Patching and optimizing the Creation Kit

[genolune]

Does anyone have any INI tweaks or other ideas that they want to share? Lately my Creation Kit has been crashing almost every time I use it. Sometimes on loading interior cells, sometimes exterior only and almost always on exit.

 

I'm assuming this is a common occurrence throughout the Bethesda games with their Creation Kit's being somewhat unstable at times based on comments on mods through the Fallout / Elder Scrolls series. I did find this topic and was wondering if others could verify any of this: Creation Kit INI tweaks

[Deleted15964729User]

I'd say it's generally bad practice to randomly throw in ini-settings regardless of what your hardware is and so on.

 

That said this is the ini-settings I use in my CreationKitCustom.ini:

[GENERAL]
bAllowMultipleMasterLoads=1
[AUDIO]
bEnableAudio=0
[MESSAGES]
bBlockMessageBoxes=1

I use ASIO and WASAPI for sound which take exclusive control of the device and given that the CK is already prone to crashing when anything is out of the ordinary having the sound settings in there made way more stable. The last one I have to admit I can't remember why, so I guess I'm not taking my own advice hehe.

 

 

EDIT: Sort of CK related I guess. If you spend a lot of time on creationkit.com and hate the layout I made this custom css you can use. Of course you may prefer the original but here is a comparison and link to the css: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GWVpwuSPk9M

[damanding]

In my experience if you're running CK through Mod Organizer, it's definitely going to be a lot more crashy anyway. Don't have the game running in the background while CK is open (and vice versa). Once you've clicked on something that takes a bit to load, DON'T touch anything until it has fully finished loading. If you're doing navmesh and you're trying to pan the camera around in the render window and the CK pauses, wait and let it finish whatever it's thinking about before trying to pan camera again. If you overclock your video card, turn that off while using CK. These are all things I've done to have a less crashy experience. That and I cross my fingers a lot.

[chucksteel]

This is not related to .ini edits but, more just helpful tips I've figured out to increase Ckit Performance.

 

1. When going to work on worldspaces, (If you do not intend on editing landscape) before you even load your mod go to Edit/Preferences/Render window and turn down the "Grids to load" to 3. (Default is 5 and 5 is required for any landscape editing) This will make the ckit only load a 3x3 grid of cells instead of the normal 5x5 grid, greatly cutting down on load times and increasing performance while working in the render window. (I've gone down as low as 2 grids to load (2 works ok as it load a 2x2 grid of cells) or 1 grid to load in places like downtown but, you can only work on the single cell and don't see anything around it.)
2. in the "Cell View" Window check the box for "Selected Object Only" (Unless you need to search or locate a specific form in the cell) Doing this stops the ckit from reloading every ref in a cell when you cross cell boarders or pan the camera. Also greatly increasing performance and load times in the render window.
3. Learn to use the "Layer System" ( if your not familiar with it, it is somewhat like the Photoshop/Gimp layer systems) Turning off unneeded layers such as FX or markers and, layers out of your immediate working area. (If applicable, Beth's level designers didn't use a uniform system for layers) ((Big Surprise right?))

 

Notes:

• a "Grids to load" of 5 is also required if your going to generate new Pre-Combined meshes or Visibility.
• Disabling layer only hides them in the render window, somewhat like using 1,1 it doesn't change anything in the cell and only gives the render window less forms to load.
• You can lock layers you don't want to accidentally edit.

 

Hope that helps

 

Edited to change where I typed level instead of layer for clarification. :tongue:

[Deleted15964729User]

Whenever I touch anything related to layers (fx and such is annoying me greatly when trying to export an fbx of some objects) I get an instacrash 100% of the time. Going to reinstall computer today or tomorrow so will see if it persists but it does seem like a nifty feature despite it not being consistent.

[chucksteel]

Ya you must have something going on. My computer is a potato so for my mod Beantown Interiors I set up new layers for each interior I add and then turn off every vanilla layer while working on the inside.

 

Doing this makes the Ckit run like a champ for me.

[genolune]

Something I would like to add, going to File -> Exit when done instead of clicking the red x button avoids a crash for me. At that point it may be moot, but I have no idea what crashing everytime you exit will do to the files or the operating system and would prefer to avoid it.

 

I'll have to try all that Chuck. If I crash, it's usually loading a cell, trying to go into the Dialogue box, or exiting via the red x.

 

I'm also running the Creation Kit on its shortcut instead of through the Bethesda.net launcher so hopefully that's helped. As Ethreon has said more or less, doesn't matter what specs your computer has, Fallout 4 (and I think the Creation Kit as well) are poorly optimized. That's not going to stop us though!

[chucksteel]

As I said I have found that 3 grids to load works the best because your only loading 9 cells instead of the default 25 cells into the render window. Over half less forms to load keeps the ckit from choking itself and you still get a good sized field of view to work in.

 

I haven't messed with the Dialogue editor myself so it may crash for me but when loading 3 grids I almost never crash. (Unless I get click happy and freak out the ckit :tongue: )

 

I only use the beth launcher when I check for a ckit update and always run from a shortcut.

[greekrage]

Something I would like to add, going to File -> Exit when done instead of clicking the red x button avoids a crash for me. At that point it may be moot, but I have no idea what crashing everytime you exit will do to the files or the operating system and would prefer to avoid it.

 

I'll have to try all that Chuck. If I crash, it's usually loading a cell, trying to go into the Dialogue box, or exiting via the red x.

 

I'm also running the Creation Kit on its shortcut instead of through the Bethesda.net launcher so hopefully that's helped. As Ethreon has said more or less, doesn't matter what specs your computer has, Fallout 4 (and I think the Creation Kit as well) are poorly optimized. That's not going to stop us though!

crashes are also related to virtual memory and how much you have dedicated to the system.

 

Make sure you have at least 12GB as max and have enough room on your main HDD/SSD (at least 12-15 GB free space )

[genolune]

After moving back to my Windows 7 Ultimate Desktop with slightly lesser stats than the laptop, the Creation Kit runs really smooth. So I think the Creation Kit works much better with Windows 7 vs Window 8/8.1/10 and the better heat dissipation of the desktop also helps, but not confirmed on that one, just a hunch.