Framedrop when talking to NPC

[IedSoftworks]

Hi,

I installed recently Fallout New Vegas on my new leptop (for me new) and had a problem with the multithreading of my CPU.
After that problem solved, I found another problem. Everytime when a NPC talked to me, my FPS go down to 19 - 10. Normal: 30 capped.
I sayed to me: "Ok. Its for dialogue playable." But it get on my nerves, now, so I searched on Google and found diffent solutions.

"disableEmotions": Nope.
"iFPSClamp=60" / 40: Nothing.

The only thing that worked, was to disable FaceGen-heads, but that is a bad solutions, because the camera goes crazy if I talk to people.
After a time I talked to a NPC, who came from the "World Of Pain"-mod. Not voiced, or anything. And the FPS was 30. (normal Gameplay)
But if I talked to Pete (who stands for vanilla-NPC), who stand at my side, the FPS goes down.

My guess, the animations are the problem here.
A interesting thing is, according to MSI Afterburner, my CPU or GPU are not at 100%, not even at 50% sometimes.

So, It exist a mod or a INI-Change, to disable the animations?

Thanks in advance,
IedSoftworks

Specs:
Samsung R780:
Intel Core i5-430
4 GB RAM,
nVidia GeForce GT 330M

ModList:
This issue has nothing to do, with my mods, but here are my modlist.
https://pastebin.com/774qpgaY

[M48A5]

It is possible that the problem is caused by your mods. You have a couple of conflicting plugins.

 

You should actually read what you have installed and disable and delete the conflicting plugins.

[IedSoftworks]

It is possible that the problem is caused by your mods. You have a couple of conflicting plugins.

 

You should actually read what you have installed and disable and delete the conflicting plugins.

The point is, the issue was already in the vanilla-game.

 

And without FCO I have no character-mod, who changed Vannila-NPCs.

Edited June 24, 2019 by IedSoftworks

[dubiousintent]

The pertinent things I see in your problem statement are:

1. When the NPC is "voiced" you get an FPS drop. Without a "voice", you don't. The difference is a "voice" uses a sound file.

2. You are running on a laptop with 4GB of RAM.

3. You are using a "notebook" video card (i.e. the nVidia GeForce GT 330M). I can't tell from the card's "specs" page, but most likely this means it is sharing "system RAM" rather than having it's own dedicated VRAM on the card.

 

In order to achieve their small "portable" size and battery life, laptops have to make trade-offs from desktop systems. One of those areas is with the I/O subsystems where it tends to "share" resources (typically memory) that are separate in a desktop system. Video is one area, audio is another; and they both need system RAM. Without dedicated VRAM, the video card has to use system RAM, which further takes away from that available for the game.

 

4GB is technically the maximum memory a 32-bit game can use. But on a 64-bit system with more than 4GB, much of the Windows OS resides in memory outside of the 4GB allocated to the game (when using the FNV4GB Patch). With only 4GB RAM, all of the Windows OS (either 32 or 64-bit) has to take up that same memory space, resulting in less available for the game to use. So you are already at a disadvantage compared to a system with more than 4GB of RAM available for the game.

 

Now the voice files (audio) are a separate I/O subsystem from the graphics. But the timing of much of the graphics (such as dialog) is tied to the length of the sound file. Sound files tend to be "launch and forget", so the rest of the system is waiting for a signal back that the sound file is finished. As a consequence, you can experience an FPS drop because everything else is waiting on the sound to finish. (Having a video card with dedicated VRAM reduces this strain on the use of system RAM.) The key thing is: if you ignore the FPS counter, is there an actual problem with the dialog and the lip sync animation? If not, then the FPS drop is irrelevant. If there is a problem, then the most likely cause is with your audio settings (not video/graphics).

 

People get too hung up about the FPS counter. It will always fluctuate during game play. You really only need to look at it when you have a reason to do so to confirm a problem is related to FPS. Turn it off otherwise and enjoy the game.

 

If you do think you have a problem with your audio, please search the wiki "Fallout NV Mod Conflict Troubleshooting" article on the keywords "sound" and "audio".

 

-Dubious-

[IedSoftworks]

1. Wrong. When a Character got a voice, it also get a animation for the mouth, by SourceEngine-default. (Its also a guess, because I cant imagine that Obsidian created the animation by hand)

And I qoute: "My guess, the animations are the problem here."

2. That not a problem, I used a very old leptop with 4 Gigs and the game went fluid.

3. For integraded GPUs you're right, but this litte guy here have 1 Gigs VRam from the GPU.

 

And anything you said about 32-/64-bit and my ram has no effect to my game or anything else. As I said, I used a old leptop with 4 Gigs and I use always a 64-bit CPU.

