why cant i play Fallout 3 ?

[Mal X]

mine crashes all the time, i've tried everything but nothing works.... it's bug infested..... according to the Web there's loads of pc gamers that have the same problems..

i've tried......... reducing to medium quality...turning everything off.....turning off the in game radio.....not taking Dogmeat with me.....fresh install.

does anybody know how to solve this riddle?

 

[Mal X]

i've both patches ... games for windows etc.... but not the latest gtx 9800 drivers.......

 

[Mal X]

Fallout 3 corrupts saves so if you get constant crashing with one save there is nothing you can do other than loading an older save.

I make a LOT of manual saves for this reason.

thanks.... there's something seriously wrong with this game because there's loads of complaints online..

Fallout 3 crashes all the way through... it's even lost all my saves and dumped me back into Vault 101 as a kid again, you cant tell when it's going to crash, there's no pattern..one day only 2 crashes and the next day 10.

i stopped playing it a month ago...great shame.

 

[Mal X]

latest drivers....no..... it crashes with these too.

it'll either work fine, but if you're one of the unlucky many, it'll crash all the time

because all these recommendations have been tried already... the greatest suspect is : the Audio/ surround sound whatever.... sound card...dont know enough about the technicalities.

i was hoping that someone would say.. ``the problem is definitely bla bla bla... do this and it'll never crash again``........wishful thinking i suppose

there is no point downloading the expansions etc.. they're even worst... Bethseda are making no efforts to solve this problem, they couldn't care less.. they just keep releasing buggy expansions.

i've managed 4 play throughs, but what a nightmare!

 

[Mal X]

gtx 9800
old MSI mobo...not sure which one
4gb RAM
ATHLON 64FX2 6400
WIN XP

Fallout 3 originally said ``high quality``

fallout 3 is not on the same drive as XP and i'm not sure about XFIRE, i cannot risk starting up pc till the PSU is replaced to find out

 

[Mal X]

Kind of had the same issue, it played perfect until i left the vault and it just kept crashing, tried everything to fix it but nothing worked so I just gave up :/

why it doesn't crash in the Vault is odd.....this is common to nearly everyone, because you're inside the vault for quite some time....the open areas outside are more graphically intensive and it crashes far more in the Wastelands than it does down below in the subways or inside buildings.....very strange. ...... Crysis was very similar too, but didn't crash nearly as often....that used to crash most of all at auto save points.

i'll try everything mentioned

 

[Mal X]

Inside the vault the CPU has little to do, whereas outside it has to start calculating the positions of all the nearby monsters, NPCs etc. There's also obviously a lot more graphics to be processed. I would guess that the same thing is happening here as happened with Oblivion: the game is just finding the weaknesses in your rig. I run a fairly seriously overclocked i920 and Fallout3 has never crashed on me. I've had a couple of lockups, but I know they are the graphics card overheating. And I'm running an Xfi as well, so I'm not convinced about that theory.

But what has been said about corrupted saves is true - except generally if the saves are corrupted the game will crash the moment the save loads.


M

you could be right........i'm wondering if the game is crashing....due to the fact that my PSU is faulty and dropping volts/amps....maybe my PSU is dropping below minimum specs when it's straining hard in the Wastelands.

i notice the pc straining when it's playing Fallout 3...but playing VEGAS/FEAR...the sound of the fans is lower and constant all the time...but Fallout 3 also crashes when the pc is running quietly too

in addition...top end pc's are crashing all the time too.... so this does tend to rule this out..........it could be my graphics card drivers.

to be honest, it's not worth trying to sort out... it annoys me too much, life is too short.

 

[Mal X]

yes, the card is overclocked to nearly max ( riva tune) gtx9800...the MOBO isn't and the CPU is slightly, to about 3. 1 or 2... i cant remember.
i do ocassionally monitor the CPU/MOBO temps and it seems ok.... but i'll pay attention to it more in the future...

if anything is overheating it'll be the CPU..... because i touch the graphics card often and it's very cool... but i'm replacing the PSU tomorrow and it's been faulty for about a year........pc never crashed before this time!

pc also crashes playing VEGAS.... PAINKILLER, but not nearly as often; about once or twice a night.... it just shuts down as if there's a power cut, no warning at all.... this shut down is all the time in F3

pc strains playing Fallout 3 . the fans/ drive speed up quite a lot....but pc remains stable playing VEGAS/FEAR/GRAW .

my old PSU was a Win ATX 650.....i'm getting OCZ tomorrow

 

[Mal X]

sorry, big mistake...my card is the GT8800.... Overclocked, but today i reduced the overclock to about half its original value on Riva tune.

i've replaced the PSU today ( first time ever) , a few spare cables/ sockets, it looks a right mess, it needs some cable ties...it also needs a manual to tell you what cables go where.. i just guessed

but it worked first time.... gamed for 5 minutes and it seems ok, but no longer, far too hot today......OCZ psu seems totally stable, no capacitor noise etc....but the fan is loud.

i will replace the CPU thermal paste tomorrow....that definitely needs doing as i've removed the cooler quite a few times without ever reapplying paste..( didn't realise in the past)

cpu temps today after gaming for 5 mins were 40 and 44 degrees.... card temp about the same ( Vegas 2)

 

[Mal X]

ok so i fitted new OCZ PSU 600W.........removed CPU cooler...cleaned and re- thermopasted it.........downloaded new graphics drivers.

pc is now running miles better..like it once was, played Fallout 3, it crashed only once; but not like before, this time the screen froze and i just hit ctrl, alt, delete...and i was back into windows........... but it's always been like a power cut before.

pc doesn't make surging noise any more.........fans/hard drive are constant, it feels more powerful.

VEGAS 2 gave me a few problems at first in the menu area...mouse was not responding quick enough and lagging like crazy........ but after 2 shutdowns it's ok now...

fear 2/ steam......fine, running perfectly.

Fallout 3 also looked better and ran smoother, it crashed after i loaded a saved game...Dogmeat was killed by Death Claws .... this is a normal F3 bug.

CPU is 43 and 47 degrees under load........ card is about 31, mobo about 28....that's not bad considering it's so hot!

it's not overheating, i think the faults were :-....a seriously ****** PSU and old drivers, about a year old.

i've backed off the overclocking, the 8800 GT is now running at:-
715 core.......1787 shader.......1072.......memory, let me know if this is ok or if i can go higher

thanks

 

[Mal X]

Good news Mal. If your cards that cool then you can try upping your overclock again and see if the problems come back. Keep an eye on your max card temps during gaming with HWMonitor while you test the overclock though.

cheers thanks, Fallout 3 still crashes but not nearly as bad as it once was
i'll get that hw monitor