Steam is eating your Memory, here is a fix

[Gameplayer]

Squeeze more performance out of your machine for gaming,

-This is a real performance guide, and not a placebo it will be immediately obvious you got gains.

-Tips on Steam, Win10 vs Win7, how to solve Win10 bloatware, covers browser issues, target amounts of RAM and more!

 

Just a little over half a GIG of RAM is used up in the background for Steam under normal conditions.  After following this guide it will use ~60 Megs or about 10% of what it does normally.

 

Fixing it yourself requires no special skills, no credit card, no wonder program download installing special trojan horse gifts, and takes maybe 5 minutes of your time after reading this to implement it yourself.  As an extra bonus it will benefit all of your games that require Steam to be open when you play them ehem SkyrimSE anyone?

 

This is Steam in Task Manager,

See how it eats your RAM?

 

Here is what Task Manager looks like when we stop those helper programs,

Whats this, Steam is only using 48K now....What happened to my helpers that I dont need when I am playing Fo4?

 

How's any of this matter?

The tweak will matters a heck of a lot for all gamers playing modern games from ~2012 onwards, who have less than 32Gigs on Win10 or less than 24 Gigs Win7.  All modern games will use up to about 16Gigs of RAM (Star Citizen uses 48+) which must be free and clear of all background processes to fully utilize for your gaming session.  Win10 and Steam both scale RAM usage depending on Total amount of Gigs of RAM, Win 10 4-8 Gigs and Steam 1/2-3 Gigs of RAM.  Meeting the games demand of ~16 Gigs of RAM will increase your FPS min/ave/max and stability even without increasing speed of the RAM itself although doing that will also result in better game play experience.

 

Instructions,

Find your Steam Installation, which any Modder worth his salt knows should not be installed into the default Program(86) location because that makes modding more of a pain in the ass.  Mine is installed at,

C:\Steam

Here you are looking for the Steam.exe

We are making a new Shortcut from the Steam.exe for our desktop, Place your new shortcut on your desktop and right click it...Now go to properties.

In the field called "Target"

Add the following,

 -no-browser +open steam://open/minigameslist

Hit apply, your done here.

 

When you open STEAM through your new shortcut it opens a minimalist version of your Steam Launcher, this launcher is really only good for playing games on, not for uninstalling, not for trolling other gamers on its forums, and not for buying more games.  Its only for playing.

 

FINISHED,

When you are done with Mini Steam, just go to Steam tab and then select exit.

When you want to purchase games or troll da Steam forum in the main app, just use your main Steam desktop icon to access the full version of Steam.

 

Right Click Icon on TaskBar, Select Store,

Now this Store is empty it is not same as normal, Then select Steam tab, then Exit...After that let it clear memory and then when you select your normal Steam icon it will Run normal Steam Store options.

 

How to capitalize on my extra gains?

IF you have memory above Win10+Steam+Game all available memory can be used as gravy to enhance your gameplay further with 3rd party apps such as....

ENB Boost by Boris, https://www.nexusmods.com/fallout4/mods/332

ENB Boost and ENB Presets allow you to allocate more RAM above the program specifications, so it can actually matter more when your above specs and have way more RAM than you need to run Fo4 + Windows because you can throw more RAM at the game to make it run smooth with your modded game.  EDIT As I understand it now you need quite a bit of free RAM to use 3rd Party enhancements effectively.  More excess Free Gigs of RAM means better results.

 

Any other tips?

Yes, absolutely I have another Tip.  Do NOT use Chrome Browser while gaming.  

We all knew that already?!

Ok but did you know that browsers are using 2 times more memory than 2 years ago?  This means if you were able to run Chrome Browser and have Loverslab an online movies running while playing Fo4 last year this year you cannot do that, at least not on certain browsers.  I am serious, I was running Fo4 with movies running perfectly fine just last year, so now this year my perfectly fine rig with plenty of hardware is running like dogshit on my favorite games simply because background programs demand more RAM.

 

How Much RAM are we talking about?

Chrome can easily eat 100-400 megs of memory per page opened.  When researching it I found out that Chrome specifically is designed to use the max amount of memory it can without interfering with critical computing processes to enhance its web browsing experience.  Critical Programs that web browser considers are not "ENB" a well known brute force method to make games such as Fo4 run better. 

WHEN not if this happens it means you now have stutter in Fo4.

 

 

 

 

 

This example is with 1 web page playing a movie can eat up in memory.

Chrome and other web browsers are well documented to induce stuttering and low FPS in modern games, no solution beyond turning them off at this time.

 

Dont Play Video's Online in 1080p!

