Blue Screens of Death

[fap6000]

Yah I know, Here is two simple examples. MMM feral ghoul rampage is 5X feral ghouls, but the mod also uses 1024 or 2048 texture maps for feral ghouls. But the whole idea for feral ghouls is to make them look like crap, plus they run very fast. When you take a 2048 map an shrink it in 96 pixels a inch or more in super sampling best quality, so that it's now 1024, you actually gain sharpness, you loose maybe 1% of detail (but that's only if you are standing next to it looking at it with a sniper rifle scope) If there isn't transparency (alpha) then you can also encode this texture in DXT-1 (which ignores alpha) giving it 8:1 compression. So that 5,000k of data which was the 2048 map becomes 500k of data, also you now know for sure it has mip-maps encoded into it as well. This would mean that you could now set a feral ghoul rampage spawn setting that is 10 times higher and get the same performance as the default. You know give or take a bit on the numbers. I've never tried it myself too busy, but I do use 512 sized maps for the feral ghouls with the default spawn rate, eventually I'll hammer out all these performance issues on my system an be able to run more chaos.

 

Another example is the HD texture packs, you could get the largest detailed maps available. Then they would be something like 4096 sized maps, an could have sizes of 16,000k or more, shrink that in steps of 50% 4096 to 2048, save it, 2048 to 1024, save it, 1024 to 512, save it, open it one last time an 512 to 256, and now it's the same size meaning the same performance of the vanilla textures for landscape or whatever, only 75% of that detail from the HD texture would still be there. I've never done it, but I reckon you would get better results from testing which actually works an how much performance it has. It could be that the largest detailed maps only need to be shrunk to 1024 or 512 in order to provide a balance of detail an performance (in the 90% original detail range) , which would depend on how much of a texture god the original creator was, meaning did they encode to the correct DXT language with the mip-maps in there too. Anything you do in this department gives you very large performance gains, meaning you can now create more chaos without dropping FPS performance. But it's important to test an back up, so that you don't lose any detail. Also it wouldn't be possible without the very huge HD detail maps that were created, so tanks to those folks for making them.

 

 

*EDIT* OH SORRY the default size of landscape textures is 512, I forgeted, so that's plenty of room for detail, an using a 1024 might work well for it, but I kind of think 512 would be best *EDIT*

[Phalanx21]

also take into account, the more mods/loose files that you are loading into Fallout when you boot it, even little things like opening movies, increase the packets that your computer has to send and creates more haul on the CPU, and less space on the RAM, so bec areful when adding too many mods, i personally dont use aeisthetic mods or any mods that take up alot of space! I also only play on Medium, i get a good 45-60 fps and it looks good!

[fap6000]

"You might want to rethink your mindset, unless you are using a computer over 5 years old right now. It's just a thought, and I don't mean to step on your toes if I have. But from what you have said you pretty much have stepped on the toes of the whole PC gamer community, as well as spewing forth information which the end user of mods doesn't want to hear here, while also missing out on quite a bit of awesome stuff, yourself, from just being too scared to get your hands dirty. That being said, I'll say it's an interesting perspective, I'll give you that... Please allow meh to retort :D Thank you drive thru..."

 

What year were you in before you stepped out of the time machine? I'm sorry, you're all wrong. I don't know where you picked up this mindset. Makes me want to ask you who fed you that line? You're basicly ignoring a entire branch of technology developed over the last 30 years to allow the further development of gaming. I mean Geez the current technology is 4 times faster than we even need, with the next gen tech being 4-8 times faster. You might get a computer science major, network person, or programer to agree with you. But no PC gamer is going to adopt that way of thinking, in fact they go the opposite way, to their own death if needed. I reckon that's what makes us customers. Cheers...

 

If you ask me, the whole .BSA turd thing, is just a way to save disk space. There's almost zero raw performance gain from using them, certianly when you start modding things. In either case it's a primary cause for many issues. Then the ideal situation for creating mods you would have every file already unpacked "loose", as the GECK ships out with near zero usable content included in the application. That's kind of a drag if you ask me. Anyway folks that have unpacked their entire .BSA library won't notice any performance drop in the game. I'm sure there is one, but it's not something you will notice. At some point you have to consider things as counting beans, just because some performance gains are very small while others are very large. Which is beside the point, as you very well could download every mod, then optimize that, and pack it into new .BSA's eventually replacing the vanilla ones an archive invalidation invalidated. Which is also very silly as there are plenty of games which use completely unpacked "loose" files

 

My fallout 3 folder is over 14Gb in raw data size. The actual size I end up with isn't even a factor in the performance aspect. If the content is created following the rules for the technology we use then there isn't a problem going up to 30Gb. I'll never be able to max out SATA 3.0, never. This all breaks down into the 192ft by 192ft cells of the worldspace which we can not change, move the things in each cell around, yes, as to balance it. Then indoors keeping the cells overall size limited by linking it to other cells, spliting up the loading times, which the primary performance would be set based off room ports culling, how many lights are in the cell, and the actual size of data placed in the cell. Anything over 100Mb adds to the loading time of around 23mS, but there's many vanilla cells both in the worldpspace and indoors in the 100Mb-200Mb range, mind you that the GECK will turn the border of the screen red for anything over 100Mb suggesting that it be balanced. Spliting up that content by spreading it out in the vast almost never ending amount of game space. Then your secondary factors basicly follow suit in the form of chaos from AI an physics, with global performance effecting both from the raw content, meshes, textures, sounds, and the rules for them.

