Fallout 4 Optimization and Performance Systems Explained

[sabster123]

Im playing on XBOX One S and now i really regret not shelling out a $100 for XBOX ONE X, cus XB1S cant handle Fallout 4 lightly modded.

right now i am NOT using any scrapping mods, and only using Nytra's Texture Optimizer for building retextures.

Watched a few youtube videos on Pre-combines, deleted all my scrapping mods, started fresh and now i can play in downtown Boston...

i was hoping to get a recommendation on which scrapping mod least screws up the pre-combines

[YouDoNotKnowMyName]

Im playing on XBOX One S and now i really regret not shelling out a $100 for XBOX ONE X, cus XB1S cant handle Fallout 4 lightly modded.

right now i am NOT using any scrapping mods, and only using Nytra's Texture Optimizer for building retextures.

Watched a few youtube videos on Pre-combines, deleted all my scrapping mods, started fresh and now i can play in downtown Boston...

i was hoping to get a recommendation on which scrapping mod least screws up the pre-combines

So you want a scrapping mod that does not screw with the pre-combines?

 

That's like saying I want to break stuff without breaking stuff.

[yarrmateys]

it's possible to have mods that don't mess them up completely, but that would require the mod author to generate precombines and previs by himself. for example let's take scrap everything, it could get an improved fps if all of the settlement areas were temporarily modified to mark the stuff from editable areas as impossible to precombine (like giving it an enable parent or blank region for emittance), and then generate the stuff for all the settlements.

Edited March 29, 2020 by yarrmateys

[DocMoebius]

I've a question. I've created a new activator for my mod, a shipping crate door(usually just a static object) that will be disabled after the player activates it. It will be replaced with a SCOL shipping crate door, that is initially disabled, but enabled after the player activated the the first one and which moves(with TranslateToRef) a little bit to create the illusion of a door. I don't know how the system behind precombines works and if it takes into account if something is initally disabled and if it extends to activators as well. So I would like to know if this could break the precombines for that cell?

Edited March 29, 2020 by DocMoebius

[yarrmateys]

if it has an enable parent or an emittance, it's automatically excluded from the previs and precombine system. there are other methods to exclude them as well that i'm unaware of. activators are ignored, only statics, scols and the likes without these special things are encompassed. pretty much things that can never change in any way, don't animate and have no special effects seem to be the only objects that can be precombined. that's how the large map change after destroying the institute happens, most of the objects on that cell have enable parents which exclude them from being precombined, and the cell has to rely on other optimization methods like multibounds and occlusion planes/boxes to replace previs optimization.

Edited March 29, 2020 by yarrmateys

[DocMoebius]

if it has an enable parent or an emittance, it's automatically excluded from the previs and precombine system. there are other methods to exclude them as well that i'm unaware of. activators are ignored, only statics, scols and the likes without these special things are encompassed. that's how the large map change after destroying the institute happens, most of the objects on that cell have enable parents which exclude them from being precombined, and the cell has to rely on other optimization methods like multibounds and occlusion planes/boxes to replace previs optimization.

Thanks, really interesting. Unfortunately most I know is moving stuff around in the CK, so I don't even know what an enable parent or emittance is? I enable/disable via a script that is attached to the activator and that also checks some conditions like strength etc.

[Vinokopimi]

I cannot seem to find any tutorials on how to use these command lines in the creation kit.

 

-GeneratePreCombined: Precombine.esm clean all (Edited the hex code but still closes on launch)
-GeneratePreVisData: Precombine.esm - (Closes wont work)

-CompressPSG: Precombine.esm - (generates a file with 0 bytes)
-BuildCDX: Precombine.esm - (generates a file with 0 bytes)

Used them as arguments to lunch ck through mod organizer, even tried it on command prompt the CK launches but closes.

The Plugin I'm trying to generate files is tagged as esm and has multiple masters tagged as esm as well.

-Update-

Was able to use the command line, there should be no space after the "-GeneratePreVisData:" Anyhow I just wanted to ask as to why manually generating precombine on the creation kit works with multiples masters but using the command line it crashes. Anything I should do or avoid for the command line to work on multiple plugins tagged as esm?

Edited May 24, 2020 by crimsonlourence

[SMB92]

Generally persistent and disabled objects aren't included in the generation. Didn't know objects with emittance were excluded, so that's cool to know.

 

I'm a little confused over the usefulness of these commands. The previs command seems to be non-precombined from our limited testing. Doesn't seem to be any command for precombined previs in the CK EXE strings. I'm guessing that's why you end up with 2 plug-ins. I'm thinking these were for some kind of quick testing purposes, without wrecking the master.

 

What I was hoping was this command would let us generate previs on a world scale reliably. Suppose it still is, if one were keen on disabling precombineds at the plugin level, and then marking all the relevant objects in the game as scrappable, leaving the rest for occlusion. Still, performance would be much worse so yeah, probably not viable. But it's something.

[Vinokopimi]

Hello I need help understanding version control and timestamps, I was able to use the command lines and painstakingly one by one generate previs and precombined on the plugins on my load order and plan to merge them all one by one to a new plugin I created. Will this work? Will the copied XPRI and XCRI from different plugins work if I use the newest timestamp?

 

Also are there scripts to use to automate the merging of XPRI and XCRI i generated? Thank you

[VIitS]

If you mean that you generated precombineds/previs multiple times for the same cell as different plugins touched it, and want to merge the generated results, that won't work at all. Since you mention merging XPRI and XCRI, I assume that is your intent.

 

If you want to generate previs/precombineds for one cell that is touched by several mods, you would needs to flag them all as ESM (just the flag using xEdit, don't change the file extension), load them as masters in the CK, then generate previs and precombineds and save the new plugin and use that as your patch.

 

 

If you mean you generated precombineds and previs for different cells under different plugins and wanted to have them all saved under a single patch plugin, it depends on how you are doing that. If you are keeping the original plugins, you can just copy the CELL records into your patch, and make sure the VISI and RVIS are kept from when you generated. If you want to disable the original plugins and have a single mega-merged worldspace mod, that is a terrible idea, but you would also need to restore the Version Control Info 1 data, as copying to a new plugin using xEdit wipes that data. There is a script included with xEdit to copy the version control data, but you have to remove the bits of code that check if the masters are the same. You can also use the CK. If you load the relevant cell in the CK, it will set the VC Info 1 date to the current day for any record missing that info, but you would also need to right click -> Update timestamps or the REFRs would have a newer date than the VISI/PCMB timestamps and thus would break them in-game.