 

Online Video's will use up to 3 Gigs of Video Memory in 1080p alone.  This is besides the RAM memory that the online browser you are using will consume!  In order to listen to your favorite show or have your favorite show running on another monitor while you play a video game such as Fallout 4 you need to consider just how much Video Memory you can afford.  So just how much VRAM do I need to watch my show in 1080p while playing Fo4?  Haha, uh a lot more than you might think!  Finding reports online of end-users having RTX 2080ti's and still getting stutter in all their games as a result of watching a show on another screen while gaming is not hard to find.  Chances are if you really got to binge on your favorite season show (while you game at full power) you may need to nVlink a RTX 2080ti or have a Titan class and the next step up from there with enough VRAM would be a RTX 3090Ti (24 gigs).  Basically you have to throw way more VRAM than the game will utilize.  The ideal solution imho, is simple have an unlinked video card for a second monitor that you have set up to run your shows, this does not require your second video card to even match it can be several generations behind even just needs enough video memory is all, this prevents your gaming card from having to deal with or juggle the process altogether if set up right.  There are not many that do such a solution mostly its professionals in 3D, AutoCad, and Engineers.  Example, a game developer has 2080ti dedicated to finishing a render and another 2080ti unlinked so that they can do work on the same machine while waiting for a render to complete.  Example 2, a streamer has a 2080ti to run a game at max settings while they have a second 1060ti (80 dollar card) to monitor their streamer comments on a second monitor.

 

No cost solutions.

IF your favorite broadcast option allows video options far below 1080p you should absolutely use them, at 240p the amount of video memory needed drops off into the 240 megs of Video Memory amounts.  That can be done on the video itself in most broadcast websites I have seen.

Another tip is to open the Task Manager and use "set priority" command to set the browser priority to "Low" this puts the browser behind the game in importance for RAM usage.  2nd minimize the amount of CPU Cores said browser is allowed to use this helps keep the game running at full tilt with your CPU.

 

Unfortunately running a video while playing a game that has been finely tuned to run at the best graphics options available to you and then further modding it to extreme's means more than likely you can only expect to minimize the stutter rather than eliminating it entirely without having to fork over hard earned cash for better graphics card and RAM solutions.  

 

A final no cost option...Simply reduce the graphic settings for your game if you really feel the need to catch up on your favorite shows or news broadcasts.  This option will likely completely remove the stutter issue in your game while you do both....I understand a lot of gamers likely want to have a You Tube guide open in their browser behind the game or on another monitor even but these also cause this issue.

 

Another related RAM topic, use Cathedral Assets Optimizer,

https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/23316

Packing Texture Files into a BSA2 format will make it far easier on your machines usage of RAM for fetching textures.

By doing so you enhance your games FPS and stability, there really is no reason for not doing so, game will only use up to 16Gigs of RAM.

Textures that are most important to pack up first!

1)all landscape textures that are used regularly by game,  Dont forget water, sky, clouds, and stars.

2)all textures that are used by characters in the game such as skin textures, outfit/armor texture replacers, and that little red bikini you make Piper wear all the time.  Weapon Texture replacer.....And so on.

3)IF it sounds like a texture that will be seen often, pack it...Including that crazy 21Gig texture replacer for Vtaw! if you use it pack it and yes consider compression or getting 2K version instead.

4) beg for a method to pack Bodyslide Outfit folder into a BA2 including vanilla stuff....?

 

At this time, I have no idea if 3rd party app assists in making RAM hold more assets for the game, put a lot of thought into this with tools to assist my thinking on this. At this time packing all textures you want to see in the game is a sound wise decision, especially if you are constrained by 16 gigs only for your game or in almost all cases considerably less than 16Gigs.

 

Windows 10 Bloatware Removal,

Guide, 

https://fossbytes.com/how-i-removed-bloatware-from-windows-10/#:~:text=However%2C you may not be,to remove and click Uninstall.

 

Win10 Bloatware Removal Script

https://github.com/Sycnex/Windows10Debloater

Note: only use this solution if your comfortable with backing up your Win10, I am not at fault for things going bad.

 

Win7 on Thumbdrive Trick, = up too 4.5 Gigs of Free RAM. ~10-25% performance gain.

Almost all computers are set default in BIOS to search USB 3.0 then USB 2.0 first for Boot Drive, a 250gig thumbstick with Win7 on it inserted into USB will boot your PC into win7.  Note requires computer restart to work

This has scaling RAM savings in Gigs Range...Win 7 uses 3.5Gigs of RAM total, Win10 scales up to 8Gigs RAM.  So your thumbdrive will net best savings on RAM when playing all Win7 games.  IF you already have a Win7 copy laying around getting a thumbdrive costs you maybe 10 dollars at a local office supply store.  IF you have to purchase Win7 sorry but even used, win7 costs enough to purchase better RAM sticks, a lot and I mean a lot of businesses still use Win7 and there are loads of gamers that still use win7 enough to that patches get made to backport win10 games.

 

In one sentence,

It means Better RAM Budgeting.

 

How Much RAM do I actually need to play Fo4 at its best?

You need at least 16Gigs of RAM FREE and CLEAR of all other background programs.

So understand me clearly if you have 16 Gigs free for SkyrimSE and Fallout 4 to use they will use all 16 Gigs.

Understand that if you have 8 Gigs total, Windows uses 4Gigs and Fo4 4 Gigs,

If you have 16 Gigs, Windows uses about 6-8 Gigs and Fallout 4 uses 8 Gigs.

24 Gigs Total RAM, Windows10 caps at about 8 and Fo4 will use ~14, oh so close...That extra ~1-2 Gigs is held in reserve bud.

