Because I'm using Warzones, I put uGridsToLoad to 1 and did the refini method. Also because it brings an enormous improvement for little sacrifice in graphics. Now this Fallout.ini in my MyGames/Fallout New Vegas folder keeps putting it back to 5. Is this something that Steam does?

Any way to make this change permanent, so I don't have to keep doing the refini method?

refini? All I know is that Bethesda games love to "reset" changes made to those necessary ini files. What I do is:

1) Open the ini file's properties, make sure that you untick "read only" so you can properly edit it
2) Open the ini file, make your desired changes in noteopad
3) Save, close, then open properties again. Put it back on "read only" so New Vegas doesn't undo your changes upon startup.

....hope this helps?

I think the file was already read only but I could have been wrong, I'll be watching for this file to revert again.

refini is what you type in game for fnv to refresh from the .ini. You have to do that so that you can lower uGridsToLoad to a lower number than 5 and then save, or else that save will crash when it is loaded. Yeah, I think maybe Steam might be seeing my change as a violation, so it replaces it.

The game will overwrite fallout.ini every time you run the launcher.

You also need to edit fallout_default.ini in the game folder (default location \Program Files\Steam\steamapps\common\fallout new vegas, or Program Files (x86) on a 64-bit system). Any changes you make there should stick.