Fallout 4 not using available VRAM, horrible stuttering

[chiknnwatrmln]

Hi, Fallout 4 runs like crap for me. My relevant specs are: 3770k @4.6ghz, Samsung 840 SSD, R9 290x and R9 290 with CF disabled for Fallout 4. 1440p resolution.

 

I have a good amount of texture mods (I had an insane amount in Skyrim and Fallout 3/NV without a problem).

 

The game only uses ~1/2 my available VRAM, and then streams textures from my SSD on cell load. This is super noticeable outside and causes a halt in framerate for a good second or so. Makes firefights impossible. I'm using ENB with the settings all correct (not a newbie at this, lol) with the memory set to 13000 MB. Vramsizetest shows 16500 available.

 

I also used Ordenador to compress my textures to see if that would help, but it didn't. I have run the game with stock ini files and with a bunch of tweaks, no difference.

 

Removing my textures folder completely solves the issue, but that's just a symptom of the real problem; Fallout 4 is unable to utilize my available VRAM. This is pretty laughable seeing as how DX9 Skyrim and 3/NV could use all 4GB but DX11 Fallout 4 won't use more than 2GB..

 

Any idea how to solve this?

 

Sidenote, crossfire is still absolutely broken in this game.

Edited April 26, 2016 by chiknnwatrmln

[Hirman]

It has to be with how textures are loaded for sure. I have found removing large texture packs like optimization packs and Grafix drastically increased the likelihood of avoiding the crashes. Not sure if the textures become corrupt as it seems the more conflicting textures that are present that need overwrites the more likely the crashes occur. in any case you're not the only one who has this issue.

 

Also I can start a new game with no problem and play for a long period in a new game as well.

Edited April 26, 2016 by Hirman

[chiknnwatrmln]

I get no crashes, also don't have any of those large "texture optimization" bullcrap packs installed.

 

The problem is that the game does not use my VRAM to load textures, which creates heavy stuttering as they are streamed from my drive. The problem occurs regardless of gamesave state, old or new.

 

Thanks for the help.

[Hirman]

i hear you. I caught on the bandwagon early, but since these texture loading problems I have just been playing without much textures except a few I like the most. Honestly, though I just tried using the Havoc wrench texture and the loading of a save game kept crashing until I uninstalled it. This is messed up.

[RaffTheSweetling]

I experience severe stuttering also. Notably around Red Rocket when walking to Concord, within Concord, and that area in general. I absolutely hate it.

[Hirman]

So I said screw it and reinstalled optimized textures pack again and then loaded the save. Stuttering was virtually gone extept in some heavily loading areas but yeah. Loads screens went a up a few seconds, but Maybe the base game assets are just poorly optimized and sorting through that and HD textures are the flaw of the game? in any case I also remembered to hit the reset archive invalidation button in NMM so they actually didn't crash my saves this time. Why can't this game just work ALL the time....

[RaffTheSweetling]

So I said screw it and reinstalled optimized textures pack again and then loaded the save. Stuttering was virtually gone extept in some heavily loading areas but yeah. Loads screens went a up a few seconds, but Maybe the base game assets are just poorly optimized and sorting through that and HD textures are the flaw of the game? in any case I also remembered to hit the reset archive invalidation button in NMM so they actually didn't crash my saves this time. Why can't this game just work ALL the time....

 

I suggest a few more things to improve performance:

 

Fallout 4 Seasons - With the snow textures installed you should notice a bit of improvement.

 

Insignificant Object Remover - Less crap to draw, so less processing to slow up the GPU. (In a similar way I recommend using Spring Cleaning to remove crap from wherever.

 

Disabling 'godrays' settings, in one of your .ini files, of course is a big, big must.

Doing so gets rid of the awful pixellation problem and it does improve performance all around as well.

 

Hope that helps!

[Fatalmasterpiece]

I have the same problem as the OP. It's not a matter of improving framerate, the framerate is fine. I'll have 70fps in downtown Boston than crash to 0 fps for a couple seconds, then right back up to 70fps. I can set the game down to potato mode with everything turned off, even edit the .ini to turn off DOF, turn off godrays, all distances set to closest settings, everything on low and it still stutters. The better the framerate the less noticeable the stuttering is. So if I'm running at 70fps the stuttering only lasts a second. If I'm at super ultra high fx and at 30fps the suttering lasts up to 10 seconds and makes it literally unplayable. But no matter what, it's always there.

 

Removing the textures folder seems to alleviate some of the issue but there's still microstutter.

[apalamen]

Old thread but didn't see a valid solution and its still an ongoing problem for me. Sure I used every texture pack on Nexus.. the 512 wasteland was agony because it turned the game into a 1990's type FPS shooter. Horrible textures.

I went to Vivid Editors Choice, and the game is back to looking nice and the FPS didn't get affected. Graphics are okay at 30-50fps. What happens it this. I load up WINDOWS PROCESS MANAGER and look ... what it reports is horrible... Most of the times I lag in entering a cell after running every few minutes are huge amount of calls to \textures\actors\...dds files all over the place. That explains my stutter because each time I do it, I just have to hit the ` and wait until all character textures get loaded and then can play at 30-50fps consistently until I move out of the cell I'm in.

 

Anyone have a fix for this? Perhaps loading multiple cells ahead of time with one big lag instead of all these micro lags? I also have TASK MANAGER running to see how much memory, and I rarely ever go above 5gb even with ENB SERIES loaded, which I love using. 16gb RAM and 1GB VRAM, and 10GB set in Video for ENB and never does the game come close to using any of it. Is that just a placebo?

Edited December 3, 2017 by apalamen

[AGreatWeight]

Using system ram in ENB like this on your current set-up, you're always going to experience those drops in fps; system ram is much slower than dedicated video ram. All things considered, that you only have 1gb of vram [and the minimum recommended amount for FO4 is much higher] your system is actually performing really well. Short of getting a beefier gpu, I don't know if you can improve your performance much further.