Do CTD's appear more the further you go into FO4 and SS2?

[Aeliun]

I always have no CTD's when playing 10-20 hours into the game. After this great beginning the CTD's always are appearing in faster succession. Anything to do with greater load on game perhaps. Tell me someone has managed to keep this from happening. I would love to see your (mod) loadorder so I can duplicate that.

 

[Tarkkh]

the further you get the more scripts are used

 

[spacefiddle]

I've been 100+ hours into saves - just trying to play, testing stuff, or some combo - without any kind of regular crashing.
CTDs always mean some other problem is being exposed. They shouldn't be occurring at all, and definitely not as predictably as you describe.

The only good option here is the thorough one. Get Buffout 4 and follow all of its pre-reqs and install instructions completely and exactly - there are no shortcuts here, no skippable steps. Once you have that set up and running, you can start looking at crash logs - or running them through this crashlog analysis tool - and seeing if there's an obvious repeat offender. What you find there, if anything, will determine your next steps; but in general, you will be looking for conflicts, for misbehaving mods, for things that add a greater load than they meant to, etc., which when combined with something as complex as Sim Settlements will lead to your system just going "screw this i'm out."

If the Buffout pre-reqs and install steps seem intimidating: keep in mind that by the end of this process, you will know more about what's going on in your game than you did before, and will have a far more enjoyable playing experience than "constant CTDs after 20 hours." It's worth putting in the effort up-front; you'll feel a lot less helpless in the face of what currently seems like random nonsense the universe is throwing at you just to be a jerk

 

[Aeliun]

Woww, great answer. I do use Buffout with all its prereqs though. But I will certainly try this analysis tool your mentioning. The crash-logs I go through now, reveal nothing but codes that aren't usefull at all. Thanx and happy gaming.

 

[spacefiddle]

Woww, great answer. I do use Buffout with all its prereqs though. But I will certainly try this analysis tool your mentioning. The crash-logs I go through now, reveal nothing but codes that aren't usefull at all. Thanx and happy gaming.

Knowing what to look for in the raw logs is definitely a skill that only improves with the experience of recognizing stuff. The auto-analysis tool will be a great start to narrow down all the random hex codes into something more manageable.

 

[Aeliun]

The auto-analysis tool is great. I followed all the given recommendations and eliminated several problems with mods, and my game is running almost perfectly now. The occasional CTD often refers to PRP. Is that something others recognize? I also use PRP-SS2.

 

[Ninja2dan]

The occasional CTD often refers to PRP. Is that something others recognize? I also use PRP-SS2.

The issue with the PRP-SS2 mod, and many other SS2 "patches" coming from 3rd-party sources, is they take time to be updated to match the latest SS2 builds. With SS2 for example, you have the main SS2 files, Chapter 2 files, and WSFW files. We've been seeing updates for those mods fairly often as they slowly work to fix various SS2/Ch2 bugs and maybe add in a new feature or two. But if any SS2 files are updated, it could break compatibility with any of those 3rd-party mods/patches such as PRP-SS2.

Looking at the current PRP-SS2 description, it clearly states "Current release: 0.57.3c (based on 2.0.1, 99% compatible with 2.0.2)". It was last updated Feb 15. We are currently on Chapter 2 version 2.0.3, updated Mar 12.

Also note that the PRP-SS2 mod was "based on 2.0.1" and is claimed to be "99% compatible with 2.0.2", so I personally have doubts of the overall effectiveness of that mod right now. Until Chapter 2 is fully fixed, stable, and no further updates are being done on it, it'll be hard for PRP-SS2 to keep up. And in order to ensure full 100% compatibility, I would think PRP-SS2 would need to be rebuilt to be based on the latest version of Chapter 2 instead of an earlier version.

 

[Aeliun]

Yep, that's a true point you got there. So, disabling PRP-SS2 would be the wise thing to do? Surely, PRP-main is a must-have mod, or is that a tricky one too? It's not mentioned in the Mod Conflict list.

 

[UndercoverHat]

I definitely get more CTDs the longer I play.

