Why hiccups/stutter every 6 seconds?

[Gudulba]

When moving outside, I get annoying, very short hiccups/stutters about every six seconds, see in-game video here (happens four times during the video):  https://we.tl/t-3ni8DwSk7x

 

FPS doesn't seem to drop during the hiccups. I use Pfuscher's AIO 2K for textures. Game is on a SSD. 32 GB RAM. RTX 3080 with 10 GB VRAM. Game version 1.5.97.

 

I haven't always had these hiccups. I have added more and more mods over the years and at some point in time, these hiccpus started to appear.

 

What could cause this? How could I find out the cause?

 

[jijox91230]

Most likely graphic drivers issues. Try downloading the lastest driver from Nvidia Website and DDU (Display Driver Uninstaller). Restart your computer in safe mode and start DDU , select clean and restart (highly recommanded). after restarting , install the lastest drivers you downloaded from Nvidia Website. I highly recommand disabling internet on your computer before you do the DDU stuff or else Windows will auto install old drivers. If it doesn't work , try running the game in windowed mod to see if that makes a difference.

Edited January 26, 2024 by jijox91230

[traison]

Looks like a cloak spell to me. Some mod is casting a cloak spell every 6 seconds, and the radius is more than your system (or rather, Skyrim) can handle.

[Miauzi]

So we need the mod list to have a chance of finding the "culprit".

 

[traison]

9 minutes ago, Miauzi said:

So we need the mod list to have a chance of finding the "culprit".

 

 

Maybe. Mods using cloaks to scan surroundings tend to have MCM's that allow adjusting their radius to avoid this exact issue. Going through all MCM pages might be where I'd start.

[Gudulba]

Cloak spells. Didn't have that on the radar or rather didn't know there was a function doing that 🙂

 

What should I be looking for in the MCM? What are examples of mods using cloak spells this way?

[traison]

12 minutes ago, Gudulba said:

What are examples of mods using cloak spells this way?

 

When you have a mod that seems like it does something that affects everyone - that's most likely an illusion, and to pull off that illusion you generally need a cloak spell to scan nearby actors.

• SLA which calculates arousal for nearby actors every N seconds.
• Mods that have NPCs approach you, like Random Sex, Eager NPCs or SLA Creatures.
• Edit: SPID, but that may be implemented differently, not sure.

I think if I had to find all mods with cloak spells in my setup, I'd write an xEdit script to do it for me. That seems like the fastest and most reliable way to get a definitive list.

 

Edited January 26, 2024 by traison

[traison]

Apparently this is something I've already done in the past. Here you go:

{
  Find cloak spells
}
unit UserScript;

function Initialize: integer;
var
  i: integer;
  j: integer;
  f: IInterface;
  e: IInterface;
  sig: string;
begin
  // iterate over loaded plugins
  for i := 0 to Pred(FileCount) do begin
    f := FileByIndex(i);
    
    for j := 0 to Pred(RecordCount(f)) do begin
        e := RecordByIndex(f, j);
        sig := Signature(e);
        if sig <> 'MGEF' then
            Continue;
        
        Search(e)
    end;
  end;
end;

procedure Search(e: IInterface);
var
    m: string;
begin
    m := GetElementEditValues(e, 'Magic Effect Data\DATA - Data\Archtype');
    
    if m = 'Cloak' then
        AddMessage(IntToHex(GetLoadOrderFormID(e), 8));
end;

end.

 

[libertyordeath]

From the symptoms described in the OP, this doesn't sound like a CBPC issue, but just to be sure: If you use CBPC then check your cbpc configfiles (yes, every single one) for a line like this "Tuning.rate 360"

 

(360 frames = 6 seconds)

 

If you find such a line, comment it out with a hash like this: "#Tuning.rate 360"

 

Edited January 27, 2024 by libertyordeath
I'm too stupid to count. 360 frames is 6 secs, not 1800

[traison]

13 minutes ago, libertyordeath said:

From the symptoms described in the OP, this doesn't sound like a CBPC issue, but just to be sure: If you use CBPC then check your cbpc configfiles (yes, every single one) for a line like this "Tuning.rate 1800"

 

(1800 frames = 6 seconds)

 

If you find such a line, comment it out with a hash like this: "#Tuning.rate 1800"

 

Usually this is associated with jiggly bits jittering as it happens, but that obviously depends entirely on which physics system is in use and where. Also, it would be visible indoors too which would contradict what's suggested in the OP. Still, this is a plausible theory as it would look quite similar to what's in the video. Future Googlers may find this useful.