32 Gigs Total RAM, you now should have about ~10 Gigs free and clear to handle background programs and third party apps.

 

After I upgraded to 24 Gigs, I did tests on a lot of games,

SkyrimSE, Fallout 4, TTW Warhammer Fantasy series, Witcher 3, RDR2, and Cyberpunk 2027.

All those games used 16 Gigs of RAM, some not right away but would warm up to it.

All games the cool games will use around ~16 Gigs if those Gigs are free and it does not matter if your RAM speed is shit you will get FPS gains just from having enough.  IF you then raise that RAM speed either by upgrade or by Overclocking you will notice even more FPS gains in my case going from shitty 1333Mhz to 1833Mhz put me up quite a few FPS in all games I listed some by 25 and others by about 20 FPS.

I even thought about overclocking to as high as 1950 about 80Mhz shy of store bought computers with DDR4 today...I got my PC there OC but my temps on Cores were at ~75C, so I backed off to 1833Mhz, ran smooth though.

 

TL2R just tell me raw numbers now!

IDEAL RAM,

Ideal 32 Gigs of RAM rated speed =>1600 CL9, (you will notice substantial performance increase at each tier)

Note 1600Mhz was about right in 2015, there were speeds upwards of 2600Mhz available but 1600 was an easy to OC ranked chip back then as well...

Think of your RAM Total Gigs as Tier's,

8Gb,  3.5-4Gb total used by games.

16Gb, 7.5-8Gb total used by games

24Gb, 14Gb total used by games   

32Gb, 16Gb total used by games....Best possible FPS and stability achieved by RAM and have ~10 Gigs free.

 

*Only achieve the amounts I listed if Steam is in Mini-Mode!  If not you have lower amounts Steam Scales with total RAM.

**After 16Gb RAM usage achieved by game there will be no improvement for more RAM without 3rd party software.

Can only pick out faster RAM with tight latency timings to improve FPS/Stability or Overclock RAM or reduce RAM speed in exchange for tighter timings.

***Numbers listed assume player is on Win10, if on Win7 achieve 16 gigs free at 24Gigs of RAM

 

PLEASE NOTE!

If going for best outcomes, RAM Speeds had more impact after reaching 16 Gigs RAM free from background processes for all games tested.

Understand, Gigs of RAM is total information held in active memory, RAM TOTALS > Speed > CL latency.

PlayerA 16 Gigs free @1333

PlayerB 8@2133

PlayerC 16@2133

PlayerD 8@3200

PlayerE 16@3200

PlayerF DDR5 16@5200

Ranking F>>E>C>D=~A>B

Notice that D is about equal to A which is a shit show for speed because A has already got proper amount of total ram available for the task.

Quick N Dirty explanation, the point that RAM speed will overcome a Deficit of available memory in the order of 8Gb is very high and very expensive and must be compared to the lowest RAM speed modules for proof of gains.  Effectively for you and I, no matter RAM speed just select Modules that meet the RAM total demands of all processes and then select for speed and latency.

 

On any set of RAM, check Board and CPU specs against user reports, then proceed to buy biggest module, at fastest speed (sometimes even above spec because can likely tweak lower CL value against lost speed), and finally want low CL.  Better is to study the hell out of all available RAM, more informed better purchase.

Check Board and CPU spec, some AMD chips in DDR4 range cannot exceed 2400Mhz, you were warned.

Most consumer Mobo's have 2 or 4 Dimm Slots...This constrains you to likely purchasing 2X16Gb Modules for best performance possible.

All extreme performance game boards have 8 Dimm slots.

A 4 pack of 8Gb DDR4 3200 CL15-30's is around about ~90 dollars to 200 dollars much cheaper than a graphics card and with big pay off in FPS if one already has at least good enough card ie It meets min spec to play game, gains are better from RAM first then move on to Gcard.

DDR4 goes all the way up to 4800ish

DDR5, only about a half dozen boards support it and to fill the RAM bays costs one left nutsack.

 

Third Party Apps, ie ENB, MSI Afterburner, Reshader all do way better with more RAM above board of what you require to run Window's (8Gb) +Steam (2-4Gb)+Game(16Gb)=26-28Gb of RAM!....Yes you can minimize the severity of the impact of Win10 and Steam!

 

Tests done with,

4K 48" Television @61 Hz

EVGA SR-2 MotherBoard

2 CPU's w5580's Stock 3.2Ghz stock boost 3.4 OC'd too upwards 4.4Ghz

1060Ti and 1080 Both left Stock Clocks.

1333Mhz 12GB RAM

OC above RAM to 1600Mhz

1600Mhz 24GB RAM

OC to 1833Mhz

and OC to 1950Mhz

 

Programs used,

BIOS original and updated versions,

AIDIA64

CPUz

EVGA Elite Tuning Utility 2009 version.

 

The NON-Example, get rid of your bloatware even gaming PC can be murdered.

 

Edited many times for better understanding of what is happening an how it works.

Edited July 27, 2022 by Gameplayer

[Antiope_Apollonia]

Nice find—very handy tweak.  Is there a way to make "Mini-Steam" automatically load on startup like you can with the regular Steam client?

[Gameplayer]

50 minutes ago, Antiope_Apollonia said:

Nice find—very handy tweak.  Is there a way to make "Mini-Steam" automatically load on startup like you can with the regular Steam client?

