[Help] Changing Limit in Cell: Max Number of Spawn

[laclongquan]

We all know there's a max number of enemies in cell, and if active hostiles were turned into corpses, those corpses would be despawned to allow other active (previously invisible) hostiles to appear. This could be instantanous, or could take a few minutes for engine to calculate. Example would be Final Hoover Dam, particularly the interior plant cells if you use a spawn mod that add more hostile to that battle for example. Or hell, Fallout3, the central metro map that open to several other metro maps. That one has plenty of active hostiles, and if you use any mod that add more hostiles to that one, all the (vanilla designed) dead corpses would be despawned so they could appear. Or even better, Deathclaw Sanctuary. If you dont ever visit it at all, and the first visit is after Enclave invasion start, all the extra spawns appeared in that stage will be together with the things designed from beginning stage, and make a lot of corpses disappeared. No need for mod, just timing.

It is the bane to players dealing with those humongous maps.

My question is: is there a way to raise the limit of max enemies for one specific cell. NOT all cells, since that could tax engine and can create CTD on lower to middle rigs.

@JimboUK , @madmongo ,HALP????

Edited September 10 by laclongquan

[JimboUK]

I'm not aware of any limit, I've spawned large numbers of enemies for screenshots and I've not noticed any corpses despawning when I've spawned more, all that happens is the frame rate keeps dropping until it turns into slideshow and crashes. I know the dam is set up differently, corpses are moved to an inaccessible cell for performance reasons. There is a setting to despawn enemies quickly (SetSceneIsComplex) but as far as I know it's only used once and only on the PS3. 

[laclongquan]

Weird. I met that kind of the things plenty of times. Some in vanilla cells, like F3' Metro central. some in modders' works, like Raider Sewer mod, and some in cells I built.

 

[JimboUK]

Of course me not noticing something doesn't mean it's not there, but I've been up to my knees in corpses in FO3 with Mart's Mutant Mod - Increased increased Spawns and with things like Warzones in New Vegas. 

[madmongo]

I added a bunch of raiders west of New Vegas, and I have occasionally noticed that not all of them are there the first time I go through that area. They usually show up later once there are fewer NPCs in that area.

So I know the issue does exist. I'm not sure if it's a hard limit based on the number of creatures or NPCs in a cell or if it is based on available memory. If you spawn a bunch of identical creatures, that is going to use less memory than spawning the same number of unique creatures or NPCs just due to the fewer number of textures that the game has to load.

If memory is the limit, then you can't really change that limit. FNV is a 32 bit game, and a 32 bit memory offset maxes out at 2 GB (4 GB with the patch). So the game is physically not able to address more memory than that, no matter how much memory you have in your system.

One thing that can dramatically reduce your memory usage is to use lower quality texture settings. Also, avoid high resolution texture packs. They make the game look better, but they also make the game run out of memory and crash sooner.

FNV leaks memory, especially in its texture caching system, so using lower quality textures will also allow you to play the game longer before the game crashes from running out of memory.

Unfortunately, that's the choice that you are stuck with. You can have a game that looks better, or you can have a game that doesn't look as good but is more stable and can load more NPCs and creatures in a given area without crashing. You can't have both.

I personally have my Texture Quality set to Medium, and I never use high resolution texture mods. I can usually play the game for hours without it crashing. If I set it the Texture Quality to high, I'll get a crash within about 15 to 20 minutes, almost guaranteed, especially in areas where I have added a lot of creatures or NPCs.

[laclongquan]

Damn~ I think those TTW modders would know about this, but they closed their forum recently so I cant ask there.

[JimboUK]

I think this game can handle a lot more than people give it credit for given the age and limitations, as long as the game is set up right and stable you can throw a ton of stuff at it as long as you don't use too much memory, but the more you throw at it the worse the performance gets, for me crashes are rare though. I did an experiment some years ago that kinda proves it, I spawned 250 followers, all identical to avoid memory issues and they all worked flawlessly but the performance was terrible, especially when it came to cell transitions where the game froze for several seconds while the next cell loaded, but the only thing that crashed was FRAPS. 

[laclongquan]

My rig is a lower-middle range. So 250 is right out of its capability. Even 100 is no go. The heaviest scene, that would make it stutter and despawn corpses right in front of my eyes, would be Final Hoover Dam, and The battle over Bridge keyes in DC (TTW). I think that can count to 70 active, total on all sides, from creatures/NPCs to booming animations and energy bolts (which add to graphic demands)

EDIT: to illustrate, the Ambush at the start of HH campaign that kill off the entire Happy Trail caravan. I add 8 more whitelegs to that battle, and the two guards are gone before I even kill off those extra that gathered by the bridge thus end battle~

 

Edited September 16 by laclongquan