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<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en">
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title>FNV Performance Guide</title>
<meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1.0">
<meta name="description" content="A guide to making Fallout: New Vegas run smoother. Hopefully. Covers DXVK, Alt-Tabbing, stutters and frametimes.">
<meta property="og:title" content="Fallout: New Vegas Performance and Stability Guide">
<meta property="og:type" content="article">
<meta property="og:url" content="https://performance.moddinglinked.com">
<meta property="og:image" content="https://performance.moddinglinked.com/img/ui/logo.webp">
<meta property="og:description" content="A guide to making Fallout: New Vegas run smoother. Hopefully. Covers DXVK, Alt-Tabbing, stutters and frametimes.">
<meta name="theme-color" media="(prefers-color-scheme: dark)" content="#292329">
<meta name="keywords" content="Fallout New Vegas, FNV, FalloutNV, FPS, Performance, Fallout, FPS Limit, SpecialK, Riva Tuner, RTSS, Stutter, Lag, Latency, Hitches, Flip Model, DXGI, Interop, Nvidia, HDR">
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</head>
<body class="theme dark-scheme">
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</div>
<div class="container">
<div class="header">
<div class="headerMenu" onclick="toggleNav()">
<img src="./img/UI/Navigation.svg" id="navButton">
</div>
<div class="headerTitle">
<a href="./falloutnv.html" id="headerTitle">Fallout: New Vegas Performance Guide</a>
</div>
</div>
<div class="sidebar left-sidebar">
<p class="pageLinks">
<a href="#Introduction" title="Introduction">
Introduction
</a>
<a href="#Terminology" title="Terminology">
Terminology
</a>
<a href="#EngineOptimizations" title="lStewieAl's Engine Optimizations">
Engine Optimizations
</a>
<a href="#NVTF" title="New Vegas Tick Fix">
New Vegas Tick Fix
</a>
<a href="#FogCulling" title="Fog-based Object Culling">
Fog Culling
</a>
<a href="#zlibUpdated" title="zlib Updated">
zlib
</a>
<a href="#DriversAndOS" title="Graphics Drivers and Windows">
Drivers and Windows
</a>
<a href="#DisplayModeComparison" title="Display modes">
Display modes
</a>
<a href="#DXVK" title="DXVK">
DXVK
</a>
<a href="#RecommendedLimiters" title="FPS Limiters">
FPS Limiters
</a>
<a href="#FAQ" title="FAQ">
FAQ
</a>
<a href="#Finish" title="Finish">
Finish
</a>
</p>
</div>
<div class="content">
<!-- Introduction -->
<div class="section">
<span id="Introduction" onclick="location.href='#Introduction'">
<h2>Introduction</h2>
</span>
<div class="card flex logo-container">
<div>
<p>
<h3>Welcome!</h3>
Goal of this guide is to fix the abysmal performance in Fallout: New Vegas by using more modern technologies and tweaks, and make you generally aware of its quirks and other potential issues.
</p>
<p>
The guide is mostly written with an assumption that you've completed <b>Utilities</b> sections from
<a href="https://vivanewvegas.moddinglinked.com/utilities.html" target="_blank">Viva New Vegas</a>
or <b>Essentials</b> from
<a href="https://thebestoftimes.moddinglinked.com/essentials.html" target="_blank">The Best of Times</a>,
but it'll still cover mods contained within those guides.
</p>
<p>
While the guide is focused on this particular game, most stuff shown here is applicable to other games.
</p>
<p>
Content presented here may seem insanely long, but that's really just because I'm trying to explain everything in detail to reduce further questions and confusion - sadly there's a lot of "gotchas" when it comes to PC hardware and its configurations.
<br>
Most abbreviations are explained in <a href="#Terminology">Terminology</a> section, and can always be hovered over to see their full name.
<br>
If you find some sections confusing, feel free to ask on <a href="https://discord.gg/S99Ary5eba" target="_blank">Discord</a>.
</p>
</div>
<div>
<img src="img/ui/logo.webp" id="logo" alt="Logo of a Vault-Boy with glasses typing on a computer">
</div>
</div>
<div class="card">
<p>
<h3>Why?</h3>
</p>
<p>
Let's be honest here, the engine did not age well. The renderer is based on now 22 year old DirectX 9, which fails to fit-in with modern GPUs and Windows.
It's extremely inefficient and CPU bound, has glaring issues with display modes, memory handling and overall stability.
<br>
As for Bethesda's code - it also fails (horribly) to scale well with modern processors, something that you can see even in their latest titles.
<br>
To make things worse, Fallout: New Vegas was compiled without compiler optimizations, which while making engine modding easier, reduces the overall performance.
</p>
<p>
In short most performance issues can be summed with two words: <b>CPU bottleneck</b>.
</p>
<p>
Even with that fact in mind, there are some tweaks to be done on the GPU and presentation side of things that can help with the overall responsiveness of the game, despite not fixing the performance on its own.
