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Old Post CPU upgrade Recommendations

Lone_Wolf

Member
Messages
58
I have been doing quite a bit of research on this.

I am trying to determine if having more cores is better for this game engine or having fewer faster cores is better?

Obviously I would prefer AMD as the processor is cheaper but only make since if more cores is better.
 
Buying a cpu to suit a 5 year old game is not a great purchase.
Always buy for the future. The clock speed on any ryzen is more than enough for this engine.
 
Thanks for the input, I was having a hard time justifying the $$ for an Intel CPU as you correctly stated for a 5 year old game.

FYI - I am replacing a "i5 4670K" which has served me well with Vanilla Fallout 4, Assassins Creed Black Flag, Doom 2016, so most of my games are a couple years old.

But with sim settlements it appears at least on the surface that I am CPU bound. if i exceed 21 settlers at a settlement "CTD". Start to see frame drops at around 16 settlers as well as settlers standing around not moving at all like the AI is waiting for CPU time, Build animations not fully completing for new plots, new plots missing textures, auto assign taking a very long time before it recognizes a new settler, after fast traveling to the large settle the HUD taking ~1 minute to appear, etc...

For the CTD had to turn off all the performance related settings in sim settlements as well as set the game resolutions to the lowest possible settings. once i moved a couple of settlers out of the settlement i was able to set everything back.
 
A new cpu will not solve that CTD problem, or the slowness of things to happen in settlements. It is purely an engine issue.

The part of the engine that manages settlements, Papyrus, is over getting overloaded and when that happens you'll take a performance hit and inevitably wind up looking at your desktop.

Add this to your Fallout4Custom.ini

[Papyrus]
fUpdateBudgetMS=2.4
fExtraTaskletBudgetMS=2.4
iMinMemoryPageSize=256
iMaxMemoryPageSize=1024
iMaxAllocatedMemoryBytes=307200

It will have more of an effect than a new cpu.

This thread is a great read if you want to learn about settlements and how they affect performance.
 
Following up on this thread. This upgrade of PC has been on my mind for a while. What part of your computer is at hardest use with SS? I have all the papyrus logs put in but once I start having a good number of settlements my game becomes unstable and is usually the reason I start a new game.
 
I have an i7 4790k, a Vega64 and 16GB of RAM. It's no where near a top end machine yet I don't even use 50% of resources available with everything on ultra.
I still dip down to 45fps in busy settlements, it's due to the limitations of engine.
The amount and type of mods you use has more of an effect than throwing money at the problem.
 
Sorry I should have stated those were set.

Thanks as I have not see that particular thread, reviewing it looks like higher per core performance "might" possibly help. But in any case I may be looking at a 21 settler hard limit no matter what. Due to the 2.4ms completion time frame.

FYI - Trouble shooting at starlight drive-in. Guess I was lucky on the "triangle of Death" in that I kept those settlements low enough not to have ever see it.

Looks like for my current setup combined with sim settlements is 16-18 settlers limit with some stuttering/Frame drop depending on plot combinations and sim settlement setting, with a hard limit at 21 settlers i.e papyrus overload.
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1. Be very selective of what settlements you choose to build as a Rise of the Commonwealth city plan. DO NOT try to build all three settlements in the Triangle of Death in the same playthrough, and DEFINITELY don’t try to build all three from scratch at the same time. The same goes for Warwick Homestead, Spectacle Island (while vanilla SS does not include a city plan for this location, plans are available in other mods), and The Castle.

Not ever had an issue with the above as red rock is never more that 6 settlers, Sanctuary low teens, and Abernathy low teens. The Castle the most i have ever had is 21, the other 2 low teens.

2. When you enter a settlement, walk to the center of the settlement and give it a few real-time minutes to run update scripts BEFORE you try to open the workshop menu and build.

This sounds like a good tip even for a vanilla play as well, regardless of settlement size. although kinda hard to perform when you doing the defend the settlement quest. So keeping the number of settlers below 21 no matter what sounds like the best approach in all cases. should also give you more freedom on the performance settings.

3. Try not to pack too many scripted things into settlements that are close to each other. This includes keeping the populations of the settlements you build yourself modest.

I was thinking I had this issue, the above seems to confirm it. Don't build large residential buildings and pack in 10-12 settlers with residential plots.

