Good ol' VATS lag

[Confessed]

I'm sure everyone knows about the infamous VATS lag. I can't get rid of it. I've tried other forums and nothing is helping. I figured this would be the best place to ask. So is there a fix to the annoying VATS lag?

[fap6000]

/bump

 

Can you discribe it? Can you duplicate it in new game starts? Can you duplicate it in the vanilla game? I reckon tell us the hardware you use an which mods you use in what order if any... You might find something in Bethesda support, heck even UF3P might say something about it (unoffical fallout 3 patch) you know in the read me, it's a pretty discriptive list of issues. Performance loss from the cell buffer can cause many performance issues. I won't go into it, you can find the discription if you look around or look in "in so many words" guide somewhere. http://fallout3nexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=13100 it's around 5ish

 

It will lag a little bit if there is a combat situation going on in the background. Background as in, that in many cases at any one point in the wasteland there's fights going on which don't involve the PC. This is culled most times (not rendered) but it's still happening even when you can't see it. There's been times that it's happening even in my distant LOD which is like 200-300 yards away. You get the same effect with just a lot of things going on, like maybe the AI sandbox data is figuring out what the NPC wants to do or something, only it's a mass of data because there's tons of sandboxed NPC's, or like creatures on patrol. Even say a lot of data being thrown into the video card memory, basicly system tax. The VATS lag should only really be noticed durring times like these above. I reckon you could see how it works while inside, and if it's still doing it. Then maybe it's a problem with your system build, hardware or software. Maintenance comes in too if it didn't always do this laggy thing. Defraging drives, cleaning the registry, deleting you internet history an temp files, and heck maybe even purge the windows prefetch folder if you roll like that. Most of this stuff gets taken care of from viral protection software, besides the obvious benifits from opting to use one. You still need to purge your trash bin though.

 

Settings come into play. Fallout 3 was designed to run on high settings on 8000 series Nvida cards. But depending on your prefs, you might want one thing over another, so you need to make a trade off in order to do so. It could be the case that on your system you need to reduce the draw distances or heck even use Tweeks based off the current problem you have. http://www.tweakguid...Fallout3_1.html Like for example I don't use shadows I turn it off even though I use a 9800 GT card, the reason why is because it's stupid. It will only produce shadows on charicters, and only then on the set amount that are closest to the Player, so you end up seeing shadows that disapear an come back as things move around. Depth of field is only active when you are in a dialog menu with a NPC, so it seems kind of silly to use it. It might effect VATS to, as when you zoom in on a NPC when in dialog the game gets paused the same kind of way as when you VATS. Then the radial blur effect's whole purpose is to make things look like crap, so why bother using high quality crap.

 

Hardware is pretty simple if you don't have enough then start turning things down acordingly an back up the changes with tests. Software on the other hand is quite a complex diagnosis plus each persons computer is going to have different amounts an kinds of foundation software, on top of being different O/S. Pretty much each time I install a O/S it turns out different, better or worse. They only last about 6 months before it's a mess again as far as PC gamers view it. This last build of windows XP 32 home I made, I pretty much installed it, then installed the grapics driver that came with my video card, the drivers for my motherboard chipset (internet), and my soundcard stuff. After that everything else I got from Microsoft updates. Just go to the web-page for it, then install the active X, it scans you O/S then offers High priority updates. I don't really read much into the High priority updates, but I will look at optionals an open the + sign an read them to see if I need it. I made sure I got the whole family of .net framework (dot net framework) which is like 1.0 1.5 2.0 2.5 3.0 or something like that. I also have a copy of Visual C++ 2005 redist and Direct X which was updated via the high priority updates. Some Cats say that un-installing either Visual C++ or .Net framework has cleared up issues in Fallout 3.

 

Then you have dirty mods that come into play. This is just because there's no way for a modder to create a mod that is going to work with all the other mods. Then the end user comes up with their own custom load order. Which is for the most part un-tested. There's tons of crashing an coruption which directly links to how well the load order was made to work together. This developed as fallout 3 players progessed over the last year, to where now most people have custom version of each mod from opening it with FO3edit an making edits to this an that so it all works together. There's no way to avoid the testing part though, which takes many hours on top of the build of fallout, and fixing of fallout. For example I have about 40 hours just fixing what I have installed, it took a while to install it too, but now it's pretty much just test, then as things come up, I go fix it.

[Confessed]

Hardware is a non-issue. I have a 5850, 4GB RAM, and Phenom II X4 @ 3.4GHz. I keep everything in good condition and keep my OS clean.

 

I've tried running settings from Ultra to Medium and I still get the issue. To be specific, when I press V for VATS, it zooms in but doesn't give the percentages or let me select body parts for about 2 seconds. I can still move the mouse around, it's not freezing, just doesn't let me select body parts or show hit percentage. I've heard of many people with this problem and never seen a fix.