</p>
</div>
</div>
<!-- Terminology -->
<div class="section">
<span id="Terminology" onclick="location.href='#Terminology'">
<h2>Terminology</h2>
</span>
<div class="card">
<h3>Things You Should Know</h3>
<ul>
<li id="VSync">
<b>Vertical Synchronization (V-Sync)</b> - technology allowing to keep display's scanout and refresh in phase to eliminate screen tearing,
at the cost of higher latency.
<br>
(Latency lowers along with refresh rate)
</li>
<li id="VRR">
<b>G-Sync | FreeSync</b> - <b>Variable Refresh Rate (VRR)</b> technologies developed by NVIDIA and AMD respectively.
They allow the display to adapt its refresh rate to the framerate, allowing to use V-Sync at arbitrary framerates and reduce its latency<sup><a title="Why?" href="#annotation1">[1]</a></sup> .
</li>
<li id="MPO">
<b>Multiplane Overlays (MPOs)</b> - hardware scanout planes for the GPU. They allow for hardware image composition without any latency or performance penalty (for example displaying windows on top of each other), as well as
their hardware scaling and stretching.
MPOs are supported since Windows 8.1. Hardware capabilities vary between GPU manufacturers.
</li>
<li id="latency">
<b>Input Latency (lag)</b> - time between input event (mouse click, keyboard press) and the event being displayed on the screen. The lower the latency, the more responsive the game feels.
<br>
There are multiple sources of latency, varying from GPU/CPU usage, display mode, framerate count and many more - most of them are covered in this guide.
</li>
</ul>
<span class="annotations">
<ol>
<li id="annotation1">
Yes, despite popular misinformation, VRR alone doesn't get rid of tearing. It can minimize the rolling tear however, but that varies between displays, and such, it's not a guaranteed feature.
Additionally, the latency reduction applies <b>only</b> at framerates below V-Sync window (display's native refresh rate) - if framerate matches the native refresh rate, VRR engages V-Sync emulation.
</li>
</ol>
</span>
</div>
<div class="expander-top clickable" onclick="expandCard(this, flipTalk)" id="flipTalkTop">
<div>
<p>
<h3>Technicalities</h3>
More text inside. Explains the concept of presentation models and display modes. While not needed to use the guide, it'll help you with understanding why things are the way they are.
</p>
</div>
<img class="chevron" style="float: right;" src="img/ui/Chevron Down.svg" alt="UI element - Chevron">
</div>
<div class="expander-bottom" id="flipTalk">
<p>
<ul>
<li><b>Presentation models:</b></li>
<ul>
<li id="Flip">
<b>Flip Model</b> - presentation model first added in Windows 7 with D3D9Ex and upgraded in DXGI in Windows 8-10.
<br>
Allows "fullscreen-level" of performance and latency. Has native VRR support in Windowed Mode. Additionally, DXGI version supports tearing (V-Sync off) in Windowed Mode, HDR and has Multiplane Overlay (MPO) support.
<br>
DXGI variant is supported only in D3D10 and upwards<sup><a title="Why?" href="#annotation2">[2]</a></sup>, enforced only in D3D12, and exists only on Windows 8 and upwards.
<br>
D3D9Ex Flip Model is not feature matched and lacks any DXGI improvements.
<br>
More information <a href="https://devblogs.microsoft.com/directx/dxgi-flip-model/" target="_blank">here</a>.
</li>
<li id="BitBlt">
<b>BitBlt Model</b> - older presentation model used by most applications.
While performing similarly to Flip Model in Fullscreen, in Windowed Mode it has worse performance and always-on V-Sync on top of already additional latency caused by additional copy operations due to being software composed.
<br>
The only presentation model for Windowed D3D9 (and lower), but still very common in D3D10 and D3D11 games.
<p>
Vulkan and OpenGL<sup><a title="Why?" href="#annotation3">[3]</a></sup> use BitBlt in Windowed Mode.
</p>
</li>
</ul>
<li>
<b>Display modes:</b>
</li>
<ul>
<li id="FSE">
<b>Fullscreen Exclusive (FSE)</b> - legacy method of displaying content where application takes complete ownership of the screen.
Has slow Alt-Tab due to display ownership transfer, can be problematic if games are badly coded and switch to odd resolutions or refresh rates by default. Can lose color profiles.
Despite that, it offers the best feature compatibility and perfomance for games that don't use Flip Model. Deprecated by Fullscreen Optimizations and Windowed with Flip Model for DirectX games.
<br>
Supported by every graphics API other than D3D12
</li>
<li id="FSO">
<b>Fullscreen with Fullscreen Optimizations (Fullscreen Optimizations)</b> - an update to <span class="abbreviation" title="Fullscreen Exclusive" onclick="expandCard(flipTalkTop, flipTalk, 1); location.href='#Flip'">FSE</span> for DirectX added in Windows 10 1803.
<br>
Converts DirectX applications running in <span class="abbreviation" title="Fullscreen Exclusive" onclick="expandCard(flipTalkTop, flipTalk, 1); location.href='#Flip'">FSE</span> mode into a pseudo borderless mode with Flip Model for faster Alt-Tab,
lower latency, better color profile handling, and support for Windowed overlays (Xbox Game Bar, volume and brightness sliders etc.).
