Fallout76 Optimized Textures

2025 Update!

What is this?

76OT is a simple mod I made in order to try and help my old GPU survive a little longer. Fallout 76 features some very large textures which older Graphics cards can struggle with. Some normal maps are gigantic ( The Seneca Rocks are 4096 x 2048 !), some diffuses are just too large relative to the amount of detail, the list goes on. This mod aims to fix that by scaling all of these textures down.

How do I install it?

Download the ba2 zip file from the Files tab on this page and extract the .ba2 file inside into your Fallout76\Data folder. (There will be other .ba2's in there already.)

Then go to Documents\My Games\Fallout 76 and add the following lines to your Fallout76Custom.ini

sResourceArchive2List=76OT.ba2

If you don't already have a Fallout76Custom.ini, make one and add that line to it.

How is this best used? Who is it for?

This mod is for everyone but the highest-end hardware. When using this mod, you're unlikely to see your VRAM consumption actually lower -- this is because the engine tries to work within your VRAM budget and not overburden your hardware.

When the game starts to really burden your GPU and run out of VRAM budget, it "waters down" your texture quality by using lower quality mips instead of the full-size accurate textures. By lowering the sizes of textures in the way this mod does, we increase the amount of headroom the game has to work with until it has to start making things blurry and smeary, without sacrificing too much real detail.

When I first made this mod, using a 4GB VRAM GPU and with Texture Quality setting on High, I noticed a difference of ~20fps in

particularly dense areas. As of rebuilding this mod in 2025, I now have an 8GB VRAM card and still notice a modest ~10 fps bump in outdoor areas which helps smooth out any stutters.

In my opinion, because of the optimizations .ba2 archive format brings to mip level streaming, you should bump your Texture Quality settings up when you use this mod even though that sounds counter-intuitive.

Notes on Compatibility & Process

This mod should be broadly compatible with most others, I have specifically tried to avoid editing ore, interactive plants and playable human/ghoul skin.

I've also completely avoided re-scaling any Light or Reflect maps, as altering the dimensions of these, even with post-process corrections, can alter the lighting of the game.

Textures which are meant to take up a large amount of screenspace such as the pipboy, camera photo frames, keypads, plaques and magazines have also been avoided, as these would be noticed quickly if lower quality.

Fast-moving/flowing textures which would be prone to real-time upscaling artifacts such as water ripples, starry sky textures, explosion/smoke fx and animatedObjects (props that emotes spawn) are largely untouched.

Feedback, Tools & Credits

Feedback and criticisms are welcome and I intend to add more to this over time and keep it updated.

I'd like to thank Fallout4's Texture Optimization Project for the idea and Fallout76's Ultra HD Textures mod for some clues on how to automate the bulk of this process.

If you'd like to support me, I run a Ko-fi

Tools Used:

Photoshop CS6

ImageMagick

A metric ton of Windows command line. (And later, Bash.)