Sorry I dont know if Mini-Steam can be forced to load on start-up at the moment, only just figured out this tweak late last night and uh sort of passed out while gaming on Fo4.

 

I spent a lot of time since Point Lookout mod came out figuring this issue out, my game ran great last year with tons of mods plus an ENB Preset with Reshade...So it really threw me off how badly my game was running when I came back to play.

 

The difference is night and day for me on my end, so I spent a good few hours writing up how to solve the problem for everyone here on the Loverslab forums.

[Fiend71]

This works like a charm!  Significant drop in RAM usage. 

 

I hated Steam for using so much.  "Ummm - excuse me - trying to play a game here - that I BOUGHT from you guys."  ?

 

Thank you.

[Gameplayer]

4 minutes ago, Fiend71 said:

This works like a charm!  Significant drop in RAM usage. 

 

I hated Steam for using so much.  "Ummm - excuse me - trying to play a game here - that I BOUGHT from you guys."  ?

 

Thank you.

 

Haha, Ohhh that actually made my day.

[Fiend71]

11 minutes ago, Gameplayer said:

 

Haha, Ohhh that actually made my day.

 

It's a mutual feeling then.

[Gameplayer]

More on RAM memory

 

So you have nice new shiny DDR4 RAM @3200 speed, oh nice shiny....Oh boy your going to bring doom upon us all!

 

Not so fast there little whipper snapper, did you open that computer case to check and see that its not a single 8GB stick?

Cause if it is that stick is only doing at best 1600 speed...AT BEST.

 

Simple solution to fix this problem is to open the case and look inside, 1 stick your fucked until you pair it with a matched partner...By matched I mean the same brand and model, if you can not find one online you will likely have to spring for a matched pair and just ebay that single to some other sucker, or maybe someone that happens to have that same RAM stick model all alone in which case for them

 

Also note that, and this is important your DDR4 3200 speed RAM is coming in stock under-clocked....Derpy Derp WAIT WHAT?

Yes its under clocked more than likely, 

You have to enter the BIOS of the PC, you get there by pressing DEL or F1, or F11 on a computer before its done bragging about its basic information before the Windows screen pops up.  Best if you go online and find a real guide for how to fix this for your PC, dont assume nothing about your RAM speeds until you know for certain about it use an application such as CPUz, AIDA64, Elite Tuner to find out your speed on your own.

 

If that CPU in there is an AMD CPU chances are its also downthrottling another 1/2 its listed speed, Only way to know for certain is to just look up your CPU and its specifications.  It may only be rated for 2333 or speed lower than 3200.

>< ouch entering DDR3 territory right there.

 

DDR4 RAM uses high speeds to overcome its bad CAS Latency, basically CL is your responsiveness of your RAM to change tasks.

DDR4 RAM with 3200, has 30-30-30-48 CL

DDR3 RAM with 2400 has ~11-11-11-28 CL

If your DDR4 3200 is kneecapped at 2333 speed and your latency is still near the same or higher than my example DDR3 your computer is not responsive and its not as fast as last generation.

 

DDR4 RAM at 2400 speed needs to have better CL than best DDR3 RAM to begin justifying having it in your Board.

DDR 3 RAM can come in at 2666 speed with a low CL!  It does require more voltage than DDR4 though which also you have to check your Board specs to be sure it can get enough power!  Or you have to have a Board meant for Over Clocks.

 

Imagine 2666 speed with CL values that beat the heck out of DDR4 3200, well its possible yes...And no one trying to sell you on DDR4 3200 ever compares DDR 2666 with 10-10-10-28 CL values its always,

Lets compare DDR3 2400 vs DDR4 3200,

They always pick the worst case or most common installed case to compare to the new thing they want you to purchase with your cash.

 

Even then I would expect the DDR4 in proper speeds and timings to do really well vs ideal DDR3 2666.

 

Why bring it up?

Because not every gamer has DDR4 3200, a lot of them have a lot less than that, DDR4 ~2133 is more likely plus they have bad CL rating (lower CL better)

You could have bad speed plus bad CL because you never checked your BIOS even though your part says its DDR4 3200!

 

If that is the case your FPS in your games is doing way worse than my Muscle PC build from 2009!

 

DDR Ram 

DDR 3 gets up to around ~3600-maybe 4800 very rare you never see them for consumer.

DDR 4, 2133-5200ish <---Best pricing currently even beats buying DDR3.

DDR 5, vroom vroom fast also expensive and I have not seen any above 8Gb per module.  If you go with 32 Gigs prepare for sticker shock.

 

How does any of that matter GAMEPLAYER Im not an Esports Guy!

 

It matters more to you than the Esports young modder.

Because we are not playing vanilla SkyrimSE or vanilla Fallout 4!

 

We are throwing mods at this game and the typical mega modder has ~200-700 Gigs of Mods installed on their game.

Then we turn around and demand 60FPS stable on 2K resolution and then cry on the Forum about how our Geforce 2080 doesnt get the job done!

 

Meanwhile Gamplayer is getting 60FPS 1440p with 250 Gigs of mods installed and an ENB preset too boot on a PC build from 2009 to really rub the salt in the wound.