 

Oh and, I had a look through my documentation for SMP (outdated) and there does not seem to be an equivalent for it.

[libertyordeath]

35 minutes ago, traison said:

 

Usually this is associated with jiggly bits jittering as it happens, but that obviously depends entirely on which physics system is in use and where. Also, it would be visible indoors too which would contradict what's suggested in the OP. Still, this is a plausible theory as it would look quite similar to what's in the video. Future Googlers may find this useful.

Depending on drive-speed and physics settings, it can be almost unnoticable. It would however affect FPS in the form of tiny valleys (microstutter), and yes just like you said, it should be the same indoors and outdoors. Hence why i doubt it's the cause here. 

 

Just threw this one out, because it happened to me and drove me crazy trying to find the culprit. And compared to other causes, it's very easy and fast to check.

 

 

 

[anjenthedog]

SLIF spawns a lot of excess stacks and frames, I'd watch that one too.

 

Check your latest save in which this condition exists for excess frames/stacks. Often when I experience periodic stutter, I find excessive stacks and frames in my save file. Mostg often (for me) from SLIF excesses.

 

If so, what I do to ameliorate it is to hide in a low key indoor area for a while (a quiet player home, or maybe a reasonably sized dungeon quest (cave/ruin), periodically make new saves, then check the latest save with Fallrim to monitor housekeeping's progress in processing the bottlenecked actions/commands/scripts/whatever buffers. until it drops below a couple hundred.

[Gudulba]

Thank you all for your valuable inputs! Much appreciated! What I have managed to do so far:

 

- Installed latest Nvidia driver and tried windowed mode -> no change

- thanks to the provided scripts, I found the mods with cloak spells and disabled their esp's/esl's in MO2 -> no change

- I disabled all esp's/esl's I added in the last three months and disabled DynDoLod -> no change

 

BUT I have found out that the hiccups are NOT time-related. Sorry for leading on wild goose chase... I had always tested running along the same tracks below Helgen with the same running speed (Boots of Blinding Speed), and I guess as a coincidence the hiccups occured about every six seconds...

 

I am under the impression that the hiccups seem to be related to moving from one outdoor cell to the next. I can reproduce it 100% right north of the Helgen gate. When I walk/run/ride down a few dozen meters and leave the current cell and move into the next (at least I think I do), I get a hiccup. When I then go back up to the gate and I am almost right under the gate, I get a hiccup. It also happens further down below Helgen always at the same locations. I haven't tested other regions that thouroughly, but I think it will be the same at other locations.

 

Now the one-million-dollar question: what could lead to hiccups when moving from one outdoor cell to the next (assuming it really happens at cell boundaries...)?

[traison]

5 hours ago, Gudulba said:

what could lead to hiccups when moving from one outdoor cell to the next

 

Something that's loaded in a cell far away from you. Generally when it comes to outdoor issues (crashes, stutters, ...) the only reasonable approach I've found is to use triangulation. In your case however it sounds like its happening all over - 3 times on the road just north of Helgen? Triangulation may not be practical as you'd end up with data points everywhere with no real way to figure out which ones should be grouped up.

 

I suppose in order to eliminate variables, do a few simple things for starters:

1. Get a papyrus profiler and eliminate it being a scripting issue.
2. Disable CBPC and SMP.
3. Disable ReShade, CF and ENB.

