Random Crashes

[llloyd]

Opps! Posted my reply to the wrong thread. >.< Anyway... Turning off Super Fetch didn't fix it. Still stutters.

[dubiousintent]

Here's what I replied in the other thread.

 

Looks as though "texture" replacements that have increased levels of detail (resolution) are all that are left (to change to lower resolutions).

"Texture packs" don't usually show up in the "load order". (They are replacing vanilla assets; thus they overwrite existing files.) And the issue with them is what size/resolution of the images you are using. Larger/"hi-rez" textures require more pixels, and larger screen display monitors multiply that requirement in a non-linear way. While your hardware may technically be able to handle it, the game is 7 years old, designed for Windows Vista with maximum screen displays of 1920x1080, with default image sizes of 512x512 pixels. The game engine texture cache tends to be the bottleneck: causing "stutter".

To test, uninstall your texture packs and see if you still have the stutter in the same location using just vanilla textures. Don't forget to re-run FNVLODGen once you have uninstalled or added any VWD/LOD textures (or there is any question if they are). (Please see the 'LOD/VWD Texture Packs' section of the wiki "FNV General Mod Use Advice" article.)

Grids loaded (uGridsToLoad) setting in the INI files - LEAVE THIS AT 5. This needs to be an odd value (5, 7, 9, etc.) and the game has code that only works properly when this is at the default of 5. Turning this up drastically increases memory and processor use. Also, this is probably why you're crashing outdoors. [Larger values may cause scripts to prematurely trigger upon cell loading.] May also cause stuttering.

 

Note that 'uGridsToLoad=' is directly linked with 'uInterior Cell Buffer=' and 'uExterior Cell Buffer=' values. Best to leave all three alone.

 

-Dubious-

[llloyd]

I am puzzled if it is, my system is pretty modern, a Ryzen 1700+ overclocked slightly to 3.8ghz on water, 16gb of DDR 4 2700, with an nVidia 970 GTS (factory overclocked). It's *way* above the game's specs. I am thinking maybe hdd access speed but ... My Steam folder is too big to be put on an SSD with out spending an arm, leg, and several vital organs for a large SSD. It is.... Over 1 tb big. O.o

Edited December 9, 2017 by llloyd

[dubiousintent]

It's not your hardware. It's a 7-8 year old 32-bit game designed for Windows Vista and 60 FPS max. The game's internal texture caching system is the bottleneck. My guess is the game can't keep up with your hardware's speed.

 

I run on a Win7SP1 system upgraded from XP (clean install) with just HDDs, stock Intel I3 @3.3Ghz (no overclocking) and 8 GB RAM, nVidia GTX 760 w/4 GB VRAM and a GTX240 as a dedicated PhysX controller. It doesn't stutter, but I don't use textures larger than 1024x1024 and few of those (NMC and Ojo Bueno with vanilla characters and NPCs; no body replacers).

 

You might try turning off the over-clocking (at least while playing FNV) and see if that makes any difference.

 

-Dubious-

Edited December 9, 2017 by dubiousintent

[llloyd]

Well, I downgraded NMMs from Ultra (2048x2048) to High (1024x1024) and it doesn't seem to be helping. Though... *hmm* I still need to downgrade it in the launcher settings. I'll fiddle with that tonight when I get home from work. >.<

 

Edit: There, went into the launcher and clicked "High" then Play to save that. Will play some tonight. Though it does make me wonder what it would take to play on Ultra without lag if my reasonably modern system can't handle it?

Edited December 11, 2017 by llloyd

[dubiousintent]

As I've mentioned before in other words, "stuttering" is a result of the graphics engine having to wait on the disk drive to feed it images to render. Once you hit the speed limit to which you can pull "art assets" from disk, having too fast a graphics process can lead to stutter. Part of the "bottleneck" can be the size of the image (more bytes to pass along for each image), part is the internal game texture pipeline (apparently a fixed size), and part can be the size of the video pipeline "caches" where it stores anticipated cells to be rendered. The ENBoost buffer provides an "intermediate" speed buffer in system RAM between the (usually) faster VRAM and the slower disk drive. The system "pagefile" also comes into play. The larger the caches, the more cells that can be "pre-loaded" prior to actually being rendered, and the more quickly the video card can pull them in to render them. But nothing is "free" and memory dedicated to "caches" is not available to the system for other purposes. That is where a 64-bit system with more than 4GB of RAM benefits the most: the ability to use "system resources" that are not part of the memory allocated to the game itself.

 

Don't believe you have mentioned just how much VRAM you have on that nVidia 970 GTS, but a smaller VRAM can lead to more waiting on the disk drive as well. There is a widespread belief that "faster is always better", but like most absolute statements it needs to be taken with a grain of salt under specific circumstances.

 

Assuming you meant "NMCs" textures were what you downsized: did you remember to re-run FNVLODGen as well? If you didn't you won't see the benefit of the image reduction.

 

-Dubious-

Edited December 11, 2017 by dubiousintent

[llloyd]

My 970? The black sheep of the family, the notorious "4gb" model. EnbBoost? I will poke at that too then. So it might be worth looking at a 2tb ssd since the game drive is a 4tb WD Black? Edited December 12, 2017 by llloyd

[dubiousintent]

I would say a better (and here; note the bandwidth differences mentioned, not necessarily faster) video card (4GB is plenty for FNV with 1024x1024 images,but more VRAM won't hurt) is more likely to provide "better bang for the buck" than an SSD. See impartial articles such as "Crucial" and "PCGamer" about the "only for faster loading; not throughput" benefit of SSD for gaming.

 

-*Dubious-

[llloyd]

Part of that I already knew, like I think of my card as 3.5gb and not 4. Still, EnbBoost plus a 1070 to use all of it should let me use Ultra then? Considering upgrading to the new 1070ti during tax time as card prices are down again.

[dubiousintent]

I haven't shopped video cards in years, so I won't make any specific recommendations there. But even with a new card if you can find a good deal, my suggestion would be to start with vanilla (512x512) or 1024x1024 size images and get rid of any stuttering first. Only then is it worth testing with a higher rez image size to see if it has any adverse impact. Then you will know where the problem resides.

 

And seriously take a look at your 1024x1024 images and see if you really can see the difference between it and a larger res while playing, not just while minutely comparing a single static image. It's mostly a placebo effect unless you have a huge screen.

 

I will say my purchasing "rule of thumb" is to go with the best of "last year's model" (2017 in this instance) rather than the new (2018) models just out from a vendor. Plenty of reviews to compare and see how they actually perform, and there are usually good deals just before and after the New Year as the retailers clear their shelves for the newest models. ( Always paying a premium for "latest and greatest" and "currently most popular", even when unproven.) And realize that the chip set vendor (e.g. nVidia or Radeon, etc,) make the base GPU chip set and spec, and individual board makers then implement that spec in their models. Board Manufacturer does make a difference even between the same chip sets and design.

 

-Dubious-

Edited December 12, 2017 by dubiousintent