The new INI edit doesn't work properly.

[CONTRABARDUS]

I have an AMD 6 GB 7970, an i7, Win 10 x64, and 16 GB of Ram. All settings on Ultra and I get a decent framerate 40-50 fps with heavily modified high rez textures and around 70 plugins. Everything runs great most of the time.

 

I have a reshader in and ENB installed. Disabling and removing both has no effect on this. I also use LOOT and have not manually installed anything, everything I've modded has been by way of NMM, and I have the latest version of it, all my drivers, and anything else I'm using related to the game, my drivers, and mods. I also use Script Extender for a couple of mods involving perk tweaking, and this issue persists with or without launching with it.

 

The new method of editing Fallout4.ini and Fallout4custom.ini has caused all sorts of mostly minor difficulties. By new method, I mean this:

 

bInvalidateOlderFiles=1
sResourceDataDirsFinal=

 

Trying to enter certain areas caused a CTD with this edit. With me it was the FEV Lab and the Upper Deck of the Prydwen. Attempting to enter these areas with the new edit for installing mods caused a CTD from the loading screen every single time. I'd click on the entrance to the area, get the loading screen for a short while, and it would CTD from there.

 

I've spent most of my day trying to figure out exactly what the deal is, and this is what I've gathered so far.

 

The old method: sResourceDataDirsFinal=STRINGS\, TEXTURES\, MUSIC\, SOUND\, INTERFACE\, MESHES\, PROGRAMS\, MATERIALS\, LODSETTINGS\, VIS\, MISC\, SCRIPTS\, SHADERS\ takes a little longer to load, but is also more stable and reliable in my experience. Going back to this method for loading mods immediately cleared up my problems loading these areas. They loaded perfectly fine after going back to this method immediately without the need to alter, add, or remove any mods or change the load order. I entered and exited several times just to check and then went back to the old edit and once again it CTD after a short time on the loading screens.

 

I do have many mods loaded, a lot of textures, and some that should be overriding each other, and I tried isolating the problem by disabling and enabling plugins and could not do so. There was no one mod or group of mods I could disable to clear it up, and even disabling all mods caused a failure to load these areas.

 

It also seems to affect other mods, with conflicts being more common with the new method. For example, I couldn't get certain mods to play nice together using the new method that worked fine together using the older method. Nothing game breaking outside of the area loading issue, but for example, I have a mod that adds various sunglasses that have Night Vision, Targeting, and Recon effects without power armor, and it wasn't working with Glowing Meatbags, which highlights fallen enemies that can be looted. Depending on load order, I could get one or the other to work at a time using the new method of loading mods, but with the older method they both work fine together.

 

That isn't a huge deal, and it's mostly problems with textures and CTDs in certain areas caused by the new INI edits that are the glaring issue. Again, these are not issues using the old INI edit, changing back to it immediately makes these problems disappear.

 

Yeah, the new method reduces load times a little, but it's also less stable and tends to be more finicky about what it wants to load and can make some mods not play nice together for some reason. In my case, the load times weren't a huge difference, maybe an additional 30-40 seconds at absolute worst and usually only about 10-20 seconds difference. Interior areas experience virtually no difference and it is usually exteriors and particularly wide open areas that have noticeably longer load times. Even then it wasn't a massive difference.

 

I've been bouncing back and fourth between the new and old method for a bit now checking things out.

 

Textures are not loading properly using the new method. In some cases it's not loading my installed textures at all.

 

I started out on the beach just opposite the Airport. Wood textures aren't loading properly, as well as concrete rubble piles. I also have brick textures that aren't loading, and all the cars in the area are taking a very long time to load and just have the mushy looking low rez textures, and when they do load it's just the vanilla textures.

 

I'm also having a lot more texture pop in using the new method. Textures are taking longer to load and are blurry at first and then clear up a few seconds later. The problem persists when fast traveling around and some textures aren't loading properly no matter where I go. The issue remains when loading different saves in different areas as well, so it's not a save problem.

