Fallout 3 crashing all the time

Dutch Guy

Dutch Guy

Dutch Guy

Soldato
Joined
18 Oct 2002
Posts
24,560
Location
Amsterdam,The Netherlands
I am getting seriously annoyed with Fallout 3 now, suddenly the game decides to crash whenever I save or enter a building :mad:

These are the things I have tried so far without success:
- Run CPU and GPU at stock
- Install the v1.1 patch
- disable mods
- trying older saves
- install Nvidia 182.50 drivers instead of 182.06

None of these fixes work, what else is there to do?

I am considering reinstalling from scratch but what should I backup to be able to continue where I left off, just the saves, do they also hold data on level and collected stuff?
 
Never mind, didn't check siggy...

What OS are you using?

I had a problem with crashing every time I tried to enter or leave a building / dungeon. This was after a fresh build and using my old saved games. I could load games that were saved inside a building but as soon as I tried to leave, the game crashed. Also, I could load games that were saved outside but after exploring for a while and / or entering a building, the game would crash. I had changed no hardware or drivers, it should have been the same configuration as before.

Eventually I discovered that several of my mod files were corrupted and one mod I had forgotten to install completely. It would appear that Fallout 3 saved games saved whilst certain mods are active require these same mods to be active in order to function properly. I re-downloaded the mods that were corrupted (likely caused by my second hard drive starting to fail) and installed the mod I had forgotten about. Once Fallout 3 had all the mods I had been using before, the crashing stopped.

If you started your character / saved games with mods, download them afresh and make sure they are all installed.
 
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If you have a multicore processor try to edit the "FALLOUT.INI" file located in Documents and Settings\Username\My Documents\My Games\Fallout3:

!!!!! Make a backup of the INI file before making any changes to it !!!
Search for "bUseThreadedAI=0" and change the value from 0 to 1.
Add another line under this and paste in "iNumHWThreads=2"

The result should look like this in the ini file:
bUseThreadedAI=1
iNumHWThreads=2

Save changes and run the game.

Better description..I have a quad core but noticed if I put iNumHWThreads=2 to 4 (4 being quad) it would crash even more...so I put it to 2 and had a much more stable fallout 3...

Although some people say 4 is better so perhaps experiment, as I was using Vista 64bit.
 
I get a lot of crashing on the latest patch with all drivers, I think it's just made things worse. I can get about 30 min of gameplay before it crashes, sometimes less, sometimes more. Rest of system is 100% stable in more demanding games, only started after the latest patch.
 
Heatsinked said:
From what I can gather, things were working just fine until now? So why would Dutch Guy suddenly need this fix?
Click to expand...
It was better but I have had crashes before, now it happens almost always when saving.

But it is a quick fix I can try, if that does not work I guess I will backup my saves, uninstall and reinstall and see if that helps, I just wish I could do it now but I have to work today so I can try it tonight.
 
Dutch Guy said:
I am getting seriously annoyed with Fallout 3 now, suddenly the game decides to crash whenever I save or enter a building :mad:

These are the things I have tried so far without success:
- Run CPU and GPU at stock
- Install the v1.1 patch
- disable mods
- trying older saves
- install Nvidia 182.50 drivers instead of 182.06

None of these fixes work, what else is there to do?

I am considering reinstalling from scratch but what should I backup to be able to continue where I left off, just the saves, do they also hold data on level and collected stuff?
Click to expand...
Try reinstalling it on the same drive letter as Windows. I had to do this when I bought the DLC and its been rock solid stable eversince. Just find your saves folder (which will be huge if its anything like mine I have over 10GB!!! as each save is around 5.8MB). Although it may ask you when you uninstall if you want to keep the saves anyway otherwise just backup by renaming the folder.
 
Heatsinked said:
If you started your character / saved games with mods, download them afresh and make sure they are all installed.
Click to expand...
Interesting, so it could be that a missing mod causes the problem and not too much mods.

I have disabled a lot of mods lately to see if that was the issue and it has been getting worse so I will also try it with mods enabled.
 
Heatsinked said:
From what I can gather, things were working just fine until now? So why would Dutch Guy suddenly need this fix?
Click to expand...

Mine also used to be fine but had to browse through the bethesda forums as many people complain of crashing...so did this and made it much more stable.
 
I tried the ini tweaks, didn't work.
Tried resetting controls to default, didn't work.
Tried with all mods enabled, didn't work.

So I then tried with an older save from 54 hours into the game instead of 56 hours and to my surprise it worked fine for 20 minutes, I could save, enter building, fast travel, without issue :confused:

Can it be that crashes corrupt the savefiles to the point where it just won't work anymore?
 
I can almost confirm that savegames corrupt after a crash, last night I played for an hour with an older save and visited parts where I used to get save problems and it all went fine, so now I make a new save every 5 minutes and will delete a save if it crashes.
 
Hmm fully completed Fallout along with the new DLC, i didnt experience any of the problems above :/

Unless there has been a new patched released, but then ive never been notified on steam about it.
 
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