 

Another Case Scenario

 

We have the new modder using modern hardware but in this example they have at least proper speeds and timings.

There are three most often problems,

#1 They got enough RAM for playing games which means they have 16Gigs.

#2 They have a high speed HDD that is rotary disk.

#3 They have Win10 installed

 

Alright so its great gaming machine plays all the other titles and even pulls a respectable ~35-60 FPS in Cyberpuke 2077.

All your gamer friends are jeally of your amazing PC.

 

Problems?

Yes.

#1 You have enough RAM to play games but do you have enough RAM to play a monster load order?

No you dont, you need more RAM to hold all that info....There are ways around that but you could not be bothered to pack the mods into proper BA2 formats because superior computer!  Go YOU

Better would be that you had loads of RAM with super low CL value so your RAM could dump the information faster and pick up new information faster...Also at least decent speed for SkyrimSE and Fallout4....Its not real hard to get decent speed plus low CL for DDR3 RAM.

Too surmount that and kick DDR3 user between the legs you would need to tweak it out properly and there are loads of guides on doing just that but even then you still should have way more RAM than you were told online by the vendors because you are playing modded.  16GB modded not enough sadface.

 

#2 Its 2022 dude....HDD as your gaming drive, let alone as the drive you boot from.....Derp, still happens.

SATA II : 300Mb/s 2way

SATA 3 : 600Mb/s 2Way

USB 3 : 500Mb/s.  1Way
PCIe 2.0 : 500Mb/s 2 way

PCIe 3.0 : 980Mb/s 2way

Built in, NVME M.2 Drive : Dont have the numbers only on new 2022 Mobo's expect this to be fastest DTR possible.

PCIe 4 : ~16 times faster than HDD -waste of a slot though

PCIe 5 : ~30 times faster than HDD -waste of a slot though use NCME M.2's instead all PCIe 5 capable Boards have at least 3 slots for NCME M.2

 

these are ballpark, understand that a server board with PCIe 2.0 lane has way more transfer capacity in the Gigs range even SR-2 the old granddaddy board is looking at ballpark 1.5 Gigs of transfer speed both ways, newer server boards are way better.

 

Yes I am aware that on a 40 Gig game you only loss about 1-2 FPS cause there are loads of video's on it, all I can say is have you looked in your Mods folder and checked to see how many hundreds of gigs you have in there?  That 1-2 FPS could be 2-3 FPS you lost, maybe more.

 

#3 Windows 10 installation,

You are literally kneecapping your amount of available RAM in the Gigs department.

The amount of RAM usage by Win10 actually scales to how much available RAM pool you have, so expect to see Win10 use 4-8 Gigs of RAM when you have 16!  Since all modern games since 2014 will use up to 16 Gigs of RAM it does not matter how fast your 16 Gigs is until you break into 24-32 Gig territory to fully realize your gains.

 

Before moving on,

Playing Fallout 4 with a monitoring program I have easily seen it use 16Gb of RAM, meaning if your on Win10 using 4 to 6 GB of your 16 Gig RAM pool....

Modded games need more than listed RAM pool available for high FPS.

Simple Solutions, Recap

1) Cut Back on your Mods....LOL who does that!

2) Pack your loose files into BA2 format....Lol who does that!

3) Install your win7 64 on only your gaming PC.....What da hell boy for realz? YUP saves a bunch of Memory usage.

-->Make a Bootable USB 3.0 ThumbDrive containing Win7!  Now you have instant key to unlock a whole lot of Gig's of RAM just insert key and you are GTG!

4) Modify your RAM speeds and timings in BIOS...I know its scarry in there.

5) Buy more RAM.....Say what willis?  Yup, have 32 Gb RAM for Win10, 24Gb win7

Note, if you skip to step 5, purchasing bigger RAM sticks, selecting best speed, and CL aka latency values can allow you to muscle past needing to do steps 1-3.

Note2: IF you do step 5, you are still subject to step 4, a lot of RAM does not come stock at its listed Speed and CL values, you are literally forced to enter BIOS and if your old pc has XMP can use that to auto-adjust values to what is listed on package.  IF you dont have XMP on your machine BIOS as in my case now you have to do all that by hand and the seat of your pants.

Note3: Step 4 allows you to fine tune your RAM specs to the needs of the game played as well, maybe you dont need high speed but good CL values, you can sacrifice speed for better handling here in Bios, remember CL determines speed of changing tasks or we can sacrifice CL timing for better speed getting assigned task finished.  Very rough description here.

 

IF you purchase RAM.

1) Check your manufacturer or owners manual,

2) Check the forums people may have found that better RAM than stated works for the Board

3) Check your CPU specs and Forums again about the RAM,

4) Select the largest size module that will work (less modules on board is better and bigger modules for some games also better) always pair or buy 4 pack.

5) Select the best speed, if the Forum suggests a higher speed than spec pay attention,

6) Select the best CL available (lower CL is always better)

7) Remember to enter BIOS and use XMP to set your RAM up properly, if it does not work you have to set the proper values yourself.

 

ENB Boost,

"Oh my god, I such amazing FPS with this turned off,"

"I have tried that an it sucks"

"It dont work."