I completely understand the solid advice from Spacefiddle, but am shockingly lazy, and just reading the installation instructions for Buffout gives me cramps. One of these days I'll make the effort. My (for lack of a better word) unwillingness to install Buffout is what has stopped me from posting a lot (and I mean a lot) of questions on here. I expect that with some patience, I could figure it out.

I love how this community helps each other out like this, sharing knowledge and tips. So awesome. I have also recently installed PRP, and understand how difficult it might be for the developer to keep up with the patch cycle of SS2.

Edit: Oh! One question... I have an aging GPU. I've read on here that scripting is tied to frame-rate. If I can upgrade my GPU, would this help with script lag?

 

[GuardianMF]

I stayed with Boston FPS Fix because it only rebuild precombines in a few places, which is less extensive than what PRP is doing, but less of a hassle when it comes to conflicts.
For PRP-SS2, the MA is asking for feedback on any issues introduced with the newer versions of SS2. Let him know, and he’ll work on it, I’m sure.

 

[Ninja2dan]

Yep, that's a true point you got there. So, disabling PRP-SS2 would be the wise thing to do? Surely, PRP-main is a must-have mod, or is that a tricky one too? It's not mentioned in the Mod Conflict list.

I don't use PRP because from what I can tell, it needs a lot of compatibility patches for various mods. And since a lot of those patches are outdated, in my opinion you're likely to see CTD due to that. In other words, CTD with it installed or uninstalled. I haven't tried it, so I can't say which would give fewer CTD. But I don't want to go through the whole complicated install/config process with that mod unless I'm sure it's going to be compatible. That's the problem when using mods that need compatibility patches, and the base mod is still being updated often. By the time a patch comes out for one version, the base mod has been updated again.

I do use the "Colter fix", works great. But I'm not seeing any problems that PRP is likely to fix. Any CTD that I'm getting are from something else, outside of what PRP addresses.

I definitely get more CTDs the longer I play.

I completely understand the solid advice from Spacefiddle, but am shockingly lazy, and just reading the installation instructions for Buffout gives me cramps. One of these days I'll make the effort. My (for lack of a better word) unwillingness to install Buffout is what has stopped me from posting a lot (and I mean a lot) of questions on here. I expect that with some patience, I could figure it out.

I love how this community helps each other out like this, sharing knowledge and tips. So awesome. I have also recently installed PRP, and understand how difficult it might be for the developer to keep up with the patch cycle of SS2.

Edit: Oh! One question... I have an aging GPU. I've read on here that scripting is tied to frame-rate. If I can upgrade my GPU, would this help with script lag?

Buffout 4 was actually very simple and fast to install if using the instructions. Took me a few minutes to figure out how to use the crashlog tool, but once I messed with it for a couple minutes it's easy. My problem comes from crash logs that shouldn't be happening, and so far nobody has really offered to help find the problem. But if you're getting CTD for something more common, it's easy (or at least easier) to look up a solution to fix it.

For improved frame rates, GPU alone isn't the concern. CPU, RAM, GPU, HDD vs SSD vs NVME (m.2), even your monitor can make a difference. I recently built a new PC (end of Apr 2021) and it's running everything very well under Ultra settings. But I also use the High FPS Physics Fix mod to make sure my game doesn't go nuts when my FPS is generally above 80-100 even on full Ultra. Note that I'm also using a 165Hz monitor set to 144Hz for now.

SS2 wasn't released yet when I was using my last PC, so I can't use it for comparison. But for example, I run Skyrim with a ton of mods, several of them are very script-heavy (papyrus stuff). Having built this new PC with an NVME instead of my old drive, that alone has given me a huge performance increase regarding script load. I also have a newer CPU and RAM, but my RAM count is lower. My graphics are pretty close to the same as before, due to lack of availability at the time to buy a better model. So from my experience, a newer GPU can help, but I think where you'll see the biggest gains are from using NVME or at least a good SSD instead of traditional HDD, and a faster CPU/RAM clock.

