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Random CTD's


Argomirr

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Well, I've encountered a very annoying problem: Fallout 3 crashes to desktop very random. It sometimes happens when I use VATS, open my PipBoy, get into a fight or even when I'm just walking in the Wasteland. It seems to happen completely random! I open my PipBoy... and CRASH! Next time I do the same thing and it works fine! The only place that always seems to cause a CTD is Vault 101. When I approach the entrance my game crashes.

 

These crashes started appearing right after escaping from the Vault. Inside Vault 101, everything seemed to work fine.

 

Windowsa doesn't give any error messages. It's just BANG... and then nothing, the game's processes stop, and I'm back at my desktop.

 

The point is, even though it seems to happen completely random, is that it happens almost every five minutes! I just can't play the game this way!

 

Does anyone know what might be causing this? I don't think it's that problem with FFDShow, I think I don't even have that installed. (Oh, I haven't downloaded any patches, because of that VATS bug everyone's talking about. Would a patch be able to fix this?)

 

I use a nVidia GeForce 6600 graphics card, could this have anything to do with it?

 

Any help would be very appreciated!

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Well, I've encountered a very annoying problem: Fallout 3 crashes to desktop very random. It sometimes happens when I use VATS, open my PipBoy, get into a fight or even when I'm just walking in the Wasteland. It seems to happen completely random! I open my PipBoy... and CRASH! Next time I do the same thing and it works fine! The only place that always seems to cause a CTD is Vault 101. When I approach the entrance my game crashes.

 

Windowsa doesn't give any error messages. It's just BANG... and then nothing, the game's processes stop, and I'm back at my desktop.

 

The point is, even though it seems to happen completely random, is that it happens almost every five minutes! I just can't play the game this way!

 

Does anyone know what might be causing this? I don't think it's that problem with FFDShow, I think i don't even have that installed. (Oh, I haven't downloaded any patches, because of that VATS bug everyone's talking about. Would a patch be able to fix this?)

 

I use a nVidia GeForce 6600 graphics card, could this have anything to do with it?

 

Any help would be very appreciated!

Some posts may be misleading. Yet that issue with VATS was for real, affecting some rigs more then others, it shall be installed since others worser bugs were addressed and tis may be exactly your actual problem. I shall assume you have no expansions, I have none but I know OA deals exactly with Vault101...

 

Patch the game, if the issue persists come again.

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I've downloaded the latest patch, but I still get those crashes.

The transition from the inside Vault101 to the outside world is 'brutal' at FPS terms, and the settings you used with a fairly playable game there, may be just too much once you leave... yet this should not appears as random crashes, at least not before you were crawling like a snail with fps under 10 or so. But maybe this may be really stress over your video card.

 

A more 'common' issue and one that I don't know solution until today is the game indeed beginning to crawl even in high end rigs and this is because an ancient memory leaking issue never completely saned since Oblivion days, but what you describe is something different. And we have very few things to base upon.

 

If you use any mod you should tell us, any other thing you did that is unusual to the vanilla installation too. Note if you did reinstall the game for some reason and not deleted the former ini it will be there yet and if it was cause it yet is. The same applies to the content of the /save folder.

 

If you did not yet, take a time and follow the advices from the Tweakguide site. This is something that can spare you from several headaches.

 

Good luck... if after all this, things don't improve, you may want provide us with the max informations possible, that include your overall machine specs, the OS you are running (XP, Vista?)... the mods you may have installed now or before... their load order... and so on. For the specs the list function from DXDiag may help alot.

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I also had lot's of CTD. I've tried several things to fix it but nothing worked. The only thing that worked was to play the game in a window. Sure, fullscreen is better but ask yourself, whats better? playing the game with no problems in a window or not playing the game at all?

 

Bethesda seriously need to fix that damn engine. It was already a mess in Oblivion but Fallout is even worse.

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If you use any mod you should tell us, any other thing you did that is unusual to the vanilla installation too. Note if you did reinstall the game for some reason and not deleted the former ini it will be there yet and if it was cause it yet is. The same applies to the content of the /save folder.

 

Well, I don't use any mods (yet), but I did reinstall the game without deleting the ini.

 

The transition from the inside Vault101 to the outside world is 'brutal' at FPS terms, and the settings you used with a fairly playable game there, may be just too much once you leave... yet this should not appears as random crashes, at least not before you were crawling like a snail with fps under 10 or so. But maybe this may be really stress over your video card.

In low detail, my FPS is normal.

 

I'll just try the things you suggested, and if it doesn't work after that, I'll post my system specs.

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I have an NVidia GeForce 6200. -> The latest Patch worked fine for me.

Make sure that your driver are up to date including DirectX, Netframework ...

Close all Background Programs.

 

Play in 800x600, set your details low, disable Anti Aliasing, Anisotrope Filters, Shadows

If your GPU is OK, it should handle it without problem

 

Guess you use Windows XP?

Already tried a clean reboot? http://support.microsoft.com/?scid=kb%3Ben...mp;x=16&y=6

Tried Window Mode?

What is your Processor?

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I went to a computer store with the problem, and now turns out it's my graphics card that's causing these crashes. Now I have to make a hard decision: do I buy a new graphics card for a lot of money or do I just forget about it and send Fallout 3 back...

 

Thanks for the help anyway!

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I went to a computer store with the problem, and now turns out it's my graphics card that's causing these crashes. Now I have to make a hard decision: do I buy a new graphics card for a lot of money or do I just forget about it and send Fallout 3 back...

 

Thanks for the help anyway!

 

 

Umm, what exactly did they say was wrong with your card?

 

Is your card working fine for other games?

 

Your card is getting on a bit though and it might be time to take the plunge and update to one which can handle DX10, just make sure you look around at sites like www.pricewatch.com to find good prices.

 

Good luck.

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