Crashing Issues.. Load Order Help required

[MoreDread292]

i have already spent countless hours on trying to make this game run properly with the mods i'd like to use.

when i first started playing i couldn't even enter megaton without the game crashing on me.

after messing with the load order and excluding some mods i don't need i managed to fix that..

later on moriarty's saloon caused problems, fixed that as well.

i also fixed the issue with free floating heads and hands (some raiders wearing fook armor would'nt be displayed properly)

and i'm not getting any corrupted savegames anymore either.

 

now all my mods seem to be working as intended... there are no conflicts that prevent any of the features i need from working.

 

but the game still crashes way too frequently.

 

here is my current load order:

 

<mod id="Fallout3.esm" active="1" />

<mod id="Sharing and Caring Companions.esm" active="1" />

<mod id="CALIBR.esm" active="1" />

<mod id="FOOK.esm" active="1" />

<mod id="Anchorage.esm" active="1" />

<mod id="ThePitt.esm" active="1" />

<mod id="BrokenSteel.esm" active="1" />

<mod id="PointLookout.esm" active="1" />

<mod id="Unofficial Fallout 3 Patch.esp" active="1" />

<mod id="Unofficial Fallout 3 Patch - Operation Anchorage.esp" active="1" />

<mod id="Unofficial Fallout 3 Patch - The Pitt.esp" active="1" />

<mod id="DK_BulletTime.esp" active="1" />

<mod id="Growlfs Sexy FO3 Replacer.esp" active="1" />

<mod id="FalsSexyT3Conversions.esp" active="1" />

<mod id="DIM TYPE3clothesRETAIL.esp" active="1" />

<mod id="ExoticDresses.esp" active="1" />

<mod id="K2Clothes_SheerWhite01.esp" active="1" />

<mod id="t3belts_boots.esp" active="1" />

<mod id="MicroBikini.esp" active="1" />

<mod id="AzarGypsyOutfits.esp" active="1" />

<mod id="AzarGypsyOutfits_Malika.esp" active="1" />

<mod id="1alexscorpionsnipergear.esp" active="1" />

<mod id="Dark_Temptress.esp" active="1" />

<mod id="StripClub.esp" active="1" />

<mod id="F3UmpaAnimation.esp" active="1" />

<mod id="UPP - Pack 1.esp" active="1" />

<mod id="UPP - Pack 2.esp" active="1" />

<mod id="WeaponModKits.esp" active="1" />

<mod id="FOOK.esp" active="1" />

<mod id="FOOK - Owned!.esp" active="1" />

<mod id="FOOK - Free Play After MQ.esp" active="1" />

<mod id="FOOK - Test Container.esp" active="0" />

<mod id="FOOK - Additional Power Armor Training.esp" active="0" />

<mod id="FOOK - Anchorage.esp" active="1" />

<mod id="FOOK - The Pitt.esp" active="1" />

<mod id="FOOK - Tougher Enemies.esp" active="0" />

<mod id="FakePatch_v1.5.0.22c.ESM" active="0" />

<mod id="Weapon - Some Katanas.esp" active="1" />

<mod id="FOOK - No Requirements for Miniguns, Gatlings, 20mm Flak.esp" active="0" />

<mod id="FOOK - Strength Requirements for Miniguns, Gatlings, 20mm Flak.esp" active="0" />

<mod id="FOOK - Broken Steel.esp" active="1" />

<mod id="FOOK - Point Lookout.esp" active="1" />

<mod id="FOOK - Anchorage hotfix.esp" active="1" />

<mod id="WeaponModKits - FOOK.esp" active="1" />

<mod id="ACE2-1b.esp" active="1" />

 

i tried both using the latest patch (1.6) and using the retail exe with the fake patch...

i'm getting the same results for both of them...

 

the game crashes frequently.. but the crashes are not repeatable...

 

it crashes on many different occasions... activating the pip boy or VATS can cause a crash...

talking to someone or beeing spotted by an enemy can cause a crash... trading with someone

using the SCC mod can cause a crash.. or just plainly loading some new data while traveling the wastelands.

 

however if i restart the game and load my most recent save it never crashes on the same occasion. usually i can get past where it crashed before and continue playing for about half an hour..

 

crashes can happen after 10 minutes or an hour of playing the game.

 

graphics details are almost at minumum. i reinstalled the game a few times, manually reinstalled my mods, defragged all my hard drives, made sure i have the latest drivers and the necessary versions of all required components.

 

recently the game started changing my desktop settings to 4bit 640x480 on some crashes, but not every time.

 

i tried everything i could think of.

 

is there something wrong with my load order, still?

 

hmm i faintly remember hearing something about some corrupted audio files that can cause crashes.. and that recompressing them can fix some of the crashes. but i haven't been able to find anything on it since. any insights?

 

 

EDIT:

some additionaly info: i don't have ffdshow installed.

the game crashes whenever i try to exit to the main menu and whenever i try to exit the game completely as well.. those are repeatable crashes.

 

my system specs are very low end

2.2 ghz, 768 mb DDR I ram and an ATI HD 2400 PRO AGP graphics card, but performance is ok .. i'm used to the occasional stuttering and its quite playable.

i'm running a fresh windows xp install, no third party codecs installed (at least not manually)

 

EDIT2:

Ok after going through various websites and threads about crashing issues yet again it seems i have found a solution.. i just spent about 2 hours of playing the game without any crashes in windowed mode.

so that means my loading order was not the cause of this problem after all.

however the game runs alot slower this way and isn't really enjoyable anymore.

i don't really get it... whats the technical difference between full screen and windowed mode that seems to prevent these crashes from happening?

does anyone have a clue?

[PositronicSpleen]

I'm not familiar with some of those esm files, but unless it says otherwise, I find it a good practice to always load them after the official content and unofficial patches. You're loading the fake patch in the middle of FOOK, which I would guess is the problem; I'd also move the other non-FOOK mod.

 

If that doesn't work, my first suggestion would be disabling FOOK to see if it's a compatibility issue. After that, I can only suggest disabling mods (you could do 3 at a time) and testing the game until it doesn't crash.

 

EDIT: Windowed mode runs faster and is handled differently by the operating system. I think some parts of the engine are sensitive to the framerate, as I encountered with semiautomatic weapons in (almost) vanilla.

[MoreDread292]

thx for the response.

 

but apparently the problem was almost completely fixed by switching to windowed mode...

i did some more tinkering and realised that for some reason other settings got changed when i switched to windowed mode.. so it isnt really slower, my bad

 

the game runs pretty good now.. only annoyance is that i have to set my desktop res

to 800x600 before i start fallout now... and that i can see the window borders.. but ah well i can live with that.

 

i played for another 1 1/2 hours until the game froze on me. (great improvement)

 

as far as i can tell that bug is caused by the 1.6 patch

 

that never happened before until i started using it.

 

the fake patch is in a weird position.. yea.. but thats only because its not active ( if you look at it again you can see it says <mod id="FakePatch_v1.5.0.22c.ESM" active="0" /> )

 

since the 1.6 patch seems to freeze the game and all the other crashes seem to be fixed now, i will try to reactivate it and switch back to the old exe and see how that works.

 

tho i was thinking.. since i already istalled the 1.6 patch.. and apparently that updates the .esm files automatically...

 

is the fake patch really necessary? it doesn't seem to make a whole lot of sense to kinda downgrade the esm to 1.5 again with the fake patch.

 

but if this really works the way i imagine it does then the whole fake patch makes no real sense... meaning instead of installing it you would get the same results by installing the latest patch and just replacing the new game exe with the retail one.

 

i guess all i can do is try and see what happens ;)