 

[msalaba]

I've read on here that scripting is tied to frame-rate. If I can upgrade my GPU, would this help with script lag?

Only if your previous GPU is unable to maintain a consistent 60 fps. If you exceed 60 fps, you are giving the papyrus VM 1.2 ms more time to run for every frame over 60. Note this comes at the expense of other systems. I would recommend staying at 60 fps even with the High FPS Fix.

 

[UndercoverHat]

Only if your previous GPU is unable to maintain a consistent 60 fps. If you exceed 60 fps, you are giving the papyrus VM 1.2 ms more time to run for every frame over 60. Note this comes at the expense of other systems. I would recommend staying at 60 fps even with the High FPS Fix.

Definitely unable. I spent about half of my play time yesterday staring at the ground in settlements, waiting for the frame rate to go above 30. Time for an upgrade.

 

[spacefiddle]

Definitely unable. I spent about half of my play time yesterday staring at the ground in settlements, waiting for the frame rate to go above 30. Time for an upgrade.

Make sure your GPU is actually what's struggling before you upgrade anything, especially at current prices!!!
Get the "Fallout performance Monitor," i promise you it's not as many steps to set up as Buffout , let it run while you play for a while, check results. If you have a second monitor your can leave it running in, even better.

FO4 is very, very CPU-bound. And as our second-rank Ninja mentioned, the storage drive you're running your game and mods from makes a huge difference as well. And of course if you have something like 8 GB system RAM that's an issue too. Look at what components are actually struggling before you take out your wallet! Nothing will be more aggravating that getting some overpriced GPU and having it make no difference in the game because something else was the bottleneck.

 

[UndercoverHat]

Thanks, @spacefiddle ! Lots of useful info there. My processor is decent (AMD Ryzen 5 3600). I have 32GB of RAM (went a little overboard), am running my game off an older 120GB SSD, and have a GTX 750 Ti video card. I'm looking at a new WD SN770 1TB NVMe drive and possibly a Ryzen 6600 XT video card. The drive is reasonably cheap (about $150CA), but the video card... ouch (around $700CA).

I'm definitely going to check out the performance monitor. It sounds like it should help answer a few questions. Dang it, I recently recycled an old monitor that I could have used as a second monitor. Oh well.

​

 

[Ninja2dan]

Your CPU shouldn't be doing that bad with FO4, considering it has a 3.6GHz base clock. I'm not sure which RAM you're using, such as manufacturer or speed, but 32GB is more than enough. For comparison, I have an i5-10600k with a base clock of 4.1GHZ, and only 16GB of 3200 RAM (Kingston HyperX Fury). The SN770 1TB is a great option, especially at that price (I paid about $208 for my SN750 about 8 months ago).

Your GPU is an issue though, sadly. 2GB isn't much for "modern" games, and even though FO4 is starting to age, when you throw in all of the mods and updates that 2GB is barely min spec with low or mid settings. GPU availability and pricing has been a PITA for at least a year now, and it'll probably still be a while before they drop in price and are available enough to justify upgrading. But the card you're suggesting is a bit more than you really need, so you can always consider something a little cheaper. I paid about $231 for my ASUS TUF Gaming GTX 1650 OC 4GB DDR6 (again, about 8 months ago) and it's been doing great really. I had been planning on getting an 8GB, or at minimum a 6GB, but I was stuck with the only option at the time. Going from your 2GB card up to a 4GB card would really help improve performance, and is likely a lot cheaper than the 8GB GPU you're looking at now. Maybe see what else is available in a respectable performance range while also being more affordable?

And if you're running the GTX 750, have you tried using the GeForce Experience in-game overlay? It will show you all of the big specs like FPS, GPU/CPU speeds and temps, etc. It's not everything, but it's a good overview of how your system is handling the load with your current hardware and game settings.

 

[msalaba]

but the video card... ouch (around $700CA).