<br>
Because of being a Windowed Mode under the hood, it can break e.g. brightness control in old games that modify system gamma instead of window's.
<br>
Enabled by default for every application.
<br>
More information <a href="https://devblogs.microsoft.com/directx/demystifying-full-screen-optimizations/" target="_blank">here</a>.
</li>
<li id="Windowed">
<b>Windowed</b> - method of displaying content in a window, always managed by <span class="abbreviation" title="Desktop Window Manager - Windows component responsible for displaying and managing windows">DWM</span>. Due to being a window, Alt-Tab is fast, and color profiles usually don't have any problems.
If not using Flip Model, it has worse performance compared to Fullscreen Optimizations | <span class="abbreviation" title="Fullscreen Exclusive" onclick="expandCard(flipTalkTop, flipTalk, 1); location.href='#Flip'">FSE</span>, lacks native VRR support, has increased input latency and uses always-on V-Sync
</li>
</ul>
</ul>
<span class="annotations">
<ol start="2">
<li id="annotation2">
D3D10 and D3D11 supporting Flip Model doesn't mean that game actually uses it (Unity and UE4 implemented Flip Model support around 2019 - 7 years after its release!).
<br>
Flip Model in Windowed Mode can be enabled in those games using Special K (D3D11 only) or Windows 11's (22H2) Optimizations for Windowed Games (both D3D10 and D3D11).
<br>
Both implementations have good compatiblity, but there are some niche cases where a game can be unsupported by Special K, but supported by Windows - and vice versa.
<br>
Special K is recommended only for single player games due to anti-cheat concerns (it's a mod after all), while Windows' method is safe to use anywhere due to being a system feature.
</li>
<li id="annotation3">
OpenGL can be displayed using D3D11 thanks to Special K, which enables Flip Model and all its benefits along with HDR.
<br>
Nvidia drivers can interop Vulkan and OpenGL to DXGI with Flip Model since driver version 526.
OpenGL interop by default degrades performance, while DXVK compatibility requires toggling a flag in Nvidia Profile Inspector - see <a href="#dxvk-flip">here</a> how to resolve both of these issues.
<br>
AMD drivers have a D3D12 interop for OpenGL that can be toggled by enabling triple buffering in Radeon Settings. Vulkan interop is enabled automatically in windowed mode.
<br>
However, due to how it's implemented, it can cause crashes with games or mods that spawn both D3D12 and OpenGL devices, and its compatibility is spotty at best.
</li>
</ol>
</span>
</p>
</div>
</div>
<br>
<br>
<div class="card-green center">
<p>
<h2>Used a guide already?</h2>
<p>
If you came here from <a href="https://vivanewvegas.moddinglinked.com/utilities.html" target="_blank">Viva New Vegas</a> or <a href="https://thebestoftimes.moddinglinked.com/essentials.html" target="_blank">The Best of Times</a>, you can skip the next two sections and jump right to <a href="#FogCulling">Fog-based Object Culling</a>.
<br>
<br>
Following steps are for those who haven't used those guides, or want to know more about the more important settings.
</p>
</p>
</div>
<!-- Tweaks -->
<div class="section">
<span id="EngineOptimizations" onclick="location.href='#EngineOptimizations'">
<h2>lStewieAl's Mods</h2>
</span>
<div class="card">
<p>
<h3>Rewritten</h3>
<a href="https://www.nexusmods.com/newvegas/users/2232669" target="_blank">lStewieAl</a> has made a few of mods focused on improving the engine perfomance in multiple aspects (loading, rendering, AI processing).
</p>
</div>
<div class="card">
<p>
<h3>Installation</h3>
Download and install the following mods with your mod manager:
<ol>
<li><a href="https://www.nexusmods.com/newvegas/mods/66347" target="_blank" title="lStewieAl's Tweaks and Engine Fixes">lStewieAl's Tweaks and Engine Fixes</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.nexusmods.com/newvegas/mods/79358" target="_blank" title="Stewie Tweaks - VNV INI">Stewie Tweaks - VNV INI</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.nexusmods.com/newvegas/mods/80993" target="_blank" title="lStewieAl's Engine Optimizations">lStewieAl's Engine Optimizations</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.nexusmods.com/newvegas/mods/67811" target="_blank" title="Faster Main Menu">Faster Main Menu</a></li>
</ol>
</p>
</div>
</div>
<!-- NVTF -->
<div class="section">
<span id="NVTF" onclick="location.href='#NVTF'">
<h2>New Vegas Tick Fix</h2>
</span>
<div class="card">
<p>
<h3>Stutter Remover</h3>
New Vegas Tick Fix is a mod by <a href="https://www.nexusmods.com/newvegas/users/31254295" target="_blank">karut</a> that fixes and improves game's internal clocks and memory management, which dramatically reduces stutter. It also
allows playing above 60 FPS without breaking physics, although the recommended limit should be set to 120 FPS or below.