[Gudulba]

On 1/29/2024 at 1:54 PM, traison said:

 

Something that's loaded in a cell far away from you. Generally when it comes to outdoor issues (crashes, stutters, ...) the only reasonable approach I've found is to use triangulation. In your case however it sounds like its happening all over - 3 times on the road just north of Helgen? Triangulation may not be practical as you'd end up with data points everywhere with no real way to figure out which ones should be grouped up.

 

I suppose in order to eliminate variables, do a few simple things for starters:

1. Get a papyrus profiler and eliminate it being a scripting issue.
2. Disable CBPC and SMP.
3. Disable ReShade, CF and ENB.

- I have disabled ReShade and ENB -> no change

- I have disabled CBPC and Faster-HDT SMP -> no change

- Papyrus profiler came back with the results shown in the spoiler section. I started it right before the hiccup under the Helgen north gate and stopped it right after the hiccup. I am not sure howwever how to interpret the output. For what it's worth I stopped Cursed Loot in the MCM's debug section -> no change

I tried to disable the ESPs for ZAZ Animation pack and Devious Devices in MO2, but the game crashes on loading the save as I have too many mods installed dependant on these two mods.

Spoiler

PapyrusProfilerOutput_0.log

 

[traison]

Well, looking at the profiler instructions:

Quote

We are just counting how often every function gets called, not how much time it takes to complete running. This is not necessarily better or worse, it is just different information. In Papyrus, function calls are notoriously expensive, so there is probably some useful correlation.

 

If Papyrus is causing these stutters, it seems kind of obvious to me where the problem is: "zbf" (whatever that is) caused a spike at the "600" mark (probably not to be correlated to 6 seconds) and overall caused over 65% of all Papyrus traffic in your profiled timespan.

[libertyordeath]

1 hour ago, traison said:

Well, looking at the profiler instructions:

 

If Papyrus is causing these stutters, it seems kind of obvious to me where the problem is: "zbf" (whatever that is) caused a spike at the "600" mark (probably not to be correlated to 6 seconds) and overall caused over 65% of all Papyrus traffic in your profiled timespan.

It's some version of ZAZ. But ZAZ is just a framework and ressource. Some mod using ZAZ is likely doing that. DD maybe or some DD-submod?

 

Can't speak from experience here, because i always avoided Devious Devices like the plague.

 

EDIT: Random idea. How much VRAM does the OP have? Asking because while i do have ZAZ installed myself (it's a dependency for many mods after all), i crushed the bejesus out of its textures via CAO, because some of those textures were huge and wasteful. If the OP is already close to his VRAM limit, then loading bloated textures on cellchange might result in hiccups, as the GPU constantly purges old textures to make enough room for loading new ones. Essentially the same mechanic as "cache-trashing".

Edited January 30, 2024 by libertyordeath

[Fotogen]

zbfEffectBondage.OnUpdate: there is a setting in MCM (ZAZ). Update interval ... something. Default is 0.5 seconds. So its firing script like crazy. Change it.

 

Edited January 30, 2024 by Fotogen

[traison]

1 hour ago, libertyordeath said:

How much VRAM does the OP have?

 

10 GiB as it says in the OP. So perhaps unlikely that its maxed out, but definitely not impossible.

 

If you still want to check this and don't fancy installing an overlay: HWiNFO64 (sensors only mode) can log the details to file (csv, open in excel/calc). Column labeled "GPU Memory Usage" should be useful. If you have 2 monitors you can skip the "log to file" part entirely.

[Gudulba]

My thanks to everyone sharing your input! Much appreciated!

 

- A while ago, I tested the GPU load with an OSD tool (can't remember the name): VRAM usage was typically between 8 and 9 GB with mostly 4k textures. It never seemed to reach 10.

 

- Regarding zbfEffectBondage: I use ZAZ 8.0+ CBBE HDT 2023. I have tried a brute force approach to rule this one out: removed all its script instances with Resaver in the save file and hid the script pex in MO2 -> still hiccups at exact the same spots. In the spoiler section is the Papyrus Profiler output with zbfEffectBondage removed.

XPMSE and DynDOLOD can be ruled out as culprits I guess because I had already removed the for testing purposes and still got the hiccups.

Spoiler