 

Everything loads as it should using the old method. I get all my installed textures and texture pop in is drastically reduced to the point of almost being gone and when it does come up, it's usually only one texture and only right when I first enter a new cell and rarely occurs. I might have a wall that's a little blurry when I first fast travel somewhere for example, but it only lasts a few seconds and loads properly with the right texture after a moment.

 

I think it has trouble deciding which textures to prioritize when more than one is installed that modifies the same object. For example, I have a mod that modifies a large number of landscape textures, and another one that improves just rocks. They both handle rocks, and when installing with NMM the manager asks which one to use. It doesn't overwrite them because if I uninstall one mod, the other is still there. I've checked this in the past by installing textures that I decided I didn't like and removing them, only to have the previous modded texture I was using still be there once I loaded the game again despite not reloading it with NMM. It keeps both files and seems to try to prioritize which to use.

The new Archive Invalidation doesn't seem to be able to figure out which to use. When I use the new INI settings, it conflicts because of its confusion and just stays with the vanilla texture instead. This conflict also causes textures to load slow leading to a lot of blurred low res textures when I first enter an area.

I don't have these issues using the old method. The landscape textures load fine, and then the proper rock texture loads replacing the landscape and vanilla textures for rocks just as I loaded them with NMM. This is clearly a problem with the new INI edit, and not my mods or load order.

The new INI edit is unstable and pretty much sucks, it gets confused and doesn't load things properly in my experience, especially in regard to textures where it has to prioritize one over another.

If anyone else is having troubles like mine, try just going back to the old INI edit. The load times are slightly longer, but it's cleared up all my problems with textures and crashing and I've not noticed any drawbacks beyond slightly longer loading times.

Edited December 23, 2015 by CONTRABARDUS

[Fl0W]

Interesting. It seems the CTD issue should be examined furter.

 

But this issue have most likely nothing to do with the CTD:

 

I think it has trouble deciding which textures to prioritize when more than one is installed that modifies the same object. For example, I have a mod that modifies a large number of landscape textures, and another one that improves just rocks. They both handle rocks, and when installing with NMM the manager asks which one to use. It doesn't overwrite them because if I uninstall one mod, the other is still there. I've checked this in the past by installing textures that I decided I didn't like and removing them, only to have the previous modded texture I was using still be there once I loaded the game again despite not reloading it with NMM. It keeps both files and seems to try to prioritize which to use.

 

The NMM does replace the existing file with the one of the new mod, there is never the same texture/file in the same folder. If you uninstall a mod (A) through the NMM the manager replaces the file that you are uninstalling with the other file that should be there from the other mod (B). If the other mod (B) is still active (green) the manager knows that the texture from (B) should be on the place in the DATA folder, if you uninstall (A).

 

All files are copied from the "virtual folder" that you have set during the installation of NMM.

Side note: Existing files that where in the DATA folder before NMM installed any mod, will be moved to "\Nexus Mod Manager\mods\VirtualInstall\_overwrites"

 

So the game can not decide what mod texture it should load, because there only exist one file in the data folder!

 

What i think, that could happen here is: the mod texture, that you are using, have a missing mipmap and the game loads the vanilla low-res textures first from the .ba2 archive. After the game have decided that it can load the high-res texture, it loads the replacement texture from the mod/DATA folder.

AFAIK the game is optimized to load the textures only as needed, the .ba2 archives are optimized for this. So this MAY be possible, but this is only a speculation from me.

 

 

The other thing: the slow texture loading was reported from day 1. I mostly hear that complain from users with high end systems who have maxed out everything. I think you have just realized this issue now, when you have spend so much time in investigating the CTD problem.

 

---

 

 

Have you tried to uninstall all mods from your data folder? Uninstalling through the NMM may still leave some files in the data folder. Try this: copy/move all non-vanilla folders and files from the data folder (just copy them into a new Unnamed folder). Then try again with both ini methods.