 

Ehem....Uh it dont work because you dont have enough spare RAM cache to make proper use of it, or dont have enough RAM to cover the 200,000,000 Gigs of Mods you installed...

 

There is actually a whole perfect storm of possible issues that can rob your computer of performance and if you dont account for your RAM budget, your mods added into the game will only hurt your FPS limits.

 

IF we plan for excess RAM above our needs than that additional RAM can be used by ENB Boost or ENB Preset with negligable impacts and even performance gains in regard to ENB Boost default itself.

 

This really ended up a lot longer than I wanted it too ><

Edited June 26, 2022 by Gameplayer

[IBAGadget]

regarding Steam usage - run it in Offline mode. Then it won't do anything. If you are playing a modded game, it's likely you aren't launching through Steam anyway, but instead through the requisite Script Extender.

 

I can see this being useful if you are playing a Steam game online, without mods, where you have to launch through Steam (FO76?)

[Gameplayer]

1 hour ago, IBAGadget said:

regarding Steam usage - run it in Offline mode. Then it won't do anything. If you are playing a modded game, it's likely you aren't launching through Steam anyway, but instead through the requisite Script Extender.

 

I can see this being useful if you are playing a Steam game online, without mods, where you have to launch through Steam (FO76?)

 

I will double check that to be sure, from playing around with it to cut out memory dont think I saw that come up during a search and may have forgotten to simply try an easy solution as that.

 

Fo4 still has to have Steam open for it to run so the options are to have mini-launcher or perhaps use offline mode.

I dont play Fo76 so someone would have to confirm if mini-launcher will work for that game, I think it might.

[Gameplayer]

So I tested Steam offline mode, saw that it does not stop eating more memory,

 

With the bigger better memory of 6x4Gb 1600 CL9 I put in there Steam was happy to eat even more memory.

 

Steam Mini has very low memory usage and yes it can allow others to message you in online mode at least, dont know yet if it does online gaming, likely it does.

 

Even with better memory, I noticed that F04 is very tempermental about background programs when running at high settings, 2K, and modded.

 

Better Memory?

Yup actually 1600 CL9 is decent gaming memory for 2015 gaming, likely scenario was ~1333Mhz.

Best Memory of that year was Corsair Dominator 2666 CL 10 for 2015 in every bracket....for consumer in DDR3

Best DDR4 was Crucial Tech at 4Gb

 

Source, https://informaticapro.es/en/ranking-mejores-memorias-ram-2015

 

I had an actual chart but lost it and it is not in my history folder no more.

 

Those RAM sticks are expensive even now.

 

Ultimately I pushed my own memory from 1600 up to 1800 CL11, could try to throw more volts at it but I went with a modest 1.55 volt and called it a day.

Edited June 25, 2022 by Gameplayer

[johnpage]

Hi Gameplayer thank you for the tips however i use nexus vortex mod manager which launches the game through F4SE, should i edit my steam exe with the edited version and start steam first with said exe? or do i need to point vortex to edited exe. i hope i have explained properly all best.

[Gameplayer]

30 minutes ago, johnpage said:

Hi Gameplayer thank you for the tips however i use nexus vortex mod manager which launches the game through F4SE, should i edit my steam exe with the edited version and start steam first with said exe? or do i need to point vortex to edited exe. i hope i have explained properly all best.

 

Your welcome,

 

Ah, your question was a bit confusing at first.

So what I did was I right clicked on the desktop icon for Steam,

Then selected open in file location,

Then scrolled till I found the Steam.exe itself, right clicked that said make shortcut.  Renamed the shortcut SteamMini

Then I added the extension information I listed above and applied.  Moved it to the desktop next to the other one.

 

I did not do anything else fancy with my Mod Organizer launcher, though I am sure both mod managers could be made to launch steam through the mini first, I am not sure how to go about that and would have to look up some settings extensions for it.

 

So basic, I just open the mini first and then open Manager to start the game.

 

When I want to use Steams other functions like look at games, I just go over to the icon on the taskbar, right click it....Select Store....Then it comes up but it says something like cannot use store!  From there I just go to the top tabs select 'steam' and then select exit.

 

After that, starting Steam from main launcher gets me back into the actual full program and can use store again without having to some sort of PC restart.

 

Thanks for your interest.

[Gameplayer]

A quick and dirty optimization trick for those capped at 60Hz monitor,

 

Allows you to turn off Vsync and stay inside the sweet spot better.

 

Find Max Framerate in your Nvidia Panel Settings, and turn it on set for 61 FPS.

 

Vsync can be a bit weird at times with how it reduces your FPS more than it should, give it a try.

 

 

Dirty Dog trick #2

 

Reduce the Frame Rate allowed for background programs in 1/2 or more!!!

Now you can say maybe listen to your favorite show or movie without having to pay as much cost simply by adjusting this slider.

 

 

Edited June 26, 2022 by Gameplayer

[johnpage]

23 hours ago, Gameplayer said:

 

Your welcome,

 

Ah, your question was a bit confusing at first.

