Workshop opening / loading lag? Help figuring it out.

[TwilightOne]

Just wondering what actually happens behind the scenes when you hold v or trigger the workshop to enter Workshop Mode. In my game the video freezes for 2-3 seconds before I gain back the controls inside Workshop Mode. I already know it is not loading the menu art assets of everything as that gets loaded on demand when you navigate menus. I have the impression that it takes longer than it used to before.

 

What are your loading times? Vanilla? Lots of mods? SSD?

 

Could it be checking the resources of all linked settlements? I know it should not be loading current settlements objects as they are already loaded, duh.

I don't know what kind of operation it could be doing that requires that much computing time while stopping all input/animation/gameplay for seconds consistently each time. Empty settlement or 3x filled in. Even papyrus will slow execution to give resources to keep a steady framerate! So what is it?

 

Thank you!! :D

[SharraShimada]

Do you experience this issue also in a clean settlement? I´m asking because, it could be a lack of video-ram.

 

Explanation:

If you have a fully build settlment, your video-memory will be almost certainly already be filled to the max. Then you open a menu, which wants to display a whole bunch of graphics (every "icon" for the bulding-categories has to be loaded)

So, if your video carf is already at its limits, the system will start to swap data to load the new data into the memory.

[TwilightOne]

Well, I don't know if it is video ram. I have a new 1070 with I believe 8 gb of Vram, even with some 4k textures, does that fill up that fast? I'll have to check when I'm back on my main rig, but if I am missing Vram, shouldn't I see some glitches and problems elsewhere ingame too? It happens in almost empty settlements, as well as more furnished ones... Even in a cleaned up Vault 88 before any building.

[WhiskeyRiver2]

Higher-res textures will definitely increase loading times, but I personally doubt that's the cause of this issue.

 

I've been noticing the same thing on my gaming laptop (3.5 GHz i7 CPU, 970M with 3 gigs of VRAM, 16 gigs system RAM), even though I'm running ENBoost (Force VRAM setting of 9,000), and have almost all my textures resized to 1k resolution. Even if I'm in a fully stripped settlement, I still notice a 2-3 second stutter as the Workshop menu loads, and I notice the category icons take their sweet time showing up as well.

 

The only time it doesn't lag significantly is if I'm staring at the ground/floor or a wall.

[TwilightOne]

Haven't tested looking at the floor... Weird issue though. I remember when the game launched and only Sanctuary was available that it was near instantaneous. But that was a non modded game. Now I have mods like Homemaker, but the game seems to load the preview art on demand when navigating the menus, and not all at once... Plus 3 seconds of pure computation is a lot, like if the game was remaking the whole menu everytime from scratch, looking at all the linked settlements resources etc. Kinda weird though... I really don't know what really causes this...

[JimmyRJump]

There's a delay set in the ini file, for starters. Plus, when using mods that add their own menu category, loading the different menus can take a bit to a whole lot longer...

[SharraShimada]

8gigs of video ram sounds huge, but its not. For example, last year someone released a mod für the milkmachine, with 8k textures. If i recall it correctly, the texture alone was over 400 MB. So, if you install only 10 of such mods, and build everything from them, you consume ~4 gigabyte. (not really because of some features handling the data, but as a raw calculation)

 

In Bethesdas games there is no such thing as too much video ram.

[JimmyRJump]

To further answer TwilightOne's question(s), loading times for the WorkShop for me are now between ten and twenty seconds. It used to be almost instantaneous unmodded and like you around two to three seconds with some serious modding (339 mods of which 254 had a plug-in).

 

Now with my most recent game, I'm at 291 mods with 198 plug-ins. Eight of those mods have a Script Injected menu, which means they have their own category in the WorkShop. The last ones I added (Art Connoisseur System Frame Work and the Atom Bomb Pin-ups that uses the ACS) makes my game freeze for at least ten seconds when hitting 'V' or otherwise opening the WorkShop.

 

The reason why the WorkShop lags a bit is obvious as everything in the game needs to be made available -especially when using scrap mods- not only the textures, but all assets involving all items that can be scrapped or added. Opening the WorkShop is almost like opening a game within the game, or starting the CK within the game because the WorkShop needs access to the deeper layers of the game, contrary to when 'just' running around shooting-up the neighbourhood...

[Sugram]

for me it seems to slow it down is after i do any DLC & get extra stuff to build menu, without completing any DLC i would not get the issue, well maybe i would, but it would be 20% of that it currently is & vault 88 seems to hit the performance the most, build menu performance, but getting a lot of mats yea add oil to fire

 

& adding a lot of mats for build adds oil to fire

 

& its like example at first all in the menu are invisible & u cant build to until after few sec or more, haven counted the time, could be 5sec

 

is there a fix for it? even a mod fix?

[PaddyGarcia]

Ancient necro, but:

Faster Workshop (Workshop Lag Fix) makes it AMAZINGLY faster, like insta- with ~1000 mods.

https://www.nexusmods.com/fallout4/mods/35382/