Help - Intermittent Problem

[jjc71]

The Problem: During the end of my last play through of Tales of Two Wastelands (New Vegas/Fallout 3), I began to notice I was dropping about 20 fps every 15 seconds. The slow down would last for about 15 seconds and then it would go back to normal. I initially thought it must be a broken quest script or something. I decided to do a fresh install and new game with no mods, and low and behold, the problem was still there.

 

I'm wracking my brain at this point. My hardware is high-end so it is not that. If anyone can shed any light or give something to go on, I'd be eternally grateful.

 

Thanks

 

JJ

[dubiousintent]

The drop occurs every 15 seconds? This is called "stuttering" or "lag".

 

Re: Stuttering or "micro-stutters". All visual stuttering problems are caused by the video stream having to wait for the "art assets" required to render the display OR the game writing something to disk (such as a save game file or logging). Mostly these are due to the hard disk drive being orders of magnitude slower than VRAM, with System RAM (e.g. "ENBoost") and "solid state drives" (SSDs) being in between. Keep in mind that this game was designed for older PC and XBox console systems, and it is now possible for your new "latest and greatest" gaming machine to be faster than it can handle. There are internal design choices that cannot be overcome. The following are "mitigations" that have been found to help some people.

Please see the following entries under the 'Solutions to Performance problems' section in the wiki Fallout NV Mod Conflict Troubleshooting" guide if you haven't already.
* 'Issue: "Full screen mode" exhibits CTDs and stutters or micro-stutters'
* 'Issue: Lag or "micro stutters" even with "New Vegas Stutter Remover" installed'
* 'Issue: Win10 Screen tearing in "Borderless Windowed Mode"'
* 'Issue: CTD without warning, "Out of Memory error", or stops responding after the Main Menu' for other settings that can indirectly affect micro-stutter.
* There are also some NVSR configuration suggestions under the 'Issue: Game in slow motion' and entries.
* The 'Issue: What's with these Solid Green billboard signs in the distance (LOD)?' entry under the 'Solutions to Mesh (Red "!" icon) or Texture (solid color) problems' section can also help if your problems started after you installed VWD/LOD texture packages.
* If you are using CASM or some similar "auto-save" mod to manage your save game files (recommended), try increasing the "time between saves" set in the "save frequency"; and reducing the number of occasions it saves to the minimum (e.g. disable most "Autosave Events" in CASM) and see how that impacts the game seeming to freeze temporarily.
* If you have "NVSE logging" enabled (see the 'Checklist Item #4' entry in the wiki "Fallout NV Mod Conflict Troubleshooting" guide), disable it until actually needed.

Reading from or writing to disk for any reason is the slowest thing the game does.

As you can see, there are a number of things that can underlie your problem. If one of these doesn't fix it, I would be interested to hear about any eventual solution that does.

-Dubious-

[jjc71]

The drop occurs every 15 seconds? This is called "stuttering" or "lag".

 

Re: Stuttering or "micro-stutters". All visual stuttering problems are caused by the video stream having to wait for the "art assets" required to render the display OR the game writing something to disk (such as a save game file or logging). Mostly these are due to the hard disk drive being orders of magnitude slower than VRAM, with System RAM (e.g. "ENBoost") and "solid state drives" (SSDs) being in between. Keep in mind that this game was designed for older PC and XBox console systems, and it is now possible for your new "latest and greatest" gaming machine to be faster than it can handle. There are internal design choices that cannot be overcome. The following are "mitigations" that have been found to help some people.

 

Please see the following entries under the 'Solutions to Performance problems' section in the wiki Fallout NV Mod Conflict Troubleshooting" guide if you haven't already.

* 'Issue: "Full screen mode" exhibits CTDs and stutters or micro-stutters'

* 'Issue: Lag or "micro stutters" even with "New Vegas Stutter Remover" installed'

* 'Issue: Win10 Screen tearing in "Borderless Windowed Mode"'

* 'Issue: CTD without warning, "Out of Memory error", or stops responding after the Main Menu' for other settings that can indirectly affect micro-stutter.

* There are also some NVSR configuration suggestions under the 'Issue: Game in slow motion' and entries.

