Hello,

[ ISSUE HAS BEEN RESOLVED, the solution was a full system reinstall. read my latest post in this topic for more. ]

i have this strange issue where my frame skips every one second while moving in fallout 4.

This is really annoying.

I've frapsed it click here to see the video.

www youtube com/watch?v=xgj5ebZesF8

(im not authorised to post links so please insert dots on the right places)

What i've done myself to fix this issue.

I changed my graphics card from hd7850 royal queen to GTX970 strix, ofcourse uninstalled catalyst + drivers and installed latest nvidia + drivers

Turned on and off vsync, unlocked fallout frames ( then i get steady 80-100 fps), locked fps again to get steady 60 fps because my monitor is 60hz Still not solved the issue.

Intel Hypterthread is not running ( or even supported by my processor )

Personally i think this has not to do with my gfx because both cards (from diffrent manufacturer) give me the same issue.

My setup:

i5 3750k 3.4ghz

16gb ddr3 1866mhz

gtx 970 strix 4gb

windows 7 ultimate

dx10

2TB WD HDD green

( cant give more detailed description of my system because im currently at work)

I really am desperate and hoping to get an answer here before i go wipe my entire system.

Buy an SSD it will be the best investment for your gaming experience you will ever make. Your WD HDD is your bottleneck right there. Switching to SSD is night and day in regards to micro-stutters and pauses.

Not the most cost effective solution but like I said your games will love you for it. =D

Hope this helps bud.

Thanks for your reply Ammo, will check if i can get an affordable ssd somewhere soon. Untill that i will propably keep looking for other solutions. Tonight i will run a full system reinstall to make sure dx, .net, windows. my mobo and gfx all have their latest updates and are working correctly. Will update my results in here.

No worries man.

Also give this a try, you can always revert the settings back by just re-typing ad choosing no and false instead of yes and true.

Follow instructions in this video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=482cvIuILT0

op dont listen to anyone saying your specs are not sufficient for this game, because they most definitely are.

many users including myself experience same issue you do, these are called microstutters.

it most definitely is not an issue on a user side, it is issue with the game.

try googling fallout 4 microstutters and watch some vids. people on far more powerful systems experience same thing we are.

i just opened a thread like this, and by a chance, do you happen to use a controller?

ps. im on a ssd. so what? i have same issue.

http://www.gamesas.com/topic/1557462-microstutters-even-on-60fps/

Using an SSD will not solve the problem. What SSDs do is make OS and programs load faster (if installed on the SSD) and if saves in games are huge they will save and load faster, if saved to/loaded from the SSD.

His specs are more than sufficient of course but large mechanical HDD are 90% of the time the main culprit for micro stuttering in games. Especially on large drives like a 2TB drive as the access times cannot keep up with the ram speeds this is also exacerbated if the drive hasn't be regularly defragged. Switching to an SSD will benefit FPS rates regardless, faster read/write times especially with games that stream textures from drive to vram benefit massively from SSDs. Not saying it's the be all and end all but it is a suggestion that I've personally benefited from massively.

Now he's uploaded a video of his problem I can see that this isn't just a clean cut case of slow read/write, even though I would still recommend running his games off an SSD. This does look like a possible driver issue. Also try following the suggestion in the other thread if you're using a controller try unplugging the mouse. Also, keep and eye on your HDD light, see if it flickers at the same intervals as the stutters. It still could be down to slow access times.

As stated in my previous post, SSDs are known and proven to reduce micro stuttering in games due to faster access times, no working parts, no mechanical head needing to move and read the disk to load data into ram especially with game engines that stream textures and LOD models from the drive to the vram.

To get the gaming benefit of an SSD does your OS need to be on one? I'm thinking of getting an SSD just for installing some games on it as a separate drive.

Try running the game in Borderless WIndowed mode. It made a world of difference for me. The micro-stutters completely vanished. (Though they weren't bad for me before.)

There is no gaming benefit from using an SSD drive against an regular HDD drive. Loading times yes, but performance not.

Many PC users out there having a lot of OS problems, file problems, registry problems, mismatched components, overclocked systems, overheating problems, viruses and spyware, unnecessary software running in the background,

not well optimized drivers, bla bla bla...

Those are factors that a SSD CAN'T and will NOT solve.

Beside faster loading times (and not on all games) someone should consider for an SSD for the following reasons.

• SSD boots faster, launches apps faster, and has a faster overall performance.
• No fragmentation, much better durability.
• It needs less power, no noise, and lastly an SSD is not affected by magnetism. !!!

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Just check this out: http://www.hardocp.com/article/2013/12/10/hdd_vs_ssd_real_world_gaming_performance/1#.Vk-LYiuaX_A

Not quite true. If a game using streaming for textures and environments, a SSD will make a considerable performance difference versus a HDD. I.e. games that are using active loading. Fallout 4 is doing this for textures.

Yeah, there are several threads about this issue, including mine: (http://www.gamesas.com/topic/1549396-frame-rate-drops-every-1-2-seconds/), yet none of them seem to have figured out this issue. I hope that even if Bethesda manages to fix this in their next update (I REALLY REALLY HOPE THEY DO), I hope someone can eventually find out exactly what was wrong so this doesn't happen again.