 

Only these files should remain:

 

 

\Data

Fallout4 - Animations.ba2
Fallout4 - Geometry.csg
Fallout4 - Interface.ba2
Fallout4 - Materials.ba2
Fallout4 - Meshes.ba2
Fallout4 - MeshesExtra.ba2
Fallout4 - Misc.ba2
Fallout4 - Shaders.ba2
Fallout4 - Sounds.ba2
Fallout4 - Startup.ba2
Fallout4 - Textures1.ba2
Fallout4 - Textures2.ba2
Fallout4 - Textures3.ba2
Fallout4 - Textures4.ba2
Fallout4 - Textures5.ba2
Fallout4 - Textures6.ba2
Fallout4 - Textures7.ba2
Fallout4 - Textures8.ba2
Fallout4 - Textures9.ba2
Fallout4 - Voices.ba2
Fallout4.cdx
Fallout4.esm

...\Data\Strings


Fallout4_en.DLSTRINGS
Fallout4_en.ILSTRINGS
Fallout4_en.STRINGS


...\Data\Video

AGILITY.bk2
CHARISMA.bk2
Endgame_FEMALE_A.bk2
Endgame_FEMALE_B.bk2
Endgame_MALE_A.bk2
Endgame_MALE_B.bk2
ENDURANCE.bk2
GameIntro_V3_B.bk2
INTELLIGENCE.bk2
Intro.bk2
LUCK.bk2
MainMenuLoop.bk2
PERCEPTION.bk2
STRENGTH.bk2

 

Edited December 23, 2015 by Fl0W

[Gilibran]

I to had CTD's happening after i changed the ini to the "new" method.

 

But i found out it only CTD on existing saves, at one point i moved all the old saves out of the savegame folder and started a new game, with the new post ini change saves i have no more CTD's happening.

 

Reloading one of the pre ini change saves the CTD was back on that save alone. So it was either corrupted or there is some info in the savegame that relies on the old ini string somehow and causes CTD's at some points.

 

Have you tried starting a new game? Running to the prydwyn is a problem but try any of the other locations you had consistent CTD's to test on a new game.

[CONTRABARDUS]

Haven't tried a new save yet. I'm near the end of my current playthrough, and the workaround is doing well enough for now.

 

I definitely will try a new save in the near future, but seeing as I'm so close to finishing the current playthrough I might as well stick it out.

 

I did try removing all mods by moving the folders, but that was an attempt to fix the CTD issue. It worked and I was able to get into the areas in question. All that really told me is that the problem was probably caused by something I had installed and wasn't just the latest patch from Bethesda doing it.

 

There's no difference between the two INI edits with no modded textures in as far as I could tell. I wasn't really looking for that at the time, but I didn't really notice any difference outside of the vanilla textures being the ones displayed at the time. I didn't see any instance of the low res texture bug, but I also wasn't jumping around from place to place, so I'm not sure if one version or the other makes that issue worse if just the vanilla textures are in use.

 

As for the texture loading. I was aware of it prior to this happening.

 

EnBoost fixed it for me actually. It's not something I've just recently noticed and I've been running with maxed out settings since the game launched. I have been well aware of that issue as it's kind of hard to miss. ENB is probably the best thing I've added to the game just because it clears that up so well.

 

It's worth pointing out that I've noticed a difference switching back and forth between the old method and the new method. There is a distinct difference in the textures that load and how they load, as well as the low texture issue getting worse.

 

The problem is consistent and I can reproduce it by switching between the two INI settings.

 

When I use the new method, my mod textures don't load properly. I end up with vanilla textures on a lot of surfaces, and again, that's consistent between the two. They work with one, but not with the other.

 

I do sometimes have texture pop in using the old edit. It's extremely rare and short lived though. As I said, the latest version of ENB fixes that problem for the most part.

 

It also gets noticeably worse using the new edit. A lot more objects end up with the low rez texture bug, and it doesn't just go away like it does using the old edit.

 

Its a clear difference between which version of the INI edit I'm using. With the old way, all my texture files load properly and the low rez texture bug is pretty much non existent. When I do see those textures pop up, they are short lived and usually only limited to a single surface.

