Need a reliable Skyrim.ini and SkyrimPrefs.ini and settings info

[SMB92]

Could have been, the universe does that to me and cant say i tested it twice either. I know about the delay that can occur but its only happened to me 3 or 4 times. Ideally if the cpu is fast enough, we want to reduce this value and give more time to frames. But no single core i know of on the commercial market is capable of this XD.

 

My favorite thing to look at is the carnage my papyrus log is after starting a new game. Everything goes smoothly in game, but lololol that log. Random thought of the moment.

[blattgeist]

Yeah that log.. though it can be helpful at times, at least to determine "that" mod which you should get rid of ASAP --> papyrus error spams. Usually "that mod" is rather old and the user comments already show error spams without mod author reaction. It was the case for Wyrmstooth (now resolved) and for some other house building mod.

 

For now I have logging turned off, always.

 

Anyway, I'd still like to know what cdcooley meant with that sentence: "To optimize script performance make sure you keep your FPS as close to 60 as possible, lower framerate means slower scripts."

 

Do I really have to raise my FPS cap to 60 in order to get full script performance?

Edited October 26, 2015 by blattgeist

[SMB92]

I just turned it on to see what it said about me starting a new game... good laughs.

 

One thing though, ive never had a problem starting a new game with Helgen Reborn. I had forgotten all about it and well, i guess it just works.

 

Also did anyone mention multithreaded navmesh tweak yet?

 

Edit - what cdcooley is saying makes no sense. Unless the script budget is given after some other resource is completed its task. I thought papyrus had priority and the rest of the time was given to the renderer. That said, i thought i just seen a post about walking into a cell and weapons etc being on the floor and then getting relocated to thier weapon racks etc, which would mean the renderer goes first.

 

As per smkVipers post it would seem this doesnt matter either way as any extra time added to fupdatebudget can take away from frame time for the renderer, if it uses the whole budget. If you are already struggling to hit 60, then you will have no hope of getting it by upping this setting if your game is overloaded with scripts. Hence why i say there is no single core fast enough to get the absolute best from all settings in Skyrim, it has to be balanced. Having said that i am enjoying a disgustingly high level of graphics and scripts in my game, albeit with some frame dives in intense areas, but smoothly at that 90% of the time.

 

If any remembers trying to get Oblivion to stop lagging after 1.5million polies on scene + 6000 draw calls, they would somewhat appreciate Skyrim at least a little bit more.

[blattgeist]

 

I thought papyrus had priority and the rest of the time was given to the renderer.

 

That's exactly what a co-worker and I thought.

 

 

That said, i thought i just seen a post about walking into a cell and weapons etc being on the floor and then getting relocated to thier weapon racks etc, which would mean the renderer goes first.

 

Uh... what? Sounds just as creepy as the walking mannequins lol.

 

 

As per smkVipers post it would seem this doesnt matter either way as any extra time added to fupdatebudget can take away from frame time for the renderer

 

Yes, that's why high values (like 800) there are dangerous.

 

 

Having said that i am enjoying a disgustingly high level of graphics and scripts in my game

 

I don't like limits either. There are several tools that help a player to deal with Skyrim's build in limits (issues) like ENBoost, SKSE and SSME (which is a build in feature of SKSE now). Also getting more GPU and CPU power helps to an extend too if you want high graphics. Scripts are in another book but I think the "approved" mods of the Nexus are save to use together... although some should be taken with care... There are some really popular mods which are also known for being script heavy.... finding a balance is not easy. I stay away from the ones that are known to cause issues together with other script loaded mods.

 

Well.. back to topic. What does the author say about the provided inis? :wink:

Edited October 26, 2015 by blattgeist

[SMB92]

Lol thats were i read that post, on the previous page XD. CDcooley mentioned both the mannequins and weapon rack examples.

 

Now a thought looking back, when you lock the frame rate i imagine what you are doing is hardcapping the time the game has to produce the frame. Which means you are giving the cpu more time and how that could affect the script is beyond me, if anything you could increase it safely. However, if the theory that the renderer goes first is true, and it takes that long for your game to produce the frame, if there is something wrong with the framecap/hardcap method that makes it so it HAS to spit the frame out in that time frame, but cant and then the gpu drops the frame, then it would be obvious that the script had no time to run. This is a rather obtuse situation/theory however.

 

Furthermore, if the scripts are always running on the loading screens preparing for the next scenes, well then to me this indicates that papyrus does indeed run first.

 

 

I think i will just upload my own INIs soon. Anyway carry on ppl :)

[blattgeist]

The only thing I know about frames in Skyrim is that you should never go under 35, because it could cause script issues... let me get the quote... where did I put it *fiddles with old text files*. Ah here it is... yeah it says that going below 35 FPS can corrupt saves in the long run.. and cause some sort of flying objects problem. But don't ask me where I got that info from.

Edited October 26, 2015 by blattgeist

[ironbender800]

Optimizing windows helps a lot with how game runs. Disable background apps and follow a windows optimization guide.

 

Only use tried and true INI edits or you can tweak your game for the worse. Most dont help and just cause crashes and instability.

 

since optimizing windows my performance really is a lot better. Not so much fps wise.....but the stutter is drastically reduced.

