Hello,

I run my FO3 on max settings in 1920x1200 resolution. I use a number of the graphic and hi-res texture mods out there. I have tweaked my system settings per what others have posted. Anyway, things are running well except when entering into new areas. There is a bit of a chop as new items on the horizon are loaded and rendered. If new items are not rendering, things are smooth if I am staying in the same general area. I also am not talking about transitions like from the wasteland to megaton, wasteland to metro tunnels, etc.

Here are my specs:

* I just picked up another video card and a better PSU a couple days ago, so I am crossfiring now *

VIDEO CARD #1: MSI R4890 Cyclone OC Radeon HD 4890 1GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFireX Support Video Card
VIDEO CARD #2: MSI R4890 Cyclone OC Radeon HD 4890 1GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFireX Support Video Card

PROCESSOR: Intel Core 2 Duo E8500 Wolfdale 3.16GHz 6MB L2 Cache LGA 775 65W Dual-Core Processor BX80570E8500
MOTHERBOARD: ASUSTeK Computer INC. P5E3 PRO Rev X.0x
POWER SUPPLY: CORSAIR CMPSU-850TX 850W ATX12V 2.2 / EPS12V 2.91 SLI Ready CrossFire Ready Active PFC Power Supply
RAM: G.SKILL 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 1066 (PC2 8500) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory Model F2-8500CL5D-4GBPK
HARD DRIVE: Single 7200RPM

COMPUTER CASE: Antec Three Hundred Black Steel ATX Mid Tower Computer Case
HEAT SINK: ZALMAN CNPS9500 AT 2 Ball CPU Cooling Fan/Heatsink
MONITOR: Hanns·G HG-281DPB Black 28" 3ms Widescreen LCD HDMI Monitor 500 cd/m2 800:1 Built-in Speakers

Again, it only seems to get a tad choppy when new areas/objects are loading. I am thinking my video cards are plenty powerful and again, things are super smooth when just walking around in an area like the ruins of Springvale. I am thinking it is more the transfer of information to the video cards.

I have a couple questions:

1) Does FO3 have to hit the hard drive as I move through areas to get textures or data for subsequent rendering?

2) Do you think my memory, bus speed, or processor is a bottleneck that might cause the issues I am seeing?

3) Is this chop as things load for rendering simply the nature of the beast and do others see the same issue with even higher system specs than mine?

I went ahead an enabled triple buffering on my CCC as well as removed the vsync from fallout.ini to remove the 60 FPS cap. I tested with FRAPS and normally can get 65-70 FPS when things are running smooth. When the area ahead of me has to render, it can go from 15-20 FPS for a moment as well as get choppy/laggy. If you need any additional info or testing from me, please let me know. Any help is much appreciated and thanks in advance!

"HARD DRIVE: Single 7200RPM "

That is your "issue". Fallout by nature of design (And any other open world game) loads as you go, as it is impossible to load the whole game into memory. Because of this, the game must search out what is necessary to load for the new areas. There is little to nothing you can do about this save for one thing. Get an SSD. Given their super fast read/write times, Ive read it nearly eliminates all loading lag.

Other then that, all is normal.

This problem is made worse in your case because you're using hi-res textures. These are typically twice the size of the default files and so take longer to load, and create more noticeable lag. If you want smooth things up a bit, dump the hi-res, though you'll still have to put up with a certain amount.



That's not the only option, using a RAID array will speed things up as well. Probably not quite as fast as an SSD but it would be a lot cheaper and you'd avoid the space limitations of current SSDs. They aren't very big at the moment. Two 10,000 RPMs in a RAID array would probably come pretty close to being as fast as an SSD.

RAID 1 can technically half read access time in theory (and even more with the more drives in the array) but in practice, it is more of a theoretical 'potential' of reading from multiple places at the same time. In reality, a good SSD will still be faster in most cases

OP, even with a SSD I doubt the load stuttering will be completely eliminated. It's just how the game has been programmed and was much worse in Oblivion so they did improve it for FO3. You can forcefully load more game data though by editing fallout.ini which is located under the fallout 3 folder in mydocuments. Look for this line: uGridsToLoad=5 and raise the value in odd numbers (7,9,11, 13, etc). Start with 7 and load up fraps to monitor the overall framerate because on my system going from 5 to 7 reduces my overall framerate from 60fps to 40fps. Setting it to 11 and my FPS is in the teens. But try it on your system anyways, maybe yours will fare better. If you keep it raised, you might also want to raise the uExterior Cell Buffer to a large number to prevent potential crashing. (more info @ http://www.tweakguides.com/Fallout3_9.html ). This has an effect on save games too, if you play with a raised value and lower it later on you won't be able to load the saves. Raise the fBlockLoadDistanceLow=50000 and fTreeLoadDistance=40000 values too, this loads more detail with little effect on performance. Raise these and check with fraps to make sure the framerate isn't affected. Since you maintain 60+fps overall, you probably don't have crossfire micro-stuttering to deal with nor do you describe any of its symptoms so that's good.

What OS are you using? If using a 64-bit flavor of OS, look on the fallout3nexus for the largeaddressaware patch. This adds a header to the executable allowing the game to address 4gb of RAM instead of 2gb. This helped me with crashing at least since the game might try to address 4gb anyway only to crash at 2gb because windows won't let it

Not even close. Especially newer models with Sandforce controllers.

He has 2 4890s, which a single one already beasts Fallout 3 at if not max, damn near max settings.

I forgot about 10k Raptors. Yeah, one of those is cheaper for nearly the same performance of an SSD, along with more room.

The point wasn't whether his card can handle it or not. It's just that larger texture files will mean longer loading times from the hard drive, adding to the lag.

Thanks for everyone's replies to my post and the issue I am having!

@Echonite

I pretty much was figuring that my HD was probably the issue after searching around. I thought I read somewhere in the FO3 tweak guide that they recommended getting an SSD. Anyways, thanks for clearing that up for me and I ended up ordering one up the other day which should arrive on Monday to test out.

@Belanos

I really don't want to dump the hi res textures if I don't have to. I use NMC's hi res texture pack mod with the "full pack version" and NOT the" full pack with maxbump maps". I decided to do some testing, so I removed the NMC's hi res texture pack and moved it back down to the original FO3 vanilla textures. By doing that and still playing in max FO3 graphic settings, I didn't notice like any lag loading at all. Maybe a quick 1/2 second lag when loading/rendering objects in front of me, but it was pretty darn smooth and playable.

I ended up testing it out with NMC's hi res texture pack again, but this time just installed the "performance version". I still was definately getting some chop and loading lag. It wasn't as bad but as using the "full pack" version, but still not the best. I guess I will see what happens when I put in the new SSD on Monday and test it again.

@unwinding

I am using Windows 7 64-bit version for my OS and did take your advice and installed the "largeaddressaware patch". I haven't really noticed any changes by doing that, but I didn't get any crashes while tesiting using that patch. I did however, get a freeze lockup once with that "largeaddressware patch" installed as well as the hi res textures "full pack version".

I think I am going to wait to try to tweak those FO3 settings that you mentioned until I get the new SSD installed, just to see if the new SSD will fix the issues. I am also going to run a defrag on my current HD as well to test since I haven't done that yet and read that might help a bit. I did look into the micro stuttering problem and it didn't seem like that was happening with my current lagging issues.

Well you cant really call normal functioning of the program an "issue". Loading lag is something all open world games have and nothing will 100% eliminate it.