Long Startup Time (Black Screen)

[teepeezombie]

I've been playing and modding Fallout 4 since it first came out. What is weird - and something I've just put up with this whole time - is an issue I'm having with the startup of the game.

 

Without any mods installed, with just the base game, I have an inordinately long startup or black load screen time before the main menu comes up. I've clocked it between 5 and 8 minutes long before. With mods installed (I usually run about 100 to 180 mods at a time), this load time can increase and even be between 7 to 15 minutes long.

 

The reason why I've put up with it for so long is this only happens when I run the game the first time. The load times between cells in-game are fast and snappy. However, if I have to close the game and reopen it for any reason, such as a CTD, then I have to sit and twiddle my thumbs a while.

 

I've Googled this issue many times in the past, and it seems no one else has reported this issue. Most people complain about long load times in-game, not before getting to the game. I don't have problems with long load times in-game, just on startup.

 

Here are my specs:

 

Windows 10 Pro 64-bit OS

AMD Phenom II X4 850 Processor 3.30 GHz

RAM 8 GB

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1050 Ti

[AaronS]

Do you run the game in windowed mode?

[teepeezombie]

I have before, but usually I run it in fullscreen.

[AaronS]

I run the game in window borderless fullscreen instead of the default mode. If i don't game starts the beginning movie then crashes. I dont know of any other suggestions, sorry.

[MightyZ0G]

how many saves do you have?

 

too many saves in your save folder cause it to take ages to load the main menu.

[teepeezombie]

I currently have around 50 saves in my save folder. I've had more and less before. I can try to reduce that to 2 or 3 and run in windowed mode and see if that makes any difference.

[StarMystyk]

I get the same thing, just sometimes. I have about 130 mods plus use the F4SE launcher. I put mine down to background processes. If I launch the game within 10 minutes of booting up it'll take forever, but if the PC has been on for a few hours the game launches pretty quickly.

Civ 5 does the same for me as well.

[teepeezombie]

I believe I figured it out, why it's happening for me, although it still leaves me scratching my head. It's running F4SE.

 

I tried re-installing FO4 from scratch, verified the integrity of all vanilla files, used no mods, and opened the game with F4SE (as I've done for as long as I can remember, or as long as the Script Editor came out). I still have to wait 7 to 10 minutes for the game to start with nothing but a black screen to look at. If I run the game from the game executable, not using F4SE, it loads in less than a minute (approximately 36 seconds). So there's something with F4SE that's taking an extra long time to load on my machine.

 

I either skip any mods dependent on F4SE or put up with the unbearably long load time on startup.

Edited July 6, 2017 by teepeezombie

[teepeezombie]

By the way, I found out that problem wasn't F4SE at all.

 

I recently upgraded my motherboard, reformatted my drive, and had to install my Steam games (Fallout 4 included) again. In so doing, I was careful with my mod installation through NMM. I discovered that the true culprit was a collection of voice mods by Asterra, including Higher Female Protagonist Voice and Deeper Voice for Strong. Following Asterra's instructions, to install you take his .bsa and extract the .fuz files and add them directly to your Data directory. I did this manually before, which overwrote all the original sound files. This time I zipped them and installed them through NMM. With the sound files enabled in NMM, my game took 7 to 10 minutes to actually begin (black screen). Without the sound files, my game took less than 60 seconds to begin - every single time.

 

So now I know. I decided to not use the voice mods after all.

[steve40]

nm.

Edited August 2, 2017 by steve40