Stuttering with No Grass in Objects

[S-Matrix]

Hi guys, first post here, happy to have joined! I've been tearing my hair out trying to get No Grass in Objects to work without causing stutter upon changing cells/loading new objects, trees, etc. I've heard so many people get great results with it, and I'm wondering if I'm doing something wrong or if it's a hardware limitation. I tested it with a separate MO2 profile, enabling only NetScriptFramework and No Grass in Objects, along with a pregenerated cache of grass, and "Low" Bethini settings, and was still getting stuttering, so it shouldn't be a mod conflict or an ini problem, though I'll post my ini files anyway. I've also tried it with DynDOLOD 3.00 and the same thing happened, but I don't believe it to be a consequence of DynDOLOD.

My hardware specs are as follows:
CPU: Intel i7-9750H @ 2.60GHz
GPU: GeForce GTX 1660-Ti 6GB

Here are my ini files:
Skyrim.ini: https://pastebin.com/92mkUzYW
SkyrimPrefs.ini: https://pastebin.com/njhEHaKH
SkyrimCustom.ini: https://pastebin.com/6b8uGFHJ

Is there something I'm missing? I added some exclusions to the grass precaching process, but the stuttering occurs in areas not related to those exclusions. I'm really at a loss for what to do.

Thanks for any help!

 

 

Edited July 17, 2021 by S-Matrix

[TechAngel85]

I don't normally recommend users follow our Dev Guides, but in this case you might want to check it out. You'll find our mod instructions in Extenders. The rest of our instructions for generation are in the DynDOLOD section (note that DynDOLOD v3 is required).

Before all that, make sure you copied your cache files into the SKSE folder.

[S-Matrix]

6 minutes ago, TechAngel85 said:

I don't normally recommend users follow our Dev Guides, but in this case you might want to check it out. You'll find our mod instructions in Extenders. The rest of our instructions for generation are in the DynDOLOD section (note that DynDOLOD v3 is required).

Before all that, make sure you copied your cache files into the SKSE folder.

Thank you, I actually hadn't tried putting the cgid files into the SKSE folder - where exactly should I place them in there, in a folder called grass? And if that doesn't work to resolve stuttering, I'll give the Dev Guide a shot!

[TechAngel85]

The files should be in a "grass" folder from doing the precache. That folder goes inside the root of the SKSE folder.

[S-Matrix]

6 minutes ago, TechAngel85 said:

The files should be in a "grass" folder from doing the precache. That folder goes inside the root of the SKSE folder.

Ok sounds good, I had just installed the grass cache as a mod from the overwrite folder (which is where the grass cgid files are initially outputted to, if I remember correctly), I never tried putting it in Data/SKSE, I'll do so now.
Thanks again for your help, and I'll report back with results.

Edited July 17, 2021 by S-Matrix

[S-Matrix]

21 minutes ago, TechAngel85 said:

The files should be in a "grass" folder from doing the precache. That folder goes inside the root of the SKSE folder.

You are literally a life-saver. I have no idea why this worked, but it did, I just had to put it in the SKSE folder. Thank you so much for your (very quickly delivered) insight!

[DoubleYou]

25 minutes ago, TechAngel85 said:

The files should be in a "grass" folder from doing the precache. That folder goes inside the root of the SKSE folder.

I never knew to do this. I thought NGIO would yell at me if it was in the wrong place. I have it inside the Data\Grass folder. So the directory structure should be Data\SKSE\Grass?

[TechAngel85]

From the Dev Guide:

Quote

If previous instructions were followed, a new /grass/ directory containing precached *.cgid files will appear within the SKSE64 mod. Otherwise, it will appear in the MO Overwrite folder (if so, drag the /grass/ folder into the SKSE64 mod).

 

You'll have to ask @z929669 where that bit of info came from.

[S-Matrix]

2 hours ago, DoubleYou said:

I never knew to do this. I thought NGIO would yell at me if it was in the wrong place. I have it inside the Data\Grass folder. So the directory structure should be Data\SKSE\Grass?

Is this the correct path, or should it just be dragged into the SKSE64 mod to be in line with the STEP Guide here? Just want to make sure I have it right.

Edited July 17, 2021 by S-Matrix

[DoubleYou]

Ok. I must be misunderstanding then. Correct path IS Data\Grass. Loaded it up the other way and no grass lol.

[DoubleYou]

I just looked into this a bit. It seems that with the new Grass LOD loaded into Object LOD, some systems will not be able to quite keep up with the generally accepted TerrainManager settings used by most people. These settings can be tweaked within the DynDOLOD MCM menu, and the most important one is the first block distance.

[TerrainManager]
fBlockLevel0Distance=35000
fBlockLevel1Distance=70000
fBlockMaximumDistance=250000
fSplitDistanceMult=1.5

Tweaking these settings, especially the first one, will help users the most with their new Grass LOD performance.

Just some quick tweaking on my setup, I changed mine to the following, and I'm getting much better performance. I'll be playing with this more to see what kind of balance I can strike up.

[S-Matrix]

9 hours ago, TechAngel85 said:

I don't normally recommend users follow our Dev Guides, but in this case you might want to check it out. You'll find our mod instructions in Extenders. The rest of our instructions for generation are in the DynDOLOD section (note that DynDOLOD v3 is required).

Before all that, make sure you copied your cache files into the SKSE folder.

Hey again, sorry to bug you more, but would you be willing to link the dev guides so that I can try it out? I ended up encountering stuttering again after some more testing, even after trying out placing the grass files in the SKSE folder. Aside from that, do you have any other tips that might help resolve this stuttering?

5 hours ago, DoubleYou said:

I just looked into this a bit. It seems that with the new Grass LOD loaded into Object LOD, some systems will not be able to quite keep up with the generally accepted TerrainManager settings used by most people. These settings can be tweaked within the DynDOLOD MCM menu, and the most important one is the first block distance.

[TerrainManager]
fBlockLevel0Distance=35000
fBlockLevel1Distance=70000
fBlockMaximumDistance=250000
fSplitDistanceMult=1.5

Tweaking these settings, especially the first one, will help users the most with their new Grass LOD performance.

Just some quick tweaking on my setup, I changed mine to the following, and I'm getting much better performance. I'll be playing with this more to see what kind of balance I can strike up.

I tried reducing the first setting, but unfortunately saw no real change in performance. The issue is weird in general, as I get pretty solid 50-60 fps in exteriors, but also get CONSISTENT stutter when loading new cells. Thanks for the help either way!

[DoubleYou]

You just gotta keep lowering LOD settings until it disappears, or lowering the settings for the generated LOD. NGIO is very performance demanding. I have big frame drops myself if I don't play along.

[S-Matrix]

5 minutes ago, DoubleYou said:

You just gotta keep lowering LOD settings until it disappears, or lowering the settings for the generated LOD. NGIO is very performance demanding. I have big frame drops myself if I don't play along.

Got it, I'll keep at it, thanks again!

[z929669]

12 hours ago, TechAngel85 said:

The files should be in a "grass" folder from doing the precache. That folder goes inside the root of the SKSE folder.

It goes into SKSE folder only because NGIO precaching is mediated by SKSE64. If our instructions are followed for SKSE64, then this should just happen, but I have heard that some people get it elsewhere or in overwrite, so those persons are not setting up SKSE64 via MO as we recommend probably/

NGIO output can go into ANY /Data/grass folder in ANY mod.