<br>
Additionally, it has some DirectX changes, which help with performance and greatly reduce memory usage.
</p>
</div>
<div class="card">
<p>
<h3>Installation</h3>
<ol>
<li>
<p>
Download <a href="https://www.nexusmods.com/newvegas/mods/66537" target="_blank" title="New Vegas Tick Fix">NVTF</a> and install it with your mod manager. You should already have this after following TBoT or VNV.
</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>
Install the <a href="https://www.nexusmods.com/newvegas/mods/81231" target="_blank" title="NVTF Texture Modding Preset">NVTF Texture Modding Preset</a>, then make sure that it's loaded after NVTF or any other presets.
</p>
<div class="card-red">
<p>
This preset does multiple things:
</p>
<ul>
<li>
<div class="card-basic">
<p>
bToggleTripleBuffering = 1
</p>
</div>
<p>
This change has no effect if you don't use V-Sync and its potential latency increase is eliminated by properly capping FPS, which is covered later in the guide.
</p>
</li>
<li>
<div class="card-basic">
<p>
bUseDefaultPoolForTextures = 1
</p>
</div>
<p>
Disables texture mirroring between VRAM and RAM, which decreases RAM usage and allows using high resolution textures.
<br>
<br>
<b>This change breaks Alt-Tab functionality in Fullscreen Mode.<sup><a title="Why?" href="#annotation4">[4]</a></sup></b>
<br>
To mitigate that, either use <a href="#DXVK">DXVK</a>, <a href="#FAQ">Windowed Mode</a> or just avoid Alt-Tabbing. This is also covered later in the guide.
</p>
</li>
</ul>
</p>
</div>
</li>
</ol>
<hr>
<span class="annotations">
<ol start="4">
<li id="annotation4">
D3D9 loses the graphics device if it loses the screen ownership (Alt-Tab, Sleep, etc.). To recover, it needs to either have a copy of textures in RAM, or be able to reconstruct the memory from ground up.
<br>
Fallout: New Vegas, like most D3D9 games, use the first method. Thus by disabling this behavior, after Alt-Tabbing, game is in a limbo where it doesn't know what to do.
<br>
DXVK fixes this by simply being in place of D3D9, while Windowed mode guarantees the game will never own the screen in the first place.
</li>
</ol>
</span>
</p>
</div>
</div>
<!-- Fog-based Culling -->
<div class="section">
<span id="FogCulling" onclick="location.href='#FogCulling'">
<h2>Fog-based Object Culling</h2>
</span>
<div class="card">
<p>
<h3>Occluded</h3>
Simple mod I made to help in areas like Dead Money or Point Lookout, which are very densely packed with objects, yet have a lot of fog hiding them.
Dynamically adjusts draw distance in accordance with the fog to improve performance with little to no visual difference.
</p>
<div class="card-yellow">
<p>
Using this mod will prevent you from configuring draw distance settings in-game. Please use the launcher or INI to configure them.
</p>
</div>
</div>
<div class="card">
<p>
<h3>Installation</h3>
<ol>
<li>
<p>
Download <a href="https://www.nexusmods.com/newvegas/mods/79516" target="_blank" title="Fog-based Object Culling">Fog-based Object Culling</a> and install it with your mod manager.
</p>
</li>
</ol>
</p>
</div>
</div>
<!-- zlib Updated -->
<div class="section">
<span id="zlibUpdated" onclick="location.href='#zlibUpdated'">
<h2>zlib Updated</h2>
</span>
<div class="card">
<p>
<h3>Compressed</h3>
Fallout: New Vegas uses <a href="https://www.zlib.net/" target="_blank">zlib</a> compression for its BSA archives and plugins (NPC and Landscape records).
<br>
zlib on its own does not belong to the fastest compression algorithms, and the version used by Bethesda is older than the game itself, which only makes things worse.
<br>
By simply updating the library to the latest version, you can cut the time spent on decompression in <b>half</b>, which leads to faster loading times and less stuttering.
<div class="card-yellow">
<p>
This mod works only in cases where you actually <b>have</b> such compressed data in the first place.
<br>
Most mods from 2024 should not have plugin compression, and we decompress vanilla game files using <a href="https://www.nexusmods.com/newvegas/mods/65854" target="_blank">BSA Decompressor</a> or by <a href="https://taleoftwowastelands.com/" target="_blank">Tale of Two Wastelands</a>. In such cases, this mod won't have any effect, as there's nothing to do in the first place.
<br>
<br>
Unfortunately, there are a lot of older (and even new) mods with compression applied (even <a href="https://www.nexusmods.com/newvegas/mods/51664" target="_blank">Yukichigai Unofficial Patch - YUP</a> itself).
<br>
In such cases it's recommended to actually decompress your plugins, which can be very easily done by following <a href="https://vivanewvegas.moddinglinked.com/decompress.html" target="_blank">this guide</a>. Prevention is better than mitigation, and costs nothing.
<br>
<br>
Mods with BSA archives are already rare on Nexus, and usually recent, so most often they are not using compression, or deliberately compressed due to their large sizes. Using the plugin in such cases is more sensible.
