Stutters and lag at 60 fps

[Charlemagne]

Intel 8600K i5, 3.6 ghz. SSD. 16 GB RAM. Nvidia 1660 GTX super with 6 GB VRAM. Monitor is 75 Hz 1920 x 1080, however I have the game set in Nvidia control panel to 60 fps.
The game performed superbly with ultra settings, everything maxed, stuck at 60 fps most of the time except the occasional situational dip to 59, 58, 53. However lately I have been seeing stutters and lag, even though the fps are stuck at 60, not even dipping. Little tugs and lapses which have become worse. Taking longer than usual to open menus, or navigate them. Swapping weapons sometimes takes several seconds, which can be fatal.
I have tried lowering the graphics to high, which has had zero effect on the problem.
I have a ton of mods, but they're the same mods I had when it was fine.
Any suggestions? Could it be the dreaded bloatfile?

[Shadowrun]

yea the game seems to slow down more and more the farther you get into it. are you a long ways in to your game?

also, are these mods / plug-ins part of your loadout?


F4SE: Fallout 4 Script Extender
https://f4se.silverlock.org

Buffout 4 (REQ: xSE PluginPreloader, Address Library, TBB Redistributables & F4SE)
https://www.nexusmods.com/fallout4/mods/47359

Baka ScrapHeap - Script Memory Limit Expander (REQ: F4SE, Address Library, Microsoft Visual C++ for Visual Studio 2019)
https://www.nexusmods.com/fallout4/mods/46340

High FPS Physics Fix (REQ: F4SE)
https://www.nexusmods.com/fallout4/mods/44798

[Charlemagne]

Nope, can't say I use any of those. I tend to avoid F4SE.
I had experienced game slow-downs but didn't expect them with my current computer. When I had them in the oldie, they were usually in the form of real bad performance with FPS drops, becoming unbearable sometimes in Boston or other places. I actually lowered graphics as the game progressed and was in medium towards the end. But in this PC the fps stay at 60, even in the center of Boston. Actually they stayed at 75, when I had that setting, which I changed to 60 because of some navigation problems NPCs had. I had the occasional tug when changing cells, for example but since yesterday it became worse, tugs and microfreezes very frequently and sometimes in chain. Also the menus gave no problem at all, now they take a second or two to come up and sometimes inside them there are also stutters or it sticks on an item for a couple of seconds.

[Shadowrun]

mm'k. well, those are all performance mods. if you want to give them a try you could follow this guide, i described how to install them all. they might fix your problem.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2718451026

but when you have stutters and like lag spikes it's usually because of something else. when it happened to me it was because i removed the scrap everything mod from my game. i started a new game but it was lag spikes and micro-stutter all the time. i had to uninstall / reinstall the game to be rid of the problem.

you use a mod manager?

oh and i also tried to tackle some of these problems in my let's fix fallout guide if you wanna take a peek, though i don't think i thoroughly addresses lags and micro-stutters

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2725223910

[Charlemagne]

Thanks I'll check the guide.
Another thing I didn't mention, usually if I go out of the game to desktop, let it rest a while perhaps play something else, and come back, it works fine for a time.

[Shadowrun]

ok, i'm gonna copy and paste to you the list i normally give to people who's game is crashing or otherwise misbehaving. if you wanna run through the list and just see if any of it helps. micro-stutter can sometimes be a background program eating resources away from the game.


+ Try disabling steam overlay VR and cloud sync under game properties.
In steam, go to your library and right-click FALLOUT 4.
Select PROPERTIES then un-check the boxes that say:

-> use desktop game theatre while steam VR is active
-> keep games saves in the steam cloud for fallout 4


+ try validating the game files using the steam validator. in your library right-click the game and select PROPERTIES. then select LOCAL FILES and click VERIFY INTEGRITY OF GAME FILES


+ if you run microsoft one drive, try disabling it while you play and see if it helps. some users have reported problems associated with one drive.


+ close some background programs and end some processes on your machine


+ if you have too many save game files, try deleting some of them or moving them to a different folder.


