Is the Texture Optimisation Project going to help...

[GenkiM]

You still don't understand how to optimize the game. Let me try to help out:

 

If your GPU is firing at full power, 100% load, giving its literal best and you hit 60 fps you're at peak performance. That's your optimization target: Best visual fidelity at 1080p@60Hz. To achieve this, the game has to feed enough information into the rendering API (DirectX) so it tells the GPU to do stuff 100% of each clock cycle. Feeding the GPU is done by the CPU. So if your GPU load goes down and your frame rate does too, that's because your video card isn't fed enough data from the rest of the system. Your CPU in turn is bottlenecked by a million different factors. Disk latency is one of them (slow storage murders performance), driver overhead and API overhead too. And of course Creation Engine itself with its thousands of config switches. Some of those factors are out of your control (software overhead), some are not (game settings, disk latency).

 

Only if your frame rate drops and the GPU load stays at 100%, you're bottlenecked on the GPU. This is typically the case if you add postprocessing to a game that's running fine. ReShade for example.

 

Now, if you add ENB to your vanilla setup, most of its effects should cost you a few fps because ENB sits inside the application and mostly adds some step to the render pipeline, which makes each frame take some miliseconds longer to render (read: your frame rate is lowered). In some cases it doesn't because the system is running so efficiently that you were actually above 60 fps all the time and could buy more fidelity without violating your optimization target.

 

In short, do not try to optimize your GPU, it's able to crank out enough pixels to hit your performance target at 100% load. Optimize the rest that feeds your GPU.

 

Also, STOP. USING. AFTERBURNER. Boris (the author of ENB) mentions this specific software as incompatible with ENB.

 

Okay, but if I let my GPU get to 100% utilisation my frame rate drops to about 48 fps and it stutters so much it feels like it's sub 30fps.

 

I was assuming maxing out the processor was bad, due to it being overloaded and unable to cope with what it was being fed.

 

You're telling me that that isn't the case, so ( apart from not using afterburner) what do you suggest I do?

 

You think it's something to do with my CPU not serving the GPU enough data?

Edited August 23, 2018 by GenkiM

[GenkiM]

You still don't understand how to optimize the game. Let me try to help out:

 

If your GPU is firing at full power, 100% load, giving its literal best and you hit 60 fps you're at peak performance. That's your optimization target: Best visual fidelity at 1080p@60Hz. To achieve this, the game has to feed enough information into the rendering API (DirectX) so it tells the GPU to do stuff 100% of each clock cycle. Feeding the GPU is done by the CPU. So if your GPU load goes down and your frame rate does too, that's because your video card isn't fed enough data from the rest of the system. Your CPU in turn is bottlenecked by a million different factors. Disk latency is one of them (slow storage murders performance), driver overhead and API overhead too. And of course Creation Engine itself with its thousands of config switches. Some of those factors are out of your control (software overhead), some are not (game settings, disk latency).

 

Only if your frame rate drops and the GPU load stays at 100%, you're bottlenecked on the GPU. This is typically the case if you add postprocessing to a game that's running fine. ReShade for example.

 

Now, if you add ENB to your vanilla setup, most of its effects should cost you a few fps because ENB sits inside the application and mostly adds some step to the render pipeline, which makes each frame take some miliseconds longer to render (read: your frame rate is lowered). In some cases it doesn't because the system is running so efficiently that you were actually above 60 fps all the time and could buy more fidelity without violating your optimization target.

 

In short, do not try to optimize your GPU, it's able to crank out enough pixels to hit your performance target at 100% load. Optimize the rest that feeds your GPU.

 

Also, STOP. USING. AFTERBURNER. Boris (the author of ENB) mentions this specific software as incompatible with ENB.

 

Hi. Thanks for the heads-up. I checked my bios and it's not optimised for performance. I thought I'd set it to optimised but for some reason it didn't take (probably my fault), also boost wasn't enabled in the BIOS :/

 

I'm looking at it now trying to optimise everything, and hoping its going to improve things.

[GenkiM]

You still don't understand how to optimize the game. Let me try to help out...

