FPS drop after long playthrough then starting DLC : Fallout: New Vegas

» Thu May 03, 2012 10:49 am

I have completed all the quests available in vanilla New Vegas just before going to Benny's Suite. I then set out to start the DLC. Up to this point I had been getting flawless game play while playing on Ultra. I started Dead Money and immediately took a hit to my frame rate and load times on the save file. I lived with the lag thinking it was just an issue with the DLC, get back to the Nevada Wasteland and the frame rate is still choppy and the load time on saves is still 3 times as long. Around 50 hours played at this point. I then head to Honest Hearts and took an even greater hit. The save now takes around 30-40 seconds to load from the original few seconds and gameplay was terrible. I loaded up fraps and found out I now had 7fps. I started a new game that ran great at 30+ fps. I used console commands to pop over to the Dead Money starting point and loaded in without any fps hit.

It seems the original save is now bloated and causing the lag. I have been searching for any sort of fix for this. I found one source that said by interacting with the environment you are causing those bits to change. While constantly doing this across the whole map it is trying to remember everything you have affected. Another said to try waiting for 30 days in game to clear out caches. No luck here.

I would prefer to go through everything completely with the single character. If I really have to I can load the save just before Dead Money each time I want to do one of the DLCs. Though it seems completely reasonable to be able to go through a game and do every available quest in a single playthrough without breaking the game.

Any help with this would be wonderfully appreciated.

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System specs:
Windows 7 Professional 64-bit
BIOS Date: 02/05/10 19:13:52 Ver: 08.00.10
Intel® Core™ i7-2600K CPU @ 3.40GHz (8 CPUs), ~3.4GHz
16384MB RAM
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 570 - 295.51 drivers
2560 x 1600 (32 bit) (60Hz)

» Thu May 03, 2012 7:04 pm

I don't know if this will help you, in fact, I know it won't, but I want you to read something that sounds exactly like the same issue you have, only with Dead Money. The following is a request for help I sent to Steam after I tried every thing I could think of, including Steam forums, they tried, but even they were baffled. To date I have not solved this issue. I have tried the "verify the integrity of the game cashe" but that does not help anything. I will keep trying, although after doing all that I have, I am at a loss for what to do next....but if I find a solution, I will race back here for you!!

I have contacted you rather than third party support because I believe the issue is directly related to the DLC "Dead Money". I bought New Vegas as soon as it came out, I have a very powerful computer that plays all games at a very high FPS on very high or ultra settings. New Vegas played at over 100 FPS for over a year, I bought and installed all 4 DLC but never actually played any of them, I spent a year or so just wandering around the wasteland, never finishing the game. When started for the fist time, the game automatically adjusted all my settings to "ultra" and maxed out everything. Both my CPU and GPU don't even break a sweat on this game and never get to 70C so heat is not an issue at all. I played the game for over 70 hours at 100 FPS + with never a single glitch. I have 28 other games in Steam alone, many others in other places.

Two weeks ago, I was finally decided to enter "Dead Money" and within ONE second of doing so I instantly took a severe hit, and over the next 30 minutes it got to the point that my average frame rate dropped to 28! I tried to lower all the setting to high, med, low, etc, and even lowered the resolution from 1920X1080 all the way down to 1024X768 and was astonished to find that it made no change, the FR stayed at an average of 28, not playable. Especially bad when the Pip Boy is opened.

I naturally suspected some type of virus or Maleware but I have extremely strong protection, yet I ran several deep scans, clean bill of health and NO other program on the computer is affected in any way. I tried to roll back video drivers, no change. I went to the Steam forum for help, they tried, but it even stumped them.

Finally, I took drastic steps and "Nuked" the game, first I deleted all local content and reinstalled the game....no change!! Then, I uninstalled the game with some powerful aftermarket utilities, removed all saved games, wiped out all remaining traces in the registry, you name it, I did it. After reinstall, at first, the game seemed a little better, I got an average of 60, acted very much like V sync was on even though it was not on anywhere, again I lowered all settings, etc but it remained at 60, very odd, but I decided to play anyway, but withing 30 minutes I could tell something was wrong, checked and the FR had dropped to 49 average, another 30 minutes latter and it was 40, until finally back to 28!!!!

I have ruled out Maleware, Virus, driver issues, hardware failure, or any corrupt OS , I continue to play ( and have bought and play several games from Steam since this issue and all play excellent ) many games that are much more demanding than this game and I have NO FR issue or any issues with them or any programs on the computer, only New Vegas, that was playing fine for over a year until the instant I entered the DLC "Dead Money" so it SEEMS like it is the culprit yet two complete uninstalls of the game have not changed the problem. I tried to load the game WITHOUT any of the four DLC by not checking them in the "Data" folder, yet when the game loaded for the first time it still loaded all four DLC anyway.

By the way, I have never entered "Dead Money" since this began, I am telling you that when I entered Dead Money and realized something was very wrong, I got out and went back to New Vegas, only to find that the entire game is now affected with this problem, everything I have told you is about the normal game, I will worry about the DLC if I can fix the regular gameplay . I am not writing to find out how to fix "Dead Money" I am trying just to fix New Vegas first!

This has even stumped the forum folks, not easy to do. Can you please help?? Thanks in advance for your time and trouble.

» Thu May 03, 2012 9:47 pm

One other thought I forgot to put in about what you had been told about "the over time issue"...I understand that I guess, but wouldn't that have completely resolved itself when I completely removed the game, and all its saves also, and reinstalled it and had to rebuild my character from scratch? I had played about 70 hours before i got into trouble, and even then I had none at all until I opened the door to Dead Money, when I went back into New Vegas the problem followed me. The game DID improve when I reloaded it, however, instead of 70 more hours, I only got 30 minutes before the problem began again, and I even nuked the registry when I uninstalled the game. Thought we should think about that when considering the "over time" thinking, it may well be the case, it is clear I don't know what I am doing

. This is an odd problem. Did you try what I did and compare Fraps reports on all four settings cause I was shocked to find that made almost no change, which is clearly against everything gamers would normally expect?

Also, I posted the wrong FPS for this game, I have so many written down, the actual average for New Vegas on Ultra with all the slider moved all the way over is 66 average. Odd thing about this game is that the min/max is nearly the same before I had any problems, but now Fraps reports a minimum FR of 0, did by any chance you notice that when you open up your Pip Boy the mouse wants to jump all over and can be hard to hold down on one item? Good luck!!