 

All it does when it boots is create the file path library, it doesn't actually load that until you enter an area of the game space which has it. If that were the case fallout 3 would take 5 minutes to boot up even running a vanilla game. Then the .Esp an .Esm are very small parts of the big picture, you can load up a whole list of 150 mods with FO3edit in about 1 minute. 45-60 FPS isn't even noticeable with the human eye, then when you go to the new age of screen resolution such as 1600X1200 or vista's weird 1400X1200 an such, most displays max out on 30FPS Vsync, then if one were to opt to disable that, which some would argue isn't even possible. You'll find that in times of great chaos, that physics data is put on hold thus to allow the frame rate to catch up which is even a worse situation. Something like that, I'll admit I don't fully grasp it, because basicly the effects of going to great measures to get more than the human eye can detect as far as frame rates seem nulled by the issues it could cause, pfft so I ignored it. Fallout was designed to run on Vsync, so I never have to attempt to get anything more than 30 FPS using 1600X1200 native. I guess you could use a non-native resolution, trading off detail for better physics, seems like a better idea to use SLI an have physics on a second card thus keeping the native resolution, but that's only if there were performance issues with running high native resolutions with your 8000 an 9000 series cards.

 

This load order I only notice long loading times if it's a cell with a vast amount of content in it. Think 40,000 items and 8 or more lights, or 80 weapons with 8 lights using 1024 sized maps. If I were to notice that, it's totally fixable, just spread that stuff out, or heck disable some of that bulk... What you have said is true for your personal computer and fallout 3 build/install. That's as far as it will ever go. I think you'll find that most people will see it as a rather close minded viewpoint. I think it's interesting, but I can't say it's helpful, unless you told it to someone that was using the same computer hardware that you use.

[fap6000]

Ha! Maybe I'm totally wrong. Idk look at this insanity. Makes me want to scream "STOP THIS MADNESS" An adopt Phalanx21's mindset...

 

http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o294/eiffU/Fallout32010-06-2823-19-49-54.jpg

 

http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o294/eiffU/Fallout32010-06-2821-15-46-93.jpg

 

http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o294/eiffU/Fallout32010-07-1204-07-13-60.jpg

 

http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o294/eiffU/Fallout32010-07-1203-51-32-64.jpg

 

http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o294/eiffU/Fallout32010-07-1203-56-36-60.jpg

 

http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o294/eiffU/Fallout32010-07-1203-57-08-75.jpg

 

http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o294/eiffU/Fallout32010-07-1203-57-15-76.jpg

 

http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o294/eiffU/Fallout32010-07-1204-03-40-32.jpg

 

http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o294/eiffU/Fallout32010-07-1204-05-17-26.jpg

[phoneyLogic]

@fap6000

Not everyone is using a high end system.

But there indeed can be a performance hit if you have too many files. Keep in mind that there always is a little delay going through things like the master file table, the registry and defragmented files. Just because that you don't consider any performance hit it doesn't mean that it doesn't exist :wink:

You just have a certain time for every file access, which is indeed considerably small.

 

But you easily can verify this by doing the following:

Unpack the texture bsa to somwhere on your hd.

Now take you a clock to take the time.

 

Take a packer and create an achive of the extrackted bsa, but don't use a compression level, just choose sth like "save" only. Now the archive should have exactly the same size like the extracted texture bsa folder.

Now take your stopwatch and take the time how long it takes to copy the extracted folder with the loose files and how long it takes with the 1:1 archive.

You should get a difference even with you highend system :wink:

[HiddenLurker]

lol you know what, actually the problem wasnt solved but it was IMPROVED. anyway thanks guys for your help. i think im just gonna re-install my f3, start a new game and place in only the really good and important mods, as well as put moderate graphic settings only, not max.

 

before i even started using mods, my fallout 3 only gave me a bsod very occasionally. now, its giving me bsods alot. but the wierd part is, i only get a bsod in VATS mode. if i play the whole game without using VATS i think there wont be any problems.

 

and before you start saying my graphics card is failing, i can play every other game on relatively high settings with little to no error.

