VGA performance: Fallout 3 (DX9)

Fallout 3

You know, its been a decade since the last Fallout release, and a lot has happened since then. Fallout 3 takes place roughly two-hundred years after a nuclear war devastated the planet. While the series originally started in Southern California, this time around youll find yourself in a post-apocalyptic Washington D.C., better known as the Capital Wasteland. You are a resident of Vault 101, one of a series of fallout vaults built to protect its inhabitants from the harsh conditions in the wasteland. As the story goes, in Vault 101, nobody enters - and nobody leaves. Raised as a child in the vault, the game begins with you as a young lad learning to take your first steps and continues as you grow older (this portion of the game is used as both a training mission and to build an affinity with your character). It isnt until you wake up one day to find the vault in chaos - your father has somehow left and its up to you to follow him into the wasteland - where the story really begins.

Fallout 3 is an immersive, graphically stunning title with that awesome movie feel. Easily one of the best games of 2008, a must buy Gurus... a must buy.

Image quality

• 8x AA
• HDR enabled
• Detail level: Ultra

Fallout 3 then is one of the bigger titles released in a long time. We measure with no less than 8x AA enabled, a mode that the Radeon card absolutely manages the best. We now stumble into massive CPU limitation. The latest high-end GPUs are simply too fast.

So even with 8xAA enabled we see roughly 88 frames per second rendered at 1920x1200. Since we have so much CPU limitation the all high-end cards cuddle up at roughly 90 FPS. Still playing the game at 90 FPS with 8xAA is way above needed. This is why we always say that CPU limitation is not necessarily a bad thing.