</p>
</div>
</p>
</div>
<div class="card">
<p>
<h3>Installation</h3>
<ol>
<li>
<p>
Download <a href="https://www.nexusmods.com/newvegas/mods/85267" target="_blank" title="zlib Updated - NVSE">zlib Updated - NVSE</a> and install it with your mod manager.
</p>
</li>
</ol>
</p>
</div>
</div>
<!-- Drivers and Windows-->
<div class="section">
<span id="DriversAndOS" onclick="location.href='#DriversAndOS'">
<h2>Graphics Drivers and Windows</h2>
</span>
<div class="card">
<p>
<h3>Driver Updates</h3>
<p>
Not much to say here - for the best compatibility and performance, you <b>must</b> be using the newest driver for your graphics card.
<br>
<br>
You can check what GPU you have by opening Task Manager, and going to the Performance tab - the last GPU in the left pane should be your main one.
<br>
If you don't see any GPU there, that means your GPU is too old to use DXVK.
<div class="card-red">
<p>
<b>IMPORTANT WARNING TO AMD USERS:</b>
<br>
Drivers between 24.1.1 and 24.5.1 will crash the game, so make sure that you have the <a href="https://www.amd.com/en/support" target="_blank">latest drivers</a>! Atleast <b>24.6.1</b> or newer.
<br>
<br>
Alternatively, later in the guide you'll be able to fix these crashes by using <a href="./falloutnv.html#DXVK">DXVK</a>.
</p>
</div>
<table class="center" style="width: 100%; height: 96px;">
<tr>
<th colspan="3">
<h3 class="center">Select your graphics card to go the driver download page</h3>
</th>
</tr>
<tr>
<th>
<a href="https://www.nvidia.com/download/index.aspx" target="_blank">
<button class="button-big" id="nvidiaButton">
<b>
NVIDIA
</b>
</button>
</a>
</th>
<th>
<a href="https://www.amd.com/en/support/download/drivers.html" target="_blank">
<button class="button-big" id="amdButton">
<b>
AMD
</b>
</button>
</a>
</th>
<th>
<a href="https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/search.html#sort=relevancy&f:downloadtype=[Drivers]&f:@tabfilter=[Downloads]&f:@stm_10385_en=[Graphics]" target="_blank">
<button class="button-big" id="intelButton">
<b>
INTEL
</b>
</button>
</a>
</th>
</tr>
</table>
</p>
</p>
</div>
<div class="card">
<p>
<h3>Multiplane Overlays and Windows Watermark</h3>
<p>
<div class="card-yellow">
<p>
This part applies only to <b>D3D9 with Fullscreen Optimizations</b> and <b>DXVK with DXGI</b>, since D3D9 Windowed is already in the <span class="abbreviation" title="Desktop Window Manager - Windows component responsible for displaying and managing windows">DWM</span> composed mode, and DXVK uses <span class="abbreviation" title="Fullscreen Exclusive" onclick="expandCard(flipTalkTop, flipTalk, 1); location.href='#Flip'">FSE</span>.
<br>
You can ignore this section if you have following GPUs:
<ul>
<li>Nvidia 16 series and newer</li>
<li>AMD Vega and newer (single display only)</li>
<li>Intel CPUs 8th Gen and newer</li>
</ul>
</p>
</div>
</p>
<p>
Make sure your Windows is activated, otherwise the watermark will kick the game into the <span class="abbreviation" title="Desktop Window Manager - Windows component responsible for displaying and managing windows">DWM</span> composition, which leads to increased latency, worse performance and disables VRR.
<br>
If you don't have a GPU with <a href="#Terminology">MPO (Multiplane Overlay)</a> support, you can mitigate this by disabling Fullscreen Optimizations.
<br>
(Keep in mind that this trick won't work on modern, D3D12 games, so it's still recommended to just activate Windows)
<br>
<br>
How to check if your GPU supports MPOs:
<ol>
<li>
Type <b class="card-basic">dxdiag</b> into Windows search
</li>
<li>
Click <b>Save All Information</b> and save the file.
</li>
<li>
Open the <b class="card-basic">DxDiag.txt</b> file, press <b class="card-basic">Ctrl+F</b> and look for <b class="card-basic">MPO MaxPlanes</b>
</li>
<li>
If the number is <b>greater than 1</b>, then your GPU has MPO support.
</li>
</ol>
</p>
<p>
<div class="card-red">
<p>
Having the watermark without MPOs will disable VRR and increase input latency and stuttering!
</p>
</div>
</p>
</p>
</div>
<div class="card">
<p>
<h3>Virtualization</h3>
Windows 11 uses virtualization features to increase system and inter-process security. Unfortunately, this can come at a performance cost, especially on lower-end hardware.
<br>
I won't be writing on how to disable them, because... <a href="https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/options-to-optimize-gaming-performance-in-windows-11-a255f612-2949-4373-a566-ff6f3f474613" target="_blank">Microsoft already made a tutorial about it</a>.
