Fallout 4 Visual Glitch...Or whatever this is

[KristSilvershade]

Update: I reverted the ini files for my Home profile back to their default state and now the game is CTDing upon load of any game save.

[KristSilvershade]

I used Bethini to generate new ini files and the game is loading again.

I made the changes reccomended to skindecals and it's caused no noticeable change. I will look at the files again tonight and see where the differences are between the work and home inis and see if I can pen down what exactly's causing this.

[Purr4me]

I am currently running on your Home version profile. it took forever to load, but if you want I can provide the video.

It's is for me too much maxed out. But it loads now full screen.

But I can't run my laptop at these settings, way too over board. Made a short clip, not seeing any artifact being generated, the ini is set to twin screen mode too. not running two screens.

Edited October 24, 2019 by Purr4me

[G4M3W1NN3R]

@G4M3W1NN3R

I am 100% sure this is not screen-tearing, lol.

To ensure this is not a hardware based issue, going to ask a few questions

 

1. Did you build your own computer, or did it come pre-built.

The home computer was self-built, the surfacebook is a prebuilt laptop

 

2. What is your hardware usage and tempertures, whilst the Artifacting is Happening

 

 

3. What is you GPU Current active specs (when it is running) Voltage, GPU Clock, and Memory Clock speeds. (can find this information using MSI Afterburner)

https://imgur.com/a/uD4KUWO

https://imgur.com/a/OH1E0XJ

This was taken while FO4 was running during the corrupt graphics issue. I -think- between the two screenshots there's everything you asked for?

 

4. is Your GPU Definitely Seated Properly, as well as Memory Sticks, and all cables are definitely connected properly to the Motherboard and GPU. (have to ask because it is possible it might not be,which could cause these issues)

GPU and Memory is all seated properly in the home PC, I don't see how it could possibly not be seated right in the laptop, lol.

 

 

Edit: I'm pretty confident it's an issue with the ini file. so I'm going to generate a new one for my Home profile and see what happens. Wish me luck.

 

1. read the previous posts, i know this not screen-tearing. that ini setting was to eliminate any confusion to do with previous posts to the original topic starter.

 

2. i am strictly talking about the desktop pc, you clearly stated you are having the same issue as the op on your desktop pc. the laptop is completely irrelevant here. and likewise i am only refeering to the desktop pc.

 

3. Your CPU is hitting 89 Degrees (assuming the Min Max Values are relevant to what it has reached, which i am pretty sure is correct, otherwise it would say 92 Degrees as max, which is maximum operating temperture for CPUs), which is stepping into danger zone (90 Degrees = Extremely Unsafe). that is a big issue. which means you CPU is throttling itself.

 

4. again i am strictly talking about the desktop pc, the laptop is completely irrelevant.

 

5. your GPU is overclocking itself (which means you have nvidia boost functions enabled). but their is no voltage limit (which is a big issue), which means it can use as much power as it wants, GPU will use more power as they overclock and likewise more voltage, the maximum Safe Voltage is around is 1.1 Volts (For Latest Gen Nvidia Cards 1000 series and beyond), anything over that will cause severe instability, and inevitable death. if not instant. <-- although it is very unlikely it will overvoltage if the only boost funtion is Nvidia own settings. which is why i needed to know if your gpu was pre-overclocked or you overclocked it.

 

you cutoff the CPU Usage values on your image, i need to know what they are, as currently your average temp on Core 3 is 80 Degrees, so i need to know what the CPU usage is on Core 3, to see if that is an issue. if it is 80 Degrees at 100% load then that is acceptable (although not recommended), but if its anything less then 100% load then that is a problem.

 

also it looks like your GPU is in fact over-Volting, accordingly it is using 2 volts, however that is way beyond safe voltage so technically, your GPU would have blown up, so realistically that could be 1.2 volts, which is still way too high. however since their is no voltage limit, it could indeed exceed 1.2 volts. <-- this is what i believe is causing the Artifacting, which is an indication of hardware instability.

 

now apparently Nvidia Locked volatage on the 1070, so it supposed to not exceed voltage. which means that reading could be wrong, but it is unlikely.

 

as such i am very certain the artifiacting is definitely to do with your hardware. the key question, are you artifacting on any other game, and have you had any BSODs or any other indication of potentional hardware instability.

