PLEASE HELP: Fallout 3 and New Vegas stutters / lags often

[Nukasoda]

Hi.
My computer is WELL PAST the recommended requirements for both Fallout 3 and New Vegas, and no matter what I do, it still lags in many areas of the game.

Stutter remover, dll fixes, ini changes, 4GB Enabler, You name it, i've tried tons of fixes but none seem to help, some do make the framerate a bit better, but it still hangs up in some parts of the game
The lag happens mostly during in-game battles and also when loading new areas of the game (while traveling and such, fast traveling and walking).
In general, i'll be just walking around the game area and randomly i'll notice the game hang for a few seconds, and then goes back to normal, sometimes it might hang for longer periods of time depending on the area i'm in, or it might stutter around when looking at certain objects or areas in the game (for example, say that there's a statue in-game, staring at the statue makes the game lag for me, but when im not looking at said area, the game runs smooth.)

I'm really desperate, i have no idea what could be causing the performance issue, someone help?

By the way, setting the graphical options to even the lowest settings doesn't seem to solve the lag / stuttering issue completely, even on the lowest resolution...

My Specs:
CPU: Intel i5 4570 3.2 GHz boosted up to 3.5 GHz
GPU: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 660
RAM: 10 GB DDR3
Operating System: Windows 8.1 (But have tried with Windows 7 and even Windows XP and still have the same problems)

[R5CYA]

have you tried turning off windows defender or any other anti-virus programs which may be slowing it down? how much free resources do you have while in the game? cpu usage? i assume you're running it on two cores during the game with the .ini changes. did you check and make sure?

[Vyvian]

Did you try activating bReplaceHeap in the New Vegas Stutter Remover's INI? I did that and my performance increased big time. It's set to 0 by default and a lot of people don't even notice it. Set it to 1 if you haven't.

[Nukasoda]

Originally posted by R5CYA:

have you tried turning off windows defender or any other anti-virus programs which may be slowing it down? how much free resources do you have while in the game? cpu usage? i assume you're running it on two cores during the game with the .ini changes. did you check and make sure?

I don't think my anti-virus programs might be hitting the performance that hard.... although i'll give it a shot.
Yes, i've checked that only two cores are running the game
My CPU Usage ranges from 20% - 60% when playing in ''laggy'' areas

Originally posted by Vyrulisse:

Did you try activating bReplaceHeap in the New Vegas Stutter Remover's INI? I did that and my performance increased big time. It's set to 0 by default and a lot of people don't even notice it. Set it to 1 if you haven't.

Yes, the feature is enabled, i checked again just to be sure, It did help a bit in some areas but the problem still persists...

[ronr42]

Well, you've done pretty much everything I've ever heard recommended to fix lag. Only thing I can suggest is to turn down your vid cards global settings. Things like v-sync off, AA 2x multi-sampling, Antialiasing-FXAA off, Ambient Occlusion- Quality, texture filtering- Anisotropic sample off, Triple buffering off, texture filtering- Trilinear Opt ON and set your card for single display performance mode. This game does not play well with two or more monitors hooked up. Also, it doesn't always work well for some players when their resolution is set too high. I run the game at 1920X1080p 60Hrz and the game works fine.

[Nukasoda]

Originally posted by ronr42:

Well, you've done pretty much everything I've ever heard recommended to fix lag. Only thing I can suggest is to turn down your vid cards global settings. Things like v-sync off, AA 2x multi-sampling, Antialiasing-FXAA off, Ambient Occlusion- Quality, texture filtering- Anisotropic sample off, Triple buffering off, texture filtering- Trilinear Opt ON and set your card for single display performance mode. This game does not play well with two or more monitors hooked up. Also, it doesn't always work well for some players when their resolution is set too high. I run the game at 1920X1080p 60Hrz and the game works fine.

The thing is.. even with every setting set to low quality and even setting all my global settings that way, it still haves the stuttering / lag, i also have tried playing at the lowest resolution possible and i can still notice the stuttering every now and then...

