ready is your system for Fallout 4 when it launches on November 10?

Editors' Recommendations

Jon Martindale
Jon Martindale is the Evergreen Coordinator for Computing, overseeing a team of writers addressing all the latest how to…
How to hack in Fallout 4
A computer terminal in Fallout 4.

No matter what perks or skills your character has in Fallout 4, hacking will always come down to your ability as a player. There's no way to cheat the system here, and if you don't grasp what the game is asking you to do, you're mostly out of luck. Terminals will hide great loot behind their cryptic puzzles, as well as allow you to take over certain controls to turn your enemy's security against them. Some have very interesting logs about certain characters or events for all you lore junkies out there. Hacking has tons of uses, so let's brush up on your computer skills and give you a refresher on how to hack in Fallout 4.
How to hack in Fallout 4
When you first interact with a terminal to hack in Fallout 4, it will be a little overwhelming. As long as you have a high enough hacking skill to attempt a hack, you can go right into the minigame.

The basic idea of hacking is to find words hidden in that jumble of letters and symbols. Your goal is to find the correct word to crack the terminal before you run out of attempts. Once you find any word and select it, the terminal will tell you how close that word is to the correct one based on how many letters it has in the same space as the answer in the form of a likeness rating. The higher the rating, the more letters it has in common. It is somewhat similar to Wordle, only you don't type in the words yourself.

Read more
All Fallout 4 cheats and console commands
Fallout 4 key art featuring the power armor suit hung up in an armory.

Cheat codes have somewhat become a thing of the past in modern gaming, with mods coming in to take their place. Most Bethesda games, such as Starfield and Fallout 4, enjoy plenty of mod support, but also have plenty of ways that you can tweak the game using some old-fashioned cheats and console commands.

Even as big as Fallout 4 is, it has shown its age at this point, so why not try out a few cheats to keep things exciting in the wasteland? Here are all the cheats and console commands you can use, and how to activate them.

Read more
All Teddy Bear locations in Fallout 76
A teddy bear in a train station in Fallout 76.

There's no shame in admitting that you enjoy the company of a teddy bear in Fallout 76 over the ghouls and mutants. In fact, we would probably prefer spending time finding these cuddly bears than playing with the other players, but these stuffed animals are a rare commodity in the wasteland. Technically, these are classified as a junk item that you can break down for materials, but who would do something like that? These are great display items to make your camp feel more like home, or just another annoying daily task you need to complete. Whatever your motivations are, here is where you can find each of the different teddy bear variations in Fallout 76.
All teddy bear locations
There are 12 different variations of teddy bears that all have a distinct color pattern, name, and value, but are otherwise identical. Like most items, they can be found in a ton of places around the map, but these are the easiest spots to get the one you're looking for.
Bubblegum Bear

Our first bear is going to be inside the Foundation. Once inside, go to Ward's trailer and pick it up off the couch.
Camden Park Bears

Read more