 

The only fix I've found is recording with FRAPS. And I am not willing to fill up hard drive space and then go and delete all the files just to play the game.

[phoneyLogic]

Have you patched with 1.7?

http://www.fallout3nexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=8216

[Confessed]

Have you patched with 1.7?

http://www.fallout3nexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=8216

 

Yes, I have.

 

Also I should add that the only mod I have is the Fallout Stutter Remover.

[phoneyLogic]

Hmm, normally the VATS lag has been fixed with 1.7

Have you already checked your gfx settings?

[Confessed]

Hmm, normally the VATS lag has been fixed with 1.7

Have you already checked your gfx settings?

 

What do you mean? What settings should I be looking at?

 

I'm not getting any fps drop when going into VATS, just the selection/percentage delay.

[fap6000]

Stutter fix, yah okay. It said you needed FOSE to run it. But I mean who said you needed that Stutter fix. Even if it were the case that you would need it, I seariously doubt the person that made that fix was running fallout 3 on a Phenom X4 & 5850, besides the many other ways your system an their system are different. Geez what if that person was using Intel an Nvida dealing with Intel an Nvida problems. You got to tink about these things! IT'S YOUR DUTY! ha ha ha Nah man I'm just kidding...

 

Okay so you probably don't need these fancy hacks to get fallout 3 to work, and there's no way we can rule them out as a cause. Pretty much you need to start with a vanilla game untouched in any way. Then dupicate the problem to see if you still have VATS lag. Many settings once you pick them or change them, certianly things which the stutter fix .dll's are dealing with, thanks to FOSE, would end up getting locked inside the save game. Hence start a new game when you run your tests. Now you wouldn't need a new one each time you test, just each time you test after you have changed something.

 

Stutter, seariously... I'd bet the farm, what most people are viewing as stutter is just over taxed Cell buffers full of useless data. Most noted as you first enter the wasteland then running around for 30 minutes an now the performance is really bad. That's because the data from the cells you just ran across is trapped in the cell buffer. But gawd don't go off running to get another fancy hacker crap version of a mod to fix it, there's plenty of ways to deal with either stutter or cell buffer issues which are already built into the game engine.

 

"in so many words" guide might help you come up with a plan. If you wanted to, you could just fly solo an go to the tweek guide an try stuff, but you won't really get results until you understand what the tweek guide is talking about, you know what all those fancy settings actually do, which the tweekguide is old, so some of is outdated info, but you can't go wrong listening to the tweekguide.

 

"In So Many Words" guide

 

TweekGuide

 

Exerpt, is that what you call it, taken from ISMW guide found in "the 12 pages you skipped" section, but I don't feel like writing this out.

 

1. Install the vanilla game in it's own folder on the hard drive. C:/bethesda softworks or D:/bethesda softworks, not the default C:/program files/bethesda softworks. It might not even do anything at this point, but it's a good way to honor the old ways...

 

2. Download an run the 1.7 patch. If you have GOTY edition, download an run the 1.7 patch anyway. GOTY ships with the 1.7 patch build into it, but some users have cleared up issues from running the 1.7 patch on the GOTY edition, hence patch it!

 

3. Install FOMM, FOSE, GECK, GECK update, and FO3edit, which all go to C:/bethesda softworks/fallout 3. From now on anytime you launch fallout 3 it's done with FOMM, so have a short cut on the desktop for FOMM, FOMM will auto detect FOSE if installed, and it should say "Launch FOSE" on one of those fancy FOMM buttons.

 

4. Now what you want to do is provide a subjective test phase for the vanilla game. Don't change anything else yet. What you want to do is launch fallout 3 via FOMM, then create RAOTW (random a**hole of the wastes) charicters, yes more than one. Then run around in the game creating chaos, an trying to make it crash. Basicly do stuff you would never do. This will provide you with a baseline of how fallout 3 will run on your system. Plus the more game play the better. DON'T INSTALL OR LOAD YOUR DLC'S YET.

 

5. Read the tweek guide, yah the whole fraking thing to advanced tweeks 3. It's pretty dead on accurate, however Teh tweek guide downplays 3 settings which are pretty important later on, once you add mods, if not inportant even in vanilla fallout. The first one is subjective, bUseBackgroundFileLoader=0, if it's changed to a 1 it's enabled. I use it but like I said it's subjective. TG says it cause problems for some players computer systems in oblivion, but that isn't saying anything other than rumor an isn't even relivant to the fallout 3 game. What I do is if I have a problem I duplicate it first, only I go to my fallout.ini an turn the BackgroundFileLoader off, then if the problem happens again it's not related to background file loading, hence why it's activated on my fallout 3 game.

