Vurt's stress test and STEP:Extended

[Spock]

For everyone not knowing what Vurt's stress test is:

Open the console and enter the commands tcl (toggle clip) tgm (god mode, optional) and player.setav speedmult 1000

Then fly around the world very fast loading lots of stuff stressing the engine.

 

 

I would like to know what your results are with STEP:Extended. My game usually crashes at 5-8 minutes. This might be due to my GPU clocking down when the game is loading assets. What do you think about the stress testing method to asses your game stability?

 

Thanks in advance for any input on that matter,

 

Spock

[crime_syndicate]

I always did the same thing, use speedmult 400/500, no tcl and just run around, I don't even know how Vurt can load all textures in time with a heavily modded game using speedmult 1000 and up to be honest ... When I try doing that the game locks up after maybe 10 seconds and I have to stop the character for the game to load up the needed assets and for it to become playable again.

[Searcher7]

Speedmult of 1500 does give me lots of stutter, even some lag. (But the physics of a running character going over a hill at x1500 make it almost worthwhile.) I do use 1000; it is a stress test, after all.

 

I cheat a little and coc riverwood from the main menu; I don't run a lot of mods during the intro anyways. Most of my mods are added to a save after the start quests fire outside Helgen Cave. Then I role play the Flash for a while, mostly as described by Aiyen. I will also go into cities or interiors changed or added by a mod. I'll stop at a Forsworn camp and aggravate the natives, piss off some guards, check that the mod I'm testing actually does something, and just look for problems. I used to do this for a long time, now I'm satisfied if I get 10 or 15 minutes without a crash; a pretty good indication of early game stability, which is all that this test measures anyways.

 

EDIT: Grammar

Edited November 27, 2014 by Searcher7

[Kravis]

I apologize for the necro-post.  I just want Aiyen to know how appreciative I am of the thoroughly descriptive stress test. 

 

I was going insane trying to figure out and resolve the inconsistent CTD's I was encountering while performing Vurt's stress test.  Sometimes it was 30 secs into the "superman mode", sometimes 5 minutes.  It was so varied, and Vurt's method would crash my game inconsistently... even with no mods or .ini changes at all.  I strongly believe that the Havoc engine cannot handle persistent cell loading of that magnitude, especially while flying (which is known to make things screwy, as mentioned in previous posts).

 

I tried Aiyen's method and did 3 laps around Skyrim (riverwood>markarth>solitude>dawnstar>winterhold>windhelm>riften>>riverwood x3), then the mage vs beast test outside Whiterun, then I spawned 3 dragons inside solitude and killed all 3.  I did Aiyen's method 3 times (3 hrs worth of stress testing in 3 seperate sessions).  Not a single crash.  Not even a noticeable stutter.  This makes me feel much more confident about the stability of my build.  Thanks so much!

[Octopuss]

I stoppped "vurting" my setup because I never got any consistent results with it. Apparently the engine is way too... "special" and there's no way to reliably test stability this way. I'd be able to fly around the world for 10 minutes twice only to get a CTD 3 times in row within 15 seconds after that. It just doesn't work for me.

[Aiyen]

Glad that you found it useful. Sounds like you got a fairly stable setup... better than most of the ones I have made. 

 

If you want another fun one and have deadly dragons installed, you can try to spawn a few of those bad boys, and groups of 10 guards... and wait for them to die and then spawn more. One of the dragons will at intervals resurrect all dead guards. In my last test me and my body got to 200 guards before the game CTDed. It was glorious... 

 

Also just to nitpick... it is a gamebryo engine... havok is just the part that deals with the physics. 

[Kravis]

Oh, cool.  Good to know.  For the longest time, I assumed the main engine was named 'Havoc', since both words usually wind up in the same discussions.

 

Edit: typos

Edited April 20, 2015 by Kravis

[thunderclam]

So are there any non-STEP mods in particular that this (Aiyen's) method revealed the limitations/liability of?