Repeatable issue and crashing around the Museum of History

[CyrusFyre]

Hi. I'm having an issue with Fallout 3. For over 33 hours I've had almost no issues. Two crashes, which verifying the files fixed and two just odd Fallout 3 behaviors which quitting and loading resolved. It's the smoothest playthrough I've ever had. Until now. I just acquired the Declaration of Independence and Sydney, Dogmeat and I are walking to the Museum of History to sell loot, resupply and take the tunnels to Rivet City. When I first exited the National Archives it appeared as if the textures weren't loading correctly, so I just quit and restarted the game and reloaded my save and it did it again so I tried once more and it seemed fine. Now whenever I get close to the Museum the game either freezes and crashes or turns sort of blackish and crashes. I tried fast travelling to the museum and that worked but then I walked back the way I came and it crashed or turned blackish again.

 

I'm honestly not using as many mods as I often do because I wanted a bit more stability. I do not have any texture replacers although I am using Type 3 and Breeze's for males and the appropriate clothes modifications.

 

I have the GOG GOTY edition of the game. I am using Stewie Tweaks, OneTweak, NVAC, FOSE, the Fallout Anniversary Patcher, Command Extender, Ogg Vorbis Libraries, F3HR and F3VO. I have Antialiasing turned off, Anisotropic filtering is 15, I play in windowed mode, V-sync is on, it is set to HDR, Transparency Multisampling is off, everything else is on the highest setting. My graphics card is an Nvidia GeForce 1080 Ti Founders Edition and I have an Intel Core i7-7700k CPU and 32 GB of RAM. I run on Windows 10.

 

I have tried deleting the Fallout 3 and Broken Steel files and verifying and redownloading them, reapplying the Anniversary Patch to a newly downloaded .exe, disabling all of the Sydney plugins (the main one, the JIP one and the Load Order Fix which is the one designed to work with the Unofficial Fallout 3 Patch), sifting through the mods I have in FO3Edit (but I honestly don't know what exactly I'm looking for). I've turned on Debugging in the Weather mod but it isn't reporting a problem. I really am not sure what to do. There are a bunch of dead super mutants all over the ground between me and my goal so it might be a respawning issue. It might be a graphics setting issue. It might be that I'm using a mod that affects this. Oddly I've travelled through here two or three times before without issue. Only now am I having trouble.

 

This is my load order:

 

Fallout3.esm
Anchorage.esm
ThePitt.esm
BrokenSteel.esm
PointLookout.esm
Zeta.esm
Unofficial Fallout 3 Patch.esm
Sydney Follower.esp
aHUD.esm
Advanced Recon Tech.esm
CrossRepairWeapons.esp
Enhanced Weather - Rain and Snow.esm
resetfollowers_v3.3.esp
iHUD.esm
Xepha's Dynamic Weather.esm
Realistic Interior Lighting.esp
Dragonskin Tactical Outfit.esp
Advanced Recon Gear.esp
VashDeagleV5.esp
JIP Companions Command & Control.esp
JIP CC&C - Sydney.esp
FollowersHireContinued-NoChecks.esp
Seidon_Preset_CM02.esp
Tenpenny Tower Alternate Endings.esp
Agatha Radio Enhanced.esp
DMButchOverhaul.esp
BBBackpacks-v1-1.esp
Triage.esp
kikaiEquipment.esp
3EFhelmlessstealthsuit.esp
Advanced Recon Range Finder.esp
Advanced Recon Tech.esp
Advanced Recon Armor.esp
Dread Dogmeat.esp
Tailor Maid.esp
Batting 1000.esp
BSteelRepair.esp
Tailor Maid Brokensteel.esp
BeardEyebrowFixV1_0.esp
AnchoRepair.esp
PittRepair.esp
goat_perks.esp
PLookoutRepair.esp
Tailor Maid PITT.esp
Tailor Maid Black Retex.esp
MZetaRepair.esp
DragonskinBonusPack.esp
Weapon - Some Katanas.esp
Tailor Maid ZETA.esp
DIM TYPE3clothesRETAIL.esp
MPammo.esp
Enhanced Weather - Weather Sounds in Interiors.esp
FemaleTalonCo.esp
RHKFollowerXP.esp
FollowersRelax.esp
Followers Allowed - Mothership Zeta.esp
Followers Allowed - Point Lookout.esp
Followers Allowed - The Pitt.esp
bzArmour.esp
earings & necklaces.esp
ForeheadGoggles.esp
LeatherBackpack - eng.esp
Wastelander_Backpacks.esp
LeatherJacketBlack_eng.esp
GNR Enhanced.esp
Geo_Wasteland_Shirts.esp
ZZ_TP.esp
Max Level 99 V2.esp
ReconArmorMKII.esp
MegatonHouseExtraStorage.esp
Merc Adventurer Armor - eng.esp
Nova Interaction Revised.esp
PCIdles.esp
Player Animations - Stimpak (Triage).esp
Return to Sender.esp
Sit Anywhere.esp
BrokenSteel_StarPaladinCross_Fix.esp
Tailor Maid Anchorage.esp
Vanilla UI Plus.esp
Custom Hair.esp
bzFatigues.esp
Colossus Headgear.esp
Sydney Follower - Load Order Fix.esp
LeatherJacketBlack_rus.esp.ghost
Merc Adventurer Armor - rus.esp.ghost
Realistic Interior Lighting - BS.esp.ghost
Realistic Interior Lighting - OA.esp.ghost
Realistic Interior Lighting - PL.esp.ghost
Xepha's Dynamic Weather - Main + DLC Merged.esp
Xepha's Dynamic Weather - Rain.esp
Xepha's Dynamic Weather - Sandstorms.esp
Xepha's Dynamic Weather - Weather Machine (Start Game Added).esp

