Long Startup Time (Black Screen)

[klingongal]

There was a similar discussion that I saw here from June of 2017, but nothing was officially resolved, so I'm starting this again.

Recently I've been having issues with my game's start time. I have not installed Vortex yet...still running on NMM. I have minimal mods. Yet when I start FO4 through F4SE, most of the time I don't even get the startup screen (where you click to start the game) and I get a black screen with a spinning wheel. If I'm patient enough and wait, the game eventually starts, but it takes a minimum of five minutes and I've waited as long as half-hour without it even starting.

 

Here are my mods and their load order, if this helps:

 

0 0 Fallout4.esm

1 1 DLCRobot.esm

2 2 DLCworkshop01.esm

3 3 DLCCoast.esm

4 4 DLCworkshop02.esm

5 5 DLCworkshop03.esm

6 6 DLCNukaWorld.esm

254 FE 0 ccawnfo4001-brandedattire.esl

254 FE 1 ccswkfo4002-pipnuka.esl

254 FE 2 ccswkfo4003-pipquan.esl

7 7 Unofficial Fallout 4 Patch.esp

8 8 SimSettlements.esm

9 9 EasyHacking.esp

10 a EasyLockpicking.esp

11 b Lasers Have No Recoil.esp

12 c More Where That Came From Diamond City.esp

13 d AES_Renovated Furniture.esp

14 e RichMerchants.esp

15 f Skip DIMA memories.esp

16 10 The Eyes Of Beauty.esp

17 11 CBBE.esp

18 12 OWR_CraftableDecor.esp

19 13 OWR_CraftableDecor_CW.esp

20 14 KSHairdos_oel.esp

21 15 OutcastsAndRemnants.esp

22 16 KSHairdos.esp

23 17 VisibleCompanionAffinity.esp

24 18 AA FusionCityRising.esp

25 19 AmazingFollowerTweaks.esp

26 1a ProjectValkyrie.esp

27 1b OWR.esp

28 1c LooksMenu.esp

29 1d Keep Radiants In Commonwealth.esp

30 1e Scrap Everything - Core.esp

31 1f Scrap Everything - Far Harbor.esp

I would really like to play my game again. Yes, I've backed up my game save files; they are on an external hard drive, so they're not taking up space on my computer.

I'm running Windows 10 Home, 64-bit

Processor: Intel Core i7-6700HQ CPU @ 2.60GHz

Installed RAM: 16GB

ASUS ROG G752VT-DH72

16GB RAM, custom installed 250GB SSD, 1TB HDD

Chipset: Mobile Intel CM236 Express

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 970M 3GB Video

I have a few games, and a 250gb SSD isn't holding all of them...I installed the main files for my games in the D drive (the HDD) and the game saves go on the SSD.

Any suggestions on how to speed up my game when it is opening? I'm really tired of trying all day to play this game but ending up waiting three or four days before the thing actually opens.

OH - and another weird thing I noticed....when the bombs go off, and I'm going down the shaft to the vault...the "base" of the vault elevator (the thing that you're supposed to stand on) is TOTALLY INVISIBLE.

I'm also having issues with customizing my character. The character customization screen always freezes when I'm trying to create a new character...right about the time I'm choosing the hair, after I've put in about 20 minutes worth of customizing the face, eyes, etc! Very frustrating!

Any help would REALLY, really be appreciated. FO4 is my thing.

Cheryl

[gromulos]

I'm not familiar with most of your mods but I can tell you an insane load time like that is usually one of two possible things, which one of them you don't even have in place

 

1) a mod conflict

2) no patch file

 

People, mostly beginners to modding, who don't use a patch file to make all of their mods work together nicely almost always have problems running their games in one form or another

 

my guide - follow it STEP by STEP and do ALL of steps 1-3 including Appendix 1 ( if needed ) - https://forums.nexusmods.com/index.php?/topic/3886575-fallout-4-beginners-guide/

 

Let me know how it turns out please :)

[klingongal]

My brain is numb after reading over all of this...seriously...I am 55, had a stroke a couple of months ago, and all I want to do is play a game. With just a few mods. I had everything all nice and put together with NMM and now they do this??? I don't like the format, I don't like the design, and I don't like the fact that Vortex doesn't recognize ANY of my mods. Even after I put their direct pathway in the program! UGH!

 

Until I can get my head around this...this workaround...I don't know. I got that you need to check and double check mods, because even though the authors may check them, there's always new stuff coming out, and new problems may happen. But what about Wrye Bash? I don't understand why I need that. It's yet another mod organizer. And the Nexus wants us to use Vortex...so why use WB when I may eventually get Vortex to work...?

