'Fallout 76' Beta Now Locks FPS and FOV Settings

Fallout 76's beta now locks PC players' FPS and FOV settings, reports following the game's most recent beta said.

Players within the game's subreddit reported recently that the FPS now appeared to have a cap, and according to PC Gamer, reports about the framerate locks were accurate. The site said the game's beta that went live on Tuesday and was accompanied by a 30GB update locked the in-game framerate at 63fps.

The field of view (FOV) setting is also now locked on the PC version with the third-person FOV defaulting to 80 and the first-person perspective defaulting to 90. Manually selecting an ultrawide setting still adjusts the FOV, but changing the INI files to players' preferences is no longer a possibility. Those files could be altered during previous beta sessions to change both the FOV and FPS, but doing so reportedly no longer affects the game's settings.

Bethesda's decision to lock the FPS and FOV settings appears to have come as a result of players finding ways to exploit the settings. A week ago, players discovered that the physics of Fallout 76 appeared to be tied to players' framerate settings, an attribute shared by previous Bethesda games like Fallout 4. By uncapping framerates and staring at some less intense parts of the game like the ground, players found they could move much faster than usual depending on how high their FPS would go.

fallout 76's physics system is tied to it's framerate
including your walk speed

so you can literally outrun most enemies by looking at the ground//t.co/aYXiIJs6l7

— holiteajay (@teajayylmao) October 31, 2018

The video above shows the exploit in action, a trick that let Fallout 76 players match or exceed other people's sprinting speeds without having to use up any Action Points to sprint themselves. While the known exploit might not've been too much of an issue in other Bethesda games, it presents a problem in Fallout 76 considering how the new Fallout game is multiplayer-based. The issue essentially gives those who can afford more powerful PCs a pay-to-win advantage by letting them bob and weave around other players at speeds low-end users can't match.

Though the FPS limit appears to be Bethesda's fix for the issue, it seems like it's also only a temporary one, according to a previous report from Polygon. When reporting on the "speed hack" exploit players had found, Polygon received a comment from Bethesda that confirmed the developer was aware of the problem but said a fix for it wouldn't be out until the game fully releases.

Fallout 76 is scheduled to release for the PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC on November 14th.