NEED HELP PLEASE, Fallout 3 Nvidia Driver Crashes Game?

[halflifeEsc]

Ok guys let me start off by saying sorry for this long post but I am just trying to be thorough with my problem

 

Ok I have fallout 3 goty for my 64 bit win 7 pro computer(core i3 3.1 ghz, Evga 550 ti, 12gb ram). I have played fallout 3 start to finish on max settings with multiple mods installed such as MMM, fellout, enhanced weather, EVE, project beauty, Ultimate Perk Pack, and many other smaller mods and what not (except for FWE, weapon mod kits, NMC texture pack, Darn UI) before, but since my last install I have never experienced so many problems with fallout 3 (guess I've been lucky ones until now :s). Now let also say that I am not a computer expert..I did build this machine and have had to fix it on my own (getting rid of viruses, changing Bios settings, formatting drives, changing system registries and other things like that) but am nowhere near experienced as some of you guys out there.

Getting back to the point of this long post, I have been experiencing crashes all the time (a lot more than I used to experience with my past playthroughs)I can't really play the game for more than a few minutes in specific areas of the game. I find these crashes happen while I am roaming the wasteland. These crashes range from starting a fight with enemies, to going into vats, to trying to start dialogue (only with characters in the wastes), to simply roaming the wastes and rendering more of the open world space. This playthrough I had decided I'd try NMC texture pack (the Large type with NMM comp.), WMK, FWE, and others. All the mods seems to be working correctly..I think I had some problem with MMM when leaving the vault for the first time, but just reinstalled it and it seems to be working fine now. I have done all the following that people typically have to do on to get fallout 3 running on windows 7 and improve game stability:

 

-Set exe into xp service pack 3 compatibility mode and set the exe to run in administrator

-Updated the Game to the 1.7 patch

-Changed the Fallout.INI text (bUseThreadedAl....etc)

-Installed Fallout invalidation invalided

-Installed FO3 Edit( which is not necessary I know, but rather a tool)

- Have the latest FOSE installed v1.2b something like that

- Have used the the Large Address Aware Enabler to increase the amount of allocated memory to fallout 3 from 2 gb max

-Have installed and used FOIP for all necessary mods, except for EVE because the latest version that I installed did not have any esps in it only one Esm file and the compatibility patches for EVE was crashing my game on startup.

-Have the latest NMM installed

-installed the Unofficial Fallout 3 patch (by Quazzy)

 

I had some random questions about FIOP and Large address enabler. I wanted to know since I am launching fallout using the FOSE launcher should I run that through the Large Address Aware Enabler because I had only did that for the default fallout exe, and when I looked at the load order suggested for FIOP it said had a merge patch at the bottom of the list; and I don't know what that esp is or where I was supposed to get it or if I even need it.

 

Now the problem I have been struggling with is an error message saying: "Nvidia driver 334.89 has become unresponsive and has recovered"...I did some looking into this problem and found that many other people were having this problem with drivers in the 280s and so on with games like fallout 3. I learned that problem originated from the windows TDR feature that was resetting the video card drive when it allegedly got hung up or stalled after a few seconds. This feature does not necessarily indicate that card has crashed but simply reset the driver after a timeout. I did some further investigation and found that I could disable or alter how the Tdr behaves by changing system registry values and adding new values as well. One fix said for me to change the MaxOjectNumber in Hardware/Devicemap/video from 5 to 0, One said for me add 4 lines in the System/currentcontrolset/control/video that changed powermizer value, one told me to change TdrLevel in System/Currentcontrol/control/GraphicsDrivers to 0 from the default 3 to disable tdr completely..thing is I did not have this registry key in graphicsdrivers so I simply add it and set it to 0. The first 2 seem to have worked a little bit in extending the amount of time I found play but still within a few mins I crashed. The third option allowed me to play for a little longer but when I crashed it would force me to reboot. The last allegedly was to add/change TdrDelay registry value to 60 from the default 2 to increase timeout length and to change the Timeout Key in DCI folder under graphicsdrivers to 60 (Mine was set at 7). The last fix did the same for the third, let me play longer but still within 15 mins the game crashed and forced reboot. Another problem I noticed is when I would reboot the MaxObject would change back to its default of 5. Common sense told me that if the Kernel driver was getting hung up maybe I have the render distance too high (remember not an computer expert here). I tried lowering the distance with the Registry value changes and it seemed to help (I think at least) but still I crashed as I did before. After that I just desided to uninstall NMC texture pack because I had already assumed this was causing the crashes before, and the game still crashed after a few mins. really the only thing I have not tried is reinstalling Fallout 3 and the dlc disk, acutally I just remembered after I installed the Dlc disk windows told me it was not installed correctly (just as a side note). My next move is to unstall FWE and see if the game wants to run correctly, but ultimately I am in a rut. I really don't know what the problem is with game and would really appreaciate help from you guys that know alot more than me..I Don't know if it's a mod, Tdr, or just my version of drivers I have for my video card causing these crashes.

