Fallout 4 freezes during game save loading screen

[DrewJaworskiRIS]

The game freezes (all graphics cease, background music continues until buffer runs out) a few seconds after starting the save loading screen (with the rotating model and tips/etc); alt-tab works and Fallout4.exe can be killed to start again. Switching the two DXVK libraries to builtin in winecfg makes the problem go away (saved games load just fine, performance is lower). The problem does not seem to coorelate with any particular settings or save locations; a few weeks ago it seemed to only happen when loading saves where I was in combat or inside buildings (I was too lazy to report it, sorry!), but now it happens with any save.

With builtin libraries, the same point in time has a 0.5s-1s freeze, but then it starts back up and continues loading. That might be related?

Software information

Fallout 4 (Steam)
all possible graphics settings attempted, no difference

System information

• GPU: GeForce GTX 1050 (2MB)
• Driver: 396.24.0
• Vulkan: 1.1.70
• Wine version: 3.6
• DXVK version: f4a92a6

Log files

Fallout4_d3d11.log
Fallout4_dxgi.log

[sdack]

Hey there, sounds like the game might be compiling shaders in those 0.5s-1.0s and if so this could mean there are still problems with the new shader compiler. You could try the latest Vulkan driver 396.18.07, see here: https://developer.nvidia.com/vulkan-driver

Or try setting the variable __GL_NextGenCompiler=0 to turn off the new compiler.

Just a guess though.

[DrewJaworskiRIS]

This was a problem with the 390.xx driver as well, but I haven't tried regressing that to see if that does anything different.

I will try the Vulkan driver later, but I was hoping to avoid going outside of existing Arch packages.

Disabling the new compiler resulted in it getting past that first first pause (as in, it pauses for a second and then starts back up again), but then it freezes again with no sound playing after 2-5 seconds.

[jarrard]

Are you running mods?

Also is this the survival mode sleeping at bed saving your talking about or when you move inside a building and it loads a area and saves?

[DrewJaworskiRIS]

I am not running any mods, and I am not in survival mode. This is only during the loading screen (where it shows some random game model spinning and has a loading icon in the corner) that shows when I try to load my saved game from the main menu.

[jarrard]

Ok, I have not played it enough maybe to encounter this issue. I played up to where preston is and maybe loaded a couple times.

[doitsujin]

Can you share a save that doesn't load? I cannot reproduce this issue.

[DrewJaworskiRIS]

I started a new game to try this out, and never had any problems (was expecting it to freeze when I left Vault 111, but it kept running just fine). I then loaded my previous saves and it all works just fine. I am confused, but expecting it to start failing again eventually... We'll see!

[jarrard]

I have started to get this issue when loading a game. So I don't think its been resolved.

Also there is a alphablend issue (couple textures appear black) on specific textures in the game.

as for the freeze on load, could be savegames getting corrupted? Might be related to the EXIT game autosave that happens because that sometimes freezes and doesn't shut down the game correctly.

Note: This game does not like newcompiler set for nvidia cards, causes triangle hell eventually.

UPDATE. Both my QUITsave and quicksave files cause a crash. Odd.

[doitsujin]

Reopening because apparently this issue still exists.

Since my first request got ignored:

Can you share a save that doesn't load? I cannot reproduce this issue.

[jarrard]

Texture related issues moved #363

Save file is just after I killed the deathclaw. You can create a quitsave file by exiting game to desktop (menu option), if it crashes at this point it will screen-freeze and possibly corrupt that save. (works under wine builtin dlls)

Quicksave0_EADE4B8EM4A617272617264_Commonwealth_000107_20180510095052_3_2.fos.zip

[jarrard]

Here is a interior exit to outside save file that works without a issue. For reference, it's before killing the deathclaw and on top of the building which you can spot the texture issues from.

Exitsave0_EADE4B8E_4A617272617264_ConcordMuseum01_000059_20180510062722_3_2.fos.zip

There are 4 Different save systems in this game, 1) Manual Save via menu, 2) Quicksave via menu or F5, 3) Exitsave when leaving/entering a area, 4) Quitsave when quiting the game direct to desktop via menu.

EDIT: It appears all my 3 saves at this point below are corrupt? The load-screen freezes at some point.

FO4 Broken Saves.zip (this is directly after killing the deathclaw)

I find it odd that my other save files work, perhaps interior and EXIT area saves are unaffected. or the issue appears after a certain amount of play time. Not sure how DXVK can affect that sort of thing.

NOTE: Ignore the file sizes, seems interior and exterior have quite different savefile size.

EDIT2: Issue does not appear to be related to the f4se (script extender) or any dxgi performance tuner stuff. Just thought I mention that since I tested it with and without those things. Same problem.

[frostworx]

I had a crashing savegame almost at the same position (saved after having killed the raiders in front of the building before entering it for the first time) some weeks ago. afair it was night in game too.
restarted from scratch as it is almost at the beginning and I'm playing without any major issues since then
(I'm somewhere near level 30 atm, so it works fine).

