Fallout 4 and Long Load Times

[llloyd]

Was hoping someone could help me with some long load times.

 

System Specs

 

Ryzen 1700 x

16gb of DDR 4

1tb Samsung EVO boot drive

4tb WD Black data drive

MSI GeForce GTX 1070 Ti

Driver version 417.71

 

So, I recently updated from my old 970 to a 1070 ti card. Fallout 4 Launcher updated me to Ultra all across the board. I did set God Rays to Low, and turned off Weapon Debris, Motion Blur, and Lens Flare. For the most part I do maintain 60 fps, with a few exceptions (like Trinity Tower. >.< ) . But when I first load the game or a new area is first loaded it can take seeming forever on the loading screen. Now I do have Steam on a totally separate physical drive, a 4tb Western Digital Black series hdd. I use the Texture Optimization Project https://www.nexusmods.com/fallout4/mods/978 textures. I also have iNumHWThreads=8 set in the fallout4.ini file as well since my Ryzen 1700x is an 8 core 16 thread processor. So I don't know any other way of speeding up loading besides either sacrificing video quality, then I negate the reason I updated my video card from a 970 to a 1070 Ti, or spend a small princely sum on a Samsung QVO 2tb SSD. Though I am, atm, having Win 10 defrag the drive but it was only 7% fragmented, wasn't really that bad. This is the pre defrag numbers

 

 

https://gyazo.com/6976061293924e6ea35cac1ee9814f5d

 

[MissingMeshTV]

I see two glaring items in your post that are screaming Long Load Times in big red letters:

 

1. If I understand your post correctly, you have FO4 installed on an HDD. That alone will contribute to long load times on a good day. Running the game from an SSD will definitely help.

 

2. The Texture Optimization Project mod is comprised of hundreds of loose texture files. Loose files also contribute significantly to long load times. The FO4 engine handles textures far more efficiently when they are packed into BA2 archives, like the vanilla textures come in. The game has to load all those loose files every time you load into cell. You’re also likely to notice stuttering when crossing cell borders in the worldspace as the game loads all the loose files it needs to render the cell(s). It reads them much faster and efficiently from archives with shorter load times and less stuttering.

 

I’d suggest if you wish to continue using the Texture Optimization Project, you learn about packing loose textures into archives. Same goes for any other texture mods that come as loose files. I recently did a video tutorial on combining textures from different mod packs into your own custom set and packing them into archives. It might help get you started.

 

I also recommend upgrading to an SSD if you at all can swing it. I’m a big fan of Samgsung SSDs, but the Crucial MX500 series seems to be comparable in performance for a lower price if that’s a factor.

 

Take care of those to items, and I think you’ll notice a huge difference in load times. There is a mod here on Nexus (can’t find it a the moment) that disables V-Sync during load screens that some people says helps them. AFAIK it won’t work if you’re using an ENB, but if not you can give it a shot if you can find it. If you ARE using an ENB, you can disable your frame rate cap by using the toggle key assigned to it which I believe is the Home key by default. It's easy to toggle it on and off that way and also helps speed up loading times. As an aside, you never want to run FO4 (or any Bethesda game for that matter) with an uncapped frame rate as the game physics are tied to the frame rate...plenty of info out there on that and the problems it causes.

 

Lastly, setting godrays to low will do nothing by make them a blocky, pixelated mess. If they are set to anything below Ultra and they look awful. I’d suggest looking at this batch file here on the Nexus that tweaks the godray settings so they give ZERO performance hit when set to Ultra.

[llloyd]

Well, 2tb + SSDs cost a fortune still. If I brave New Egg long enough it shows the cheapest is a Samsung 860 QVO 2tb for $260 and it just goes up from there price wise. My Steam install is 1.2 ish TB so I would need a SDD that big if not bigger for future expansion. But I'll figure out how to make the texture pack BA2 then and report back.

 

For those who are curious the post drive optimization numbers -

 

 

https://gyazo.com/12560f641f924f52e5e720e7fc160068

 

 

Edit: Oh that sucks. I need the creation kit. I've been avoiding that as I have to install Beth's stupid software as they decided to not make it available to anyone without like FO3, FNV, TES3, TES4, TES5, etc. >.< Well... Bah. Think I can get away with Archive from Skyrim's Creation Kit? Probably not. >.< Same engine bu they probably changed things just enough to prevent that...

[MissingMeshTV]

Think I can get away with Archive from Skyrim's Creation Kit? Probably not. >.< Same engine bu they probably changed things just enough to prevent that...

Nope. The archives are a different format: BSA compared to BA2. You need to use the correct tools for the game. If you don't want to get into packing archives there are plenty of great texture mods that come packed in BA2s. NMC's texture set, Valius, FlaconOil, Vivid Fallout and the Luxor8071 All-In-One comes to mind.