So what I did was I right clicked on the desktop icon for Steam,

Then selected open in file location,

Then scrolled till I found the Steam.exe itself, right clicked that said make shortcut.  Renamed the shortcut SteamMini

Then I added the extension information I listed above and applied.  Moved it to the desktop next to the other one.

 

I did not do anything else fancy with my Mod Organizer launcher, though I am sure both mod managers could be made to launch steam through the mini first, I am not sure how to go about that and would have to look up some settings extensions for it.

 

So basic, I just open the mini first and then open Manager to start the game.

 

When I want to use Steams other functions like look at games, I just go over to the icon on the taskbar, right click it....Select Store....Then it comes up but it says something like cannot use store!  From there I just go to the top tabs select 'steam' and then select exit.

 

After that, starting Steam from main launcher gets me back into the actual full program and can use store again without having to some sort of PC restart.

 

Thanks for your interest.

Thank you Gameplayer i think i got this now. create ministeam, launch steam through ministeam check minimalist steam running click exit (steam running in background) launch vortex launch fallout 4, when i ran this everything seemed smoother even with 279 mods and i noticed the game exited really fast, i will test it properly later. if i could endorse this like you do on nexus i would do so but till then you have my thanks.

[Gameplayer]

25 minutes ago, johnpage said:

Thank you Gameplayer i think i got this now. create ministeam, launch steam through ministeam check minimalist steam running click exit (steam running in background) launch vortex launch fallout 4, when i ran this everything seemed smoother even with 279 mods and i noticed the game exited really fast, i will test it properly later. if i could endorse this like you do on nexus i would do so but till then you have my thanks.

 

Awesome,

 

Yes, and I found out when I upgraded from 12 to 24 Gigs of RAM that Steam in fact scales with your RAM pool just as Win10 does,

Fo4 wants 16 Gigs of RAM to itself and if you can give it that your FPS will increase noticeably in my case it was going from 45 to 60+ and also a stable 55-60 range in severe areas of the game.

 

Every bit of memory beyond that can be used by ENB to make the game look better with preset or just perform better with ENB Boost.

 

Enjoy

[johnpage]

1 hour ago, Gameplayer said:

 

Awesome,

 

Yes, and I found out when I upgraded from 12 to 24 Gigs of RAM that Steam in fact scales with your RAM pool just as Win10 does,

Fo4 wants 16 Gigs of RAM to itself and if you can give it that your FPS will increase noticeably in my case it was going from 45 to 60+ and also a stable 55-60 range in severe areas of the game.

 

Every bit of memory beyond that can be used by ENB to make the game look better with preset or just perform better with ENB Boost.

 

Enjoy

Hi so now i've freed up some memory what is EMB boost and what effect can it have on your game i did check it out but did not fully understand

[Gameplayer]

5 minutes ago, johnpage said:

Hi so now i've freed up some memory what is EMB boost and what effect can it have on your game i did check it out but did not fully understand

 

ENB Boost, 

https://www.nexusmods.com/fallout4/mods/332

Its a program that has helped out a lot of people over the last wow 7 or more years but it really starts to shine as you have more graphics memory available that grows when you have a lot of RAM.

 

Best download place here, http://enbdev.com/mod_fallout4_v0468.htm

 

Maybe test it out and see if you like it.

 

Presets are pretty darn cool but for best use of those you need a lot of RAM or be willing to play parts of the game with less than 50 FPS on well old gear.  On my old rig though with 24Gb its enough to have Decent Plus and play at 55-60FPS everywhere.

 

Here is a mod that repairs Precombines which helps a heck of a lot in Downtown Boston,

https://www.nexusmods.com/fallout4/mods/46403?tab=description

Its not compatible with a lot of mods that make changes to world space though but it does stabilize the FPS in zones that are horrible area's.

[Tlam99]

as I find this treat a quite usefull collection. maybe this one helps, if using Nvidia Experience.

 

Spoiler

 

Edited June 26, 2022 by Tlam99

[johnpage]

6 hours ago, Gameplayer said:

 

ENB Boost, 

https://www.nexusmods.com/fallout4/mods/332

Its a program that has helped out a lot of people over the last wow 7 or more years but it really starts to shine as you have more graphics memory available that grows when you have a lot of RAM.

 

Best download place here, http://enbdev.com/mod_fallout4_v0468.htm

 

Maybe test it out and see if you like it.

 

Presets are pretty darn cool but for best use of those you need a lot of RAM or be willing to play parts of the game with less than 50 FPS on well old gear.  On my old rig though with 24Gb its enough to have Decent Plus and play at 55-60FPS everywhere.

 

Here is a mod that repairs Precombines which helps a heck of a lot in Downtown Boston,

https://www.nexusmods.com/fallout4/mods/46403?tab=description

Its not compatible with a lot of mods that make changes to world space though but it does stabilize the FPS in zones that are horrible area's.

Thanks Gameplaayer i will check it out although i dont think my 16gb of ram and 4gb of graphics memory are going to hack it

[axz2]

On 6/9/2022 at 4:44 AM, Gameplayer said:

 

 

In the field called "Target"

Add the following,

 -no-browser +open steam://open/minigameslist

Hit apply, your done here.

 

I

  Reveal hidden contents

Edited many times for better understanding of what is happening an how it works.