 

Artififacting is a sure sign of hardware instability. similiar to how BSODs let you know their is defintely something wrong with the hardware, typically memory based, but can apply to all hardware, Artificating is essentially BSODs for GPU in Game (minus the crash).

 

Case In Point, the issue looks to be an unstable overclock, Overheating or Both.

[VIitS]

If someone is having issues that look like the image in the OP (and not like the picture Purr4me posted on the second page, that is completely different), it could potentially be a bad/corrupted PLUGINNAME - Geometry.csg file or PLUGINNAME.cdx file. It might be hardware/GPU, but I'd first check to see if you have any mods with those files, and if not I would delete the vanilla .cdx and .csg files and validate first. I imagine a normal broken mesh could cause the same thing, though I have never seen this particular issue due to a normal mesh. Usually it is CtDs, floating exclamation marks, that sort of thing.

 

Those two files are used in shared-geometry precombineds (the kind the base game+DLC use, not the kind you can generate normally with the CK), and removing one of those (don't remember which) will result in exactly what is seen in the OP: everything looks like polygon spaghetti.

 

It is possible to generate those kind of precombineds using the CK, but you have to use a tweaked CreationKit.exe*, and use commandline arguments, so it is unlikely to be from a mod. I don't actually know of a released mod that uses them, but I worked with someone trying to get an automated tool to generate them for your whole load order**, and he had generated them for Vault 88 for my Scrap Everything mod. I didn't end up using them due to some issues I had getting them to work, but testing them resulted in the precise issue the OP had when I messed with one of those files.

 

*Bethesda flipped a byte and broke them in the publicly released version

**Last I heard there were some stability issues

[KristSilvershade]

@G4M3W1NN3R
Apologies. All the values in the images shown were for my surfacebook laptop, I will have to wait until I get home to provide the details for the desktop setup. Unless the 1070 is setup to overclock out-of-box then it is not overclocked. This is my specific GPU: MSI 1070 Seahawk X . I see that it has an overclock mode, but I've not enabled it, I'll get you the actual readings once I get home.

To be absolutely clear: I am having the same visual artifacting as OP(polygons stretching spasticly over the screen) on both laptop AND desktop, but ONLY when my Home profile is selected, and only when facing a certain direction.

I am not artifacting on any other game, currently testing Skyrim Special Edition + ENB + an equal number of mods. I am not BSODing or having other unusual hitches on my laptop, though my desktop does freeze or BSOD regularly - though I've isolated this as a CPU nearing it's death, it does this even when it's running mostly idle at 35c. The fact that my laptop GPU is overvolting and overclocking is concerning, I suppose it's possible that both laptop and desktop are artifacting in the same way due to stress? It's odd that it's not occurred in other games, or when I do long-term stressful renders in Blender on either device. Either way, I'll get you my desktop's temperature/voltage/etc readings tonight.

 

@VIitS everything you've said makes perfect sense, I'll still fiddle with it to see if I can get the issue fixed. But since the Work profile is working with the same modlist/order as the Home profile, I'm pretty sure it's an ini configuration in combination with a mod issue. First thing after reading your post I assumed bUseCombinedObjects was enabled in one profile but not the other - but neither profile has the flag set at all.
I added

bUseCombinedObjects=0
bPreCulledObjectsEnabled=0

to my Fallout4Custom.ini , this caused CTDs upon loading a save file. Setting them to 1 allows successful loading, but the artifacting is back.

As for mods containing precombined meshes, I've worked with some of the RTL/FO4CW devs in the past and am aware of at least a handful of modders that use precombined meshes in all their work, I'm pretty certain one of the mods I downloaded mentions using precombined meshes along with special instructions for the ini/loadorder, which I followed to the best of my ability. I'll see if I can hunt it down again. I've not used any tools to try and autogen precombines for this modset. I've done that in the past and, like you mention, massive stability issues. Stability>saving a few frames. I'll report back if I can find the mod in my set that mentioned using precombined.

Edited October 25, 2019 by KristSilvershade

[VIitS]

@VIitS everything you've said makes perfect sense, I'll still fiddle with it to see if I can get the issue fixed. But since the Work profile is working with the same modlist/order as the Home profile, I'm pretty sure it's an ini configuration in combination with a mod issue. First thing after reading your post I assumed bUseCombinedObjects was enabled in one profile but not the other - but neither profile has the flag set at all.

I added

bUseCombinedObjects=0
bPreCulledObjectsEnabled=0

to my Fallout4Custom.ini , this caused CTDs upon loading a save file. Setting them to 1 allows successful loading, but the artifacting is back.