 

Thanks so much, I just went through my BIOS and optimised the performance and it's removed about 99% of the stutter and slow-down from my FO4 install.

 

I'm going to try replacing the textures with the original textures and see if it stays smooth.

 

As for the "overhead" improving over time, It seems I was just sticking to low-poly-count areas. My settlements are where there's still a little slowdown but absolutely nothing like what I was experiencing before the CPU optimisation.

 

In line with what you were saying about the GPU being at 100% being a good thing, should it be at 100% or is that just a guideline? i.e. 60 fps at 100% means maximum efficiency? Is there a way to enhance what I have installed to take advantage of the available computing power, or is it just a case of installing more stuff while I still have horsepower to spare, so to speak? Or am I still misunderstanding it?

 

EDIT: It does tend to get a bit slow when it's at maximum load; I'm not sure why it hits maximum sometimes and is okay for the rest of the time? I think rain doesn't help; it's a particle effect and can effect performance?

 

Anyway, here's another screen shot, after CPU optimisation in the BIOS, and note: no MSI Afterburner present... :smile:

 

And yes, you're right, I really don't know about this stuff, I'm just muddling through it and trying to figure it out as best I can. It seemed intuitive that a maxed out GPU would be responsible for the slow down and stuttering issues, especially with what the graphs were showing me turning NAC Enhancer on and off, and getting huge changes to performance as a result. :/ But yeah, I thought I'd set my motherboard to performance mode but when I went back into the BIOS for some reason it was set to "Custom". Probably because turbo wasn't enabled for the CPU; I thought it was automatic :/

 

 

Oh well...off to re-install the vanilla textures.... :rolleyes:

Edited August 23, 2018 by GenkiM

[payl0ad]

 

As for the "overhead" improving over time, It seems I was just sticking to low-poly-count areas. My settlements are where there's still a little slowdown but absolutely nothing like what I was experiencing before the CPU optimisation.

 

In line with what you were saying about the GPU being at 100% being a good thing, should it be at 100% or is that just a guideline? i.e. 60 fps at 100% means maximum efficiency? Is there a way to enhance what I have installed to take advantage of the available computing power, or is it just a case of installing more stuff while I still have horsepower to spare, so to speak? Or am I still misunderstanding it?

 

It does tend to get a bit slow when it's at maximum load; I'm not sure why it hits maximum sometimes and is okay for the rest of the time? I think rain doesn't help; it's a particle effect and can effect performance?

 

Settlements causing slight slowdown isn't unusual. Settlements have a build limit for a reason: Having lots of objects (not necessarily triangles) keeps your CPU from feeding data into the GPU. This is the same bottleneck you're likely experiencing in downtown Boston.

 

Your GPU is running at 100% in a perfect scenario, when everything else is running so well that your system can feed enough data into the GPU to be able to run at 100% load. You need to keep in mind that GPU load is a result, not a cause for something. The GPU depends on getting orders to draw something, if those orders don't come, GPU load drops.

 

As for the slowdown, I'm not sure what you mean by that. Does the frame rate drop when you hit 100% GPU load? Or does this happen only under certain circumstances? Hitting maximum is desirable in any case - remember, it's a result of something else happening.

 

 

It seemed intuitive that a maxed out GPU would be responsible for the slow down and stuttering issues

 

Well it's counterintuitive for me - why would the GPU be responsible for stuttering if the system fails to utilize it to its fullest potential (read: doesn't get it to high GPU loads)?

 

Now, to optimize your setup further, you'll need to evaluate the things you can change. Textures are among that, but you should have seen by now that lowering texture size doesn't really get you anywhere (except it also looks like s***). Another important factor is your game configuration. For instance, Creation Engine is pretty inefficient at drawing dynamic shadows. Both their quality and draw distance ("At what distance from the player can I stop drawing dynamic shadows?") have a very relevant impact on CPU load and thus frame rate. Godrays are similar but with less impact. Do your research, there are a lot of good ini tweaking guides out there.

 

Now that we've established a baseline for how stuff works you will want to experiment more.