4. If you can, avoid using mods that (a) expand settlement borders and (b) disable precombined meshes.

N/A for me as I never use those type of mods.
 
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Okay, I had replaced my old monitor with a new 144hz screen ( this was a while back) and just now turned on Steam FPS counters and found that I am also running at around 100FPS on average which is also a problem for this game according to the thread so I am trying to see if there is a way to limit the FPS to a max of 60, that is not a global setting for my system but only for Fallout 4.

That is also why I have been seeing craziness a lot with the in game physics.
 
You can use msi afterburner to limit fps
That's what i use for most games and turn off v-sync in game to limit input lag
 
To my mind there's got to be some benefit to a higher spec machine, surely. Otherwise I don't understand how anyone would be able to run Conqueror or have more than one or two city plans running. I've got an older PC but even with the Papyrus changes, settings as low as possible and all the SS performance settings off/low, I have some settlements that can't even get up to half the vanilla settlement cap without becoming non-functional.

I've come up with a few workarounds, one is never using residential plots at all - in conjunction with a mod that makes all beds sheltered, keeping all settlements quite small, etc.

I'm guessing when I attempt a Conqueror play through I should do it with pretty much no mods except a couple of weapons, try to keep it simple.
 
Of course there's a benefit to having a decent machine, but there's a point in which you'll be wasting money if your goal is to have no performance hit in settlements. Doesn't matter how powerful your rig is if you have 100+ mods and busy settlements you are going to have a dip in performance.
 
Honestly, for the money, you get better results with an SSD & video card over just about a cpu/ram upgrade... anything above 4 cores is wasted. 16gb ram is fine, though I have 32gb.

The SSD is tremendous for me compared to a normal HDD... install is faster etc...
John
 
I'm definitely going with SSD for my next upgrade. I'd strip back all the mods, there's quite a few that you think you can't live without but... you easily can. Only problem is (this has happened so many times) I'm too far into a big playthrough to want to restart again.
 
Buying a cpu to suit a 5 year old game is not a great purchase.
Always buy for the future. The clock speed on any ryzen is more than enough for this engine.

The above is an absolutely brilliant statement.

“Dog-Ham!” I flippin love this thread.

I implore folks reading this thread, all of @Phil_T_Casual comments are accurate and the best advice available. Particularly if Fo4 is your main game / time sink.

I used to run an intel i7 2600k, 8Gb ram and a 4gb AMD video card on a 60hz ultrawide 3440x1440, w/ ssd drives

Today I run an i7 7700, 32Gb ram and 2 x1080ti in sli on a 27inch 144hz G-sync monitor at 2560x1440, w/ M.2 ssd drives

Roughly 2000 hours of game play on each system for a total of 4000+ hrs

In Fo4 and running sim settlements I would argue there is little to no performance difference between the 2 configurations in “Fo4, Skyrim, FNV and such” only.

Arguably, I run more mods now “around 400” so that may not be a completely accurate but near enough of for me.

Next, I have always thought of Fo4 as 2 games.
  1. The in game – gaming the vanilla glitches and such
  2. The other game – gaming the Fo4 engine itself. Everything from settings, mods and controlling performance in-game by how you load the engine

@Phil_T_Casual is spot on that in F04 super specs in hardware has diminishing returns.

Others are right in that you “game” the game. Limit settlements, #’s of settlers, scrapping, type of mods “textures, enb, lighting, storms,” and “controlling being concerned” about the number of mods in general, more so with scripted mods.

I would also say that PreVis / PreCombines are more important than one’s gaming hardware for fps.

I would also say that a good game set-up, understanding tools to reconcile conflicts and strict mod discipline are more important to stability, limiting crashes and save file health than any hardware solution. These problems will not be resolved with hardware no matter how advanced.

Hahaha, all that said. As long as your hardware meets the recommended hardware specs and Fo4 is your main game right now then, you’re good to go. If your hardware does not meet those spec’s then sure, upgrade.

In Fo4, more is always better. That is, until it isn’t.

This might as well go for hardware specs as well as mods.

I still use Nvidia inspector to limit FPS. I should maybe try the MSI afterburner. I can’t remember but maybe why is it had problems with g-sync or something? Hummm

Hahaha!
 
A new cpu will not solve that CTD problem, or the slowness of things to happen in settlements. It is purely an engine issue.