[baddude1337]

Try turning Vsync off? I have a few game (not this one) where vsync makes it stutter like a ♥♥♥♥♥.

[Nukasoda]

Originally posted by baddude1337:

Try turning Vsync off? I have a few game (not this one) where vsync makes it stutter like a ♥♥♥♥♥.

Yeah, i've also turned vsync off, and i also did the ini tweaks to force vsync off too...
It's really destroying my mind, im not sure what else i can do...

[baddude1337]

What about a driver update?

[Nukasoda]

Originally posted by baddude1337:

What about a driver update?

All drivers are up-to-date, i even once tried the beta drivers to see if there was any difference, and nope.....

[baddude1337]

Well, this really is baffling. I have a GTX 765M and can run this no worries. Could it possibly be that your HDD is slow/has too much stuff on it?

[Bobby Digital™]

do yourself a favor and do this please: plug in a controller and see if it you still get stutter using it or not. it could be mouse stutter and if so, try turning off triple buffering for vertical sync or better yet turn of VS completely and use a fps limiter. changing some mouse settings in the config can also help if it is indeed the issue. that was my problem with skyrim and a few other games.

[Bobby Digital™]

yeah i didn't read all the posts and most of what i said was already suggestted. i would still try using a controller just to eliminate it being a mouse issue.

[Nukasoda]

Originally posted by baddude1337:

Well, this really is baffling. I have a GTX 765M and can run this no worries. Could it possibly be that your HDD is slow/has too much stuff on it?

Actually, believe it or not, i even went so far as to get an SSD just to see if it helped at all, i installed Fallout New Vegas (And FO3 too) in the SSD, but it still haves the same issue...
I'm serious when i say that this problem is just destroying me.... specially since i see other people having the same kind of GPU or CPU i have and having no problem with the game at all, and some people with slower parts having no problems either...
Thanks for the post

Originally posted by Bobby Digital:

yeah i didn't read all the posts and most of what i said was already suggestted. i would still try using a controller just to eliminate it being a mouse issue.

I have used a controller a few times, and it does help a little bit, but it helps simply because the camera turns around at a slower pace with a controller, i haven't exactly tried changing any mouse settings yet on New Vegas but i do remember trying that on FO3 and it didn't work..
I'll give it a shot anyway, Thanks.

[Bobby Digital™]

well this is most likely not what you want to hear but if nothing else, try to minimize it with motion blur and DOF, and maybe go as far as an ENB with a good DOF and turn all the other junk off so performance doesn't get killed.

i had the problem you are describing in skyrim and all of the things i mentioned trying helped a bit, but motion blur and dof did a bit more. i normally hate dof but it kind of grew on me, it might not for you but maybe you can live with it after u get used to it. sadly their is nothing else i know of, everyone in here pretty much gave you every solution i have ever heard of.

i also have a 660 and my cpu is a slow i7 920...turbo is just 2.9 GHz so unless some piece of hardware is failing your rig can't be the problem.

have you tried oc'ing cpu or at least running a XMP mem profile?

[R5CYA]

his hardware might not be the problem, but that doesn't mean it's not his computers fault. my son has a habit of never doing any maintainence at all on his. software or hardware. he'll let so many junk programs build up and hog resources, it isn't funny. add to that the fact that he never wants to shut it off and then the dust buildup gets so bad that it stars to overheat and cause even more problems.
so i'd ask, when was the last time you optomized your computer and when was the last time you opened it up and blew out all the dust bunnies? when you open the task manager, how many processes are running? i've got a couple games that really hate it when i don't have my gpu spotless. i pull my computer open about once a month and blow it out with compressed air. if i don't, i have serious problem on one game in particular. speaking of optomization, it's about time i do that as well. too much crap running in the background right now. i think i might just run a game booster program from now on. i gotta look into them.
p.s. i might add, new vegas is one game that i can really hear my gpu fan straining when there's a lot of action going on. about a month ago i was getting crashes when there were large battles with rockets and lazers. that was right before i pulled the computer apart for cleaning last time. ;-)