 

If you want to see if HD textures (which have a huge impact on visual fidelity) work fine for you, make sure you are always using BA2 archives, never use texture mods that ship as loose files. For starters I'd install the Vivid Fallout AIO pack in 2K size and see how my VRAM behaves in highly crowded cells. A good benchmark would be starting at Goodneighbors exit and walking north for a bit. That place is the worst performance hog in the entire game so it's good to test there - your frame rate will never be lower than in that region. If you don't drop far below 60 you're golden. Always test the same scenario to keep it comparable. Also never add more than one mod in between benchmarking sessions or your results will not really tell you much. When testing HD textures, you want to monitor VRAM usage closely and see if you can find a scenario where you hit more than 3.5 GB (remember, the last 0.5 GB of your VRAM is much slower than the first 3.5 GB). If not, those HD textures should cost you less than 5 fps and shouldn't cause stutter. Meaning, they're perfectly fine to use for your setup.

 

Also, consider using Boston FPS Fix, which overhauls optimizations in the downtown region.

 

Never use these ini settings set to 0, they murder your frame rate: bUseCombinedObjects, bUsePrecreatedSCOLs

Edited August 24, 2018 by payl0ad

[GenkiM]

 

 

As for the "overhead" improving over time, It seems I was just sticking to low-poly-count areas. My settlements are where there's still a little slowdown but absolutely nothing like what I was experiencing before the CPU optimisation.

 

In line with what you were saying about the GPU being at 100% being a good thing, should it be at 100% or is that just a guideline? i.e. 60 fps at 100% means maximum efficiency? Is there a way to enhance what I have installed to take advantage of the available computing power, or is it just a case of installing more stuff while I still have horsepower to spare, so to speak? Or am I still misunderstanding it?

 

It does tend to get a bit slow when it's at maximum load; I'm not sure why it hits maximum sometimes and is okay for the rest of the time? I think rain doesn't help; it's a particle effect and can effect performance?

 

Settlements causing slight slowdown isn't unusual. Settlements have a build limit for a reason: Having lots of objects (not necessarily triangles) keeps your CPU from feeding data into the GPU. This is the same bottleneck you're likely experiencing in downtown Boston.

 

Your GPU is running at 100% in a perfect scenario, when everything else is running so well that your system can feed enough data into the GPU to be able to run at 100% load. You need to keep in mind that GPU load is a result, not a cause for something. The GPU depends on getting orders to draw something, if those orders don't come, GPU load drops.

 

As for the slowdown, I'm not sure what you mean by that. Does the frame rate drop when you hit 100% GPU load? Or does this happen only under certain circumstances? Hitting maximum is desirable in any case - remember, it's a result of something else happening.

 

 

It seemed intuitive that a maxed out GPU would be responsible for the slow down and stuttering issues

 

Well it's counterintuitive for me - why would the GPU be responsible for stuttering if the system fails to utilize it to its fullest potential (read: doesn't get it to high GPU loads)?

 

Now, to optimize your setup further, you'll need to evaluate the things you can change. Textures are among that, but you should have seen by now that lowering texture size doesn't really get you anywhere (except it also looks like s***). Another important factor is your game configuration. For instance, Creation Engine is pretty inefficient at drawing dynamic shadows. Both their quality and draw distance ("At what distance from the player can I stop drawing dynamic shadows?") have a very relevant impact on CPU load and thus frame rate. Godrays are similar but with less impact. Do your research, there are a lot of good ini tweaking guides out there.

 

Now that we've established a baseline for how stuff works you will want to experiment more.

 

If you want to see if HD textures (which have a huge impact on visual fidelity) work fine for you, make sure you are always using BA2 archives, never use texture mods that ship as loose files. For starters I'd install the Vivid Fallout AIO pack in 2K size and see how my VRAM behaves in highly crowded cells. A good benchmark would be starting at Goodneighbors exit and walking north for a bit. That place is the worst performance hog in the entire game so it's good to test there - your frame rate will never be lower than in that region. If you don't drop far below 60 you're golden. Always test the same scenario to keep it comparable. Also never add more than one mod in between benchmarking sessions or your results will not really tell you much. When testing HD textures, you want to monitor VRAM usage closely and see if you can find a scenario where you hit more than 3.5 GB (remember, the last 0.5 GB of your VRAM is much slower than the first 3.5 GB). If not, those HD textures should cost you less than 5 fps and shouldn't cause stutter. Meaning, they're perfectly fine to use for your setup.

