One Fallout 4 fan tries playing the game with an underpowered, integrated graphics card, creating a strange and surreal-looking pre-apocalyptic world.

Fallout 4 has been criticized since its E3 2015 reveal for its less-than-stellar graphics, leading many modders to try and find ways to improve the appearance of the title. However, one gamer has taken it upon themselves to do the complete opposite, running the game with an on-board graphics card that doesn't remotely meet the game's system requirements.

Fallout 4 has fairly reasonable GPU requirements for PCs to run it smoothly, but it was never meant to be played with an on-board graphics card. In a series of images, Redditor _ctrl_ showed what the game looks like when run on an integrated Intel Graphics HD 4600 GPU. Surprisingly, the game doesn't look too shabby at first, with character models appearing almost identical to their high-res counterparts. However, it's apparent right off the bat that the integrated graphics card struggles to display objects, shaders, and textures, as the surrounding environment doesn't look anything like the way it does when played on a system that can actually support the game's demands.

Once _ctrl_ heads outside, things get even stranger, with the player reporting that the world was so distorted that they could only make it to the vault by following their quest marker on the in-game compass. As _ctrl_ progressed through the game, the screenshots became more surreal, yet strangely beautiful, looking more like surrealistic modern art than an in-game screenshot. Sadly, _ctrl_ couldn't obtain any images beyond the vault, as their on-board GPU could barely handle the game up to that point and crashed shortly after.

The bottom line is that Fallout 4 was never intended to be played on an integrated graphics card, but it's interesting to see how the iGPU struggles through it. There is a chance that _ctrl_ may have had better luck if they'd installed one of the Fallout 4 low-res texture packs that modders have released to make the game run better on underpowered PCs, but it probably still wouldn't have looked very good.

While Fallout 4 hasn't exactly been praised for its basic appearance, its high level of customization and the ability to mod just about anything has kept gamers happy. In addition to the very first Fallout 4 mod improving the look of the game, and later mods improving wasteland textures, there are a bevy of Fallout 4 mods that allow gamers to customize the world to their hearts' content. Considering that Bethesda hasn't even released the modding G.E.C.K. yet, gamers can surely expect to see even bigger and more impressive world-changing Fallout 4 mods that well-equipped PCs will be able to handle.

Fallout 4 is now available on PC, PS4, and Xbox One.

Source: Reddit