 

God, how confusing. I'm just using the unupdated version of Nexus Mod Manager until I guess I can't play my games anymore. Which sucks.

[gromulos]

Wrye bash does more than organize your mods. Infact Wrye Bash is self aware for LOOT. when you run Wrye Bash, it will follow the LOOT load order all by itself.

 

There is more:

 

1) Wrye Bash is used to make a "Bashed Patch" - explained in my guide section 2

2) When you run WB if you see any orange or red mods, those mods WILL cause crashes slow startups, and even infinite loads

3) WB can be used to rebuild a load order with nothing more than an old save - it can show you EVERY mod listed that the save used

 

My advice is this:

 

Go back to using NMM 0.65.2 with LOOT, Wrye Bash, and FO4Edit

Vortex has never been beginner friendly since it's beta release

ANY time you use more than 3 or 4 mods, you HAVE to have a BAshed Patch file from WB and even if you only use 3 mods, a bashed patch can still be a life saver if those 3 mods are big ones or script heavy

 

You stated:

 

 

I am 55, had a stroke a couple of months ago

 

Well I had a full blown heart attack at 48, and I MADE myself learn all of this information, then I made the guide because in the old Nexus chat room there were dozens of people every day looking for help. That is one reason why my skyrim guide has over 51K views.

 

Take the time to learn the tools required to have a stable game that you can play up to level 200 if you want to, believe me, in the long run it will be worth it and much less stressful

[Deleted49413338User]

Hmm. I never used wyre bash I make my patches using FO4edit. Seems to work fine. The feature where it can recreate a load order just from a save file sounds like it could be handy though.

[gromulos]

read my guide about using the merged patch, it's something you should NOT be doing, the guide explains why from the AUTHORS

[Invictusblade]

I am having a similar issue to you and i have no idea what is causing the real problem. in fact i went here to find out other peoples opinions.

 

the easy way to find out if we have the same problem is to rename(NOT REMOVE) your sound folder inside Fallout 4's Data folder. (btw I found this after i exhausted my list of tests)

 

for example sound to sound_2

[jdkzombie]

Right off the bat, I will say that 254 FE is for some reason is in your list it is above the Unofficial Fallout 4 patch, which on the mods page specifically says it goes at the top of your load order underneath the main game files/dlc files.

 

My game also starts up a little slow, but once it gets going it runs nearly perfectly.

 

You say that your vault 101 base lift was invisible? That would most likely mean a corrupted file or texture, have you checked file integrity via Steam?

 

Another thing, your graphics card may be struggling. 3Gb of RAM is very little for a game that can easily spike over 4Gb at the worst of times. Did it work fine before? It may be a mod that uses high resolution assets. What graphic quality setting are you at? Godrays setting?

 

Sim Settlements is also unbelievable script heavy. Which takes resources.

 

Scrap Everything can be troublesome depending on mod version.

[gromulos]

Right off the bat, I will say that 254 FE is for some reason is in your list it is above the Unofficial Fallout 4 patch, which on the mods page specifically says it goes at the top of your load order underneath the main game files/dlc files.

 

My game also starts up a little slow, but once it gets going it runs nearly perfectly.

 

You say that your vault 101 base lift was invisible? That would most likely mean a corrupted file or texture, have you checked file integrity via Steam?

 

Another thing, your graphics card may be struggling. 3Gb of RAM is very little for a game that can easily spike over 4Gb at the worst of times. Did it work fine before? It may be a mod that uses high resolution assets. What graphic quality setting are you at? Godrays setting?

 

Sim Settlements is also unbelievable script heavy. Which takes resources.

 

Scrap Everything can be troublesome depending on mod version.

 

that 254 FE is an ESL, Creation Club file, they HAVE to load before ALL other non vanilla files, Bethesda set them that way

[jdrfox]

Sorry you're having problems with gromulos' guide, I know it seems complicated when reading, but it isn't as much in practice.

 

The Wrye Bash + bash patch is super important to me, not only for faster load times, but better performance in-game as well. Another thing that significantly boosted game performance (load times and gameplay) for me is by compiling every loose file from mods into a unified main + texture BA2s. I really recommend getting wrye bash and getting all your mods to show 'green'. I know there's a youtube tutorial on how to unify all your loose mesh, material and texture files into single main and texture .BA2 files.

 

I remembered this because I had horrible game hiccups and long load times before I learned to optimize my mods. Even just the Looks Menu options, hair styles, new character customization options, all come as loose files, and I remember simply walking to a settlement and my game would lag for a good 2 - 3 seconds to load the npcs, and load times took forever. After the optimizations, absolutely no stutters or pauses, and normal load times.

Edited November 8, 2018 by jdrfox