Or Bethesda could fix it's damn engine. "Hey I bought a Bethesda game today! I sure hope I can play it smoothly without wanting brain myself with a tire iron!" HMMMM FUNNY JOKE!

Absolute FUD.

Any game that streams in data plays better on an SSD; period. If using a mechanical drive there WILL be load stutters/hitches/freezes during gameplay. (pre-edit: oh, someone mentioned this already, hurp)

Aside from that, using an SSD for your OS and games should be standard nowadays; price per GB has dropped so much that 500GB SSDs are relatively affordable by most people. The performance difference is so great that once you try an SSD, you'll never want to go back to an HDD again.

However, the OP's issue is not that; it's a clear microstutter one, and one that was actually recorded, which is hard to do.

There's a myriad of things that could be causing it; nearly impossible to find out what.

I'd try this if you can: http://steamcommunity.com/app/377160/discussions/0/496881136898870103/

No it doesn't, just the games alone on an SSD will improve performance. Simply moving your steam folder to a new SSD is enough to notice improvements in performance for most modern titles.

I as a general rule keep my OS on a separate drive to storage and gaming. Storage I usually opt for multiple large cheap HDDs in a raid with backups so if one fails I always have the others constantly keeping my stored data eg movies, music, photos, things that don't particularly need fast access times to use and are not really used on a day to day basis. Things like software such as Photoshop I will usually just install on the same SSD drive as my OS. Games I will have installed on its own SSD. So HDD for storage cos they are cheap to replace and are easy to keep backed up. SSDs for any high read/write data.

An apples-to-apples comparison is good but it does not reflect real world environments. I bet if you used both said drives in that HardOCP comparison 3 months down the lines where those drives were put to daily use, the results would be far far different. I will assume they used brand new drives for those tests, mistake No.1 Of course a brand new HDD will run at optimum levels, they always do but after time will turn into a slug unless you pamper and babysit them every day they are in your machine, data fragmentation alone will grind your PC to a standstill if left unchecked. SSDs do not fall foul of this and stay stable unless you spill a pint of beer in your machine and even then they are pretty safe. In the comparison they did a Min/Max chart. These charts do not show micro stutters and frame consistency because the readings are usually taken from an average or the numbers are " rounded off " . Mistake No.2

I can categorically say that me personally ( and friends for that matter ) switching to an SSD from a HDD improved my frame rate and totally eradicated micro stutter from all the games I played which had micro stutter when used on a HDD. You can even match the stutters with the drive light flashing on a HDD where it's read/writing to the drive. I play a lot of ArmA3, prior to getting an SSD I couldn't do a full 360 without the camera pausing a few times as the textures and models were loaded in from the drive. SSD, no pauses what so ever. Same with Skyrim, BF4, 7 Days to Die, DayZ, ArmA2, Elite Dangerous, Guildwars 2, GTA4, Farcry#, Crysis# I could go on.

If you honestly believe that SSDs have absolutely no performance benefits to modern day games then please by all means keep using your mechanical HDD. There's a good reason game server hosting providers use SSD raids, it's because they can shift a lot of game data very quickly. If you cannot connect the dots between fast data transfer and game assets loading into Vram then I guess there's little hope convincing you otherwise.

Yea I'm not even looking at an fps boost benefit, just looking to get red of that loading skip that happens sometimes in Bethesda games, GTA and basically games with large world's and maps like BF4. A decent SSD recommended by PC gamer is like ￡80 for 500GB I think, which is worth it from what I've read.

Like I said I'm not focussed on framerate performance, just read/write performance.

Thanks everyone for your replies! so much to read lol

Currently i'm doing a full reinstall of my system. ( dont worry i just want to know sure that its not a corrupt .net package or anything)

I'm not excluding my hdd from being the issue, just trying to postpone making costs as much as possible.

Anyways i really appreciate all the input you guys are giving and will keep you posted about the situation after reinstall windows.

It could very well be that green HDD of yours as they're eco. I have one as a data drive for my videos and such.

Although the engine is prone to skips to due to they way they stream world data, so see how you go. Check your fps and screen refresh rate to.

Yeah wise move, don't upgrade unless absolutely necessary. No point incurring costs you don't really need. You're taking the right path about fault finding from the ground up. It's all about process of elimination. =]

i'm happy to announce that a full system reinstall has solved my issue. Fallout 4 running on all settings ultra Silky smooth.

To recap i think the issue was in having too many different vcredists and .net frameworks installed. Either that or going from windows Ultimate to Professional fixed it. After so much testing i'm pretty sure it was not any form of conflict with the graphics card as both then and now latest drivers are installed.

I hope this might serve as a solution to others suffering from the same fps drops.

tyvm for your assistance!

Glad to hear you solved your issues. Chances are a freshly formatted HDD helped with the issue. Don't be surprised if the issue doesn't raise its ugly head again a few months down the line, just keep that HDD regularly defragged and keep your registry clean and you should be ok for a while. I would still invest in a SSD in the long term. =D