The part of the engine that manages settlements, Papyrus, is over getting overloaded and when that happens you'll take a performance hit and inevitably wind up looking at your desktop.

Add this to your Fallout4Custom.ini

[Papyrus]
fUpdateBudgetMS=2.4
fExtraTaskletBudgetMS=2.4
iMinMemoryPageSize=256
iMaxMemoryPageSize=1024
iMaxAllocatedMemoryBytes=307200

It will have more of an effect than a new cpu.

This thread is a great read if you want to learn about settlements and how they affect performance.

I keep forgetting but I love that you inform folks of this in many of your responses. “it is a real good thing.” :clap
 
Like yourself Ray I have 4000+hrs in game, I can actually feel it through the mouse if this is enabled or not, which is why I'm such a big advocate for it.
It made such a difference for me I want to make sure other people know about it. Also we've had good success here advising people to add it.
 
Just a quick update. I am about 90% certain I am CPU bound in that my i5-4670K processor is simply not fast enough for the papyrus scripts to complete in a timely manner with sim settlements, in a specific set of circumstances.

I discovered today that fast traveling to Finch Farm or trying to walk to it from County Crossing caused CTDs. I only have 7 settlers there. As you know it is surrounded by adjacent cells that spawn enemies as well as a near by random encounter event spawn.

In order to be able to get into the cell I had to turn off all the performance setting for sim settlements which takes a considerable amount of time before it comes back with the popup stating that all the performance setting have taken effect, set the graphics to low in the Fallout 4 launcher and cap the FPS at 30.( could not get into the cell with it capped at 60) once I was able to get into the cell I scrapped all the interior residential plots leaving only the agri, commercial, and 2 adv. industrial plots.

I was then able to set the FPS cap back to 60 and allow the Nvidia geforce app to set the graphics back to the original state.

I appreciate all the input I have had on this thread especially since I now have a process that I can fall back to when I run into this issue that allows me to be able to get into a settlement that is having issues so that I can address them.
 
Just a quick update. I am about 90% certain I am CPU bound in that my i5-4670K processor is simply not fast enough for the papyrus scripts to complete in a timely manner with sim settlements, in a specific set of circumstances.

I discovered today that fast traveling to Finch Farm or trying to walk to it from County Crossing caused CTDs. I only have 7 settlers there. As you know it is surrounded by adjacent cells that spawn enemies as well as a near by random encounter event spawn.

In order to be able to get into the cell I had to turn off all the performance setting for sim settlements which takes a considerable amount of time before it comes back with the popup stating that all the performance setting have taken effect, set the graphics to low in the Fallout 4 launcher and cap the FPS at 30.( could not get into the cell with it capped at 60) once I was able to get into the cell I scrapped all the interior residential plots leaving only the agri, commercial, and 2 adv. industrial plots.

I was then able to set the FPS cap back to 60 and allow the Nvidia geforce app to set the graphics back to the original state.

I appreciate all the input I have had on this thread especially since I now have a process that I can fall back to when I run into this issue that allows me to be able to get into a settlement that is having issues so that I can address them.

What you said about pushing the FPS cap to 30 in order to enter a settlement is a very interesting observation.
 
Also with it uncapped and vsync off the FPS would drop as low as 48 and swing as high as 102 fps, was testing this walking around the outside area of the Nuka World Park.

I have not had time yet to go through all the background process on the OS side to optimize that as well, may have something running in background that could be stealing CPU time from the game.
 
Also with it uncapped and vsync off the FPS would drop as low as 48 and swing as high as 102 fps, was testing this walking around the outside area of the Nuka World Park.

I have not had time yet to go through all the background process on the OS side to optimize that as well, may have something running in background that could be stealing CPU time from the game.

it was interesting to me in the context of helping users with bugged settlements entry or ability to get closer before crashing. I will want to test this if I ever get one buggy. ‘capping at 30 to see if it makes a difference?”

FO4 should be capped near or at 60 for most users. Though folks like Red Rocket TV, I think use 68 or 70? so the exceptions are small and done by folks who know a lot more than I do.

playing around with it is fine to me but the smart folks are petty consistent in this message.

the higher speed messes with the physics engine. Higher may seem fine While walking around, that is until you try to talk to a companion or things like interacting/ picking a lock.
 
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