Patch 3.1.1 - Come On In, The Water's Fine

[drizzan]

I have to second this. My load times were getting longer and longer the further I got into the game and the more map points I unlocked. Got to the point where it took me 3-5 minutes just to load when exiting something like the Constitution (which required a lot of exiting and entering in quick succession for the quest).

Finally broke down and installed Load Accelerator and it has had a huge impact on my load times.

I think most players miss the fact that there actually is a lift on the back end of the boat (a small lifeboat) that you can use to go straight up/down to and from the captain and the navigator without any loading screens. I found that out myself after over 1000 hours ingame heh.
Would have made that quest a bit less painful the first times around...

 

[Daveon]

I think most players miss the fact that there actually is a lift on the back end of the boat (a small lifeboat) that you can use to go straight up/down to and from the captain and the navigator without any loading screens. I found that out myself after over 1000 hours ingame heh.
Would have made that quest a bit less painful the first times around...

Doh!

 

[Doctor Feh]

For the screen loading, are you using vsync. I am and had huge screen loads ( and ctds) until I installed the load accelerator mod

I always play with vsync on since my monitor resolution is 60Hz anyhow. I doubt any kind of accelerator would help with the situation since in this case it just seems like the game is completely hung up behind the (strangely still functional) loading screen. If it decides to work then one of my non-fancy settlements will load in less than 30 seconds while the big ones don't take more than a minute or two at most. If not, it's an inescapable limbo that I've sometimes let run up to 20 minutes and only ends through alt-tabbing and killing the game instance through the Task Manager.

That said, I'll check out the accelerator you mention since I wouldn't mind a speed boost regardless.

 

[Daveon]

I always play with vsync on since my monitor resolution is 60Hz anyhow. I doubt any kind of accelerator would help with the situation since in this case it just seems like the game is completely hung up behind the (strangely still functional) loading screen. If it decides to work then one of my non-fancy settlements will load in less than 30 seconds while the big ones don't take more than a minute or two at most. If not, it's an inescapable limbo that I've sometimes let run up to 20 minutes and only ends through alt-tabbing and killing the game instance through the Task Manager.

That said, I'll check out the accelerator you mention since I wouldn't mind a speed boost regardless.

In this case, the accelerator does help because the load time is directly related to vsync. When it's on, you're limited to your monitor's refresh rate at the most, and in many cases just 60fps, and the game is trying to use the GPU to load resources at this point. The load accelerator mod turns off vsync during the load screens, and turns it back on during regular gameplay. You'll see an FPS count on the load screen when this happens and it does, indeed, make a dramatic difference. Of course, it also increases the workload on your GPU, so some cards might not be able to handle it all that well.

 

[VersusXV]

Loading times can get extremely bad for this game so I run the accelerator mod and I bought an SSD for this game(and Skyrim). If getting an SSD is at all possible I highly recommend it.

You'll see an FPS count on the load screen when this happens and it does, indeed, make a dramatic difference. Of course, it also increases the workload on your GPU, so some cards might not be able to handle it all that well.

Personally I suggest trying the accelerator, monitoring what FPS it can reach in the loading screens and if it is challenging on the GPU like maxing it out with FPS staying below 100 I would consider reducing settings or running a smaller load order especially if loading times are super bad like 3-5 minutes with possibility of infinite loading.

If not, it's an inescapable limbo that I've sometimes let run up to 20 minutes and only ends through alt-tabbing and killing the game instance through the Task Manager.

From my testing, when it does this it appears to be literally infinite. Like leaving it for hours caused no changes.

 

[Doctor Feh]

Loading times can get extremely bad for this game so I run the accelerator mod and I bought an SSD for this game(and Skyrim). If getting an SSD is at all possible I highly recommend it.

There is also that I've yet to join the SSD club, but according to the mod's comments supposedly even HDD folks can see improvement, especially if they're running a lot of mods.

Worth a shot, and I like that I can cap off the graphics card at whatever I want for loading, just in case setting it completely free gets a little too hot.

 

[Daveon]

Worth a shot, and I like that I can cap off the graphics card at whatever I want for loading, just in case setting it completely free gets a little too hot.

Yes, I tweaked the mod's ini file to cap in-game at 60 FPS just because Bethesda games physics seem to go wonky over 60fps anyway. At the load screen its reporting about 265 or so fps at most, but it varies quite a bit.

 

[VersusXV]

There is also that I've yet to join the SSD club, but according to the mod's comments supposedly even HDD folks can see improvement, especially if they're running a lot of mods.

Worth a shot, and I like that I can cap off the graphics card at whatever I want for loading, just in case setting it completely free gets a little too hot.

I leave mine as is and it doesn't appear to get too hot. I have 1080 but don't have extra cooling. I just have case fans and stock Intel CPU cooler which everybody says sucks but seems to be working fine for me.

I think my GPU can get to like 70C when playing Fallout 4. CPU seems to stick at about 40-50 when playing games. Going off memory because I'd kept monitoring programs running when the PC was new.

It will still benefit HDD, I expect it would make the loading times more consistent with non-Bethesda games which don't tie game loading to FPS. I just also mentioned SSD as that can be a big help for when loading into very large settlements with many plots. I played on Xbox before seen the loading times there and decided to buy an SSD. Also my old laptop when playing Skyrim can sometimes have as much as half of my playing time be loading screens. Like 3-5 minute loading screens on fresh new games, even without installing that many mods I probably had about 30.

