LE Script Latency Monitor and Troubleshooting Tool

[Edeldios]

About a month ago I reinstalled Skyrim, added mod manager, and went ahead and remodded it for maximum immersion and stability. Prior to using mod manager I installed all mods manually with only Wrye bash to launch and only pushed it to around 100 mods at max.

 

This time I followed all the guides and tutorials about installing mods properly, made sure to double check mod order from both what mod manager and LOOT recommended as well as all the author posts.

 

I made sure to have the save game script cleaner to clean up any save that got bloated.

 

3 days later after I double and triple checked to make sure everything was stable and working correctly and that I had exactly the right mods for the experience I wanted, I started my game.

 

I started seeing a few stutters around level 30 or so and since they were minor, I shugged it off and kept playing. By the time I hit 40 I started hitting major lag spikes where a lot of the game mechanics were malfunctioning.

 

Then I found out that these issues were caused by something called script lag, a problem I hadn't run across any time in my previous modded game run throughs. I had no idea what it was or what caused it exactly, so I started to look into how to fix it. I found that Convenient Horses has a test for it, and mine was through the roof, at times of heavy combat I was getting as much as 45k or more. after asking a few more sources I found that even script latency over 200 is a very bad thing and that I must have done something in my carefully planned out modding to cause it.

 

I looked at Nexus Forum posts about script lag. The people that ask about script lag are either ignored or they get rude responses.

 

Bug listings on various mod pages mention script lag in passing only, just making short statements to avoid high script latency at all cost. But no ideas or ways to avoid it and prevent it from happening.

 

The modding instructions you can find aren't exactly clear on the subject of script lag. For instance take a closer look at Gopher's tutorials. When he shows you various mods to add, and gives you instructions on how to mod, you always catch a glance at his SkyUI.

Typically Gopher has a ton of MCMs showing up in his SkyUI and when you see his tutorials and he has no performance issues that you can see. So is it any wonder that people get greedy trying to max out their immersion thinking there won't be a problem until they hit level 40 and find out the hard way what script lag is.

Why not? After all, from the impressions you get if you've never heard of script lag; as long as you don't go over 255 plugins and your fps is running smooth, then your game is good to go. Obviously not the case!

 

With all the heavily scripted awesome mods that have been coming out it's extremely easy to push your mod list to a point where the game can't handle all the mods you use!

 

What is really needed is some sort of utility tool that will tell you when you have too many heavy scripted mods, and advises you to drop a few so you can pick and choose more effectively which ones to not use.

 

A utility that can repair your game if need be, and help you troubleshoot the sources of the heavy script lag.

 

Script lag has become the latest strain on Skyrim so why can't we find a tool that helps us avoid the problem?

[Brandonhortman]

Seriously! Help me Tom Cruise!

[RS13]

Convenient Horses has a script latency monitor in it. It can be turned on via MCM. I don't know if anyone's made an independent one.

Edited August 26, 2014 by RS13

[Engine307]

:dance: :dance:

[cdcooley]

If you've modded your game so heavily that you are getting under 60 FPS that's the core cause of your problem. The game's scripting performance is tied to FPS so you want a framerate as close to 60 as you can get it. The other part of the scripting problem is from mods (usually older mods) that constantly run code to be "responsive" to user actions. Unfortunately "too much of a good thing" really is a possibility when talking about scripts.

 

If you've followed any advice about tweaking the Papyrus parameters in your Skyrim.ini file go in and completely delete the Papyrus section. The game's default settings are what you really want. (The one exception is the fPostLoadUpdateTimeMS setting which can be safely changed to 1000 or 2000 instead of the default of 500. Raising it gives the scripting system a chance to catch up during location changes but it also increases the time you'll wait at every load screen.)