Crashes Out Of The Blue?

[HAKUIZM]

I used to not have any problems whatsoever with FO3. It would crash once every blue moon; it was really rare for my game to crash. Between now and the time I first got the game the day it came out, I've crashed a total of 8 times; I counted. And I've clocked in hundreds of hours into that game. Now...as in as of yesterday, my game crashes like crazy. It's really weird because it literally just happened out of the blue. I just woke up yesterday, turned on my computer, started up Fallout, then after a couple minutes of playing, I crashed. I thought that this was one of those rare times that my game crashes, so I threw it off as such. However when I started up, same thing happened, crashed after a couple minutes. Then it happened again and again. I restarted my computer, thinking maybe that'd fix it but nope. Frustrated, I stopped playing for the day and decided that I'd give it a rest and try again tomorrow, which is today. Now, it's even worse. I crash even before the game starts. I literally have to click in the window mid-load to prevent it from crashing, and then after that it would just crash randomly, ie I'm running back towards Springvale or Rivet City or what-have-you then my game just crashes out. Before it's said, I crash indoors too. That said, I also can't enter some places without crashing either. In fact, I can't even access the Load option in the main screen without crashing more than half the time (though it doesn't crash to desktop, it just crashes and I have to ctrl+alt+del out) It really makes me wonder what went wrong because again, it never did this before. Also, the day before it started crashing, I was playing flawlessly. I installed nothing new, I didn't tweak anything or...ANYTHING. Again, I just woke up one day and it just started crashing and I did nothing to my computer the day before; no new installs or anything. I didn't even add any new mods. I have all the latest drivers and the newest patch, I don't have FFDShow or whatever it was, I have the latest .net framework installed, and I have the game running on 2 out of 4 cores. Now before it's suggested, I tried running on single (and tri- just for the hell of it) core, but got the same results. I've pretty much tried and implemented everything suggested in the various places I've found online. I've even turned my graphics settings down but to no avail. I have no clue what it could possibly be. Now it's just a feeling, but it might be audio-related somehow, though I don't know how. It's just; you know when you load a save, the main menu music stops and then everything else plays right? Well my main menu music continues to play even after save is loaded. Again, that's probably a nothing-bug that has nothing to do with the problem, but again, it's just a feeling. I have the latest drivers for my sound card too. This really couldn't have happened at a worse time; right before I was about to start recording for my machinima. Hopefully my case isn't a unique one, or in other words, it's never happened so no one knows what to do =O Any and all help is appreciated.

 

QUICK UPDATE - (30 Mins. After OP)

 

Alright, already I found what seems to be the culprit. After uninstalling and running a QUICK test of my usual crashing areas in Fallout 3, it seems that XFire was causing my crashes. XFire was the last thing I installed on my computer. Again, I had just uninstalled it now and have only ran one quick test in a part that I always crashed in, so it's still questionable. I've had XFire for a good while now, probably going on about almost 3 months now and has never caused problems until now. At any rate, if anyone has any knowledge of this or a fix or workaround of some sort, that'd be much appreciated. I'd like to reinstall XFire and use mainly its recording capabilities. Though I bought FRAPS a year ago and used to use it in Oblivion works, I'm already touching the skin of my teeth in Fallout 3 when it comes to frame rates outdoors (where I'm at most of the time), and I know FRAPS will just put it in the dumpster, which is why I liked XFire's recording app; the quality was pretty much on par with FRAPS AND it didn't lower my frame rates (at least not anywhere near my ability to notice =P). I'll continue to test out FO3 and see if it really was XFire. Also, my music is back to normal again too so...yeah I think I've already killed the problem, but I won't cross my fingers yet. =P

[renekuhs]

Heh, your lucky that you found the source of the problem, Fallout 3 seems to have gotten a reputation for frequent random crashes. Very annoying as Oblivion never had this many crashes. Ah well...

 

Sure keep us updated whether the problem really is resolved. :)