Serious, unknown and potentially game-breaking bug

[gabrielrock19]

Plugin list 3

[madmongo]

Hmmm... you're telling me a 15-year old game written by a company known for buggy software has issues when you stress it to the limit with far more mods than it was realistically designed to support?

Next you're going to tell me that bears poop in the woods.

I understand the frustration. I don't understand acting like this is a major announcement of some new discovery. It's pretty well known that if you push this game to its limits that it tends to break in all kinds of ways.

[H0LL0W4YF0X]

Firstly, I'm sorry to read about your playthrough. We are alike in that I, too, enjoy slow, rich, full playthroughs of games. I have also lost a few long playthroughs over the many years I've been enjoying games, and it's an unpleasant experience, mildly stated.

You may still be able to partially or perhaps completely salvage your playthrough. Suggestions to follow later.

Concerning your list, it is definitely a heavy mod load.

You have several mods that tinker and tamper with dialogue and NPC's, and as soon as one of those mods decides to stop playing nice with one or more others, you're going to have problems. Loading and running that many mods inherently makes troubleshooting extremely fraught, even if you know exactly what each mod does and how it does so on a technical level. Mods are also not created and internally-tested equally. It is always the providence of users themselves to decide if a mod is stable and well-designed enough to include in any playthrough one plans to invest in significantly.

More prescient than any of that, however, is the fact that you are running TTW. TTW is probably better understood as its own game entirely, given what it does. If you're playing TTW, then you're not playing Fallout 3, nor are you playing Fallout: New Vegas; you are playing TTW. So the first step in potentially solving your issue is to read through the TTW posts, forums, etc. and see if anyone else is reporting the same issue.

I do remember when "abomb" first appeared as yet another delightful Bethesda-style feature. It  turned out to be as simple to fix as resetting a single byte in an affected save file. It was an extreme priority to fix, though, because it was an engine bug that would eventually happen to ALL save files after, I'm assuming, a specific amount of animation cycles. As others have said, if there indeed was such an issue in the vanilla game that affected every save file ever played in F:NV, it would have been ruthlessly isolated and fixed years and years ago.

This issue is most assuredly not an issue with the vanilla game. Not only are you running a heavy mod load, thereby making any accusations against the vanilla game fundamentally speculative, but also, as stated previously, you aren't even running the vanilla game at all.

As I assume you may already know, F:NV was made over the course of ~18 months on the notorious Gamebyro engine. On release, it was a buggy, almost-unplayable mess. On the same level as unpatched Daggerfall and unpatched S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl. Current reverence of F:NV aside, it truly was a disaster until the worst issues were slowly patched out.

Additionally, there most certainly was tension between the two developers. Fallout: New Vegas is much of what the "original Fallout 3" was initially planned to be, and while what Bethesda would release as Fallout 3 after purchasing the IP was heavily-praised initially, it is now generally held in varying degrees of contempt, by fans of the originals from the outset, and now more broadly given the perspective of time. Personally, while I think Bethesda's Fallout 3 is a puerile, insulting, and embarrassing catastrophe from both a Fallout-lore and general world-building perspective, it still achieved some excellent design decisions in its own right, was generally fun to play for its time, and set the stage for Fallout: New Vegas to be made in the first place.

So you most certainly can fault both Bethesda and Obsidian for those particular issues, many of which still remain. Which would be directly relevant to you if you were actually running the game those developers made as it was intended by them to be run.

As a final indulgence, I would very much like to purge some of my own irksome thoughts--perhaps somewhat selfishly here--since recently returning to modding. So you, or anyone else reading, can skip to the end if you wish to avoid any more unnecessary words from me.

***

The ever-present and -expanding social issue of the conflict between increasing ease-of-use and decreasing literacy (broadly construed), specifically as it applies to technology in this case, gnaws at me constantly, and it's basically everywhere now, in all places, including here. As mods have now become nearly, or even actually, as simple to install as clicking a button, in conjunction with inadequate resources for newcomers (as compared to when I started installing and creating mods over two decades ago), so many preventable instances of hard knocks abound. This particular instance of this phenomena is absolutely trivial comparatively, of course, but it's still an issue of some kind. As someone who experienced an irrevocable loss of an entire HDD of ~8 years of video game data (specifically, theft from my residence, and--thankfully--limited almost exclusively to video games and such), though I have long since moved on from that event, I still remember the emotions associated with the loss. So perhaps I am somewhat overly sensitive here, and more (or too) empathetic compared others, but I cannot be the only person alive who enjoys life broadly, but has progressed to such a point that the only functional escapism that yet remains are video games, and therefore such a loss is felt more deeply that perhaps it would otherwise.