<br>
<br>
This step is not mandatory, as when it comes to security, it's up to you to decide. Just letting you know that this exists, and that even Microsoft acknowledges the fact that it can degrade perfomance.
</p>
</div>
<div class="card">
<p>
<h3>Power Plans and Modes</h3>
With Windows 10, Microsoft introduced <a href="https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-hardware/customize/power-settings/configure-processor-power-management-options" target="_blank">power modes</a>, which are meant to be replacement for power plans in terms of power and perfomance management.
<br>
Power modes require the <b>Balanced power plan</b> to be active to work. If you're any other power plan, you won't be able to use them (On most modern systems, you may find that you don't even have other power plans at all because of this).
<br>
<br>
To change your power mode, go to <a href="ms-settings:powersleep">Power</a> settings, and select whatever highest performance option you have if the dropdown menu.
<div class="card-yellow">
<p>
On some older, or custom built machines you may not have selectable power modes at all - in that case, all that matters is just having the <b>Balanced power plan</b> active.
</p>
<p>
If you are on a laptop, power modes are saved per connecton state - selecting a mode while on battery will not change the mode when you plug in the charger, and vice versa.
</p>
</div>
<div class="card-red">
<p>
<h3>Warning!</h3>
Using custom power plans is not recommended due to how integral the <b>Balanced power plan</b> is to Windows 10 and 11 at the low level.
<br>
It can break power management on modern hardware, and can lead to increased power consumption and/or decreased performance (or even mess up things like fan speed).
<br>
<br>
It is safer to customize the <b>Balanced power plan</b> to your liking, rather than using a custom one. (We all can agree this is not intuitive at all).
</p>
</div>
</p>
</div>
<div class="card">
<p>
<h3>Game Mode</h3>
Windows 10 introduced a feature called <a href="ms-settings:gaming-gamemode">Game Mode</a>, which puts the system in a more gaming-friendly state.
<br>
Game Mode is a "power mode overlay", which means it requires power modes to work - the Balanced power plan must be active.
</p>
<p>
Game Mode features:
<ul>
<li>
Enables AutoHDR for DXGI based games.
</li>
<li>
Enables VRR optimizations for games using Flip Model - Forces the screen to sync to game's refresh rate instead of any windows that may be on top of it.
</li>
<li>
Disables Windows Update.
</li>
<li>
Disables notifications.
</li>
<li>
Disables file indexing, if "Respect Device Power Mode Settings" is enabled in <a href="ms-settings:search">Search settings</a>.
</li>
<li>
Enables CPU scheduling optimizations for Ryzen CPUs.
</li>
</ul>
</p>
<p>
Game Mode is enabled by default. If you had it disabled for some reason, you can enable it <a href="ms-settings:gaming-gamemode">here</a>.
</p>
</div>
</div>
<!-- DisplayModeComparison -->
<div class="section">
<span id="DisplayModeComparison" onclick="location.href='#DisplayModeComparison'">
<h2>Display Mode Differences</h2>
</span>
<div class="card">
<p>
<h3>Presentation Problems</h3>
Here's a comparison of three display modes you can use in this game. Situation is problematic mainly due to Vulkan and D3D9 using old <a href="#Flip" onclick="expandCard(flipTalkTop, flipTalk, 1)">presentation models</a>.
<br>
<br>
This section is purely informative, just to let you know what options you have and what to expect from them.
<div class="comparison">
<table class="comparison-table">
<tr>
<th>
<h2 onclick="expandCard(flipTalkTop, flipTalk, 1); location.href='#Flip'" title="Click to see detailed explanations">
Flip Model Windowed
<br>
(DXVK with DXGI)
</h2>
</th>
<th>
<h2 onclick="expandCard(flipTalkTop, flipTalk, 1); location.href='#Flip'" title="Click to see detailed explanations">
Legacy/Optimized Fullscreen
</h2>
</th>
<th>
<h2 onclick="expandCard(flipTalkTop, flipTalk, 1); location.href='#Flip'" title="Click to see detailed explanations">
BitBlt Model Windowed
<br>
(D3D9, Base DXVK)
</h2>
</th>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="card-green">
<ul>
<li>Best latency and performance</li>
<li>Variable Refresh Rate works without any problems</li>
<li>
HDR output (Requires DXVK)
</li>
<li>
Fast Alt-Tab
</li>
<li>
Native support for color profiles
</li>
</ul>
</td>
<td class="card-green">
<ul>
<li>Best latency and performance, especially with <span onclick="expandCard(flipTalkTop, flipTalk, 1); location.href='#Flip'">Fullscreen Optimizations</span></li>
<li>Variable Refresh Rate works without any problems</li>
</ul>
</td>
<td class="card-green">
<ul>
<li>
Fast Alt-Tab
</li>
<li>
Better support for color profiles
</li>
</ul>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="card-red">
<ul>
<li>
In-Game brightness settings don't work
</li>
<li>
Nvidia's interop increases memory usage by about 150-170MB,
<br>
and requires some manual setup to work with DXVK.
