Massive Performance Issues?! Low GPU usage.

[Deleted6014931User]

Hey guys, I'm completely baffled by massive frame rate drops in Fallout 4, to virtually unplayable levels (like in the teens). This always occurs when in the cities consistently like Lexington. Downtown Boston is unplayable.

 

Specs:

1080 Ti, 6700k, 16gb of RAM on an NVME SSD. Driver version 384.94 (I just got the GPU and clean wiped the previous device drivers). Benchmark scores and other games play well.

 

Mods:
PILGRIM, the ENB and supporting mods.

Some weapons, armors, body replacers, DEF UI, idle and weapon animations, the community frameworks for scopes, armor, and weapon mods, as well as enhanced blood textures.

Langly's HD texture pack and some misc ones. I tried to grab all the 4k ones.

F4SE (for looksMenu).

 

Things I've tried:

Lowering settings slightly - TAA, Godrays, and HBAO+ - doesn't seem to make a difference and I'm playing at 1080p.

My first thought was maybe I went overboard on the textures (doubtful) I then noticed in HWMonitor that GPU usage peaked at 48% while mostly sitting around 34!? The buffer was also at 30%ish.

 

Any ideas?

 

 

[Arneercool]

Do you have any older cleaning mods tucked away in your loadorder (pre creation kit)? Because they WILL tank your fps to the unbearable.

 

Or.

 

1. Run the game in windowed borderless fullscreen.

 

2. Unleash the fps in the fallout4prefs ini.

 

3. Leash them again with riva tuner. ( fallout does a horrible job at this) And no more than 60-65ish, because having the fps any higher will buttviolate your day.

 

4. Fiddle in the n-vidia control panel until you get a acceptable gameplay.

 

 

You can find vids on all this on youtube.

Edited August 13, 2017 by Arneercool

[Deleted6014931User]

@Arneercool. This is a completely fresh install. Can you explain 2? I have Fallout's VSYNC disabled for the one in the NCP.

[Moksha8088]

I noticed that ENBoost seemed to cause performance issues in a few areas. Removing it removed the problem. I'm thinking that better memory management is built into a 64-bit game and Windows 10.

[Arneercool]

Yes.

 

1. First thing you do is setting your game to borderless windowed mode in the launcher. Make sure that works, then Don't launch the official launcher again, from this point on you should only launch through fs4e launcher or some other method that overwrites the official launcher, because that sucker will nullify everything in the .ini unless you go even deeper and root out the cause of that problem too, you can do that, but you can figure that out after you have figured this out.

 

2. In fallout4prefs ini iPresentInterval=1 should be set to =0. Like you have. Save it and make it read only.

 

3a. Use rivatuner to lock the fps at around 60, depending where you get the least microstutter.

 

3b. Then go to screen settings and make sure your monitor is set as high in htz as it will possible let you without breaking, this is a step most forget, and the reason for screen tearing.

 

3c. Go to n-vidia control panel, find fallout, mess with the refresh rate until it fits your screen. Here you can also mess with the v-sync because it overwrite everything and have some special features depending on your card. Some have found "adaptive" to be good, i chose "high" and live with the occasional flicker/hickup in turn for overall faster feeling and smoother gameplay, but this is on a 120 htz screen, you should find out what your "sweetspot" is for your screen. The point is to never go above the 60 fps, because the engine physics are tied up to that, and will become an absolute disaster if you go higher than 63-64ish.

 

A-B-C should be done in one big sitting...SWALLOW!

 

I never drop below 50ish in the cities and my card is slower than yours.

 

But you will never, ever, never ever ever ever get a smooth running fallout4, no matter what hoops you jump through. Just not gonna happen. You can make it playable though.

 

Hope this explains, or point you in the right direction, if not we only have my lacking english to blame.

[sopmac45]

@ Akalend ... You seems to be a player who know what you are doing and I do not mean to lecture you at all but have you tried to play the game without any mod first ? My rig is very similar to yours except for the video card ( mine is the 1070 ) ... you have a good rig so, if other games are running as they should, perhaps some mods are messing up with your game ... I think that installing an ENB is not a good idea because you will loose fps ( 10-15 perhaps ) ...