 

 

The only time I have ever seen bUseCombinedObjects=0 cause a CtD is when there is a bad mesh that is not being loaded due to precombined meshes being enabled. Have you tried multiple different saves that are in different areas? If, using the bUseCombinedObjects=0 ini edit, you can load a save from a different area, and travelling to the area the CtDing save was in causes a CtD, you almost certainly have a bad mesh somewhere (or possibly a record pointing to a non-existent mesh).

 

The PreCulled ini edit is unlikely to be related. It is used for the previs system (you can actually toggle it in-game with the tpc console command), which just determines which meshes should be rendered or not rendered based on where you are standing and looking.

 

 

As for mods containing precombined meshes, I've worked with some of the RTL/FO4CW devs in the past and am aware of at least a handful of modders that use precombined meshes in all their work, I'm pretty certain one of the mods I downloaded mentions using precombined meshes along with special instructions for the ini/loadorder, which I followed to the best of my ability. I'll see if I can hunt it down again. I've not used any tools to try and autogen precombines for this modset. I've done that in the past and, like you mention, massive stability issues. Stability>saving a few frames. I'll report back if I can find the mod in my set that mentioned using precombined.

 

Most mods with newly generated precombineds generate them from within the CK normally, and they are non-shared geometry precombineds. This means the size of the files are bigger (by about a factor of 10), and that there is no .csg or .cdx file associated with them. Normal precombineds shouldn't cause that artifacting, unless there is an individual mesh causing the same problem.

 

The tool I mentioned hasn't been released, the developer of it had some stability issues while testing (sporadic CtDs), and I haven't heard much since.

[KristSilvershade]

I disabled combined meshes again. I loaded a save from an interior cell and exited to the area where the CTDing save was. Graphical error occured, but no CTD. I then quit fallout, relaunched it, and loaded the same save that CTDed the first time and it did NOT CTD, but did still have graphical corruption. The only thing that's changed was that I re-downloaded a mod that was-indeed missing it's meshes.bsa, so it's possible the CTD and the graphical artifacting were separate issues.

 

 

 

It may have been a tool for something else that I used a while ago then. It also may actually have been for skyrim, it was a couple years ago and my memory is not that great.

[timulika]

... I worked with someone trying to get an automated tool to generate them for your whole load order**, and he had generated them for Vault 88 for my Scrap Everything mod. I didn't end up using them due to some issues I had getting them to work, but testing them resulted in the precise issue the OP had when I messed with one of those files.

 

*Bethesda flipped a byte and broke them in the publicly released version

**Last I heard there were some stability issues

 

 

btw, Vault 88 is broken with Scrap Everything Mod enabled. Reproducible 100% of the time. With Scrap Everything mod on the interior of the vault is invisible. Turn the mod off, it's fine. Only 88 is affected.

Edited October 27, 2019 by timulika

[VIitS]

 

... I worked with someone trying to get an automated tool to generate them for your whole load order**, and he had generated them for Vault 88 for my Scrap Everything mod. I didn't end up using them due to some issues I had getting them to work, but testing them resulted in the precise issue the OP had when I messed with one of those files.

 

*Bethesda flipped a byte and broke them in the publicly released version

**Last I heard there were some stability issues

 

 

btw, Vault 88 is broken with Scrap Everything Mod enabled. Reproducible 100% of the time. With Scrap Everything mod on the interior of the vault is invisible. Turn the mod off, it's fine. Only 88 is affected.

 

 

That is true.... for less than 1% of users. If you'd like, I can provide the plugin I used to generate precombineds and help you get it set up to use ones you generate yourself. I would like to fix the problem, but I cannot reproduce it, so I need people who are experiencing issues to help. Just PM me if you are interested.

 

It is interesting that it is presenting tat way for you. Most people with issues will only have issues with either Vault 88 or The Mechanist's Lair, it is pretty rare for it to be both, but usually it is CtDs for Vault 88, while The Mechanist's Lair is split fairly evenly between CtDs and invisible everything.

 

The problem is caused by the game failing to load the precombined meshes. I suspect it is either a result of odd ini settings, the mod not downloading properly, or another mod touching the same cell and breaking things in some way or another (the precombined system isn't exactly the most stable thing in the world), but I have not been able to get people who are experiencing the issue to put in the effort to try and help me solve it.