[DrewJaworskiRIS]

Like I mentioned before, and the reason I closed this issue; the problem was completely resolved by starting a new game. After that I was able to load my old game without it freezing while loading and have been playing a lot without problems since!

And the problems reported by https://github.com/jarrard seem to be something else entirely that needs its own thread.

[frostworx]

the bug was reopened so it might be good to know that it tends to crash in that location in general

[sdack]

You should try to to compare it to DX11 over OpenGL when you think you have found a location where you can verify your findings. Fallout 4 can bug at times even under Windows.

[jarrard]

Yes I will be doing that. I can also boot into windows and do a trace via that method. At least then it will be a clear trace without any wine related issues piled on top.

Also is starting a new game every time to load a old game save a real fix? given that you need to reload in this game ALL the time, that's allot of new game starts.

I will start a new game and retest this whole thing, my old saves were started on v.42 so that could be it.

[frostworx]

@jarrard yes, I've seen that texture on several buildings (afair always only on big ones like factories).

[jarrard]

You mean you've seen it but it wasn't messed up or it looks like my screenshot which shows what I suspect is broken alpha blending.

[frostworx]

nope, same broken alpha blending. looks almost like in your scrot, but more "glowing orange" usually.

[jarrard]

-New game runs/loads fine until about 1hr past, at which point savegames do not load, (freezescreen after a bit of time with sometimes background sound)
-Savegames work fine under wine and windows10, I do not believe their corrupt.

[jarrard]

If you do,
set SteamAppID=377160, then
apitrace trace -a dxgi "x:\SteamLibrary\steamapps\common\Fallout 4\Fallout4.exe"

It will produce this trace file, however it does not load into the game.
This is probably not useful as we want a trace file with the process of loading one of those non functional save files (which work under windows)

Fallout4.exe trace (only bootup?) Fallout4.zip (from windows, this is incomplete)

[jarrard]

OK so normal wine fallout4 with build in dll's (non dxvk) works thought fps is terrible but it loads the save games just fine. I created a trace file but have no idea where on the disk drive it is.

I used the below command to do so.

WINEPREFIX=~/.wine64prefix1 WINEARCH="win64" apitrace trace '/mnt/GamesSSD/SteamLibrary/steamapps/common/Fallout 4/Fallout4.exe'

I found it, its wine64-preloader.1.trace, and is 3.2GB, should I be uploading this file? all these trace files are HUGE!

here is the save file which does not work with dxvk but does with normal wine and windows!
Save8_3DD5671AM466F7879_ConcordMuseum01_000104_20180511101022_3_2.fos.zip

and the large apitrace file
(I sure hope I did this right, the exit game part might look a bit weird because wine will freeze fallout4.exe (after saving fully) if you quit to desktop, however you can quit to main menu then to desktop just fine.. )

(link to trace? where do I upload this thing?)

The freeze seems to consistently happen at the end of the savegame load time where'd you expect the gameworld to load, it gets like %90-99 of the way there judging by the loading circle animation activity.

I no longer believe the freezes are gametime related, I have managed to load successfully inside the museum after the deathclaw fight but a few minutes earlier outside and the savegames freeze on loading.

PS. I forgot to mention this before, but if the newcompiler is enabled, you will experience some triangle hell in this game also (happens real bad in DeepRockGalactic on certain levels).

[doitsujin]

@jarrard I was able to reproduce this issue with one of your saves. It's a game bug, 26b319b implements a workaround for this issue.

Make sure that the name of your game exe is Fallout4.exe (dxvk is case sensitive at the moment).

[jarrard]

Nice, I will test that out this evening.

[jarrard]

Appears this bug still exists. Just had it occur, yes I had mods but the freeze on save game load is identical, same area of map also.

Could be just concord has the issue, easy to avoid. I'll do more testing, see how things go.
Runs pretty good non the less!

[DrewJaworskiRIS]

I have been playing without any loading problems since the fix.

However, and I'm too lazy to report it, there are instances of major graphics glitches; I can't determine the correlating aspect of it, but sometimes random polys fill the screen with (usually dark red) textures. They seem to emanate from specific places on the screen, but when I move around I can't seem to tie them to anything particular. Just some random spot or area of a building wall or something. Based on other reports, I should probably just try out the vulkan beta driver 396.18.11 (I've been using 396.24), though.

[jarrard]

With mods the game takes 60sec or more to load, this is normal and related to esp/esm parsing or something.

There are also semi-freezes with certain scenes and loading, but game recovers. Could be shader compiling related.

I'll test some more today, hopefully my saves still work, went to concord, killed stuff, returned to red rocket+, see how it goes.

@DrewJaworskiRIS Turn off the new compiler (__GL_NextGenCompiler=0) , unless the game has proper support for it, you often get issues like this.

396.18.11 does not install on my system correctly due to some xorg bug apparently. Will need to wait.

[ccl2of4]

@DrewJaworskiRIS I'm pretty sure the nvidia vulkan beta driver fixes that issue

[jarrard]

396.24.02 works on xorg120 so people can use that. Thought there could be other issues.