It would be ideal if, upon downloading a mod for the first time, the little gremlins in our computers marched out in unison and proclaimed:

"Hello! You just downloaded a cool mod! Remember to backup all of your saves before you install and use it! Make sure you can restore any files you might modify or edit! Test the mod beforehand if you can, too! Oh, and if a mod can't be deactivated after you enable it without breaking everything, think long and good and very, very, very hard before you decide to use it! If it breaks, you're likely to be quite mad! Have fun!"

Way back, mod authors were obliged to include a readme.txt, and disclaimers about creating save/file backups and such were almost universally boilerplate.

I suppose it's functionally similar to the practice of keeping multiple saves. Manuals--back when those were even a thing--if they were quality, would commonly have an "Advice to New Players" section that would recommend keeping multiple saves, especially for (C)RPG's. Everyone learns about this practice at some point, though, assuming you play enough games, if not via a manual's text these days, then either,

A.) Someone with more experience recommends you do so and you heed their advice, or
B.) You have a fun little story that starts along the lines, "Let me tell you about the time I learned to keep multiple save files in games..."

This could all just be a matter of perspective, though I'm not inclined to take that position. I simply haven't seen an abundance (much at all, of any sort, actually) of generalized modding advice. I have seen an abundance of preventable frustration and dejected postings. Anyways, that's all--I really just wanted to put these thoughts somewhere. Thanks for reading if you did.

***

Finally, if you still have the will and desire to attempt to recover your save from impending doom, here are my personal suggestions, in order of attempt:

1.] Read through the TTW documentation and assorted literature. Read through TTW forums, comments, and posts. If your issue has also been posted there, perhaps a fix is already known, or you can coordinate with others to diagnose and potentially solve the problem.

2A.] Download and run any and all save file cleaners/fixers on a copy of your current save file and test the results.

2B.] Download whatever may be needed to view the contents of your save file and compare it to a "healthy" save (i.e. a fresh save using your current mod load). You'd be descending into a rabbit hole, of course, without any guarantee of isolating anything whatsoever, but you would at least gain the satisfaction of having made the attempt. This has actually worked for me exactly once, but that was a ~300 KB file from a simpler game. Complete 2A first before you consider attempting this, and view the file with a program that has robust search features. 16 MB is a fair bit.

3.] Disable as many mods that affect NPC's and NPC dialogue as the integrity of your save will allow.

4.] Disable as many remaining active mods as the integrity of your save will allow.

5.] Install and run, individually, any and all stability mods and fixes (yes, including VNV's "Mods to Avoid," or somesuch) to test their effect. All other options have already been exhausted, so this is "the point of no return," regardless.

Even if you ultimately cannot save your playthrough, making all reasonable attempts beforehand will give you some kind of closure, or at least more than you would have had otherwise. You can also try to shift your thoughts to highlight the adventure that you were able to have, instead of the hypothetical adventure you had hoped to complete. If you didn't get to fully experience F:NV this time, don't let it deter you from doing so at some point in the future.

In any case, I wish you the best of luck in your endeavors.

[laclongquan]

First, 16MB saves are about right for TTW sessions. You have double the area (cells) compare to vanilla FNV, so obviously your saves are going to get to this size no matter what. I AM playing a TTW session, with quickrun/quick complete of DC ending with 9MB (and most quest/location untouched) and playing seriously on Mojave, and it's 18MB per save for me.

Second, you have several mods dealing with dialog and they are going to conflict with each other over game's behaviour during dialog, like show interface or not, etc... The way to prove this is easy: dis able all the dialog mods and testrun with your save.

Third, you have a group of texture mods at highest priority and some texture mod at lower priority 94-100 and two mods at 63. If the HD quality difference is too high it could cause problem when loading a cell. I would suggest moving the 63 and Lod too, down to highest priority slots. Uncheck the 94-100 slots and testrun to see if it faster.

 

Edited November 25 by laclongquan

[JimboUK]

11 hours ago, H0LL0W4YF0X said:

 

2A.] Download and run any and all save file cleaners/fixers on a copy of your current save file and test the results.

 

Do not do this, actor bloat fix aside save cleaners tend to break saves. 

