Fallout 4 gradual performance degradation?

[ThatAfricanDude]

Ryzen 5 1500x
16gb ddr4 2133mhz
Gtx 980
Ssd


My issue:
Right,( i do have a few mods) ive played about 20hrs on my current save running constant 60fps (occasional dips into the 40s in the city) but my issue is, i logged off in the city, where performance was effy, but when i fast traveled back to sanctuary my performance stayed effy (40-50 fps) instead of returning to 60 as usual.

Why does this happen? Is it hardwareor software?

How do I fix it? (Rebooted my pc multiple times and also reset my GPU's OC)




Note: It has happened before, reinstalling the game fixed the issue but then i lose all progress.

 

[Lakken]

Before uninstalling any game. Find the gamesave or profile files and moved them to another folder. After installing, put them back. Then you wont loose progress.

Run HWmonitor or MSI Afterburner, while playing, to check all usage/temps on cpu, gpu, memory, fps. What gets affected when the fps drops.

 

[FabioXN7]

Hello "TheAfricanDude", I've had similar problems with Fallout 4 but my video card was a GTX 970 beforehand, not sure what "types" of mods have you installed in the game, but I remember that when I've installed some "Graphics or Visual" enhancement mods for Fallout, I ran into these issues, specially in big cities such as Diamond City, mods do impact a lot in Fallouts 4 peformance if they have bad tweaked settings along with its files. Also, are you running the game with Vsync ON? Had problems with that too.

Other Possible Fixes -

1 - Not sure what settings are you playing on, but some of them such as Shadow Quality / Distance, Godrays and Number of Debris have a huge impact on performance specially when u go to the Cities, there was a mod that you could download in Nexus to fix the Shadow Performance Rendering issue but unfortunately I don't remember its name, but a little of searching could help you with that. When I played Fallout 4, the game unfortunately had a terrible Shadow Rendering performance issue, but I can't say if Bethesda has addressed that.

2- As said above, if your game was running perfectly fine before with a steady 60 fps with minor drops here and then, and suddenly stopped working that way I think you should take a look at your CPU and GPU temps just to make sure everything is ok for instance.

3 - Uninstall or Disable any Mods that may have impact in Fallout's 4 performance and do a in-game framerate comparison with mods on and off one by one.

Cheers.

 

[ThatAfricanDude]

Hi, to recap:

Ive already tried everything, verify game cache on steam, monitor temps and usage (all below 60°C) also i have no heavy performance impact mods, ive also turned off ingame vsync via .ini files and enable adaptive sync via nvidia (and other setting tweaks), also i have godrays on low, shadow distance on medium, and motion blur off.

Like i said in some places like sanctuary where i used to get above 60fps, i was down to 45ish.

However, the problem was fixed when i reinstalled the game. I backed up save files, deleted EVERYTHING (except mods), reinstalled the game via a usb backup, re-done all my ini files, reinstalled all mods 1 by 1, and bam, problem fixed. Infact it not only fixed my problem, but i now have higher fps in dense locations where i previously normally didnt.

Note: this happened before, so i can confirm on both occasions reinstalling the game fixes this issue.

Any thoughts? Id still like to know what causes this and how it can be fixed/prevented in the future?

 

[sizzling]

What's your VRAM usage when this happens?

 

[ThatAfricanDude]

Not sure, but when i monitored everything through afterburner it wasn't maxed so i digress. Lets assume it was using all 4gb of vram, what then?

 

[sizzling]

If using all 4 gb you can either drop settings or remove mods. I know some mods are very VRAM heavy.

 

[FabioXN7]

Hi, to recap:

Ive already tried everything, verify game cache on steam, monitor temps and usage (all below 60°C) also i have no heavy performance impact mods, ive also turned off ingame vsync via .ini files and enable adaptive sync via nvidia (and other setting tweaks), also i have godrays on low, shadow distance on medium, and motion blur off.

Like i said in some places like sanctuary where i used to get above 60fps, i was down to 45ish.

However, the problem was fixed when i reinstalled the game. I backed up save files, deleted EVERYTHING (except mods), reinstalled the game via a usb backup, re-done all my ini files, reinstalled all mods 1 by 1, and bam, problem fixed. Infact it not only fixed my problem, but i now have higher fps in dense locations where i previously normally didnt.

Note: this happened before, so i can confirm on both occasions reinstalling the game fixes this issue.

Any thoughts? Id still like to know what causes this and how it can be fixed/prevented in the future?

Glad, that you figured it out, I've once experienced the same problem, my game would run normal and other day would drop frames like craze, sometimes restarting the game worked and sometimes removing mods that messed up with game files would work as well, in general Fallout 4 isn't the most optimized game out there, I've had problems since it's release for PC even with a Good spec, so I guess your PC is fine, if these kind of issues doesn't happen in other games than it's just a Fallout 4 problem, but mostly it happens when mods messes it up with the game or when there's parts where the shadowing effects become more visible like in wastelands jungles with the fog. Hope that doesn't happen again.

Good Luck!

 

[ThatAfricanDude]

Thanks guys, i hope it wont happen again/soon.

(Do note i run the ENBoost mod that forces fallout to better utilize ram and vram, when i originally downloaded the game i had huge micro stutter and this mod fixed that)

Ill tweak some settings and search for some tips online for improving performance, none the less thanks for all the help gents.