Soft Locking

[OutLaA]

Hi all! I've been reading forums for the past few days trying to find a solution to a problem that I've been having after downloading Fallout 3: GOTY edition from Steam. The problem I am having is that I am getting a soft-lock. What I mean is that the game will keep running (i.e. audio will run, npc's will move about, and enemies will attack me) but render me unable to give a command. This problem most frequently occurs in the room just before you can save Amata (the one with the dead mechanic and multiple radroaches). I've played this scenario at least 30+ times trying to figure out what seems to cause this problem and there are a variety of situations that seem to trigger this event.

 

1) V.A.T.S. - After using V.A.T.S. (for the 3rd-5th time) it is fairly common to input a direction (press "w" to walk forward) and then lose control. My character will only walk forward, or the direction I so choose to go, and I can't bring up any menus, either the Pipboy3000 or the "Esc" menu.

 

2) Walking through doorways - In my most recent play I tried to avoid using V.A.T.S. and made it to the doorway of the room where Jonas is dead. Upon entering, the game softlocked and my character just kept walking forward into a wall.

 

3) The "Esc" menu - The escape menu seems to have a percent chance of freezing the game, the percent chance goes up if I alt-tab out of the game.

 

4) Alt-Tabbing - I don't even bother doing this because it freezes the game fairly consistently, the only reason I Alt-Tab in this game anymore is to get to Task Manager to "End" Fallout 3.

 

I have noticed that the game tends to have input lag before this problem occurs, especially in the room with the dead mechanic. Just tapping a WASD key for a fraction of a second will make my character move in the direction as if I was holding down the key for at least a second or more.

 

I do have to open Task Manager to End Fallout to stop this process.

 

I have read multiple forums and have tried the following solutions:

 

A) Edit the FALLOUT.ini files (in both Programs(x86) and in MyGames)

B) Turn off Realtek HD Audio Manager

C) Uninstall/Reinstall Fallout 3

D) Uninstall/Reinstall Graphics Card Drivers (yes, I even removed my graphics card altogether)

E) Removed Games for Windows Live

F) Downloaded the Unofficial Fallout Patch

G) Windowed Mode, VSync (off), AA (off), Anisotropic Filtering (off)

H) Sang/Played Saxophone to my computer

I) Changed properties in the Visual Effects tab

 

 

SYSTEM SPECS:

 

Intel i5-2500K @ 3.30GHz

GeForce GTX 550-Ti

8GB RAM

Windows 7 - 64 bit

MSI P67-GD65 (Mobo)

 

Any help would be greatly appreciated, and if you need any information I will do my best to get back to you.

[AlfredTetzlaff]

Hi,

do you have any other Input-devices (gamepad, wheel etc.) plugged to your machine? Unplugging them might resolve your issue.

[OutLaA]

@Old hand

 

I don't have anything else besides a mouse and a keyboard for input devices, unless a webcam with a button on it counts.

[M48A5]

I ran into a problem during a replay after a complete system install and clean installation of the game. After considerable thought, it occurred to me that Fallout 3 was originally made before any of the DLCs (duh) and was not designed to run correctly with them activated. I deactivated all the DLC and proceeded to play the game through the vault exit. I than made a hard save and reactivated the DLCs.

[bben46]

Here is a link to my generic troubleshooting blog. Read and follow the general part as I believe your problems may not be the game, but something outside of the game causing problems with the game.

http://s1.zetaboards.com/bbenlibrary/topic/4751769/1/#new

[OutLaA]

I ran into a problem during a replay after a complete system install and clean installation of the game. After considerable thought, it occurred to me that Fallout 3 was originally made before any of the DLCs (duh) and was not designed to run correctly with them activated. I deactivated all the DLC and proceeded to play the game through the vault exit. I than made a hard save and reactivated the DLCs.

 

@M48A5 I did just as you said, but alas the problem still occurs.

 

Here is a link to my generic troubleshooting blog. Read and follow the general part as I believe your problems may not be the game, but something outside of the game causing problems with the game.

http://s1.zetaboards.com/bbenlibrary/topic/4751769/1/#new

 

@bben46 I've taken a look, that's quite a list of things you have there. I will do my best to try each thing in the "general" category. I hope to give a response to you in less than 24hrs.

[OutLaA]

@bben46, you were right about it not being the game, it was my computer. I think I have solved my problem, it lied with the audio codecs. I am not computer savvy enough to know why that was my problem, but deep within the steam forums there was a very similar case to mine that I found. Granted, this case was from 2009, but the problems that this user was having was almost exactly what I had written here in my first post. Every time I make a slight change my hope is renewed for Fallout 3, and boy was I excited to get out of the vault.

 

I've only been going for about 10 minutes now, but that is the longest I've made it without a freeze!

 

Brief summary of what I did: Updated "Media Player Classic" and made Windows Media Player my main audio player for more audio files, especially ".ogg" and ".oga" files that are associated with Fallout 3 deep within the Programs(x86). Thank you all for your help, in all honesty I was ready to give up on this game when I first posted here, but you all turned my mood around with different things to try!

 

Thanks again,

 

OutLaA