* The 'Issue: What's with these Solid Green billboard signs in the distance (LOD)?' entry under the 'Solutions to Mesh (Red "!" icon) or Texture (solid color) problems' section can also help if your problems started after you installed VWD/LOD texture packages.

* If you are using CASM or some similar "auto-save" mod to manage your save game files (recommended), try increasing the "time between saves" set in the "save frequency"; and reducing the number of occasions it saves to the minimum (e.g. disable most "Autosave Events" in CASM) and see how that impacts the game seeming to freeze temporarily.

* If you have "NVSE logging" enabled (see the 'Checklist Item #4' entry in the wiki "Fallout NV Mod Conflict Troubleshooting" guide), disable it until actually needed.

 

Reading from or writing to disk for any reason is the slowest thing the game does.

 

As you can see, there are a number of things that can underlie your problem. If one of these doesn't fix it, I would be interested to hear about any eventual solution that does.

 

-Dubious-

 

Thank you so much for such a detailed reply. I really appreciate it. You have given me plenty to go on. I couldn't have asked for more. I'll report back if and when I crack this problem.

 

If anybody else has experienced anything similar, I would appreciate any feedback.

 

Thanks again Dubious

[Mktavish]

I wonder if this old dusty tweak guide might be of use ?

http://www.tweakguides.com/Fallout3_1.html

 

The part about triple buffering ... err maybe I'm thinking backwards on that.

 

But also ... since your problem is about what's loaded into memory ... makes me think you could possibly step up the cell depth to the next level (How many cells around the player is loaded) Which that should me mentioned in the guide also.

 

IDK just a stab in the dark worth a mention I thought.

[jjc71]

I wonder if this old dusty tweak guide might be of use ?

http://www.tweakguides.com/Fallout3_1.html

 

The part about triple buffering ... err maybe I'm thinking backwards on that.

 

But also ... since your problem is about what's loaded into memory ... makes me think you could possibly step up the cell depth to the next level (How many cells around the player is loaded) Which that should me mentioned in the guide also.

 

IDK just a stab in the dark worth a mention I thought.

 

That is a good shout. I remember using that tweak guide many moons ago. It might be worth a revisit.

[Mktavish]

Me said "Which that should me mentioned in the guide also."

 

said Typo there ... I ment to say "be mentioned" how did I hit the "m' I don't know ?

[jjc71]

[sOLVED]

 

After following the fantastic info provided by @dubiousintent and @Mktavish, I have fixed my problem. I followed all the helpful hints and tips, many which I'd already implemented previously. I moved my game folder away from C:\Program Files(x86)\ to another partitioned drive. I updated my 4gb patcher, NVSE, stutter remover, ini tweaks and shader package 13, but still the problem persisted. I landed up at the TTW performance page and stumbled across http://www.nexusmods.com/newvegas/mods/61265 which replaces the old ogg vorbis .dll files and hey presto.

 

I'd basically given up at the point of replacing the ogg vorbis files so I was bloody amazed. I'd have never pinpointed it as being related to audio.

 

Thanks again to dubious and Mktavish.

[Mktavish]

That is awesome ! Good find there :thumbsup:

That is all to your credit though , but I appreciate the kind words. Don't think anything I said would have helped much. Except just to be there bouncing idea's off , which is always good.

Dubious is a virtual fountain of helpful info though :smile:

 

I remember an audio application being a problem with Fo3 users , causing slowdowns ,freezing and crashing.

Something to do with codecs I think ... but those are greek to me.

I think it was this tool or something like it that helped people pin point it being an audio issue

http://downloadcct.com/180838us/ddl/111676/LkDCJTIDleGlLyfIyhkejxzGpzDVjpzWLtWpMuACuYySGHrqbv?b_adgroupid=1163283516273288&b_campaignid=331509492&msclkid=c0969b6218be1780683ac07f9373209b&utm_campaign=331509492_1163283516273288&utm_medium=cpc&utm_source=bingads&utm_term=

 

So they were able to see it was eating up the cpu cycles.

 

Again great work , and thanks for documenting it for forum troubleshooting posterity .

[dubiousintent]

I agree. Great detective work. I'd forgotten about that as a possible cause. Adding it to the "Troubleshooting" guide as a potential cause of lag (as soon as I get it recovered).

 

-Dubious-