I am not dump with PCs, you know.
So. Again, when I disable all FaceGenHeads everything works, with 30 FPS, because I didn't have the heads AND ANIMATION anymore, but thats no option, reason in the thread-start.
I hear the voice, so that not because of a sound problem. And when I enable FaceGenHeads, I have the animations, heads and frame drops again.

And yes, its not a problem when you talk to one guy, but when you came in a room, and f.E. Raider are talking. Then try to aim in 19 FPS. The fps drops, when I hear a conversation, too. Simply because the animation will be loaded, no matter if I can see them or not.

I simply need a way to disable FaceGen-Animations, if exist a way.

[dubiousintent]

"I am not dump with PCs, you know." No, we don't know. We only know what you tell us when you describe the problem. Possibly, with luck, we recall more about your background when you have been posting here for a while, but it is never a good idea to make assumptions and backgrounds seldom make a difference to resolving a problem. The mere fact you are asking for help means it is something outside of your current experience. A clear problem description is much more important. As you point out, things (such as hardware or mod mixes) change over time, often without announcement. (Not all "old laptops" are equal in their capabilities.)

 

Lip-sync animation generation is a separate step when using the GECK (actually a different subprogram which does not happen to come with the FNV GECK) so the animation for the mouth is not "provided by default" by the game engine except for those previously created for the publisher's Actors.

 

The FaceGenHeads are an integral part of the game engine. I'm not aware of any mechanism for disabling their animations, but that doesn't mean there isn't one. This is the first time I've heard anyone ask about the possibility. Perhaps someone else knows.

 

In the meantime, the best I can suggest is that you look into the more traditional "stutter" recommendations.

 

Re: Stuttering or "micro-stutters". All visual stuttering problems are caused by the video stream having to wait for the "art assets" required to render the display OR the game writing something to disk (such as a save game file or logging). Mostly these are due to the hard disk drive being orders of magnitude slower than VRAM, with System RAM (e.g. "ENBoost") and "solid state drives" (SSDs) being in between. Keep in mind that this game was designed for older PC and XBox console systems, and it is now possible for your new "latest and greatest" gaming machine to be faster than it can handle. There are internal design choices that cannot be overcome. The "video pipeline" has always been prone to problems. The following are "mitigations" that have been found to help some people.

Please see the following entries under the 'Solutions to Performance problems' section in the wiki Fallout NV Mod Conflict Troubleshooting" guide if you haven't already.
* 'Issue: "Full screen mode" exhibits CTDs and stutters or micro-stutters'
* 'Issue: Lag or "micro stutters" even with "New Vegas Stutter Remover" installed'
* 'Issue: Win10 Screen tearing in "Borderless Windowed Mode"'
* 'Issue: CTD without warning, "Out of Memory error", or stops responding after the Main Menu' for other settings that can indirectly affect micro-stutter.
* There are also some NVSR configuration suggestions under the 'Issue: Game in slow motion' and entries. (These will not help with the "Tick Fix" alternative mod, but the author of NVSR now has a suggested configuration for Win10 linked there.)
* The 'Issue: What's with these Solid Green billboard signs in the distance (LOD)?' entry under the 'Solutions to Mesh (Red "!" icon) or Texture (solid color) problems' section can also help if your problems started after you installed VWD/LOD texture packages.
* If you are using CASM or some similar "auto-save" mod to manage your save game files (recommended), try increasing the "time between saves" set in the "save frequency"; and reducing the number of occasions it saves to the minimum (e.g. disable most "Autosave Events" in CASM) and see how that impacts the game seeming to freeze temporarily.
* If you have "NVSE logging" enabled (see the 'Checklist Item #4' entry in the wiki "Fallout NV Mod Conflict Troubleshooting" guide), disable it until actually needed.

Reading from or writing to disk for any reason is the slowest thing the game does.

The size of your image files also has an impact. Larger/higher resolution is not always "better". Please see the wiki "Display resolution versus Image Size" article.

The 'Issue: What INI edits seem to be most beneficial to performance' entry of the wiki "Fallout NV Mod Conflict Troubleshooting" guide) may also be some help. However, the above mitigations are more likely to have a fundamental beneficial effect with or without any INI adjustments, so consider them as the last resort.

As you can see, there are a number of things that can underlie your problem. If one of these doesn't fix it, I would be interested to hear about any eventual solution that does.

-Dubious-

[IedSoftworks]

Ok. Thanks for your time, but when you not know a anwser for my specific question, then you didn't have to discuss. ;)