Everywhere else 60 fps with a micro stutter here and there ( texture loading )
New Vegas Sewers cut that in half...and was actually choppy in places.
No other location has caused any kind of real frame rate loss.
Thinking it might sign of some impending computer doom , I left the sewers ..60 fps...went to the casinos, the Strip, Freeside, NCR and Legion bases, Nipton,Vaults. etc....60 fps. Started fights in the Casino, Faction bases...still 60.
Sewers 30 to 60 fps !!???

What gives ?

Checked temps ( water cooled )

Played Metro 2033 for awhile...still running and looking sweet. Actually runs better with latest drivers.

Playing New Vegas @

19x12
4AA
14AF
V-sync on
Ultra
HDR

A steady 60 ( since patch and ATI driver hotfix 10.10c )
Runs great and still looks good despite it's age...yet a simple sewer system can make my rig cry ?
Don't tell me it's the steam ?
I tried turning down water effects but that made no difference...
Turning it down to 2 AA made a little difference.

Yeah I have the same problem in the sewers for some reason. If I turn down AF to 8x it is much better. For some reason turning down AF to 8x and turning AA UP to 8x gets me better performance (particularly in the sewars) than having AA at 4x and AF at 14x. I had also noticed a slight improvement turning off HDR (but I did that because I was trying to work around the lucky 38 lighting bug before I knew what that was) but turned it back on because I didn't consider the trade-off in visuals worth it.

Not sure if it will help you though because I was under the impression that the AF with HDR performance issues were specific to nVidia cards but it may be worth a try.

Just as a point of reference, I had no problems whatsoever in the sewers. On a PC, of course. Sorry you're having probs. My rig is middling, running XP, HD4870 and 2.4 ghz with 4 gig RAM (effective 3 gig).

What were your settings ?

Ahhh....never mind I see your running XP. New Vegas is DX 9 ( so you should have no problems anyway )

It's just weird out of the whole game...Boomers, Dam, Strip,Wasteland,Fort....anything and everywhere. This simple sewer system should cause my rig to slow down , when even Metro 2033 maxed in DX 11 barely does.

Just weird....

17 @ 3.4
5970
9 gig ddr 3
SSD
Win 7 64

Something tells me it's a game problem and not a problem on my end as there are weird graphical texture loading issues in certain spots down there. Same areas every time and they make a weird popping sound when they do appear.

Yeah you'd think closed cells consisting of hallways would be the last place you'd see a slowdown if everywhere else is running fine right? I don't think there are a lot of water reflections in the sewers but it might be worth turning reflection detail down to medium. Then again that is from my experience with my nVidia cards hating gamebryo water. I think ATI users have it better in that regard.

Even turning all water options off..nothing changes.

I think it has to do with texture loading issues...I get weird distortions and a banging, popping sound when it flickers. Only in certain areas of the sewers.

And everywhere else in the game runs fine...only the sewers.

I've completed the game before but never explored the sewers. Now I wish I hadn't.

Rest of the game still runs great...but the minor glitches in this game are tempting me to go play something else.

And your right..why would a small enclosed cell be causing all this mischief ? And only this area ?

I get low framerates in some vault areas I havent tried the sewers yet.

i just noticed this last week on my machine. I think it has something to do with the atmosphere in the area. I tried turning all my settings down but it diddnt help so I bumped them back up. I wont explore that area untill its fixed or the problem is discovered. I get random CTD and little bugs here and there. Everywhere else I have had better luck lately. ive been able to turn settings up well above what I had them at before a format and clean install.

Many interior locations are doing the same thing for me. I'm having no issues at all (except for the random CTD) in outside areas, with all settings maxed at 1680x1050.

Have the same problem. So far I figured out two locations, where those kind of stutters happening: North Vegas sewers and Techatticup Mine. In the Thorn, however (which have alike light conditions and textures - it is a sewer too, after all!), game runs pretty smooth... Very strange, hope they'll fix this soon.

It's the water.. If you turn all the water settings to low (which I don't recommend because it will make water look like crap, the only one that makes virtually no visual difference but will certainly increase FPS is lowering water multisampling but just for this test temporarily lower/turn off everything). Smooth FPS

FO3 slowed down to a crawl in many areas of Point Lookout because of the water. Affects nvidia and ATI for whatever reason and is super annoying, don't hold your breath for a fix of any sort

How is it might be water? There's no water at all in the Techatticup Mine, however it freezes and stutters like hell...
I'll do some tests as soon as I can get my hands on my desktop PC with FNV installed, thnx for the info.

Yep. Same problem here. The sewers were just awful in terms of stuttering. I didn't have problems to this extreme anywhere else in the game, inside or out.

Sorry I didn't see that. Well I went to Techatticup Mine and messed with the settings. It's the LOD settings, turn down light fad and specular fade and you'll get a noticable boost in framerate. Turn them all to the lowest and it's buttery smooth. Not sure why though, and obviously that's not a solution but these are the ONLY settings that affect framerate in this area

BTW - I wouldn't call this "stuttering" because that word shouldn't be used to describe a drop in average FPS. A stuttering would be a smooth framerate that turns choppy for a bit and back to smooth back to choppy, etc. The FPS stays around 30fps in this area so even though our cards should be capable of rendering it smoother the engine is probably being taxed. Can't compare it to Metro 2033, that's an apples to oranges comparison. In FO3 for example, Rivet City market dropped in average FPS on a gtx 295 at 1920x1200 mostly because of a flaming barrel (not that flaming barrels cause drops elsewhere in the game or in this one, but there are flaming barrels in the mine)

Having the same problems. Performance dramatically better after last patch, but when getting into confined spaces like sewers and vaults, it becomes nightmarishly slow. I'll start playing around with settings to see if I can find a consistent solution. I'd hate to have to change settings every time I enter or exit particular zones.

Just curious what your framerate is in confined areas. Mine drops to a 30fps average which isn't nightmarishly slow by any means, but the rest of the game runs at mostly 60fps average. The only settings that have any effect on framerate in these confined areas are the LOD settings (next to last tab in the launcher). For examle, if you keep all the other settings at their lowest and leave the LOD be there will still be the same drop in FPS in confined areas. Nobody should hold their breath for any sort of fix, it's just the engine being taxed and without re-writing it (which won't happen) we'll have to put up with it

Though English is not my native, I am pretty sure of the discription. When I say "stutters" - I mean it. Picture freezes for a moment, when I turn my camera around in such places like sewers. (Very similar to the "water multisampling" bug before patch). The framerate is also considerably lower than on the surface, but not so low to ruin the gameplay (around 35 fps).
More to the topic - yes, it has something to do with the dynamic light sources, like barrels and torches. I have no such problems in the Bloodborne Cave, for example (which has no such objects, except the campfire). Thanks again for the advice - turning down light fade and specular fade has increased the framerate and reduced number of micro-stutters, but - alas - hasn't completely removed them.
UPD: setting Water Multisampling to "low" completely removed the stuttering camera around barrels and torches in the sewers for me. Just like I did the first week of playing FNV... but back days it was a complex problem - happened everywhere, and developers claimed they've fixed it with one of the patches. Looks like they simply buried the bug deep to the undergound, hoping no one will find it. Well, they've failed - we here at this topic found. :tongue: