Discussion Understanding CTDs - Triangle of Death

Makes me wish i didnt start a sim settlement at red rocket now, because i have one at sanctuary and abernathy and now (naturally) i cant approach red rocket now that its at level 3 bec it crashes and this kind of explains the reason why (three level 3 sim settlements loading up at once, plus a pretty bloated and modded save with almost 3000 hours on it).

The info is interesting, i would have liked to see red rocket at level 3 though but at least taffington and the bluff is all good (can even coc to them with no issues, which isnt the case with red rocket)

Giass said:

Makes me wish i didnt start a sim settlement at red rocket now, because i have one at sanctuary and abernathy and now (naturally) i cant approach red rocket now that its at level 3 bec it crashes and this kind of explains the reason why (three level 3 sim settlements loading up at once, plus a pretty bloated and modded save with almost 3000 hours on it).

The info is interesting, i would have liked to see red rocket at level 3 though but at least taffington and the bluff is all good (can even coc to them with no issues, which isnt the case with red rocket)

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Oh, even some of the folks here can't follow their own f'n advice. I for one am the biggest hypocrite.



Kind of like, "I'll just eat just one potato chip" next thing "bamm" now you have an entire settlement.

I think the takeaway is simple:

The player can do whatever they want or can get away with as long as they "the player" takes responsibility and understands.

The base game, the mod, the author often get accused of breaking the game. In fact, they just made a tool "which can be a gun". We the player don't use it with self-control and pretty much shoot our own foot-off. hahaha, in some cases we stick it up our noses, then wonder why the back of Mr. Head is missing.

Giass said:

Makes me wish i didnt start a sim settlement at red rocket now, because i have one at sanctuary and abernathy and now (naturally) i cant approach red rocket now that its at level 3 bec it crashes and this kind of explains the reason why (three level 3 sim settlements loading up at once, plus a pretty bloated and modded save with almost 3000 hours on it).

The info is interesting, i would have liked to see red rocket at level 3 though but at least taffington and the bluff is all good (can even coc to them with no issues, which isnt the case with red rocket)

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I know Uituit has a compact city plan available for Sanctuary. If you can get close enough to demolish everything and start anew (approaching from the north east?), you might be able to rebuild Uituit's city plan in Sanctuary and see if that lightens the load enough to use alongside Red Rocket.

Catallaxis said:

I know Uituit has a compact city plan available for Sanctuary. If you can get close enough to demolish everything and start anew (approaching from the north east?), you might be able to rebuild Uituit's city plan in Sanctuary and see if that lightens the load enough to use alongside Red Rocket.

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Curiously enough Sanctuary and Abernathy arent the problem children. I can actually walk to Sanctuary (at level 3) from vault 111 and i can actually walk to or coc to Abernathy without any crashing. As soon as i start getting to the point where it will start loading anything red rocket is when it crashes. I tried moving to red rocket from abernathy, from the town below, from the side, from sanctuary, COCing in, using the fast travel mod for survival (the bike/car) etc.

I could get into sanctuary and start a new city if i wanted to, just not sure about it.

Giass said:

Curiously enough Sanctuary and Abernathy arent the problem children. I can actually walk to Sanctuary (at level 3) from vault 111 and i can actually walk to or coc to Abernathy without any crashing. As soon as i start getting to the point where it will start loading anything red rocket is when it crashes. I tried moving to red rocket from abernathy, from the town below, from the side, from sanctuary, COCing in, using the fast travel mod for survival (the bike/car) etc.

I could get into sanctuary and start a new city if i wanted to, just not sure about it.

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Well, I'm guessing Uituit's Junk Town Sanctuary will be less demanding on your system, and so it might the difference between crashing with Red Rocket or not. The problem is not any one of these settlements, but all of them together.

Of course, you'll want to establish that there isn't some other problem causing the crashes. I would suggest making a backup save, and then do some experimenting. For example, demolish Sanctuary and Abernathy, and then if Red Rocket still crashes then it's probably a whole other problem you're having. However, if it works fine, then just methodically try different set-ups and scenarios until you get a combination that's stable. If you'll tolerate having a more compact city plan in Sanctuary, Uituit's might work out for you.

Catallaxis said:

Well, I'm guessing Uituit's Junk Town Sanctuary will be less demanding on your system, and so it might the difference between crashing with Red Rocket or not. The problem is not any one of these settlements, but all of them together.

Of course, you'll want to establish that there isn't some other problem causing the crashes. I would suggest making a backup save, and then do some experimenting. For example, demolish Sanctuary and Abernathy, and then if Red Rocket still crashes then it's probably a whole other problem you're having. However, if it works fine, then just methodically try different set-ups and scenarios until you get a combination that's stable.

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Well I think my system can handle the demands of sim settlements without much issues (as far as performance goes my rig is 24 gigs of ram with a gtx 1080 and an i7 processor) so i believe its an issue with the heavily modded save file because ive had some previous issues with a few settlements and crashes (some solved, some not) so i just left those other settlements alone that were relatively hopeless. I cant currently go to the castle, croup manor, or Somerville Place because it just CTDs and the team here was trying hard to help me isolate the issue but it just wasn't able to be resolved.

I think ill try that though at some point since im able to get to those settlements (demolishing sanctuary first and trying to go to red rocket, then abernathy if that doesnt work, and then both if that doesnt work and seeing how it goes). It's worth a shot to see if it does anything.

I just did a little test with my recent "new game" (supereasy, cheaty free-build^^):
Downloaded some settlement Mods that include:
the Overlook, Drumlins Diner, Concorde Parking and all settlements extended (which may be relevant here, there are tons of other mods as well).

I started with the overlook (that can be seen from everywhere), did a manual "Fortress in the rocks" with two high towers and and overall of 29 Settlers.
Went down to Sanctuary, where Codsworth managed the settlement to Lvl3 and I additionally placed advanced heavy industry (5 plots + IDEKs Logistics) on the water, left of the bridge (heading to RR) and an additional Living Block (4 floors with 5 residental and 3 recreational interior plots). 27 People living here.
From here I went to Concord Parking, which I kept compact. One high block with 18 residentals (int), some industry in the back, a row of commercials, some recreationals and a lot of turrets. IDEKs Logistics heading to the road to concord.
I continued to Abernathy, it currently is level 2, so I don't yet have the locations where to start my expansion.
I went on to Drumlin Diner, where I built industry in the back, commercials on the top and a large 3 (split-) floor centre on the road supporting 34 settlers with a lot of additional stuff like individual bars, shops and recreational spots.
Still stable as a rock.
OK. Now for RR. I made Preston build it up. The first thing after 0 was ready, was to put IDEKs Logistic station directly opposite to the one in Santuary. I are just about five plots between the two. On that left side of the road I installed a greenhouse with 6 Agri interior plots, 4 Industry plots and some small martials. In the middle I built a small living-tower for 14 aditional settlers, built a junky fence around it to adjust to look to fit the rest of the settlement and spawned me 20 settlers.
I left for the south and played quite some time at nordhagen where i managed to build a really beautiful seafront with 24 different stone and brick homes (some self-made with interior plots) some industry in the back and a really nice shopping mall with recreatinal plots. Supporting overall 24 settlers.
One crash related to a missing (weapon) mesh here when designing the shop clutter
Let the "city" grow to 18 settlers and went back up to Oberland and let it grow to lvl 2.

No more crash. Went back to the triangle, lots of shuttering (I have Fo4 on a slow disk) until everything was loaded. Down to ~15fps average and some seconds of beeing stuck. But after about three Minutes close to Drumlin, back to 60fps.
RR made it up to three. I can see all surrounding settlements from the additional "tower" I set up on top of the lvl3 top-cabin.
No crash, no real problems, but:
-Abernathy farm didn't advance even 1% further, all needs are filled, everything is available, and - same as RR it doubled the desk and some foundations/floors. I let it bebuild and have a look back there in the evening
- IDEKs Logistic stations don't fill with clutter, they work as intended, but look empty.
- After three weeks in game, I didn't notice one info about industrial revolution (all materials are more than available^^).

So I was confident and resaved one of my perma-ctd games, loaded it and guess what: It took just a few seconds to crash, loaded my first, unmodded game (I got stuck in the mass fusion building after the epilogue). This also immediately led to a crash right before all mods where loaded.

Final thoughts (for now) on the topic:
On some machines the triangle may be too much to handle, but the CTDs have to have other causes. Otherwise my extended triangle (or circle) couldn't work that fine.
I guess there are problems with plot-advancements, when plots advance to a level where meshes or textures are missing, where npc do scripted things, where the scripts are missing, etc.

So a few summary points (questions):

1) UPFO4 - does it actually help with this building issue? if yes, does it cause other issues in-game? (old version I found to cause problems with Institute)

2) more cores don't help? (no brute force)... does more threads help? meaning, I am looking at building a new computer - I have been leaning towards the new Threadripper. 1950 probably, don't think the extreme would produce much more benefit?

3) does more RAM help with the scripting? IE, gives the more wiggle room for scripting backing up? Is there a key component of the RAM the frequency? Meaning standard ram like 2400 versus 3200 G.Skills Jawripper or Trident type?

4) I will try next time I play - but would setting the game FPS less than 60 for PC actually hurt or help? I was just curious if console is 30fps, would PC at 30fps capped be beneficial or actually hurt?

5) The power of the video card doesn't help the scripting, but only the rendering aspect at higher resolutions? Meaning, a potato at 60fps low settings versus monster at 60fps ultra settings would have the same/better/worse "net" affect on the scripting?

6) Does the answer to the whole issue revolve around how do we get a better engine that can take the scripting and divide out better?

7) and controversial (no turd flinging please!) - divorce console from PC? Maybe a console/potato version and a PC version? I know there is benefits of cross platform sharing... but in doing so, has the PC versions actually been optimized to their potential?

Just some notes, comments, and touched on items I saw reading through this thread.
Thanks,
John

MrCJohn said:

So a few summary points (questions):

1) UPFO4 - does it actually help with this building issue? if yes, does it cause other issues in-game? (old version I found to cause problems with Institute)


2) more cores don't help? (no brute force)... does more threads help? meaning, I am looking at building a new computer - I have been leaning towards the new Threadripper. 1950 probably, don't think the extreme would produce much more benefit?

3) does more RAM help with the scripting? IE, gives the more wiggle room for scripting backing up? Is there a key component of the RAM the frequency? Meaning standard ram like 2400 versus 3200 G.Skills Jawripper or Trident type?

4) I will try next time I play - but would setting the game FPS less than 60 for PC actually hurt or help? I was just curious if console is 30fps, would PC at 30fps capped be beneficial or actually hurt?

5) The power of the video card doesn't help the scripting, but only the rendering aspect at higher resolutions? Meaning, a potato at 60fps low settings versus monster at 60fps ultra settings would have the same/better/worse "net" affect on the scripting?

6) Does the answer to the whole issue revolve around how do we get a better engine that can take the scripting and divide out better?

7) and controversial (no turd flinging please!) - divorce console from PC? Maybe a console/potato version and a PC version? I know there is benefits of cross platform sharing... but in doing so, has the PC versions actually been optimized to their potential?

Just some notes, comments, and touched on items I saw reading through this thread.
Thanks,
John

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1- Yes UFO4 Patch helps. There's a thread where one of the contribuitors of the UFO4 Patch explains that UFO4 limits the script execution to one time per game day or something like that. I don't have the link to the thread, but someone here might have.

2-More cores/threads doesn't help. Citing @woodfuzzy at the beginning of the thread:

@snarkywriter You are correct on the more power doesn't = more performance. People with 6, 8 or 27 bazillion core processors have more problems than systems with 4 cores. Dunno why!! But it's been reported many times. My son even seen a noticeable improvement by restricting F04 to only 4 cores.

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3- Yes but FO4 only uses 8GB of ram if I'm not mistaken. The clock may help of course, but the difference would be minimal that you wouldn't even notice.

4- It's different. The console is specifically made with that fps in mind. On the pc you would not gain any benefit with capping at 30fps, you would only loose frames since your machine can handle a lot more than that.

5- Correct, the GPU doesn't affect the script execution.

6- There isn't an answer, it all comes to user habits and trying to not going over the scripted objects limit.

7- Of course that would be the perfect cenario, a world where the games are not capped to the consoles. But would not be beneficial from the financial point of view because it would cost a lot more to produce two versions of the same game, so of course they make one version for console and adapt to the pc (instead of the opposite way because if it runs on the console, surely will run on the pc. But the opposite isn't true.)

ps: someone correct me if I said something wrong.

Zonary said:

7- Of course that would be the perfect cenario, a world where the games are not capped to the consoles. But would not be beneficial from the financial point of view because it would cost a lot more to produce two versions of the same game, so of course they make one version for console and adapt to the pc (instead of the opposite way because if it runs on the console, surely will run on the pc. But the opposite isn't true.)

ps: someone correct me if I said something wrong.

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That's the way they do it now, but it wasn't long ago that the opposite was true -- games were developed for PCs first, and then ported to consoles. I liked it better the old way...

jsalemi said:

That's the way they do it now, but it wasn't long ago that the opposite was true -- games were developed for PCs first, and then ported to consoles. I liked it better the old way...

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Ditto. Kind of like opting for a v6 in a Camaro. I still can have the Camaro! Not trying to squeeze a V8 into a Yugo!

And that, folks is what we have... a Yugo.

John

MrCJohn said:

Ditto. Kind of like opting for a v6 in a Camaro. I still can have the Camaro! Not trying to squeeze a V8 into a Yugo!

And that, folks is what we have... a Yugo.

John

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Well, I'd prefer two smaller engines, one for each axle, but - OK here you go: correctly modded FO4

MrCJohn said:

1) UPFO4 - does it actually help with this building issue? if yes, does it cause other issues in-game? (old version I found to cause problems with Institute)

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Yes. It generally helps with the game. As with all software, it sometimes has bugs. I'd recommend that you always have it anyway.

MrCJohn said:

2) more cores don't help? (no brute force)... does more threads help? meaning, I am looking at building a new computer - I have been leaning towards the new Threadripper. 1950 probably, don't think the extreme would produce much more benefit?

Click to expand...

There are diminishing returns. After 4 cores, it doesn't really help Fallout 4 - however, Windows can run on the other cores, allowing background tasks to not interfere with game performance as much.

MrCJohn said:

3) does more RAM help with the scripting? IE, gives the more wiggle room for scripting backing up? Is there a key component of the RAM the frequency? Meaning standard ram like 2400 versus 3200 G.Skills Jawripper or Trident type?

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Yes, more RAM always helps. Again diminishing returns. I have 32GB of RAM. I have never measured Fallout use more than 12GB of RAM during play, it's usually closer to 6-7GB. As a former IT technician, I'd buy the RAM speed recommend by the CPU and Motherboard manufacturer.

MrCJohn said:

4) I will try next time I play - but would setting the game FPS less than 60 for PC actually hurt or help? I was just curious if console is 30fps, would PC at 30fps capped be beneficial or actually hurt?

Click to expand...

It doesn't improve performance.

MrCJohn said:

5) The power of the video card doesn't help the scripting, but only the rendering aspect at higher resolutions? Meaning, a potato at 60fps low settings versus monster at 60fps ultra settings would have the same/better/worse "net" affect on the scripting?

Click to expand...

Correct, raw CPU speed is the only thing that can have a positive effect on script speed.

MrCJohn said:

6) Does the answer to the whole issue revolve around how do we get a better engine that can take the scripting and divide out better?

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That may require fundamental engine changes. Perhaps in TES6 or FO5.

MrCJohn said:

7) and controversial (no turd flinging please!) - divorce console from PC? Maybe a console/potato version and a PC version? I know there is benefits of cross platform sharing... but in doing so, has the PC versions actually been optimized to their potential?

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No. Console is actually useful to give a good minimum specification target. With suitable coding techniques, the engine could dynamically adjust to take care of additional resources on PC. It's obvious that this has been going on since the Gamebyro engine was first used in TES3, before getting it's first really big update with TES5, and going 64bit with FO4.

Yagisan said:

Yes. It generally helps with the game. As with all software, it sometimes has bugs. I'd recommend that you always have it anyway.

[cure worse than the disease in other words.... I was more wondering what UPF04 does to in-game progress]

There are diminishing returns. After 4 cores, it doesn't really help Fallout 4 - however, Windows can run on the other cores, allowing background tasks to not interfere with game performance as much.

[so, yes, more cores would be better for overall efficiency of the computer system - so nothing else would affect FO4]

Yes, more RAM always helps. Again diminishing returns. I have 32GB of RAM. I have never measured Fallout use more than 12GB of RAM during play, it's usually closer to 6-7GB. As a former IT technician, I'd buy the RAM speed recommend by the CPU and Motherboard manufacturer.

[I always use the manufacturers compatibility list - my preference / good luck is EVGA boards with G.Skill]

It doesn't improve performance.


Correct, raw CPU speed is the only thing that can have a positive effect on script speed.

[I can attest to this as I bought last year a MSI Titan laptop for my son (i7-87xx) to replace my old 18" alienware laptop (4 core something) ... no scripting performance improvement really - some... noticeable, but not to degree I expected) but can run Ultra]

That may require fundamental engine changes. Perhaps in TES6 or FO5.

[when Fallout 76 was announced, I was only hoping for Fallout 4 with better engine and stability in a new map! I would have been happy with that! But alas, no.... and FO5 will be another 5 years! ]

No. Console is actually useful to give a good minimum specification target. With suitable coding techniques, the engine could dynamically adjust to take care of additional resources on PC. It's obvious that this has been going on since the Gamebyro engine was first used in TES3, before getting it's first really big update with TES5, and going 64bit with FO4.