 

Only issue i cant solve is the damn mountain flickering. its unbearable in whiterun and ive tried to INI tweaks for it...no change just worse performance. :( Only thing that helps is reducing view distances and distance quality but that decreases immersion.

 

And be realistic with what your system can handle when modding. Even with a powerful system its all about balance.

[cdcooley]

The link between framerate and Papyrus performance was explained in one of SmkViper's many postings about how Papyrus works, but I don't have a reference handy. It's easy enough to understand and even documented on the CK Wiki. If you look at the list of Papyrus functions you'll find that only 57 of them are in the "Non-delayed Native Function" category. All of the other functions need to sync with the game's framerate. That means basically one function call per frame for most script activity! It's a very rare script that can get anything interesting done with just those Non-Delayed functions. Chesko's fancy system for creating worker threads is specifically designed to work around the framerate syncing issue. You can read the page on threading for more information about the effects of object locking and other things that also relate to framerate. But in short, keep your framerate as close to 60 as you can. (Personally I have to run at 30 because my system is so old, which is why I know what happens if fPostLoadUpdateTimeMS isn't set high enough.)

 

That reddit page is a pretty good write-up but it doesn't seem to convey strongly enough just how dangerous changes to those Papyrus settings really are. SmkViper has said that the settings are there to limit Papyrus because left uncontrolled it will consume all of your system resources. For the game to work all of its sub-systems have to be in balance and the default settings are already set to try and optimize the game. By raising the Budget and Memory values you're stealing CPU time and RAM from the other aspects of the game; your NPC AI, lighting, particle effects, etc. will suffer and you're more likely to see stuttering and even crashes.

 

The four relatively safe settings to change are bEnableLogging, bEnableTrace, bLoadDebugInformation, and fPostLoadUpdateTimeMS.

 

The logging and tracing settings will slow your game down (and possibly cause stuttering) because they will force the game to access the hard drive every time a script generates an error or displays some status message. The loadDebug setting will consume slightly more memory. Unless you're diagnosing script problems, leave them turned off.

 

The fPostLoadUpdateTimeMS is the only one of the Papyrus settings that is likely to have a positive effect if you raise it above the default of 500. But even that benefit comes at the cost of longer load screen delays. There are a lot of things that need to happen when you switch locations (and get a load screen) and if Papyrus can't get them done during the PostLoadUpdate time it has to continue working after the player starts interacting with the game. The mannequins, weapon racks, traps, etc. are all managed by scripts but they can't be manipulated until the game has the objects fully loaded. This setting is the amount of time the script has to get everything right while the screen is still black but after the cell is technically ready to be shown. Technically nothing bad happens if the value is too low (except that you get to watch the scripts do their housekeeping) or too high (except that you sit staring at the load screen longer).

 

If fPostLoadUpdateTimeMS is higher than it needs to be it does give any scripts that were already running before you switched locations a little extra time to finish so higher is probably better than lower for overall performance. But the faster your CPU the lower the value you should need!

[SMB92]

Well that confirms the missing link in my above thoughts about which resource needs to go first, seems mostly the renderer. I was wondering how the script could run on an object that hasnt loaded.

 

I really need to read those statements before i can understand the exact reasons the fps is important, i read a lot into dx9 trying to understand why better hardware still suffered problems but ive never had any problems with script performance so i have never really played with settings apart from that attempt. All i know so far is the obvious that the updatebudget etc cuts into frametimes.

 

Random thought that popped into my head just now, if thos is the case as you say CD, i wonder how someone thats playing the game with bad gfx and ini config thats getting a lot of framedrops (say someone that is playing with 8 prerendered frames and they keep dropping) or even someone whos playing without vsync and over 60fps, gets along with their game XD

[blattgeist]

The link between framerate and Papyrus performance was explained in one of SmkViper's many postings about how Papyrus works, but I don't have a reference handy. It's easy enough to understand and even documented on the CK Wiki. If you look at the list of Papyrus functions you'll find that only 57 of them are in the "Non-delayed Native Function" category. All of the other functions need to sync with the game's framerate. That means basically one function call per frame for most script activity! It's a very rare script that can get anything interesting done with just those Non-Delayed functions. Chesko's fancy system for creating worker threads is specifically designed to work around the framerate syncing issue. You can read the page on threading for more information about the effects of object locking and other things that also relate to framerate. But in short, keep your framerate as close to 60 as you can. (Personally I have to run at 30 because my system is so old, which is why I know what happens if fPostLoadUpdateTimeMS isn't set high enough.)

 

Damn... that's new to me. But thanks for clarification. So I somehow need to get 60 FPS, a long view distance settings (counters Z-Fighting, a STEP suggestion) and smooth papyrus operations in a script heavy game under one hood. That's quite a difficult task. According to the reddit thread which we mentioned before we shouldn't raise fUpdateBudgetMS and fExtraTaskletBudgetMS above 2.0.

 

So you personally run Skyrim with 30FPS and around 500ms for fUpdateBudgetMS + fExtraTaskletBudgetMS? Doesn't that also cause a big strain on your system or does it simply go along well with your already low FPS? Why did you chose to go against the reddit/STEP suggestion to not increase these 2 variables? I'm simply interested in the thoughts behind that decision and why such controvertibly high values work for you.

 

Btw. good writeup about what these functions do. Thanks. Will copy that into my info textfile.

Edited October 27, 2015 by blattgeist