 

Also, consider using Boston FPS Fix, which overhauls optimizations in the downtown region.

 

Never use these ini settings set to 0, they murder your frame rate: bUseCombinedObjects, bUsePrecreatedSCOLs

 

 

Thanks so much, I'll give Vivid Fallout a try and will test, and I'll do the research for the ini file. :)

[GenkiM]

 

A good benchmark would be starting at Goodneighbors exit and walking north for a bit...

 

 

I just found my way to Goodneighbor (hadn't discovered it yet) and north, just outside the entrance to Goodneighbor, I'm most consistently getting 24 fps (with vanilla textures). I have NAC and NAC Enhancer enabled.

 

From what you're telling me, I'm guessing there's something wrong with this picture?

 

The processor's an i7 4790k

 

[payl0ad]

Yeah, there's something seriously wrong with your setup. But without any further info about load order, ini settings and so on there's no real way to help for this specific case. I get ~45 fps there with using all the bells and whistles (HD textures, ENB and whatnot) and the only practical difference is our video card. If you're running off SSD that is.

 

Also, to find help with that, head over to the troubleshooting forum.

[GenkiM]

Yeah, there's something seriously wrong with your setup. But without any further info about load order, ini settings and so on there's no real way to help for this specific case. I get ~45 fps there with using all the bells and whistles (HD textures, ENB and whatnot) and the only practical difference is our video card. If you're running off SSD that is.

 

Also, to find help with that, head over to the troubleshooting forum.

 

Okay, thanks, I will do. And yeah, I'm on SSD.

 

When you say something seriously wrong with my setup, do you mean the installation or my hardware?

[Deleted49413338User]

Payl0ad, you are always helping here, hats off to you!

 

I did't know about Afterburner being incompatible with ENB. Thanks!

 

My problem is without Afterburner, my fan speeds max out and it sounds like a jet engine taking off. I have a terrible PC case for cooling and a stock 1060 6gb (blower type I think)

 

So gpu hits 80 degrees and fans take off.. and all that does is maintain the temp not drop it.

 

I set Afterburner to only use 70% of power for the card and it then it doesn't reach the max fan speed threshold. its also enough to maintain 60fps, in most areas of the game anyway. Sometimes I get drops even if it was set to 100%

 

does ENB have options to limit power draw of card or temp limits etc? Or is there another software I should be using as an alternative to Afterburner?

[GenkiM]

Payl0ad, you are always helping here, hats off to you!

 

I did't know about Afterburner being incompatible with ENB. Thanks!

 

My problem is without Afterburner, my fan speeds max out and it sounds like a jet engine taking off. I have a terrible PC case for cooling and a stock 1060 6gb (blower type I think)

 

So gpu hits 80 degrees and fans take off.. and all that does is maintain the temp not drop it.

 

I set Afterburner to only use 70% of power for the card and it then it doesn't reach the max fan speed threshold. its also enough to maintain 60fps, in most areas of the game anyway. Sometimes I get drops even if it was set to 100%

 

does ENB have options to limit power draw of card or temp limits etc? Or is there another software I should be using as an alternative to Afterburner?

 

Maybe think about replacing your existing fans with high efficiency fans like Noctuas?

 

If your card has an extractor it should blow the hot air out of the case; if it's an open heatsink it just blows the hot air off of the heatsink, meaning the air inside the case will get hot and needs to rely on the case's extractors to clear it.

 

More, higher efficiency fans should help. Also, the temperature inside the case can't get any lower than the ambient temperature of the room the case is situated in so, one of the best things you can do to reduce case temperatures is to make sure the room the P.C.s sitting in is well ventilated. Opening doors and windows or turning on aircon (if you have it) should help with that.

Edited August 25, 2018 by GenkiM