 

-----5.1 The 2nd an 3rd settings the TG downplays are not subjective. This will make things better on any build of fallout on any computer in the long run. These settings are "bSeletivePurgeUnusedOnFastTravel=0" and "bPreemptivelyUnloadCells=0" If set to a 1 they are enabled. These two settings will get rid of about 90% of the manual Cell buffer purges that a player would need to do as maintenance once in-game. Which is a huge drag, you have to open the console an type in commands like a programer when you should just be playing the game putting heads on posts out in the desert. There are mods that center around purging the cell buffer on so many actions by the player, opening 6 doors, fast traveling 4 times, but these mods are known to cause crashes from conflicts with other mods if not the fallout 3 game engine, so don't use them.

 

----5.2 Sometimes you still need a manual PCB. Say you are running across the actual wasteland, an the framerate is starting to stutter. The wasteland is made up of about a 2-3 square mile area on a 10 square mile map of land. This area is broken down into cells with each cell being 192 feet by 192 feet, then the cells further grouped into what's called a quad, something like 16x16 cells. BURP! It's filled with all kinds of stuff, so you might want to open the console when the frame rate drops, an type in "PCB" this will purge the poopy data in the cell buffer. Thus improving performance as well as avoiding coruption. However this is very dangerous, the PCB you just did can cause a crash, but thankfully not everytime. If it is crashing when you PCB like this you need to try the safe way below

 

----5.3 The only near 100% safe way to PCB I know of besides the two settings which set the fallout 3 game engine to automaticly purge. Are from walking thru a door, then PCB, then spin around an walk out the door, which forces a reload of the cell only with a clean cell buffer. The other way is from the Groovatron mod, which if you press X will allow you to place a teliport marker anywhere, press X again you can teliport to the all black room, PCB, Press X teliport to the white room, spin the camera around, press X again an teliport back into the place you put the teliport marker, however this will also reset your weather, so you need to exit a door that goes into the actual wasteland, such as the megaton door, which will reload the current lighting an weather settings. The spin around in the white room is to avoid missing normal maps an gloss on objects once you go back. But as it's been updated Groovatron doesn't do this as much anymore.

 

6. Holly cow I never thought I'd get to #6!!!! At this point you want to run another subjective test phase on your fallout 3 build only after tweeking it. Focus on minimizing the stutter, and check for microstutter, which are two different things. Stutter happens as you run across the wasteland, an between the Quads 16X16 cells, the LOD (level of detail draw distance) is loading an culling (fading) what's being rendered. It's important to focus on because the TG goes over ways to reduce it. As you run fast in certian points it will start skipping frames, an apears as stutter, this is grapical lag from the system catching up. Micro stutter is caused from mouse lag an if you have it then you have bigger problems than the microstutter. Really it depends on how much Video card RAM you have. 512Mb I had stutter, but could reduce it, an anytime that it happened I would stop running an let the system catch up (as to avoid it causing a crash) But now with a 1Gb video card I hardly have any stutter at all.

 

-----6.1 Fallout 3 is rendering 4 times as much on screen at any given point in time over privious games. Hence setting your draw distances at 1/4 is just like a normal game. Meaning 1/2 or max you will end up having problems, short of you having a $10,000 computer. This also will tax your system meaning you half-life your hardware an fry stuff. Not a good idea. I use "let the 3D application decide" as global setting for my grapics card driver control panel. In the long run this is a safe bet to make the hardware last longer.

 

----6.2 I disable shadows, it's only on the 6 nearest people or creature, which change, so 5 shadows will come on an off depending, with one always on the player charicter. All of the world shadows are hidden inside the normal maps alpha channel, something like that, and HDR takes care of the rest, so I disable the silly people shadows. I disable depth of field because it's only active when you are in a dialog with a npc, I set blur effect on low, because it should look like crap anyway. The rest I use, like high settings for water, which is a better trade off. That first part of the tweekguide covers all of this, an should be read an you should experiment.

 

7. Now that you have fallout running smooth. Install the DLC's then repeat the tests. It's still subjective up to this point based off how many times you have made installs an how much time you are willing to put into your tests. This one in particular is important. You want to at least create a whole butt load of chaos. Open the console an enter TMM 1 which will turn on all your map markers, fast travel around killing bunchs of stuff, quickly. Also at least try to gain entry to some of your DLC's. Still use RAOTW charicters though an new games starts as to save time.

 

8. Up to this point everything you did was only to rule out your vanilla game and computer system as a cause to any future problem that you might face. What you have here is a "known good" fallout 3 install. Which is why it's subjective. You don't have to rule it out 100%. The tests you do after this point are very systematic an very deeply tested over longer periods of time.

 

 

 

 

 

[evilneko]

I was kinda under the impression VATS lag is just intrinsic to the game. >.>

[Confessed]

I started a new character up and it was fixed.

 

FML now I just don't feel like starting over.