I do wonder if on an HDD the GPU load would be more intense when using this mod.

Yes, I tweaked the mod's ini file to cap in-game at 60 FPS just because Bethesda games physics seem to go wonky over 60fps anyway. At the load screen its reporting about 265 or so fps at most, but it varies quite a bit.

It can vary a lot depending on hardware, settings and mod setup. I see anywhere from 100-500+ depending. Maybe 600 but that's if I've got like almost no mods such as when troubleshooting/doing clean save as well as keeping some settings down. In that case it can be close to instant most of the time, although of course mods are at least half the fun so I've got a whole bunch installed. At least it keeps things reasonable still, even with 4k, high settings, quite a few mods.

I leave in-game at 60 always. It works best at that framerate and I am fine with 60. In fact I don't really want to try running games at 120/144hz since it's hard to maintain that kind of frame rate, I don't want to get used to it then have to get used to less again.

 

[jtzako]

I have 3.1.1 and Trashcan Carla keeps getting attacked by someone called Tanner (I assume its a visitor).

 

[Daveon]

On another note related to the Load Accelerator mod .. though the Sim Settlements 3.1.1 update did seem to fix the crashes I had around the settlements, I would still occasionally crash on a load screen elsewhere in the game, usually when exiting a building back into the Commonwealth. I haven't seen any of those crashes from the load screen since I installed the accelerator mod.

Of course, just watch, I probably just jinxed myself by stating that.

 

[Shadowalker]

On another note related to the Load Accelerator mod .. though the Sim Settlements 3.1.1 update did seem to fix the crashes I had around the settlements, I would still occasionally crash on a load screen elsewhere in the game, usually when exiting a building back into the Commonwealth. I haven't seen any of those crashes from the load screen since I installed the accelerator mod.

Of course, just watch, I probably just jinxed myself by stating that.

Nor have I, it's now been two weeks of playing, 50 hours, lvl24, in and out of downtown Boston. Not a single ctd. I still save before leaving interior spaces, but that's just a habit, and I too thought I'd jinxed it when mentioning it earlier in thread

 

[Doctor Feh]

I leave mine as is and it doesn't appear to get too hot. I have 1080 but don't have extra cooling. I just have case fans and stock Intel CPU cooler which everybody says sucks but seems to be working fine for me.

I think my GPU can get to like 70C when playing Fallout 4. CPU seems to stick at about 40-50 when playing games. Going off memory because I'd kept monitoring programs running when the PC was new.

It will still benefit HDD, I expect it would make the loading times more consistent with non-Bethesda games which don't tie game loading to FPS.

Well I tried it out, didn't really seem to make much difference for me and my humble rig, though it didn't really seem to hurt anything either, GPU never went above the low 60s in temp even with the framerate freed from its shackles. I made sure to turn on the state monitoring and everything to ensure it was working properly.

It's probably just as well that I didn't notice a difference because I almost always am using my Steam Link to play the game and Steam Link appears to have some non-obvious setting of its own that caps off frame rates at a max 60 FPS. Without it connected I'll get up to 500FPS sometimes on the load screens, but with it enabled the readout hovers around 58-60 with the very occasional blip of 62.

This is independent of the actual gameplay of course where my rig (which is likely even humbler than yours) will almost never get up to 60 on account of me stubbornly playing on Ultra graphical settings because I prioritize pretty over finely-honed smoothness.

From what I've researched so far it looks like trying to uncap Steam Link play is both complicated and potentially catastrophic, so I figure I'm just never going to benefit from this particular mod.

 

[Shadowalker]

Well I tried it out, didn't really seem to make much difference for me and my humble rig, though it didn't really seem to hurt anything either, GPU never went above the low 60s in temp even with the framerate freed from its shackles. I made sure to turn on the state monitoring and everything to ensure it was working properly.

It's probably just as well that I didn't notice a difference because I almost always am using my Steam Link to play the game and Steam Link appears to have some non-obvious setting of its own that caps off frame rates at a max 60 FPS. Without it connected I'll get up to 500FPS sometimes on the load screens, but with it enabled the readout hovers around 58-60 with the very occasional blip of 62.

This is independent of the actual gameplay of course where my rig (which is likely even humbler than yours) will almost never get up to 60 on account of me stubbornly playing on Ultra graphical settings because I prioritize pretty over finely-honed smoothness.

From what I've researched so far it looks like trying to uncap Steam Link play is both complicated and potentially catastrophic, so I figure I'm just never going to benefit from this particular mod.

Okay fair enough. I personally just put steam in offline mode, so haven't used steam link play to be able to offer any advice

 

[Daveon]

Hmm. I had all kinds of problems with Steam Link in other games, so I never even touch it anymore. But if Steam Link caps fps at 60, then that would indeed prevent the boost provided on the load screen by the mod.

 

[Doctor Feh]

Hmm. I had all kinds of problems with Steam Link in other games, so I never even touch it anymore. But if Steam Link caps fps at 60, then that would indeed prevent the boost provided on the load screen by the mod.

Steam Link's been quite nice for me, but yes, it appears to be capped. If I'd seen any difference without the Link I might try to find a workaround, but even just running purely on my PC with the boost mod indicating framerates of 300 or more on the loading screens it was still taking around 2 minutes to load in my larger settlements. I'm going to leave it in for now just on the offchance it helps with the "infinite load" bug, but I'm definitely one of those YMMV cases the mod author warns about where it doesn't help load times for whatever reason.