Possible Workaround/Idea to the Fallout 4 Weapons Draw/Switch Delay Issue

[TH3CR4PM4N]

So i've already made a thread on the r/Falloutmods sub, and whilst I got replies, i figured why not get some input from more modders that most likely have closer 'fields of expertise' at this, than I do.

 

So, here's my OP from the Reddit thread:

 

"If you don't know what i'm talking about, it's the issue when you switch weapons and it takes longer than usual to load them in. On my 1gb HD 7750 (mind you, game itself runs fine) it's pretty bad, having to wait 3-10s randomly - thankfully it's relatively uncommon for me.

 

This issue effects many people, whether you've just got a system that's low end by todays standards/limited in vram or use many high quality/high poly weapon mods with high quality textures, i think it's safe to say that this affects the majority of people at least a little bit with modded installations on your average pc.

My possible solution is to have all weapons that are assigned to a quick use/favourite slot to always be preloaded so that it has it's own resources reserved for it. I don't know about you, but I would rather have this than random deaths in combat because of it.

Why does it have to be quick use/favourite slots? Because I believe it would be too intensive to preload ALL inventory weapons, for example maybe if you're on the way back to your settlement from looting. I think it's fair to say most people playing on Survival with limited carryweight usually have only 2-4ish weapons on them that are assigned to a quick use/favourite slot at a time, so that aspect doesn't really matter I think.

Please note that this is a mere concept to try and remedy this annoying issue."

Original thread

Edited December 30, 2017 by TH3CR4PM4N

[payl0ad]

It's purely an I/O latency issue (probably coupled with some performance deficiency in the engine code that we can't do s*** about). Everyone who archives his mods that would install loose files into ba2 archives has seen noticeable decreases in the frequency of the issue appearing, most see it disappearing completely.

 

So, to minimize/solve this:

• Run the game from SSD. This will have the biggest impact of course.
• Provide enough main memory for the game. If it uses 8 GB, have 16 so Windows can do filesystem caching for frequently used files and reduce I/O load.
• Archive. Your. Loose Files.
• Try using weapon packs instead of individual weapon mods.
• Don't use HD textures for guns, duh.

 

If you were to try to build a workaround, I could imagine a script that periodically, every few seconds, spawns one of all of your carried but not equipped weapons behind the player and immediately deletes the reference again. This should keep all the gun asset data in fast memory. It does cause additional load on the engine though and possibly makes it worse in a different way.

Edited January 13, 2018 by payl0ad

[Ethreon]

"Everyone who archives his mods that would install loose files into ba2 archives has seen noticeable decreases in the frequency of the issue appearing"

 

You got proof of this?

[steve40]

Whether it's the cause of the issue or not, archiving loose files is all-round good general advice in my experience, particularly if the mod has its own scripts.

[SMB92]

I used to think it was slower to have an archive, my reasoning being that it would take longer to load in a ba2 file and extract it, but that's not how it work evidently. It would seem if your esp has an archive it will drastically shorten the lookup latency, like it tables the contents of it individually, and especially if it's a small archive.

 

I have to imagine this effect becomes negligible when the archive gets very large/split up but I would like to see how the engine tables the directories to get a better understanding of this.

[payl0ad]

"Everyone who archives his mods that would install loose files into ba2 archives has seen noticeable decreases in the frequency of the issue appearing"

 

You got proof of this?

 

The issue pops up on /r/falloutmods with a certain regularity, you can just search the sub for "weapon switch delay" or something.

 

I used to think it was slower to have an archive, my reasoning being that it would take longer to load in a ba2 file and extract it, but that's not how it work evidently. It would seem if your esp has an archive it will drastically shorten the lookup latency, like it tables the contents of it individually, and especially if it's a small archive.

 

I have to imagine this effect becomes negligible when the archive gets very large/split up but I would like to see how the engine tables the directories to get a better understanding of this.

 

This is precisely the case. People have been making performance experiments using ba2 files and they're essentially always faster than loose files, apparently because the application handles all I/O by itself rather than going through the entire OS I/O stack. BA2s are faster even if not compressed.

 

As FO4 is heavily CPU-bound it makes sense that reducing I/O load (which ties down the CPU) on the system would also gain FPS.

Edited January 14, 2018 by payl0ad

[SMB92]

I concur with the performance improvements, I've also noticed since moving to NVME and locking up my heavy textures in a Ba2 (also very happy Hein84 Vivid mod is now packed) that the texture loading is much smoother. And that was before I upgraded to the 1080ti from the 980ti.