The latest Fallout 76 patch, which went live yesterday, introduces a fix for one of the most widely known problems with the game on PC. During the Fallout 76 BETA, players on PC discovered that they could access the game files and unlock the game’s FPS. Due to the way the game’s engine works, doing so was found to enable a ‘speed hacking‘ exploit. While Bethesda locked the files prior to the full launch, a proper fix has now been implemented.
The Latest Fallout 76 Patch Fixes Problems With FPS and Speed Hacking
During the course of the Fallout 76 BETA, players found that a problem which has appeared in previous Bethesda games also appears in Fallout 76. Prior to the latest patch, Fallout 76 on PC had no options for several key graphics features players would expect to see in a PC game. Specifically, there were no options for an FOV slider, along with V-sync, anti-aliasing, and framerate options. It appears that Bethesda had an inkling of the problem that was to surface. However, they clearly didn’t anticipate just how big a vulnerability it would be.
When curious players dug around in the game files for the missing options, they found that they could unlock the game’s FPS. This caused a serious problem. For a long time, Bethesda’s game engine has tied FPS together with certain in-game object speeds. This flaw has been exploited in past Bethesda games to ‘speed hack,’ and the same vulnerability existed within Fallout 76. Once FPS was unlocked, players found that their in-game speeds gradually increased, giving them a significant advantage over other players. Bethesda became aware of the problem, and said that a fix wouldn’t come until launch.
However, the studio put out a temporary fix prior to the end of the BETA. The studio locked the game’s .ini files to prevent alterations, and also locked the game’s framerate to 63 FPS. The simple but overbearing solution caused concern among players that a proper fix wouldn’t come and that the framerate would remain locked. However, it now seems that such concerns were groundless. Previous Bethesda games going back to Fallout 3 at least also had locked framerates; a way to prevent this very issue, although players could manipulate the .ini files in this exact fashion.
The Effects of the Latest Fallout 76 Patch
With the launch of the latest Fallout 76 patch, it seems that Bethesda has finally fixed the flaw in its engine which enables speed hacking. (A problem which has existed in almost every Bethesda game, it might be worth mentioning!) The game’s framerate is no longer locked, and appears to run at much higher FPS without affecting in-game speeds. The fix has also enabled several of the missing graphics options, including some new FOV options with custom resolutions. There is no true FOV slider yet, but Bethesda has promised to introduce one in a later update.