[fap6000]

Ever contact bethesda support, I sure wouldn't listen to anyone else until I did that. Geez, go to set program access an defaults, un-install the whole .net framework family, and Visual C++ if you have it, or any other 3rd party software you are not sure of that you use, then go to microsoft auto updates an get a scan. Be sure to get the . net framework family an whatever Visual C++ it says you need. Idk worth a shot to mess with foundation software, some folks swear by it. From there the BSOD boils down to either the infinate loop bug in drivers or MOBO or your grapics card is about to die. So you could try updating you BIOS, using different drivers. Basicly look into the issue which starts with a blue screen reader (in order to read the mini-dump created when it BSOD) to point the finger, Then you either search an look into the things I mentioned or wait for your grapics card to die an get a new one. However your best bet would be to contact bethesda support an wait till they hit you back.

 

I totally agree with all three of you crazy rascalz. You make a valid point, good luck with that. Seems like editing content in order to provide vanilla like performance when using a MMM 4-8 spawn rate in order to get median 6 spawns is more fun though. Just because I've never done it. This basicly boils down to having optimized textures for the NPC's then have vanilla fire rates for any player made fully automatic weapon that might be in their leveled item list. It's pretty fun to play, like the 20-30 or so BOS that spawn in the mall after you get the dish, pretty much all get killed, even though I help them, and I get killed too, I reckon about 9 out of 10 times, everyone in the mall dies. Which is totally awesome.

 

I'll probably never reach that point, but it seems to me, after I have downloaded, installed, fixed, tested so that I get rid of crashes an coruption. Then tested again for a good long while, working out performance issues. That it might be a good idea to unpack my .BSA, drop my crappy loose files over that, then combine the whole thing into new .BSA that replace the vanilla ones. But like I said, I'll never reach that point where the only option I have to gain performance is to deal with the loose files. It sure would be nice if I did. I kind of feel like I'd get bored with the load order an start over before that point, but we'll see.

 

Wait, I have a high end system? Seariously I just keep this thing running until the next gen technology gets cheaper. I still use windows XP home 32, an a 8 year old pentium 4 550 HT, true it has a ASUS P5N-D, but only one grapics card, and it's using DDR2 800 because of the old CPU. The thing that seemed to make the most difference was going to a video card with 1Gb of onboard memory, which I think is DDR3 memory Idk It's a PNY 9800 GT energy saver. I mean you say high end system to me, and I think either the Intel I3, I5, I7, especially the 5 and 7 from their abilty to hyperthread on each single multi core, or the AMD insane FSB speeds you get when using their very cheap duel an quad core extreme chips, DDR3 RAM, 64 bit O/S an the ability to use Direct X 10, Geez the insane amount of pipes you get with a 200 series card, or ATI's new take on where the video cards are going that blew things out of the water, KABOOM, Those fancy new raptor drives, RAID. That's the high end stuff I reckon. I just use cheap stuff, and it's in 1600X1200 native so that's very taxing on what little power I have. I pretty much built it to play games on, idk if that makes it high end. I guess if you compare it to the stuff you buy that's already put together.

 

Ever hear of bUseBackgroundFileLoader=1 ?????

[phoneyLogic]

@HiddenLurker

As far as I understand your whole system is running well with other games and only fallout tends to crash. I wouldn't try to update the bios unless your system is older than 10 yars. fap6000 made a good point with suggesting updating certain drivers. Especially audio driver, gfx card driver, .net framework and ms visual cc can help.

But you really should consider that your gfx card might be stressed with the amount of intensive mods you have.

Did you overclock the card? Here might be another reason if you did.

 

A clean reinstall of Fallout can seriously improve the situation. Try to run a vanilla game and have a look if the bsod returns. Check out the reinstall suggestion in this article: http://www.fallout3nexus.com/articles/article.php?id=90 ,

VI ) Reinstalling Fallout 3

 

 

@fap6000

Okey then, it's a matter of your own system. Just forget about unpacking BSAs and creating new ones. Maybe since you have RAID the hd speed shouldnt be the weak spot of your system anyway. HDs just provide the data, processing is another story ;). It's just a problem of how an OS is organized. They slow down with the time compared to a fresh install. The reasons for the slow down are the said things like the crowing file structure, growing registry, growing MFT ... Every file access tends to take longer and longer as these organisation structures are crowing.

 

Ha! Maybe I'm totally wrong. Idk look at this insanity. Makes me want to scream "STOP THIS MADNESS" An adopt Phalanx21's mindset...

Diid you got crashes as well?

[HiddenLurker]

ok thanks! and uh..........oh i forgot to mention, the error code is always 00000007e? (or something like that) and i've updated my drivers to the latest version, it improved the situation but not 100% solve the problem. Oh and uh....the problem is always nv4_disp.dll or something like that. and no i did not overclock my card.

[phoneyLogic]

What about your power supply? Does it have enough power to feed the card? (If it doesn't have, then it can crash that way)

Also check your temps, might be an overheating problem.

http://www.cpuid.com/softwares/hwmonitor.html

 

And try to catch the whole error report e.g from the event log next time.

XP: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/308427

Vista: http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows-vista/Open-Event-Viewer