Performance Issues

[Paramar]

Actually, your problem might well be with the Nvidia drivers, and not with the Gamebryo engine.

For some reason, Nvidia drives after a certain version (178 as far as i am able to ascertain, though some claim 182) have a problem with Fallout, and prevent the smoothest runs.

Since you use the 200 series of graphic cards, version 178 of the Nvidia drivers won't help you. But support for the 200 series started with 180, so you can try that drivers' issue, and perhaps even 182, and see what happens.

for me, with my 9800 gtx+, rolling back to 178 solved almost any problems I had that were display-related. I hope this helps.

 

 

By the way - as annoyed as you might be about your problem, there is no reason to be rude in these forums; this is not a professional service that has to swallow your crap, just a forum filled with enthusiasts who are willing to share their own experience.

 

-Paramar

[csb]

You can find the latest nVidia drivers on their site: Official nVidia Drivers Page.

[Balorawn]

Ugh.. I have all my drivers updated Csb. I also know people here don't have the swallow my crap, it's just annoying.

[Balorawn]

Ok, I just down graded to 180.42 for the nvidia drivers. I notice a performance gain, but I still have to run it at only high settings at a low resolution.

 

A GTX 260 core-216 shouldn't have an issue with running the game at a higher resolution. Maybe my crappy motherboard is bottleknecking me. I guess I'll just buy another motherboard, processor, ram, and a sound card.

[csb]

Balorawn: No, it shouldn't. The other issue could be codecs. Get K-Lite and install it. The new versions disable Oblivion and Fallout3 fddshow by default (though it is easy to set them as exclusions). Disabling fddshow helps many overcome video issues (including screen freezes) and often provides a significant fps rate boost as well.

[Balorawn]

Wow, that k-lite codec pack helped some. The only time I notice FPS drop is when I'm in an area with like 30 NPCs coming at me (This is due to MMM) It'll sometimes drop down to 30 because of fire or something, but will go to the mid 40s and back to normal around 60-75 after I killed everything.

 

So.. Tweaked INI, K-Lite, and older drivers = better performance. Well, at least I can play on Ultra settings now without having much of a head ache. I appreciate the help you guys have given me.

 

Uhh, do you all think you could give me some tips on how to get VATS to open faster? Depending on the area I'm facing or what's going on, VATS sometimes takes about 3-4 seconds to load. Sometimes it's instant, sometimes it's not. Can anyone recommend anything to fix this?

 

Oh and, if there are any other issues that could be caused by something, can you all let me know? My friend is having crap FPS and his hardware should at the least because to run it on medium with a stable FPS, so hopefully some of these fixes will help him too.

[spammster]

well, theres only one more thing i could think of:

 

use a program, that runs in the background and like every 30 minutes removes unused files from your RAM.

 

Fallout tends to put stuff in there and just leaves it there even if you no longer need it.

 

example:

 

start a DLC like anchorage, all anchorage files have been loaded into your ram when you finished it, however you will never go there again, yet the files are still in your ram (at least until you restart the game).

 

though if you have more than 4 GB of free RAM this is useless, even if you play for hours without end, fallout doesn't use more than 3 GB of RAM (incl. DLC's) at least on XP.

[csb]

There is a mod that clears cell buffers. It hasn't (to my satisfaction anyway) proved itself as 100% reliable. But I run it anyway, since it doesn't seem to induce any CTDs. Clearing game stuff (particularly buffers in memory) from an out-of-game process could introduce a whole host of other issues. It's just a hunch though :) ... it would take a lot of testing to prove/disprove. I'd lean toward the in-game method (the mod that clears cell buffers) before an external one.

[spammster]

@csb: your solution to that prob is prolly the better one :D

 

I just mentioned it from the top of my head, i haven't tested a mem cleaner on fallout, i gots me my 8 GB of RAM and as said, after hours of gameplay it never exceeded 3 GB usuage (including all DLC's and a midrange modlist (I actually am kinda picky what i add, don't think i use more than 20 mods or so)) so I always have enough free RAM left so that i don't run into RAM issues.

 

and personally, Fallout has actually run quite stable for me, never had crashes or freezes etc. in the original content of the game. Some mods cause a freeze from time to time, when i manage to pull a stupid move and end up in what not corner, that prolly has no navmesh cause it was never supposed to be walked upon.

 

also for fun: left of the National Guard depo you can get over the rubble pile without using tcl, you end up in fallout 3 texture sandbox mode (you can't go back from there though, so if anyone tests that, save before you do that and/or pick yourself a nice COCmarker you can get to)

[Olurum]

As you were asking for whatever else may improve peformance:

 

Unfortunately in Fallout 3 VSync is enabled at all times, even if [the] box is unticked [in the options]. You can force VSync off by editing the iPresentInterval=1 variable in the Fallout.ini file to iPresentInterval=0 (See the Advanced Tweaking section). You should also check to make sure your graphics card's control panel doesn't have VSync forced on - whether via a specific Fallout 3 game profile or in the global options (see the Nvidia Forceware Tweak Guide or ATI Catalyst Tweak Guide for more details). Disabling VSync should be the optimal option, as it can increase framerates and more importantly, it will reduce mouse lag. However unfortunately in Fallout 3 it can also increase the micro-stuttering/juddering/skipping issue (as covered in the Troubleshooting Tips section). In any case experiment to see what your results are with this setting, though again, remember that it can only be turned off properly by manually editing the relevant line in the .ini file mentioned above. If you just want to reduce mouse lag without disabling VSync, see the Max Frames to Render Ahead tweak on the last page of this guide.

 

You may already know this though as you mentioned INI tweaks... but it's possible to have skipped over articles/paragraphs talking about v-sync and this 'bug', seeing as v-sync is something most people know about.