Optimizing Creation Kit?

[monsto]

The thing chews on my hard drive like a hound on a leg bone. Every movement creates loading and reloading. I want to work in a confined space (Hangman's Alley (FensRaiderCampExt*)) and truly do not care about anything outside of it for now.

File > Preferences > Render Window > Grids to load = 3 seems to have no effect. What would happen if I set it to 1?

 

What do the following settings do?

• File Menu > Preferences > Render Window > . . .
  • Allow Render Window Cell Loads
  • Draw World Border
• View Menu > Current Cell Only

Also, when I de/select things, the camera moves wildly about. If the camera is in the vicinity I want, when I press D to deselect something, the camera will jump waaaayyy out somewhere pointing at the entity that was selected. And then the program has to chew for a while so it can load all the new assets that I can see. This is just one example, but it does it constantly with the back n forth, making for all kinds of loading/unloading.

 

Lastly: As I make these changes in the prefs window, they don't appear to stick between sessions. Where is the prefs file that I would make these changes on in order to make them permanent?
Performance would be fine, if I could get it to stop constantly loading things as I'm trivially moving around just trying to look at things.

[seekingthesun]

Go into creaionkitprefs and turn down the graphics on things, lower draw distance, lower resolution, etc

[monsto]

Go into creaionkitprefs and turn down the graphics on things, lower draw distance, lower resolution, etc

 

I appreciate the reply.

 

What entries in the prefs file get tweaking?

[ShinraStrife]

 

I appreciate the reply.

 

What entries in the prefs file get tweaking?

 

The CreationKitPrefs.ini file in question is located in the same folder as creationkit.exe

 

The values you want to focus on are:

 

In [Display]

iShadowMapResolution=1024

fDirShadowDistance=1000.0000
fShadowDistance=1000.0000
bSAOEnable=0
iVolumetricLightingQuality=0
bVolumetricLightingEnable=0
fMeshLODFadePercentDefault=1.0000

fMeshLODLevel2FadeTreeDistance=1000.0000
fMeshLODLevel1FadeTreeDistance=1000.0000
fInteriorMeshLODLevel2FadeDist=1000.0000
fInteriorMeshLODLevel1FadeDist=1000.0000
fMeshLODLevel2FadeDist=1500.0000
fMeshLODLevel1FadeDist=2000.0000

sAntiAliasing=FXAA
iMaxAnisotropy=1

iSize H=600
iSize W=800

bPrecipitationOcclusion=0
iMaxSkinDecalsPerFrame=4
iMaxDecalsPerFrame=20

In [imagespace]

bScreenSpaceBokeh=0
bDoDepthOfField=0
bLensFlare=0

In [Water]

bUseWaterRefractions=0
bUseWaterReflections=0
bUseWaterDepth=0

I have most values set to the minimal and the rest are at at least half as high as they were before (on high graphics settings) and I have pretty good frame rates and performance in the CK. You might want to tinker with the values and see what works best for you though.

 

Edit: Also if you are using an ENB or ReShade, make sure to move any ENB files (just the .dll files that hook into the D3D window) out of your fallout 4 folder before launching because as it is, the creation kit uses more memory than fallout 4 itself, so you shouldn't take memory away from it for ENB effects.

Edited May 5, 2016 by ShinraStrife

[monsto]

 

 

Thank you so much for an answer.

 

Do you still have problems with constant hd activity with loading and reloading? I see these tweaks as affecting mostly visual performance, which isn't much of an issue. it's drive access that blows performance for me.

Edited May 6, 2016 by monsto

[ShinraStrife]

 

 

I have my fallout 4 installation on a laptop harddrive and it only goes up to 5200 rpms and has a slow read/write speed and im not having problems with the CK. Your fallout 4 install might be fragmented.

 

Try using a folder defrag program, like Contig (https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/contig.aspx?f=255&MSPPError=-2147217396)

 

To use Contig you download the file I linked and extract the .exe to your fallout 4 installation.

 

With the folder with contig.exe open in file explorer, hold down shift and right click anywhere on the window. You should see "Open command window here"

 

Click it and type this in the command prompt, then hit enter:

Contig.exe -s

Note: Make sure the command prompt window you opened is an administrator prompt (it should say "Administrator: Command Prompt" in the window title)

 

It will take some time to defrag your files, and what Contig does that not a lot of other defrag utilities does is try to move your game's files as close to each other, and as close to the center of your hard drives disk as possible.

 

What this means is the needle on your hard drive has to move around a lot less when reading/writing files and is therefore faster at both operations.

 

Also a fun fact; you can use Contig on any games you have to try to get better hard drive performance. Back when GTA IV was a thing I found Contig was the only solution to fix my lagging issues with that game.

Edited May 6, 2016 by ShinraStrife