 

With the new edit many of my textures just don't load, I get consistent CTDs in specific areas, and the low res texture bug is more frequent, present on more objects when it does happen, and tends to linger a lot longer and sometimes just stays the low rez texture and never pops in. Even when I was initially playing before I modded anything or had the ENB fix, it wasn't as bad as it is with the new INI edit in place.

 

I'll see what happens with a new game later on, but it probably won't be until tomorrow. I won't be able to just run over to any of the areas and check immediately to see if it still CTDs with a new game though, as both areas are in places that can't be accessed until later in the game.

 

It's not a huge deal, as the old method is an effective workaround anyway, and I don't notice a significant change in load times either way.

 

I'm currently having issues with my laptop that are beyond the ability of Startup Repair and Restore to fix, and I'm having to troubleshoot boot failure on it. I don't know what happened exactly, but my laptop HDD has apparently become a huge mess somehow. Pretty sure it's not a virus or malware as I have Virus protection and scan frequently for viruses, malware, adware and such. Something went wrong though, so I'm in cmd windows troubleshooting right now and running disk scans. I think it was a combination of file corruption and a bad Windows Update. I'm not playing on the laptop btw. It's not new or a gaming laptop and couldn't dream of running Fallout 4. This is a separate thing going on, but it's kind of got my attention for the moment as I kind of need the laptop for more serious work than playing games.

Edited December 23, 2015 by CONTRABARDUS

[CONTRABARDUS]

Started a couple of new games for testing purposes and spent about six hours with each over the past day and a half, definite improvement with the new method in doing so, but it still has issues with some textures that the other method does not. The characters are virtually identical and they all have the same items and I did all the same quests, mostly just the starting stuff and visiting various places on the map with different biomes.

 

The new ini edit particularly has issues with ground textures, especially concrete and certain road textures, tires are also another problem area, with lesser issues regarding piles of rubble and debris. These are not super high res textures and all of my ground textures are 2k at most. Texture loading is slower with the new method in general and when the texture bug does crop up, it takes longer to clear itself up, considerably so in fact.

 

Either way, if I run the game too long the texture loading issue crops up, but it happens faster with the new ini method. I can go for 3-4 hours with the old method before it really becomes noticeable, but 2 hours sets it off with the new ini edits. Either way, taking a short break from the game and turning it off for a bit clears it up again for another few hours, so not a huge deal.

 

Still don't know about whether I can enter the problem areas without a crash or not. I have to get a good way into the story to have access to any of the areas that were giving me problems. I did not have any CTDs with the new method while I was running around, but that was basically how it behaved right up until I tried to get into those places initially, so I'm still unsure.

 

I don't know why, but the old ini method is better optimized for loading textures. I have a lot of textures in, basically everything in the game has been retextured with few exceptions and that probably contributes to it. Still, the old method seems to handle the load better, at the cost of increased load times. In my case it's a slight difference, so I think the old method is the better option and I think I'm going to stick with it for now. I'll check back and try again as the game is updated and patched in the future, but with my current mod set and version of the game, I'm personally better off just sticking with the old ini edits.

Edited December 24, 2015 by CONTRABARDUS

[CONTRABARDUS]

Edit:

 

Sorry I couldn't get back to this sooner, but I had a busy holiday and not much time for gaming.

 

Started a new game and played through using the new .ini settings. The texture loading bug issue is improved by doing this, but still happens more frequently than with the old modding ini edits.

 

Did the bare minimum to make my way to the Prydwen and FEV Labs.

 

Confirmed, the game still crashes attempting to enter both of the same locations with the new ini settings even from a new game, but both load fine if I go back the old .ini settings for modding.

 

The new edits are less stable and reliable than the old method, but reduce load times. Whatever it does to reduce load times it does so at the cost of stability. Textures load slower and less reliably in game, and it causes CTD in specific areas when trying to load them.

Edited January 5, 2016 by CONTRABARDUS