That would be a big No to the original question.

Prepatch with the dll fix I was running flawlessly smooth with ultra settings, no stutters or freezes what so ever.

Post Patch the problems I was getting before have returned and the dll fix no longer works.
Framerate is only fine if I'm sitting still or moving in a straight line without much going on, as soon as I turn/look around, I get a few second freezes, not your split second microstutters.

It's bad enough that I will be shelfing the game again, or reinstalling and disabling updates. Wish there was simply a way to uninstall the patch without reinstalling.

Quick Specs:
Win7 Ultimate x64
Dual Xeon X5650 (24 Threads)
24GB DDR3
GTX 295

No for me. Post patch it runs at the performance level it did at launch (ie like crap around npcs).

Using the dll fix does nothing now either, looks like I'll have to reinstall from the dvd and disable steams autoupdating.... *sigh*

No, these augment the changes Obsidian made. Nvidia is actively working with Obsidian in making sure any performance issues and problems are fixed where they need to be fixed. If you find any problems with the latest (260.99) drivers and the latest Fallout New Vegas patch http://forums.nvidia.com/index.php?showforum=213 as well.

I don't know what I just did but now the npc stutter is gone, the only thing I did since the last post was delete my My Documents/My Games/FalloutNV/ ini files, the rendererinfo.txt, and then do a validate files from Steam (1 failed and redownloaded) and redid my settings (ultra settings etc, water multi samplying set to low, etc) and now it seems to run fine without the dll !?


1.) Delete the My Documents/My Games/FalloutNV/ (deleted the 2 inis, and the RendererInfo.txt file here, no idea if it does anything)
2.) Force Steam to validate your game files
3.) Setup your settings again when it launches

I don't think its placebo because my save is in the ultra lux and its like night and day difference now.... so who knows what in my ini or bad file was causing it..

Ahhh, sweet relief!!!! Patch solved the stuttering and framerate drops for me. Took out the the "dll fix" before updating. Very smooth at 1680X1050 on ultra with 4AA, 8AF . Vista 64, Nvidia GTX260 768 with latest drivers.

I removed the .dll fix and allowed the graphics to default back to "ultra" and still had stuttering but no NPC lag. I took my graphics setting down one notch to "high" and almost all of the stuttering is gone. If this holds true for a much longer test of the game than I gave it last night that would be very acceptable to me.

Anyway, i wouldn't put back the .dll until you play around a little and make sure it's still a fix as the .dll fix took the graphics down a bunch (on my computer to medium).

@ZombieSupaStar: The RenderInfo.txt looked like a remnant from the d3d9.dll fix, for me it mentioned Geforce 8600, which is one of the cards the dll would "trick" the game into using.
Deleting it might have helped slightly here, seems slightly smoother but still getting freezes when turning, always freezes in the same direction, with no npc in sight. I bet it has something to do with water shaders.

I tried using the d3d9 fix before but the game would crash constantly. That might be due to the 4gb wrapper I run to make the game stable under 7 64. New patch gave me the smoothness of the d3d9 without the crashes. Now if they can make it so I don't have to run a wrapper...

Post-patch without the d3d9 fix works fine for me (I had the same stuttering before the latest patch that a lot of peeps seemed to experience without the d3d9 file)

Visually I see no difference though it does perform okay - on a par with what it was before using the dll fix.

Stability-wise its a LOT worse. Im seeing frequent crashes on launching and more crashes ingame too.
Prior to the patch I had maybe half a dozen crashes in 30+ hours and now I've had 2 crashes in the last hour.
If I could roll back the patch I would but this is Steam so thats not an option.

I'm just about ready to dump this game.

wow i don't need the dll anymore with win7!
after the patch i've visited the places where the drops without the dll were terrible before, like primm casino oder vault21 for example, it runs fine now.
for me the patch has made huge difference!
(win 7 x64, geforce 480gtx)

i can't say something about stability, only played 30min for testing the performance, but if this is also ok the patch is great for me.

Yep. Runs and looks better.

I'm aware of that stutter, I just personally don't see it if it's there. I've had people say that it is there and I'm just not looking for it and I've seen the videos but honestly I tried duplicating the videos (panning slowly in a circle, moving sideways) and I don't have it. I have pretty discriminating eyes too, I can't watch a std def TV without noticing the interlacing fields, 120hz frame doubling soap opera effect makes me want to vomit, I notice all sorts of judder with film-based material whether it has pulldown on a 60hz TV or whether it is native 24fps on a 24P tv. I can't play FO3 or NV with the in-game transparency AA because it dithers everything, etc. But I definitely don't see any stutter due to the tic rate or '64 hz engine' which makes me really wonder what kind of hardware/driver combo causes it. It must be something that only affects specific hardware/driver combos.

My point from before though is when people talk about this specific above stutter, other users get confused because they have low framerates, microstutter, they notice the world streaming stutter, etc. which are all not the same thing so then they say "I'm getting stutter too, Bethesda fix it now!" when in fact they aren't talking about the same thing

This is a repost of a prior comment:

As a Nvidia user, I was an avid fan off the .dll work around (I had to have it). However, since the last patch, I no longer require it.

It is true that the last patch is not as good as the .dll fix - but its is very close. With a few performance adjustments in the .ini - I have just as good performance with the current patch as I did with the .dll work around.

If you look at my past threads - you will see how much I have harped on Obsidian/Bethesda for the condition that the game was released in.

However, you can not realisticly expect Obsidian/Bethesda to provide support for a 3rd party Hacked .dll. Nor would I personally, ever expect them to do so.

Having said that, If you wish to continue to use a form of .dll fix - then I suggest you (and/or a team) get together and make a new .dll performance fix for the current patch.

The current state of the game (after 3 patches) is the very minimum condition that it should have been released in. Now I do suspect that it will be a few more patches down the road to get this game cleaned up.

Intel Quad Q660 2.4 GHz
Nvidia 250 1GB Driver 260.99
2 GB Ram
Realtek On Board Sound Driver 2.53
500GB Western Digital Hard Drive
Windows XP SP3
Direct X 9.0c
Standard Windows Codecs

For the majority of gameplay I see a massive improvement. There are still some issues with busy objects like whirlwinds and duststorms where I see a slowdown, but overall it's much, much better.

I'm tossing in the 10.10d's now, since they're supposed to fix some more NV performance issues.

After playing more without the .dll fix i can honestly say the game looks better. I'm noticing better lighting indoors and DOF i think actually works now.


Frame-rate has gotten better, i no longer dip to 5FPS in populated areas, but a notice a small stutter when the game has to load new areas but in the overworld map but that's to be expected. This is an almost 10 year old engine that is on life support.

it's no longer silky smooth on ultra high but it is very playable. I contest still that i should be able to run the game better with my machine.

AMD Phenom II 955 x4
8 Gig Corsair Dominator 1333
WD velociraptor 1tb
Nvidia GTX 480 PCI-E

Yes. I see a HUGE improvement.

However, there are still people with broken games and Obsidian/Bethesda is going to try to *fix* it and break it all over again. I KNOW IT.

To the people having stuttering problems that have 64bit:

Try the 64bit enabler mod. That fixed my stuttering (fixes whatever that sync tick bug that's in all Gamebryo games).

No difference in graphical performance between pre patch dx.dll fix and post latest patch.
Game has picked up a few other quirks instead now.
Almost wish I could go back pre patch...the graphics don't look as good..textures seem off somehow and the Cowboy Repeater glitch and a few others I'm now just noticing.

Performance was definitely improved for me over vanilla NV ( Without dx.dll ) but it seems to have lost something...