[llloyd]

Oh I put it in, I do have a couple of mods I want to create, the suggestions I posted on the Mod Suggestions (? Something like that) forums. Like a full T45 in Sanctuary so I can bypass Concord (screw the Minute Men and their endless quests ) . I see a mod for a full T 60 but I can't, in my mind, justify a full T60 at level 1, but the game does offer a full T45 for free at level 1 if you go to Concord and release the Minute Men on the Commonwealth. >.<

 

Packing the TOP files as we speak.

 

<sarcasm> Only a 2.7gb BA2 </sarcasm> >.<

 

Edit: And, oddly enough, even after I disabled TOP I still have like 4gb of textures in the texture folder. O.o Uninstalled them too so they're now showing up as grayed out, it and all the previous versions from over the years, and still have 4gb of textures in the texture folder. Odd...

[llloyd]

Ok, now, let me see...

 

My installed - Green Checkmarked - mods

 

 

 

Achievements

Aether89 Pip Boy Customization Pack

Aloof's Home Plate

AWKCR

AWKCR - Goodies Footlocker

AWKCR Power Armor Paint Edit

Brotherhood of Steel Knight Relay Grenade

Callente's Beautiful Bodies CBBE

Chem Bench Ammo

Companion Infinite Ammo and Unbreakable Power Armor

Craftable Castle Wall Patches

Craftable Vault 81 Cure - Earned Edition

Enclave X-02 Power armor

Enclave X-02 Power Armor Patch

Everyone's Best Friend (Dogmeat and Companion at Same Time)

Full Dialog Interface

Heather Casdin

Homemaker - Expanded Settlements

Immersive Lovers

Legendary Lamps

MikeMoore's MCAM Melee Collectable and Adventure Mod

Minutemen Overhaul 2.0

Minutemen Pain Job

Minutemen Take Over Nuka World

No Companion Junk Comments

No More Creation Club News

Nuka World Bottle Scenery Fix

Nuka World Collectable Quest Markers

Pip Boy Customization Framework

Place Everywhere

Ponytail Hairstyles by Azar

Sim Settlements 3 in 1

Spring Cleaning

Unofficial Fallout 4 Patch

Valdacil's Item Sorting

Vivid Waters

WET

X-01 - Galahad Paint job

X-02 Pipboy Flashlight Patch

 

 

 

So which of those is causing a c*** tonne of loose texture files. *hmm*

[MissingMeshTV]

Had I realized you were using Spring Cleaning, would have have put it at the top of the red flag list. Ditch it. Last I knew it comes with it's own .ini that disables precombines globally. That will tank your FPS right there. Scrapping mods by their nature are something to be avoided since that disable precombines in order to do what they do. Broken precombines are also what cause you to need that Nuka World Bottle Scenery Fix.

Edited March 3, 2019 by RedRocketTV

[llloyd]

Hmm. Well, let's see how things work once I figure out what is keeping my texture folder so stuffed after I uninstalled TOP permanently then give the B2A a whirl. Maybe the brokenness won't be bad enough to have to give up Spring Cleaning. CBBE is at the top of my hit list, it stuffs the Meshes folder full of meshes but only a couple of textures.

[llloyd]

Well, hallaluia, I didn't completely blow it up. So... Hours of work later, fixed the ownership / perms of the Steam install (forgot I just left it all when I upgraded to the Ryzen 1700 x and Win 10 and reused the existing files so i wouldn't have to reinstall over 1tb of game data. >.< ) , got FO 4 uninstalled, redownloaded from Steam, mods reinstalled. And this time I installed each mod one by one, if it added textures or meshes, stop and create b2as for that mod. So no meshes folder and only 3 textures (for the detailed maps). Load times seem a bit better, still long, but not crazy long, more tolerable levels of long. Also got rid of a lot of extra stuff lying around from older mods I updated. Like the save file, when I loaded it, whined I was missing valdacil - zz - DLCRuleArmorByClass.esp ... That isn't in the newest version of Valdacil, 9.0.3, I eventually found it in the 8.0.1 archive and felt it was safe to ignore that and let the save load. It's not wise to mix mod versions. >.< So next year, during tax season, I'll have to poke at getting a Samsung QVO 2tb or 4tb, see how far the prices of dropped by then.

[Moraelin]

Did you get the load accelerator yet, btw? Because most of that waiting at the loading screen is Bethesda loading a bit, waiting for the next frame, loading a bit, waiting for the next frame, etc. Most of that time isn't even spent waiting on the HDD, it's spent pointlessly waiting for the vsync, for some unfathomable reason.

 

Bethesda programming at its finest, folks...