+ Disable Antivirus Software or update it with rules giving permissions to Fallout 4


+ try adjusting the max frame rate to 60 fps in your graphics card settings


+ try running the game at the same resolution as your desktop resolution. go in to settings in the launcher to change it. fallout also wants to run at 1920x1080 resolution so you could try running it at that. another thing people do that sometimes works is running the game in a full-screen window (windowed-mode)+ try running the game at the same resolution as your desktop resolution. go in to settings in the launcher to change it.


+ try updating your graphics drivers
it commonly means your hardware can't run the game, or doesn't support it. usually, it just means you need to update your drivers.


+ Enable Borderless Window Mode. sometimes fallout 4 just doesn't want to run full-screen but will run great in a borderless window
-> Launch Fallout 4 through steam.
-> Click on Options.
-> Tick the Windowed Mode box and enable Borderless.
-> Run the game and check if the problem persists.


+ Edit Configuration Files:
Navigate to this location in your windows explorer:
C:\Users\%username%\Documents\My Games\Fallout4.

Locate and click on fallout4prefs.ini.

Find the following variables and edit them as shown.
They should be in the (Display) section

bMaximizeWindow=0
bBorderless=1
bFull Screen=0
iSize H=1080
iSize W=1920

+ you could try deleting the following 3 files. maybe there's a bad setting in there:

-> C:\Users\%username%\Documents\My Games\Fallout4\

-> Fallout4.ini
-> Fallout4Custom.ini
-> Fallout4Prefs.ini

then when you reboot the game, it might crash. it's ok, just reboot it again and it will have remade these files with their default settings. if it does not then run the validator to have the files recreated with default values. if you do this, make sure you also add back those little INI edits you have to make in order to enable mods. you know the archive one about loading loose files.

[Charlemagne]

Thanks, most of those don't apply or I have already done, I'll see about the others.
One thing I fear, in the past whenever some piece of hardware was going to die, the first game to start giving me some problem has almost always been FO4. Be it the graphics card, the HDD, the memory. But now my hardware is relatively new. Not new-new but relatively. I hope it isn't the case today
EDIT: First fail> setting it to borderless windowed makes the game appear in a tiny square on the upper left corner of the screen...

[Shadowrun]

it could be a RAM stick going bad, but i mean, usually when that happens it will just stop working and your PC will notify you when you boot it up. is your PC old? can i see the specs?

In Steam click "Help" then "System Information".
right-click, select "copy text to clipboard" then press CTRL + V (to paste) that to here

also, do you use a mod manager?

[Shadowrun]

Originally posted by Charlemagne:

EDIT: First fail> setting it to borderless windowed makes the game appear in a tiny square on the upper left corner of the screen...

did you edit the numbers to match your desktop resolution? lol

iSize H=1080
iSize W=1920

but set it to the size of your desktop.

[Iron Knights]

Do not mess with the .ini files, you don't have that level of expertise.
53FPS is very playable. The reason for the dip is the CIT area which is quite huge, terrain pooled into one zone. If you are willing to investigate, go to the Greentech building entrance, facing two buildings, one with a Mr. Handy sign, one with a Windrider motorcycle sign. Now use the command console to type in TCL. Go underground and see all the piled up stuff. Clean that up and your FPS at CIT will improve. (console screen, click on garbage, type Disable and then markfordelete; warning, this is not reversible, pop up to see you didn't disable a building, type Enable while the REFID is still showing if you made a mistake).
However, to overall improve FPS you must blow out the old 60hz V-Sync. Given you have a monitor capable of higher refresh rates.
1) Set your monitor to (Optimally) 120hz.
2) Disable V-Sync in Drivers and in Game.
3) Enable (nVidia) Fast Sync, (AMD) Enhanced Sync in Drivers.
4) Optionally cap your FPS to 120 or the frequency you set the monitor to.
Your slow areas will improve significantly.

[hawkeye]

Short answer - cpu overload.

Long answer -

The issues that OP describes are most likely caused by cpu overload. This can be fo4 but also running other apps in the background. Also the 8600k has 6 threads but not hyper-threading. Microstutters are common with non-HT cpus in general. The main difference between non-HT and HT cpus is smoothness. FO4 might be exacerbating the problem..

