Regenerating precombs,vis ... just need some info

[greekrage]

Ive been going through some older mods trying fix performance etc.

Im on my Sanctuary mod atm.

This one had been truly a headache...

Its weird because the lag(frame drop) is mostly when looking at a specific cell (rosa's house) .

I do precombines for all loaded cells because ive altered all those cells (terrain,trees,buildings etc..)

Then i do visibility and precombined visibility again for all loaded cells...

Shouldnt the frame drop lessen ?

What else could be effecting performance ?

Im not asking for frames to hit my cap at 75fps but at least like the rest of the area have about 50-60frames...

That cell drops me to 35-38 when i look at it...

Someone mentioned awhile back that he found trash from santcuary under cambridge.

So i opened the editor again and had the sanctuary mod loaded but not active and went to cambridge but didnt find anything...

Where in fO4edit would i look to see if sanctuary is connected to cambridge somehow ?

Its possible but cant be sure (was 4 years ago) that i may have went to cambridge while in the editor working on Sanctuary to grab a building or some object (was a newbie back then dont judge :tongue: ).

How would i clean any such reference without destroying the mod...

 

BTW here is the original mod if anyone wants to troubleshoot... https://www.nexusmods.com/fallout4/mods/21065

 

One more question...

Before regenerating precomb and vis for the SAME location do the Vis and precomb folders have to be empty ? or will the CK use the latest data when creating the archive?

[Dorksis]

Yes, this is a problem, but what a satisfaction from the work done :sleep:

[DieFeM]

Lights that cast shadows can decrease the framerate too.

[aurreth]

I'll start with the last question first: yes and no :)

 

The newest gen of precom/vis will overwrite whatever is in the folders currently. Sometimes that's good, you can load all your Sanctuary mods in the CK and generate, sometimes it's bad because those loose files will override anything in a BA2. So if you add in, say, a Vault 111 exterior mod that has it's own precom/previs (one of mine does) then your loose files will break the precom on the new mod and you'll get issues.

 

Now the mod you linked has precom/previs in it's BA2. Actually that's all the BA2 is. So your new files are overwriting those, but not necessarily ALL of those. Miss even one for whatever reason and you get problems depending on which way you are looking.

 

If you are going to generate your own because you are building on the mod you should move "NEWSANCTUARY - main.BA2" to some other temporary location so that it won't get loaded. Basically take the mod's pregenerated files out of the picture. Then use the CK to generate entirely new precom/previs.

 

Also, one thing I've found useful is to create a base level precom/previs for Sanctuary. I load JennCave's Clean and Simple for the area in the CK, remove all the houses, then generate new files. By doing this I make sure no matter what I scrap in Sanctuary it won't result in world tearing. I take a small performance hit doing this, but nothing like I'd get if I removed the wrong house and broke everything.

[greekrage]

Basi

 

I'll start with the last question first: yes and no :smile:

 

The newest gen of precom/vis will overwrite whatever is in the folders currently. Sometimes that's good, you can load all your Sanctuary mods in the CK and generate, sometimes it's bad because those loose files will override anything in a BA2. So if you add in, say, a Vault 111 exterior mod that has it's own precom/previs (one of mine does) then your loose files will break the precom on the new mod and you'll get issues.

 

Now the mod you linked has precom/previs in it's BA2. Actually that's all the BA2 is. So your new files are overwriting those, but not necessarily ALL of those. Miss even one for whatever reason and you get problems depending on which way you are looking.

 

If you are going to generate your own because you are building on the mod you should move "NEWSANCTUARY - main.BA2" to some other temporary location so that it won't get loaded. Basically take the mod's pregenerated files out of the picture. Then use the CK to generate entirely new precom/previs.

 

Also, one thing I've found useful is to create a base level precom/previs for Sanctuary. I load JennCave's Clean and Simple for the area in the CK, remove all the houses, then generate new files. By doing this I make sure no matter what I scrap in Sanctuary it won't result in world tearing. I take a small performance hit doing this, but nothing like I'd get if I removed the wrong house and broke everything.

Basically i emptied the folders where new precombs and vis would go and deleted the Ba2 files keeping only the Esp file...and regen with that and all new fresh vis and precombs..

Using the method with "clean and simple" is a no go for me...my buildings are not scols,nifs etc... they are 50-100 pieces each and fully decorated...etc... Would be impossible to move...It would be easier to start the mod from scratch...

As for lights etc mentioned above...I have all ready removed anything that causes issues in the problem cells...(fog,shadow lights etc ..)... The problem is in that specific cell that is either loading something i cant see or is connected to another area somehow and loading unrelated objects.

[greekrage]

LOL just lol...

I dont even know how this is possible....

Remember when i said someone found stuff from sanctuary at cambridge ?

Well it was true...

I was looking at the mod through Fo4edit and noticed that in the worldspace there was a location not related to sanctuary...

It was Greentech at cambridge...So now that i knew the exact cell i went hunting ...and there they were...All most touching the surface (this is why i couldnt see them before )...there were 2 clusters ( yes clusters)..of all the stuff i had removed from sanctuary tightly packed into little packages with over 300 objects one inside the other.

Now im sure as are you that i couldnt possibly do that while editing (especially putting everything in one spot) and then magically transport everything to a specific cell under cambridge.

A) when i was modding sanctuary i didnt remove all that stuff in one or 2 sessions...I was moving around the location cell by cell .

B) a lot of this stuff was "persistent" (doors,gates,containers etc.)...

C) selecting anything would show links going way outside of the area (probably sanctuary)

 

The real issue ..

How do i get rid of that stuff ?

Editing anything in that cell keeps me linked to greentech...

 

I went and did batch Initially disabled and hidden from local map and then ran it through Fo4edit (autocleanup) but when i went back into the game all those persistent objects showed up in sanctuary.

 

Can anyone explain this insanity ?

 

Im sure this is the cause of the fps issues i have in that mod....but have no idea how to fix it...

 

Also note..

In my mind...im sure that im looking at 2 cells in one (or should i say objects from 2 cells)

because when i look at the problem cell that drops frames im also looking at the greentech cell that is probably loaded..

The same happens at Greentech ..and lag there is even worse...

[aurreth]

So you have what is called a "dirty edit", things being changed in areas totally unrelated to the mod. Use FO4Edit to delete the Cambridge records, just prune out that whole branch. It's a lot easier with FO4Edit than it is with the CK. That will restore Greentech to vanilla.

Edited August 7, 2021 by aurreth