With how large the mod community is I'm surprised that a group of people haven't just rebuilt fallout 3 from the f**king ground up despite how Bethesda feels.

Again I'm sorry to make such a long post and am sorry for any spelling or grammar errors I made.

 

[Purr4me]

Fallout3, when you have a game running and there is a graphics related reset, IT will reset it's settings back to 800x600 at launch time. There is a fight taking place between windows and the desktop display windows.

let's look at the source the game was designed for. Max settings are contrary to default, they are limited to the machines ability and the cards ability to render it, + the drivers needs to be set as well.

 

your 334. beta is most likely the problem. Now, all of these mods are not made by the same person, each one has textures and mesh files made with what? A texture program can tell you / show you what is different about the many ways the files are made.

 

the GPU and CPU hand off back and forth these crazy mismatched arrays of textures, now let's add some compressed data in there along with it to make a happy bunch of 1's and 0' to get along with.

 

A default windows 7 installed correctly Will not allow faloout3 to run period. Why? because win 7 was not around when the game was made.

The graphics drivers made to match that game are not the latest and greatest drivers, 13.12 is the highest you should go for FO3.

so. you want to decide what to do?

 

do this. uninstall the drivers now. reboot. then reset the system to diagnostic mode and reboot and edit the device manager directly, click on the device drivers/ display icon and see, the graphics drivers did not get uninstalled. "uninstall them. reboot and stay in diagnostic mode to verify you have a standard VGA graphics display driver installed by default.

 

now reset msconfig to boot normally. watch the system reset the drives. check the rez now, check and see what megahertz the monitor is set for as a standard VGA.

 

in normal mode, you will find no games will run even if you install them fresh on windows 7 in this set up. this means you are guaranteed to have a freshly made Environment ready to adjust you graphics cards software. now. the web site has a scanner for what it finds to be the best match for that card ,run that. DO NOT install the latest and greatest beta drivers. you want what that machine wants, not what you want.

 

once you have scanned it ,it should give you the correct choices. you need to be bare bones for this stuff to work right.

Direct x 9c is on the first CD, install this before any graphics driver upgrades.

 

Stay in 2009 era of software to match the game. fallout 3 does not know what you machine is or the new software's unless the developer states what games it is compatible with, and they do in fact have a listing for what games the drivers work with and don't work with.

 

fallout 3 is a bugger, the buggiest game ever released. keep things as close to raw vanilla first and establish a clean game install.

 

now ,time related things , your hard drives data, there are things going on there that can influence the game directly from the OS. backups any edits you make are kept , hidden from you. you have GFWL which will trigger unannounced. and that will cause th game to just stop running.

 

the second DLC DVD has on it, securom DRM / Anti-theft software that gets Embedded into your system this MUST be removed. OR we have posts like yours here.

 

Run fallot 3 set in-game menu at large. run the display of the PC set at 1024 x 768 so the switch DWM.exe can handle the transition at first go.

 

Do not modify the game until you have a clean set up running.

 

texture packs......use oleanders texture optimizer for them each make back up encase you mess up. Do not install bug fix it mods until you actually have a real bug to squash.

 

"has any one rebuilt from the ground up yet? yes, many have. For personal use. Not to be shared, but knowledge from the doing "IS shared"

 

End result-----> windows sucks, matching and patching is all we can do to find that sweet spot, you hasd it once, you did something to change it. what did you do, and that is your answer. do repeat that and you can keep a clean game.

 

kitty