</li>
<li>
Potential compatibility issues with overlays that can't properly discern between DXGI and Vulkan surfaces.
<br>
(Nvidia: Partially fixed by <a href="#specialk" onclick="expandCard(specialk, specialkExpander, 1)">Special K</a>)
</li>
</ul>
</td>
<td class="card-red">
<ul>
<li>
Slower and unstable Alt-Tab, especially without <span onclick="expandCard(flipTalkTop, flipTalk, 1); location.href='#Flip'">Fullscreen Optimizations</span>
</li>
<div class="card-yellow">
<p>
Alt-Tab <b>doesn't work at all</b> if <b><a href="#NVTF" title="New Vegas Tick Fix">NVTF</a>'s pool change</b>
is <b>enabled</b>, unless you use <b><a href="#DXVK" title="Vulkan - DXVK">DXVK</a></b>
</p>
</div>
<li>
Color profiles may disengage, especially without <span onclick="expandCard(flipTalkTop, flipTalk, 1); location.href='#Flip'">Fullscreen Optimizations</span>
</li>
<li>
When using DXVK, degrades performance on Nvidia laptops and AMD GPUs.
<br>
DXGI Interop with Flip Model must be used instead.
</li>
<li>
HDR can be unstable - colorspace may be incorrect, and can cause issues on Alt-Tab, especially on AMD GPUs.
</li>
</ul>
</td>
<td class="card-red">
<ul>
<li>
High input lag and worse performance, especially when not using any FPS limiter and/or using a laptop
</li>
<li>
V-Sync is always on<sup><a title="Why?" href="#annotation5">[5]</a></sup>
</li>
<li>
Variable Refresh Rate doesn't work natively
</li>
<ul>
<li>
AMD supports FreeSync in BitBlt windows that are fullscreen, but latency and performance penalties remain
</li>
<li>
Nvidia's G-Sync support for BitBlt windows is broken<sup><a title="Why?" href="#annotation6">[6]</a></sup>
</li>
</ul>
<li>
In-Game brightness settings don't work
</li>
<li>
Higher memory bandwidth and usage
</li>
<li>
No HDR support
</li>
</ul>
</td>
</tr>
</table>
</div>
<span class="annotations">
<ol start="5">
<li id="annotation5">
Despite that disabled V-Sync unlocks the framerate, window itself is V-Synced, so you don't get any benefits.
</li>
<li id="annotation6">
While AMD enables FreeSync for Fullscreen Windowed BitBlt surfaces, Nvidia allows G-Sync to run with <i>any</i> window.
<br>
This is problematic because refresh rate can get synchronized to wrong windows, framerate may break on other displays and display stutters may occur.
<br>
Enabling it globally is a bad idea, because it disrupts normal desktop usage (e.g. screen can sync to sleeping windows).
<br>
It's recommended to use <a href="https://github.com/Orbmu2k/nvidiaProfileInspector/releases/latest" target="_blank">Nvidia Profile Inspector</a> to set <b>G-Sync Application Mode</b> to
"<b>Fullscreen and Windowed</b>" in <b>Fallout - New Vegas</b> profile. This makes Windowed G-Sync run only when the game is running.
<br>
<b>Keep in mind that even with this method, this G-Sync implementation is still buggy - if you get any of the forementioned issues, disable it.</b>
<br>
<h4>Never enable Windowed G-Sync globally!</h4>
</li>
</ol>
</span>
</p>
</div>
</div>
<!-- DXVK -->
<div class="section">
<span id="DXVK" onclick="location.href='#DXVK'">
<h2>DXVK</h2>
</span>
<div class="card">
<p>
<h3>Translation Magic</h3>
DXVK is an open source Direct3D 9-11 to Vulkan translator project lead by <a href="https://github.com/doitsujin">Philip Rebohle (doitsujin)</a> and <a href="https://github.com/Joshua-Ashton">Joshua Ashton</a>. While created mainly for Linux, works <u>unofficially</u> on Windows.
<br>
In short, it allows you to run Fallout using the Vulkan API which has much lower draw call overhead than D3D9, which is one of the main performance limiting factors in this game.
<div class="card-yellow">
<p>
If you play on Linux, you are already using DXVK. That said, it's still recommended to go through this section and use dxvk.conf from the Nexus release.
</p>
</div>
<div class="card-red">
<p>
<h3>Things about DXVK you must acknowledge:</h3>
<ul>
<li>
<p>
DXVK improves performance in mainly draw call (CPU) bound scenarios (e.g. draw distance), and usually doesn't help much in GPU bound ones (e.g. resolution)
<ul>
<li>
<p>
It is possible that DXVK won't change anything for you, or even make things worse
</p>
</li>
</ul>
</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>
You may experience increased stutter at the beginning of your playthrough due to shader compilation.
</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>
DXVK's GPU compatibility varies between manufacturers
<ul>
<li>
<p>
<b>Nvidia GPU</b> laptops <b>must</b> use the <a href="#dxvk-flip">DXGI interop</a> (see below).