The behaviour described is typical of broken previs and also script lag. Broken previs is caused by scrapping things and many mods. The vanilla game probably stores previs data in a table. When the player enters a cell if the previs data doesn't match the cell contents, the game will stutter as the cell border is crossed. More noticeable if the cpu is already overloaded. Any scrapping will break previs probably including disable/markfordelete.

Plus, to lighten the load in heavy load areas like downtown, view blockers have been added. Those big trucks and tall wooden walls are there for a reason. Open places like CIT looking north don't have any view blockers. So any performance issues are possibly going to be more pronounced there.

Script overload is another potential cause, which means mods. Mods are written in a scripting language, rather than compiled executable code. They run slow. Plus as they are ad hoc additions to the game they aren't optimised. So as the game gets more data and scripts to process within the same frametime, the scripts start to queue up and there is an increasing delay between issuing a command and the game responding. With heavy mods like SS2C2 the game might not respond at all. The SKK latency detector mod will identify this. On the mod description page, there is a good explanation of the impact that all those tiny clothing, weapon, hairstyle mods have.

Scenery and settlement mods often clobber previs completely if the mod author has not created the mod correctly. Even if the previs is regenerated, I have read that the creation kit technique isn't as good as the technique the devs use and produces data bloat. Previs works on a 3x3 grid.

Ugrids is another issue. The lowest value is 5, which means 36 cells are in scope. This means the police station is included from a action processing perspective plus the tugboat behind and maybe even hangmans and the raiders to the northwest. The cpu has to handle this too. At CIT I would suspect ugrids as the primary culprit.

https://forums.nexusmods.com/index.php?/topic/5522717-fallout-4-optimization-and-performance-systems-explained/

[Charlemagne]

Well I do use a lot of mods but not those dependent on F4SE, i.e. scripts. I do understand that other mods can use scripts. I do use Spring cleaning, at this point in my Fallout world it's a quality of life mod I'm not willing to part with. But I have had it for as long as memory reaches and the problems I describe are recent. Not saying that it doesn't contribute of course.
I have hit onto something though. I play Survival, but use a mod, Survival options that allows one to reinstate saves. I think I overdid it because I set it to autosave at every possible instance (I had a number of annoying deaths, so...) I reverted it so now it only will make one save and at a longer interval, and this save is normal (not auto). The stutter and microfreeze problem has been reduced considerably, not gone entirely but much more tolerable. However, when the one programmed save occurs, it causes a substantial lag pause, very similar to the frequent ones I had before but a bit deeper, which makes me confirm even more that this was part of the problem.
I also changed the texture option of a couple of mod weapons which I had set at 4K, to 1K and the problem with swapping weapons lag has been reduced greatly.
It would seem then that the problem is overtaxing my system. I guess I will try to purge some mods. But which? I love them all...

[Shadowrun]

i'm in the same boat. uninstalled / reinstalled fallout 4 today. re-adding mods. gonna try vortex this time

[Splattergutz]

Originally posted by Shadowrun:

i'm in the same boat. uninstalled / reinstalled fallout 4 today. re-adding mods. gonna try vortex this time

If you're only using nexus mods vortex is really easy and straight forward.

[Charlemagne]

Originally posted by Splattergutz:

Originally posted by Shadowrun:

i'm in the same boat. uninstalled / reinstalled fallout 4 today. re-adding mods. gonna try vortex this time

If you're only using nexus mods vortex is really easy and straight forward.

I never could figure out Vortex. It's too complicated. I still use NMM which is being kept up to date by the community even if not supported by Nexus anymore.

[hawkeye]

You can also load msi afterburner and monitor what your gpu load is. 100% or near indicates it is restricting performance. If it isn't near 100% that usually means cpu is limiting performance.

Scripts in FO4 get about 2 milliseconds per frame. So any reduction in fps can also restrict script execution. SKK script latency detector will tell you if this is happening.

If the gpu load and scripts are performing OK then it's just a cpu overload caused by mods.