 

... this is what I did after re-installing my game several times :

 

- I decided not to install any texture/graphic mods at all because they apply globally and instead, I made some changes to my video card via game menu : AA = off ... the anti-aliasing softens your graphics. This is the same principle that apply to camera sensors. For example, the Nikon D810 do not have AA so the pictures taken with this camera are very sharp and crispy ( I am a photographer ), no wonder this camera is very welcome among landscaping photographers, so, the AA in the video card is the same, if you have it on, it will soften your graphics and to counterbalance that, you have to install texture/graphic mods ... BUT .. as I said before, those mods apply globally and even though they are awesome, they will ( some how ) slow down your computer and you will start suffering stuttering and fps drops ( it did happen to me ).

 

- Also, my God rays are OFF, motion blur = OFF and Distant Objects = Medium or high ..... but, my resolution is : 2560x1440 and everything else in ULTRA.

 

- By not having any texture/graphic mod installed ( except enhanced blood and color correction ), I gave priority to other mods that are more important to me : Player Settlements ( homemaker, scrap everything, place everywhere, move that workbench, wall pass through walls, better generators and robot defense )

 

- Also, because for me combat is the core of my play style, I decided to install WOTC ( War of the Commonwealth ) which is a very demanding mod and between the texture/graphic mods and WOTC, I did prefer WOTC ....

 

... so ...

 

... my game graphic are looking very sharp/crispy and I am playing with WOTC above the default settings and still I am getting most of the time, 60 fps, except in the city and certain places. I am having probably one CTD every 20-25 hours and I know it is related to WOTC because as I said, this mod is heavy and sometimes CTD's should be expected as the author of this mod advised it in his mod description, that is not a problem but mainly my game is running smooth.

 

However, I only have 83 mods installed and again, none of them are texture/graphic mods, only player settlement, weapons ( standalone ), power armor ( WORSIN, jetpacks ) and also, I did not install the Bethesda graphic addition.

 

From 120-125 mods that I started to play with on my first play through, I brought it down to 83 and I am planning to restart a new game ( from scratch ) and I will knock off another 7-10 mods, especially weapons and some jetpacks and power armor paints that to be honest, I do not really need, so they only provide fancy look. I do prefer Jetpack Overhaul by Imp of the Perverse which allow you to fly horizontally as well.

 

If I was you, I would try to play the game for a couple of hours ( till you get to Preston at least ) without any mod and star installing one by one and see what happens. It is a pain in the butt to start all over again but unfortunately, sometimes it is the best thing to do. Also, I do not trust ENB for FO4 at all. This game engine is not that good IMO to handle an ENB mod. I use one ENB in my Skyrim and it is dropping some fps ( from 60 to 55-57 sometimes ) and before I installed this ENB, I was only getting 60 fps steady ... Skyrim engine is better as far as I know ...

 

... try to turn off the AA and the other functions so you see for yourself if you like or not or if it is helping you to have 60 fps. If your game runs ok without mods and with those video settings switched to off, then is not your rig but your mods. FO4 graphics are not bad at all and believe me, I would love that FO4 looks so beautiful as my Skyrim does but unfortunately, I have not found the way to make it look punchy and still have the performance that everybody is looking for = 60 fps steady ... I guess we cannot have both ( super quality and steady 60 fps with super smooth performance ) not matter what video card we have ... for me, I must lean toward performance and sacrifice some quality if I want to play this game ( FO4 ) the closest to perfection that I can .. so far, so good !

 

In my other game Skyrim, I do have several graphic/texture mods, plus the ENB but my video card setting are the same settings I am using for my FO4. Skyrim is much better engine than FO4 and that is why I had to drop texture/graphic mods and be very selective on the mods that I wanted to install in FO4.

 

 

Cheers :cool:

[Deleted6014931User]

Everybody I appreciate the help. I generally thought I know what I'm doing with this stuff and don't come to the panic forums often but I'm not as familiar with F4 as I am with LE Skyrim and I'm pretty lost after going through the usual bug testing.

 

Anwwayyyy

 

- I tried borderless window (had to actually ini edit because it wouldn't allow 1080 res WTF) and that bumped usage to 63% maximum. Framerate was noticably improved but certainly not playable at most parts (Trinity Tower test).

- Tried adaptive. Nothing.

-I didn't mess around with the ENB as the performance issues happened even with it off.

 

Ultimately, could this be a driver issue or a Windows 10 CE update issue? I don't want to give up and say f**k it creation engine sucks yet.

[Moksha8088]

Are you using the Nvidia recommended settings for FO4?