Another option is used. If your lucky, you might be able to find something in the GTX 980 - GTX 1070 level or better. Be aware that there are some scammers and worn out mining cards in the used market.
From what I remember, my GTX 970 @ 1080p played FO4 fine until I started building really big settlements with a lot of plots. (SS1 era)

I'm not so sure if there is a benefit of having more than 8GB of RAM although with SS2, all bets are off. I'm still using the gaming rig I built for FO4. Its an i6600k, 8GB RAM with a GTX 1070 @ 1440p and m2 / SSDs for storage. Its not until I start trying to build settlements with 50+ L3 plots that my fps starts to tank and the game becomes barely playable. If I were to upgrade anything, it would be the GPU.

Another thing to keep in mind is generally, SSDs and GPUs can easily be swapped between rigs. RAM, not so much. It seems the platform specs change all the time. So I generally only upgrade the CPU / RAM as a package with the motherboard. Its more cost effective in the long run. Or I'm just stubborn from having done it that way for far too many years...

 

[UndercoverHat]

Thanks so much for your support, @Ninja2dan and @msalaba ! I really appreciate it.

I've just been playing (briefly) with the GeForce Performance Overlay. As everyone suspected, my GPU is the major bottleneck. Even when standing still, staring at the ground, the GPU utilization never fell below 80%. It was almost always at 99%, with my CPU rarely breaking 20%. I'm almost positive now that it's my aging GPU that is causing the constant CTDs. During this session, of about 1.5 hours, in which I was almost entirely in a max level city plan at Taffington, it crashed four times. More than usual, but I'm thinking about working some more overtime in order to get a new GPU. It's about time, I'd say.

 

[spacefiddle]

AMD Ryzen 5 3600

Well, the 750ti surprised me heh, good on you holding out this long. In that case I do believe you will find that a GPU upgrade will help. The 750Ti has been slugging it out a good long time and held its own quite well but is probably not quite keeping up with things in 2022. So yeah, here's hoping you can find a good price in this market.

As for the Ryzen... let me preface by saying I am running a Threadripper 2920X. I'm afraid we've been had, a little. And I say this as a long-time AMD customer. The Ryzen chips have memory-controller issues, mostly with latency. If everything else is up to speed, it won't be super obvious - it would have contributed to microstutter and frame drops even in areas that seem less intensive. In your case, with an already-struggling GPU, it's definitely not helping . I'm running the 2920X, which is 12 phys cores 24 threads, 32 GB RAM, and a GTX 1080 - and I still get stutter and drops. Memory-specific tests and benchmarks confirm that latency is way worse than it should be for this mobo or this RAM, it's a massive outlier. So while you will see massive improvements with a GPU upgrade, just be aware that you may not be locked in at a perfectly smooth 60 fps everywhere .

This is a great site not just to check on the performance of currently-available hardware, but also contains a ton of background info if you want to learn more about what's going on under the hood:

CPU UserBenchmarks - 1441 Processors Compared

cpu.userbenchmark.com

Er, despite the way the link came up, it's not just CPUs - they host and provide easy compare tools for GPUs, memory, SSDs, etc. It's an independent site and I've been following them since they got started. They just started as literal benchmark hosting and comparison, but when they started uncovering some Weird Things and began digging, ish hit the fan. The backlash and drama over their published findings was immediate and severe - which, to me, confirmed their independent status heh. They have doggedly continued to publish "just the facts" in the form of metrics as they find them, but AMD may have shot themselves in the foot by badgering them as they are now pretty firmly committed to letting everyone know about these well-disguised flaws.

 

[Runestyr]

I'm running a 3.6 GHz I9-9900K with 32 GB of RAM and an Nvidia RTX 2080 Super at 1920x1080, and I get crashes pretty regularly with SS2 (but very few without it). Since I enjoy the storyline, at least until the Gunners Plaza (that's a different post), I just try to save after every fight and every conversation.

Edit: I also installed Buffout 2 according to the instructions, but I get no crash logs, so I must have messed up the install somewhere. And every time SS2 is updated, I have to start a new game. So maybe I should stop updating it long enough to get the HQ, which I assume is part of Chapter 2.