Lots and lots of random crashes

[Blake81]

Before starting,I'm not a native english speaker so you might find my english a bit strange.

 

I've had this problem since the first time I played FO3,basicaly the game randomly crashes at every place outside Vault 101 or Megaton(or at least I've had the luck that it never crashed there),I don't know what causes it or why it happens,but it has become quite a pain the a**.

 

When it happens the whole screen freezes,but you can still hear the game music and some other sounds(like turning the PIP-BOY light on-off,holstering your weapon,etc),if you hit Esc(Menu) or Tab(PIP-BOY Menu) the screen goes black and after a while you're back on the desktop.But,if you get unlucky enough and it freezes during a V.A.T.S. there are only two ways out:a hard reboot or waiting until a BSD appears.

 

Anybody has the same problem?Or knows how to prevent it?

 

My PC Specs are:

 

OS:Windows XP SP3

VCard:NVidia GeForce 9400 GT 1024MB

Memory: 1GB RAM

Procesor: Intel Core2Duo 3.00 GHz

[csb]

These are some culprits that immediately come to mind (though others may know of more or know more specifically), since I've encountered similar freezes:

 

Your graphics card driver. You can find the latest nVidia drivers here: Official nVidia Drivers page.

Your system RAM. While 1Gb is adequate (in theory) to run Fallout3, two or more Gb will help you immeasurably. Upgrade your RAM if you can.

 

Directory of installation. I had innumerable problems when Fallout3 was installed to its default location in C:\Program Files\ ... the freezing problem diminished (though didn't go away entirely) when I reinstalled it to C:\Games\... Many posts/guides recommend this practice (and not just for Fallout3).

 

Optimize your game settings for your system. There are several really good tweak guides for Fallout3's .ini file (in your My Documents\My Games\Fallout3 folder by default). Again, setting some of these manually following the guides helped diminish (but not get rid of) some freezing problems (and I have a high-end graphics card).

Avoid mods that overload game-world cells with junk. Many mods give you free armor, weapons and the like, and spawn various containers all over the Wasteland. I've noticed a reduction in freezes since getting rid of most of them.

 

Use various Fallout3 utilities to their fullest. There are some (almost mandatory) utilities to make your in-game experience better. Fallout Mod Manager (FOMM) by Timeslip is one, ArchiveInvalidation Invalidated by Quam is another. Lastly, if you are running more than a handful of mods (and even then, you should), get ElminsterAU's FO3Edit and Miax's FO3Edit Training Manual on using it -- this is an invaluable tool for finding and fixing mod conflicts. I use it religiously now and have zero mod conflicts and far fewer in-game crashes.

 

Send hate mail to Bethesda support. Just kidding, that's counter-productive, though it might make you feel better. :)

 

You could just be a victim of the game's bad behavior. Unknown to many, Fallout3 has a built-in Daily Crash Quota getCrash(random) function. Maybe it's just a run of bad luck! Again, just kidding! :)

 

Hope these suggestions help your problem.

[Blake81]

Thanks for the suggestions,I've already tried and discarted some of them:

 

Vcard Driver:I updated it as soon as I got the first crash,that would be about 2 months ago.

 

Low RAM:Honestly,I think is the main culprit,beacuse the number of crashes increases dramaticaly when my PC is doing someting else(Like downloading something).Also I been experiencing similar crashes in other similar games(S.T.A.L.K.E.R. - Clear Sky)But my wallet doesn't allow me to update it,if you know what I mean.

 

Directory:I've heard a lot of tales of that bug,even before I got the game,I have my FO3 installed in D:\Archivos de Programa\...(my windows is in spanish).As far as I heard that bug only happens if you install it in C:\Program Files\ ... so installing it in D:\ fixed it up.

 

Optimization:I don't like tinkering with the main files of games that I can't reinstall anymore(See below to know why) and my Vcard was the best I could get.

 

Overloading mods:I don't like those GODLIKE MODS they kill all the thrill and emotion of a game.

 

Utillities:I have the FMM,FOSE and ArchiveInvalidation Invalidated(And of course the G.E.C.K.),but I've had this damn trouble since the unpatched-unmodded time so is not someting caused my a mod or some buggy patch.

 

Hatefull Mail:I'VE HAD PLENITY OF REASONS TO SEND DOZENS OF THOSE!!!BUT I JUST BEEN TOO LAZY TO DO IT,JUST THE FACT THAT THE DVD BROKE WHEN I WAS GETTING IT OUT OF THE BOX(the lower layer of the DVD DL stuck that f****** disc holder and cracked the disc center,causing it to jump like a broken record and the DVD reader can't reconize it now,grrrrr >:( )IS ENOUGH FOR ME TO WANT TO PUNCH ALL THER FACES.By the way I managed to fix the disc with some tape and superglue,believe it or not :D ,it worked fine for a while until I found you could execute the game without the disc(via Fallout3.exe).

 

Bad Game Behavior:I don't think I'm that unlucky :D .

[gsmanners]

Sounds like the infamous ffdshow incompatibility issue (Issue 6).

 

http://www.bethsoft.com/bgsforums/index.php?showtopic=973552

[csb]

A great catch as always, gs :) ... I installed K-Lite way back, but with Windows Live Update constantly "updating" Vista, it's always possible that codecs get over-written.

 

Also, it's been so long since configuring K-Lite, I quite forgot about exclusions :biggrin: Half-heimers time for me, I guess.

[Blake81]

Well,I installed the K-Lite and added FO3 to the ``do not use with´´ list.

 

Now that I remember, my PC had a ffdshow utility,but since I never knew what it was for,it was one of many thing that were lost in the last disc formatting,that would explain why some games that worked perfect before started showing similar crashes.

 

Thank for the help,but it will take sometime to be sure that the crash is gone,as I said,the crash is completely random,it could happen 3 times in less than five minutes and it couldn't happen in a whole week :smile: .

 

EDIT:Nope,nada,it's still crashing,I suppose is a RAM issue after all....

[Blake81]

Could it be something related to XLive?

 

I found in the windows event viewer a list of all the FO3 crashes(it crashed 371 time in the last week) and seem that all the crashes are related to that ``xlive.dll´´ that is also the source of many other problems.

 

I tried to upload a screenshot of the event info here but no matter how much I reduced it,it was larger than the available space.

[phoneyLogic]

Xlive could be the problem.

So you could try to install the latest GfWL-client from here:

http://www.microsoft.com/games/en-us/live/...arketplace.aspx

 

Do you use the online mode?

[Blake81]

Do you use the online mode?

 

No,but acording to the event viewer the xlive related error occurs when the game start,even if it doesn't crash.I wish I could try using it without XLive....Is there any way of disabling it?

[phoneyLogic]

I wish I could try using it without XLive....Is there any way of disabling it?

Yep, try this one

http://www.fallout3nexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=1086