Stuttering and hitching when loading new textures.

[RoyBatty]

There's two issues going on and they are intertwined. The memory manager was not designed to handle 16 times the memory needed for textures (or even more for 4k) and neither was the asset loader. The two combined create massive memory management problems from both ends.

[watercrown]

So, a little update. I suppose this is the last time I ask for help on this. I'm just going to try to deal with it after this since I really just want to play this game already.

So I have done away with all wordspace texture mods. They just aren't worth it to me anymore. For the most part this did fix the issue I was having when just traveling around (which is really important because I play with fast travel disabled). Now however, I'm starting to see another layer to this problem that I wasn't seeing before since it looked like the exact same thing (stuttering while loading new textures).

So I found a good area that really highlights the issue.

So inside the house in Sloan where you can steal two skills books I save my game and quit New Vegas.

I exit the house and look around. Everything is running good.

I load the same save, look around and there is a small hitch.

I load the same save, a few hitches now.

I load the same save, now it's hitching constantly as I move the camera around.

I tested this maybe 20 different times (starting with a restarting the game) and it's the same every single time. I tried this while testing all kind of NVSR setting (heapreplace on/off, experimental stuff on/off, etc). I also tested this with all my mods (except for character overhaul since my character uses the textures and that save glitches out without it enabled) disabled.

So, is this normal behavious for the game? Have I truly done everything I can possible do?

[RoyBatty]

No, it's usually caused by NVSRs HookLightCriticalSections

[watercrown]

I never messed with that setting since it's pretty much universally panned. Been off the entire time.

 

Master = {

    _comment = You can turn on or off each distinct feature from here.

    bManageFPS = 1

    bHookCriticalSections = 1

    bHookLightCriticalSections = 0

    bHookHashtables = 1

    bReplaceHeap = 0

    bReplaceGetTickCount = 1

    bLogToConsole = 0

    bFastExit = 1

    bFlushLog = 1

    iSchedulingResolution = 1

    bReplaceRandom = 1

    bExperimentalStuff = 1

    iMainHookPoint = 1

}

Experimental = {

    _comment =bReduceSleep and iThreadsFixedToCPUs can probably reasonably be used at 1.  > 1 is a bad idea atm.

    _comment =other settings here you're probably better off not touching

    bReduceSleep = 1

    iThreadsFixedToCPUs = 4

    bSuppressRandomSeeding = 0

    bBenchmarkHeap = 0

    bAlternateHeapHooks = 0

    iHeapMainBlockAddress = 0

}

FPS_Management = {

    _comment =Absent a good reason otherwise, bInject_iFPSClamp=1, fMaximumFPS= 30 to 85 (or 0), fMinimumFPS= 10 to 20, iFPS_Report_Period = 2000 to 60000, fExtraSleepPercent = 0.0 to 0.2

    bInject_iFPSClamp = 1

    fMaximumFPS =  0

    fMinimumFPS = 20

    iFPS_Report_Period = 15000

    fExtraSleepPercent =0.05

}

GetTickCount = {

    _comment =This section is disabled by default - see Master/bReplaceGetTickCount

    bForceResolution = 1

    bPreserveDC_Bias = 1

    bPreserveHighFreqComponents = 0

    bForceSync = 0

    iSyncLimitMilliseconds = 50

}

CriticalSections = {

    _comment = CS stuff helps Oblivion, Fallout, and New Vegas significantly

    _comment = much of the benefit comes from the Renderer+0x180 suppression (see overrides below)

    _comment = modes: 1=vanilla, 2=fair, 3=staggering(hybrid of 1 & 2), 5=suppressed

    bUseOverrides = 1

    iDefaultMode = 3

    iDefaultSpin = 500

    iStaggerLevel = 5

    bEnableMessages = 1

    bEnableProfiling = 0

}

LightCriticalSections = {

    _comment =LCS stuff is like CS stuff, but with a Bethesda implementation.  And inlined sometimes, so difficult for me to work with

    bEnableProfiling = 0

    bEnableMessages = 1

    iDefaultMode = 3

    iDefaultSpin = 1000

    iStaggerLevel = 5

    bFullHooks = 0

    bUseOverrides = 0

This is what I am running with currently. I have tested with experimental stuff off (it does provide a noticable benefit that I can see), replaceheap on, manage FPS off and lots of other combinations. I haven't tested with NVSR disabled because it certainly clears up the main bulk of stuttering.

EDIT: I tested this without NVSR and NVAC and it still happens. Must be something related to in-game settings or .ini changes I've made.

I uploaded a copy of my fallout.ini all the changes were also made in the other two .ini.

[RoyBatty]

There's a working ini in the performance thread.

 

[watercrown]

There are a few NVSR .ini files. I've tried them all already.

EDIT:

I checked out BethINI and it pretty much made everything a lot better. There is a bit of a hitch but the recovery time is so much better now. Everything just feels smoother and much more responsive.

[RoyBatty]

No clue what bethini is. Is that the closed source program that has comments disabled so you can't even ask what it does?

[watercrown]

http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/4875/?tab=1&navtag=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.nexusmods.com%2Fskyrimspecialedition%2Fajax%2Fmoddescription%2F%3Fid%3D4875%26preview%3D&pUp=1

Comments are disabled on Nexus, but there is a plenty of discussion at the home forum for the application. As far as what it does, I was linked to some documentation on it since I was very curious on it myself. I usually don't bother with these kind of .ini tweaks/performance mods since most of the time they don't do anything without some side effect (if they work at all). I was getting pretty desperate and the difference has been pretty tangeable.

EDIT: The documentation I got was for the Skyrim configs, just looking through it seems pretty extensive so I can only assume a great of work was put into Fallout 3/NV. Also, it didn't just slap on Skyrim tweaks.. I've been going throuhg it myself since I wanted to see where I went wrong.

[GrantSP]

BethINI is a tool created by @DoubleYou of STEP that applies INI changes for all the Bethesda games (and FNV).

It was created after extensive INI testing over a number of months/years based on tried and true INI changes. Although I don't use it extensively myself I do believe it is accurate and he is still making adjustments whenever new information comes to light.

[RoyBatty]

Yeah but I want to know exactly what it does, I don't see anything there other than grass fade distance that would affect performance at all.