<br>
Using it on <b>desktops</b> is not required, but <b>highly recommended</b> for the most optimal experience
</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>
<b>AMD GPUs must</b> use the <a href="#dxvk-flip">DXGI interop</a> (see below), otherwise they will suffer from severe performance issues or fail to launch the game.
<br>
Shader issues are more common on Windows compared to other GPUs (situation is completely reversed on Linux).
<br>
</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>
<b>Intel GPUs</b> from 6th Gen and newer can work provided you have <a href="https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/search.html#sort=relevancy&f:downloadtype=[Drivers]&f:@tabfilter=[Downloads]&f:@stm_10385_en=[Graphics]" target="_blank">newest drivers</a>
installed.
<br>
On some iGPUs, DXVK is broken past the 1.10.1 version.
<br>
</p>
</li>
</ul>
</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>
Fallout: New Vegas has some known shader issues or quirks. They are not guaranteed to happen (getting rarer with DXVK updates), but they can occur:
<ul>
<li>Transparency multisampling uses dithering - (Vulkan handles alpha to coverage differently than drivers)</li>
<ul>
<li>
If you are an AMD, RADV Linux user, you can disable this behavior by setting <b class="card-basic">RADV_DEBUG=noatocdithering</b> environment variable.
</li>
</ul>
<li>Blood decals can suffer from color overflow and turn white - Fixed by <a href="https://www.nexusmods.com/newvegas/mods/87830" target="_blank">Blood Decal Flashing Fix</a></li>
</ul>
</p>
</li>
</ul>
</p>
</div>
</p>
</div>
<div class="card" id="dxvk-HDR">
<p>
<h3>HDR-Mod</h3>
HDR-Mod is a DXVK mod made by <a href="https://github.com/EndlesslyFlowering" target="_blank">Lilium (aka EndlesslyFlowering)</a> and <a href="https://github.com/WallSoGB" target="_blank">me</a> with the intention of adding HDR functionality to D3D9 games.
Effectively it does 2 major things:
<ul>
<li>
<p>
Allows to display the game in HDR (10 or 16 bit).
</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>
Upgrades the precision with which the game calculates colors, greatly reducing banding - as long as you have a 10 bit display or better.
</p>
</li>
</ul>
<br>
DXVK <b>doesn't perform any HDR</b> tone mapping, so you need to use <a href="https://github.com/Filoppi/PumboAutoHDR" target="_blank">Pumbo's ReShade AutoHDR</a> or <a href="#specialk" onclick="expandCard(specialk, specialkExpander, 1)">Special K</a> (Nvidia only) for that.
<br>
Failing to do so will result in washed out colors and incorrect brightness.
<div class="card-yellow">
<p>
<h4>Screenshot Tonemapping</h4>
Game's built-in screnshot function doesn't support HDR, so you need to use Special K, Game Bar, Steam or Nvidia Overlay to take screenshots.
</p>
</div>
</p>
</div>
<div class="card">
<h3>Installation</h3>
<ol>
<li>
<p>
Manually download the latest <a href="https://www.nexusmods.com/newvegas/mods/79299?tab=files" target="_blank">DXVK version</a> from Nexus.
</p>
<div class="card-yellow">
<p>
If you have a <b>HDR display</b>, you can select the <b>HDR version</b> mentioned above.
</p>
</div>
<div class="card-red">
<p>GPUs lacking Vulkan 1.3 support or having issues with 2.0, must use the <b><a href="https://www.nexusmods.com/Core/Libs/Common/Widgets/DownloadPopUp?id=1000102854&game_id=130" target="_blank">1.10.3 version</a></b>.</p>
<p>Some <b>Intel iGPUs</b> need to use the <b><a href="https://www.nexusmods.com/Core/Libs/Common/Widgets/DownloadPopUp?id=1000102855&game_id=130" target="_blank">1.10.1 version</a></b>.</p>
</div>
</li>
<li>
<p>
Extract archive contents into your <b>Fallout: New Vegas root folder</b>.
</p>
</li>
<li>
If you have chosen the HDR version, download <a href="https://www.nexusmods.com/newvegas/mods/82985" target="_blank">HDR Save Image Patch</a> and install it with your mod manager.
</li>
</ol>
</p>
</div>
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<p>
<h3 id="dxvk-flip">Enabling Flip Model (DXVK with DXGI)</h3>
Nvidia and AMD drivers have ability to use DirectX to display Vulkan games allowing for <a href="#Flip" onclick="expandCard(flipTalkTop, flipTalk, 1)">Flip Model</a> in Windowed mode, which has <b>HDR</b> and <b>VRR</b> support, and better <b>latency</b>.
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<p>
This step is mandatory for <b>Nvidia laptops</b> and <b>AMD GPUs</b> to work with DXVK, otherwise you will suffer heavy performance issues.
</p>
<p>
If you chose to install the HDR version of DXVK, you also <b>must</b> use this method.
</p>
<p>
Nvidia desktops can, and are recommended to use it for the best experience, but ultimately it's optional.
</p>
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