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[agree. imo, the older games were coded better for lower ram, speed etc... minimum is fine... for a yugo... modders need more if we were to be really successful. It is what it is]

Appreciate the feedback.. I am building a new computer and just didn't know if some things would actually help ... and FO4 seems to be the throttle no matter what.

Reminds me of having to run a bat file to slow down a computers processing speed just so I could run the original Duke Nuke 'em. LOL

John

I'm very impressed by the little changes, bethesda games went through since Oblivion and how much fun they still are. I guess a complete engine change wouldn't be any better than tweaking the creation engine. It has its weaknesses but I fear a (completely) new version would be far less mod-friendly to increase stability and performance. But that won't happen, as engine creation is even more work than creating a game and as long as the creation engine works as intended, tweaks (e.g. further optimized multithreading, uncoupling scripting from rendering, different memory handling,...) will be enough.

We can expect a similar development of CPUs to the one in GPUs: Having 1024 cores won't be a strange thing in the next years (looking at my Windows Taskmanager, where 221 processes run 2861 threads when doing nothing at all).

RAM has a slow but continuous growth rate. When a x64 CPU has an average of 512 cores, 128GB of RAM will be common. (My first i386 PC had 1MB of RAM, followed by a 4MB 486 (after 2MB in my Amiga^^), a 16MB Pentium, a 128MB Athlon, etc. today I have a 4th gen i7 with 32G.

This is, where the technology seems to go. For FO4 I'm lucky to have stable 5GHz turbo on my old 4790k, but for future games and apps, I guess, that won't help.

This summer I sold a workstation to a customer, who needed as many cores as possible for his analysis software. He went for two Xeon 8176 and 16x 64GB RAM. That's 56 cores (@2.1GHz each) and 1TB of RAM for about $ 60.000,- (and guess what: when I sold my Amiga ~20 years ago, a dual Pentium Pro Workstation with 1GB RAM was about $ 80.000,-).

So. We'll have to deal with the current difference between software demands and hardware limits and best practice currently seems to be reducing loading and rendering demands each frame to increase time for scripting. The current SS release with simplified settlements is a great approach.
I found another great performance enhancement: Dragging the FO4 window to the right 23" 1680x1050 screen rather than playing on the 34" 3440x1440. It even looks better as I don't realize lowrez textures Resolution seems to have even more impact than texture size and quality settings.

So too many ROTC constructions going on at once is a problem?...
Does that mean adding Settlement Managers is the real 'game breaker'?

Would it be worth an experiment where we just assign Preston to build a settlement, and stay away from it until it reaches L3, then assign Preston to the second ROTC settlement we want him to build for us.... again leaving it to reach L3 without any intervening visits?

This would insure ROTC processing is only going on in one place at a time.

FritzTCoyote said:

So too many ROTC constructions going on at once is a problem?

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Not so much. The problem is too many complex city plans in close proximity, and the area around Sanctuary, Red Rocket, and Abernathy Farm just happens to be the worst offender.

A few patches back, Kinggath fixed the problem where having multiple city plans building at the same time could contribute to script overload, so that's no longer an issue.

The problems now are related to the loading and rendering of too many objects, which can cause the game to crash. The higher specs your PC has, the less you have to worry about, but even the highest end rigs can still have some trouble.

The optimized versions of the city plans were developed to help alleviate this problem. You can toggle between optimized and complex city plans using the holotape, so it's possible to have a mix of complex and optimized city plans in different locations if you remember to toggle the setting before beginning construction.

I've had as many as 5 or 6 going at the same time without issue, though they were fairly far apart. I tend to build Sanctuary, Red Rocket and Starlight myself, though I have to try the Starlight plan one of these days....

I personally find an interior space to hang out in... far away from city being built... like the supermarket, etc... while "building" is occurring. Doesn't alleviate the rendering. I play Horizon survival so I am walking all the time... just slow walk towards city after it has completed building. No fast travel for me.

Giass said:

Curiously enough Sanctuary and Abernathy arent the problem children. I can actually walk to Sanctuary (at level 3) from vault 111 and i can actually walk to or coc to Abernathy without any crashing. As soon as i start getting to the point where it will start loading anything red rocket is when it crashes. I tried moving to red rocket from abernathy, from the town below, from the side, from sanctuary, COCing in, using the fast travel mod for survival (the bike/car) etc.

I could get into sanctuary and start a new city if i wanted to, just not sure about it.

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Try to refresh your Ref to Red rocked how to do it i write here:
https://simsettlements.com/site/ind...re-article-discussion-thread.7126/#post-53372