[gabrielrock19]

Quote

I do remember when "abomb" first appeared as yet another delightful Bethesda-style feature. It  turned out to be as simple to fix as resetting a single byte in an affected save file. It was an extreme priority to fix, though, because it was an engine bug that would eventually happen to ALL save files after, I'm assuming, a specific amount of animation cycles. As others have said, if there indeed was such an issue in the vanilla game that affected every save file ever played in F:NV, it would have been ruthlessly isolated and fixed years and years ago.

@H0LL0W4YF0X Finally someone that can defend and explain their position instead of going for the internet-tired behavior of "this is the truth, you're wrong, now swallow that". I get it now.

Quote

This issue is most assuredly not an issue with the vanilla game. Not only are you running a heavy mod load, thereby making any accusations against the vanilla game fundamentally speculative, but also, as stated previously, you aren't even running the vanilla game at all.

I'm not afraid to admit it, I was speculating. I thought it could be either the vanilla game or a broken mod.

Quote

As I assume you may already know, F:NV was made over the course of ~18 months on the notorious Gamebyro engine. On release, it was a buggy, almost-unplayable mess. On the same level as unpatched Daggerfall and unpatched S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl. Current reverence of F:NV aside, it truly was a disaster until the worst issues were slowly patched out.

I know, and it's amazing that an RPG classic was crafted in only 18 months.

I don't have time right now to read everything you wrote, but I think I'll come back later to do it and maybe comment on it.

[madmongo]

I ran into similar issues a couple of years ago. I have a very large mod that I have been working on for a very long time (and will probably never finish). That mod combined with TTW is enough to cause my game to go wonky. My solution since then has been to break the game up into parts. I have one character for FNV. I have another character for TTW. And I have a third character for my own mod. This keeps the memory usage and save game bloat down to a manageable level and prevents the game from self-destructing.

I also used separate characters for different playthroughs (NCR, House, Yes Man, etc). Splitting the game's quests up between different characters allows you to experience the entire game without overwhelming your game saves.

I also use lower texture settings to reduce memory usage. FNV is an old 32 bit game, so it can only use 2 GB of RAM (4 GB with the patch), regardless of how much RAM your system has. Your system might have 16 GB or 32 GB of RAM or whatever, doesn't matter. The game can't use it. The game's texture caching system tends to leak memory, so using better quality textures tends to make the game run low on memory, especially the longer you play it during a session.  Saving your game periodically and exiting out of the game and starting it again will clear out the leaked memory. Unfortunately, that's a tradeoff that you have to make. You can have a prettier game with better textures that is less stable, or you can have lower quality graphics and a game that is more stable. You can't have high quality and stability together. It's one or the other.

Splitting the game between different characters to reduce save game bloat might not be for you, but it is something to consider if you want a more stable game.

[JimboUK]

Something I've found that also helps is once in a while go to an empty shack like Jean Sky Diving and wait 4 in game days, this kind of resets the exterior world with most enemies respawning and corpses being removed, I assume this is because details of those corpses, position, inventory etc are stored in your save so they bloat it somewhat. 

[gabrielrock19]

22 hours ago, madmongo said:

I ran into similar issues a couple of years ago. I have a very large mod that I have been working on for a very long time (and will probably never finish). That mod combined with TTW is enough to cause my game to go wonky. My solution since then has been to break the game up into parts. I have one character for FNV. I have another character for TTW. And I have a third character for my own mod. This keeps the memory usage and save game bloat down to a manageable level and prevents the game from self-destructing.

I also used separate characters for different playthroughs (NCR, House, Yes Man, etc). Splitting the game's quests up between different characters allows you to experience the entire game without overwhelming your game saves.

I also use lower texture settings to reduce memory usage. FNV is an old 32 bit game, so it can only use 2 GB of RAM (4 GB with the patch), regardless of how much RAM your system has. Your system might have 16 GB or 32 GB of RAM or whatever, doesn't matter. The game can't use it. The game's texture caching system tends to leak memory, so using better quality textures tends to make the game run low on memory, especially the longer you play it during a session.  Saving your game periodically and exiting out of the game and starting it again will clear out the leaked memory. Unfortunately, that's a tradeoff that you have to make. You can have a prettier game with better textures that is less stable, or you can have lower quality graphics and a game that is more stable. You can't have high quality and stability together. It's one or the other.

Splitting the game between different characters to reduce save game bloat might not be for you, but it is something to consider if you want a more stable game.

That's a very clever solution. And it might be the only one if push comes to shove.

[gabrielrock19]

Any chance we're getting a remaster of New Vegas that updates the engine and makes it run on next-gen PS5/PC?

AHAHAHAHA. I'm JOKING obviously. I know the answer. My question was more of a "this is what needs to be done".