 

 

I've also included some images of what it looks like when it happens.

 

 

 

 

If anyone has any suggestions I'd be very appreciative. Graphics settings I could try, stability mods or uses that I'm not using or that are better than what I'm using, or maybe which mod or mod combination might be causing this or some tips or advise on what to look for in FO3Edit would all be very welcome.

 

Thank you.

 

 

UPDATE: It seems to be Sydney that is the problem. Using coc to get to the Museum of History and then quickly taking the tunnels and carefully but quickly making my way to Abraham Washington I managed to turn in the quest. (This took a lot of saving and loading but I made it.) I made another save and then recruited Sydney as a true follower. It still happened as I left Rivet City and headed into the wastes. I quit and then loaded my save but dismissed her to Megaton and it happened less as I left Rivet City and as she left for her walk to Megaton. I was even able to go back to the Museum of History with Dogmeat and wander wherever I wanted to go with absolutely no issues. So, I quit and loaded and instead opted not to recruit her. I've no trouble at all since then. So, I believe that it is her. I just don't know why.

 

These are the mods I'm using that affect her:

Sydney Follower

VegasStephen's Scrub Hub

Sydney Follower UUF3P Compatibility Patch

JIP Companions Command and Control

 

They were installed in that order. I have not added or removed any mods since I started this game for stability reasons. At least until I started trying to figure this out. (The saves I'm using are the ones with all the mods still installed since removing them either had no effect or made it worse. Also, I always make a new save, never quicksave and disable autosaves.) I've tried removing JIP alone (crashes immediately). I've tried removing the UUF3P patch (becomes even more unstable if you can imagine). I tried removing the scrubbed esp (same as the UUF3P patch being removed). I've tried removing all of them (instantly crashes or she's in her underwear and then it crashes after a few seconds). I looked in FO3Edit but I don't see any game breaking conflicts but maybe I missed something. This is very disappointing because Sydney is probably my favorite follower mod so I'd love to figure this out. In the meantime, she's just going to have to spend her days drinking herself into a stupor in Underworld. I do hope someone can help me out.

 

Again Thanks.

 

UPDATE 2: Apparently it is not exclusively Sydney that causes issues. It is any follower except for Dogmeat. I went on and continued without Sydney and haven't had any more issues until I was trying to escort Red and Shorty back to Big Town. Suddenly the game has become incredibly unstable and crashes constantly. No weird blackishness just straight up crashing. I escorted Cherry to Rivet City and it only crashed once and I didn't think much of it because it's Fallout 3 and I was skirting the DC ruins and the game is always a bit unstable there. Oddly I didn't have much issue with her (which I did her escort before meeting Sydney) but Sydney, Shorty, and Red are a serious problem. I don't know.

Edited December 18, 2022 by CyrusFyre