Another problem

[Thasic]

I'm humming along just fine and I get one of the common CTDs (the fact that a CTD is considered common place and acceptable is another matter all together). I boot up from my last save game and I can no longer save games. Whenever I try I get more CTDs. Anyone heard of such a thing? Anyone know why and how I might correct this incredibly annoying problem? Any help would be much appreciated.

 

On another note, when it actually runs, this is an incredibly fun game. I could have seen replaying over and over. Maybe looking forward to a sequel. Now, with all of the inherent problems I will not likely be able to finish the MQ once let alone play a second time. I will never buy another game from this company until it has been out for years with a proven record of stability. This whole thing is just ridiculous. Personally I am just holding out until Dragon Age Origins is released then I'll dumped this piece of useless trash in the garbage where it belongs. Sorry for the rant.

[csb]

I'm humming along just fine and I get one of the common CTDs (the fact that a CTD is considered common place and acceptable is another matter all together). I boot up from my last save game and I can no longer save games. Whenever I try I get more CTDs. Anyone heard of such a thing? Anyone know why and how I might correct this incredibly annoying problem? Any help would be much appreciated.

 

See my other post in response to the CTD thing overall. However, more specific to Fallout3, there are a lot of steps you can take to make the game more stable right out of the gate:

 

1. Don't install to the default location (C:\Program Files\Bethesda\Fallout3). It causes a LOT of problems in Vista and some problems in XP. Select something like C:\Games\Fallout3. In Vista especially, this is a good practice for all your games. It goes a long way in avoiding potential issues with Vista's UAC (User Account Control) security.

 

2. Make sure you install the latest (or most stable) video drivers. This is particularly true with nVidia graphics cards, but generally true of any card. You can check nVidia's site for the latest drivers. Newer nVidia cards are at least less prone to this problem.

 

3. Get the latest codecs. I would recommend K-Lite. The latest version automatically adds Oblivion and Fallout3 to the fddshow exclusion list. Fddshow has been shown to create problems for many users. The secondary benefit is that you may also gain an fps performance boost.

 

4. Get any of the great Tweak Guides that step you through the Fallout3.ini file and tell you how to maximize various aspects for your system. The same sorts of guides exist for Oblivion.

 

5. Install Fallout3, immediately upgrade to the 1.7 patch. Do not pass Go (i.e., don't play the game yet). Install

any DLC add-on modules. If you aren't installing from DVD (i.e., your install is via Windows Games Live), get the utility on the Fallout3 Nexus site that moves the DLC content from its Live folders to the install Fallout3/Data folder. This sort of disables Games for Windows Live ... but eh ... :biggrin: who the heck uses that?

 

Not doing that, however, does "break" any mod installs that rely on Broken Steel, etc. content. It won't be "seeable" in the Live install location and will likely result in CTD.

 

6. Get Fallout Mod Manager (FOMM), ArchiveInvalidationInvalidated and FO3Edit. These -- as far as I'm concerned (and many other more experienced people in the Fallout3 community) are MUST HAVEs. FOMM, like its predecessor OBMM, is invaluable for setting your module load order (not to mention other great features). ArchiveInvalidationInvalidated makes the clunky archiveinvalidation.txt file unnecessary ... it can also be toggled from within FOMM. Lastly, FO3Edit is invaluable in checking for mod conflicts and resolving them, and is designed to work hand-in-hand with FOMM. There is also a Fallout Plug-in that is similar, but much more restricted in its utility. I recommend the former. While you are at it, get Miax's great guide on using FO3Edit.

 

Other than the things listed above, custom mods cause about 90% of the CTDs in Fallout3. Between FOMM/FO3Edit, you can get your mods humming along in perfect harmony (I have a ton of mods, and none conflict in a CTD-inducing sense.)

 

On another note, when it actually runs, this is an incredibly fun game. I could have seen replaying over and over. Maybe looking forward to a sequel. Now, with all of the inherent problems I will not likely be able to finish the MQ once let alone play a second time. I will never buy another game from this company until it has been out for years with a proven record of stability. This whole thing is just ridiculous. Personally I am just holding out until Dragon Age Origins is released then I'll dumped this piece of useless trash in the garbage where it belongs. Sorry for the rant.

 

Rant excused :) ... I was in the rant/hair-pulling category before becoming an avid devotee to Fallout3 (and Oblivion) forums. The communities for both games are awesome and overcome some of Bethesda games' weaknesses. It is a bit of work to make the game less crash-prone, but it is worth the investiture of time IMO. And yes, like Oblivion, Fallout3 gets addictive once the frustration level goes down.

 

You will get crashes. See my other post (in response to yours) for why. Plus, I highly suspect Fallout3's devs included a Fallout3 Daily Crash Quota class to keep themselves employed. :D So it is impossible to avoid the getRandomCrash(int Random()) function.

 

Hope this helps you get over the frustration hurdle.

[Thasic]

Well thanks for the insights, unfortunately I have all those bases covered already. Having perused this site for some time attempting to stabilize FO3, I have managed to aquire quite a bit of knowledge on the mysterious workings of Bethesda's FO3 Crash Quota. I managed to deal with my most recent problem myself. I was running both Greener World and the Arefu Expended mods. They are both huge resource hogs. Now, normally my machine, being very high end can handle just about anything a game can throw at it. However, as we both know, FO3 is on a whole different planet. So, reluctantly, I dropped Greener World out of my mod list. That seems to have stabilized the game quite a bit. When I am playing in or near Arefu I still get some problems but I am almost done with the quest lines there so it will cease to be a problem in short order. As far as I can tell, the other mods I run are not very resource needy so hopefully I can finish out the game with minimal CTDs. Again, thanks for your input and if anything else comes to mind, I am always interested in picking up a new trick or two.