 

I tried that.  Launched it didn't like the mini-launcher, closed Steam, edited it back, launched again and its still the minilist rather than normal Steam view.

[Gameplayer]

1 hour ago, axz2 said:

 

I tried that.  Launched it didn't like the mini-launcher, closed Steam, edited it back, launched again and its still the minilist rather than normal Steam view.

 

I'll get you back underway,

So when Mini is open,

Right click the icon on the taskbar

Now Select Store,

Now Select Exit,

 

After that select your Default Steam icon to activate the normal steam.

 

 

IF you modified your only STEAM and did not make a Mini, you have to go edit out the added extension from there to revert the original exe back to normal functions.

 

IF its just short cut and you cant be bothered to do work around to get back in normal Steam....LOG OUT and LOG IN....Or restart system.

Edited June 26, 2022 by Gameplayer

[Gameplayer]

11 hours ago, johnpage said:

Thank you Gameplayer i think i got this now. create ministeam, launch steam through ministeam check minimalist steam running click exit (steam running in background) launch vortex launch fallout 4, when i ran this everything seemed smoother even with 279 mods and i noticed the game exited really fast, i will test it properly later. if i could endorse this like you do on nexus i would do so but till then you have my thanks.

 

Use Thumb Drive Trick,

 

Thumbdrive ~10-25 Bucks at 250 Gig maybe way more but we only need 250.

Get your freind or relative to put their win7 copy on there for uh safety reasons.

 

Then when you want to play Win7 games at best performance you insert your Thumbdrive "Key" into your USB slot on machine.

It will take a while longer to load but once it loads all that into your RAM it will only use 3.5 GIGs of your RAM rather than 6-8 Gigs of RAM.

 

Will increase your games performance more than Mini-Steam did.

Edited June 26, 2022 by Gameplayer

[axz2]

3 hours ago, Gameplayer said:

Right click the icon on the taskbar

Now Select Store,

Now Select Exit,

 

After that select your Default Steam icon to activate the normal steam.

 

That worked thanks.  (What I had changed was the normal shortcut I use to launch Steam).

 

[Gameplayer]

So there is a lot of signalling that the GPU market is crashing lot of 8 day old video's out there even.

 

Think it through,

Miners know their aftermarket is looking for a GPU and OMG here you go 800 dollar card down from 1200.

><

 

Weigh the decision against the other pieces of hardware you could be sitting on for your new PC.

 

So 

1000-1200 bucks is going to put you into a top end motherboard, cpu, and RAM....Talking PCIe 5.0 and DDR 5....Next Gen stuff....who cares if you slot a graphics card with only 3VRAM in there when you have a PCIe 5.0 slot that has no gcard yet for it.

 

600-800 bucks puts you into great gear for PCIe 4.0 and DDR 4 ram.....Same situation but not as ideal as above.

 

Keep old PC, spend ~50-80 for some on sale RAM or just burn 120 cause hole in pocket, still cheaper than tossing 800-1200 bucks on used card.

 

Always stay aware of the whole parts situation, used card not equal to ~800-1200 dollars of all the other parts you can get for a zoomy PC.

 

That's what the video's dont tell you, they dont go into what can you get for yourself with the same amount of cash if you just leave the cards well enough alone.

 

Bottom line, the graphics cards are so fucking expensive you could buy brand new parts that are way more important than the used card your attempting to put into your old pc.

 

____________________________________________________

 

So a comparison,

 

You are sitting on a GTX 1060ti card, oh boo hoo....Your PC has 600 Watt PSU in there...a single SSD....

You been waiting on a 2000 or 3000 RTX card....

 

They want 800-1200 dollars....

 

You go into 

 

Current year EVGA Classified Board with top end CPU and 2 sticks of DDR 5 5200Mhz ~1000 dollars

Slot your PSU, your graphics card, and your SSD

You get 3 open NVME M.2 storage slots which will be the next big thing for mega load orders in modding.

Oh cry cry, I only have a 1000 series graphics card slotted into the most amazing computer hardware set up this year, I should have bought a used up graphics card instead whine whine.

 

Now the only thing that is not top tier is your Gcard, but your computer can take next years Gcard which by then will be coming out "new".

OR

You just cant wait gotta have great card...Get a new 3060ti at 350-400 bucks slap that in there altogether taxes maybe ~1500 bucks for almost completely top tier computer.

 

The cost is still insane, just think about your other parts or buy just the MOBO, CPU, and New RAM for it.

The video's never really compare the other parts that make the PC package...Its just zomg gcards finally coming down in cost on used market.

Edited July 1, 2022 by Gameplayer

[johnpage]

I am pretty positive that computer manafacturers send out waves of bugs subtly through upgrades that slowley break your hardware making you think you need to buy another part which they just happened to have released recently, we the end product user are thoroughly abused by manafacturers i often wondered when we buy a cooker we are offered insurence which always seems to run out just weeks before the thing broke down, i now dont buy anything new if i can help it i have realised now what is actually meant by the word CONSUMER as in perpetual. off topic did you know that batteries for the new electic cars consume about 2 ton of minerels per batterie causing massive sink holes in our earth home if every family owned an electric car our earth would look like swiss cheese frightning thought