Game Crash... Help!

[CHIBAMETA]

Hello, I have a problem with my game...

After a short play-time, Fallout 3 Randomly Crash.

 

My Game's got all Add-ons

and got the following mods:

All-Phalanx-Mods

Weapon- Some Katanas

Owned!

Vault Dwellers Survival Perk

Run +50%

Mini Hideout

 

and I installed them all with mod meneger

What can I do about those game-Crush?

Any Idea Why this is happening?

plz, help.

Thanks!

[mechine]

Pfft

 

 

 

I play the long game nowdays.

 

But it wasn't easy.

 

 

I can play for a few hours at a time, and sometimes I'm like "why haven't I crashed yet"

 

Which I save the game right about there, ha ha ha

 

 

 

 

I forget a lot of times though.

 

 

 

Eventually it's going to crash.

 

 

You take a game an make it 14Gb in size or more an yeah it's going to crash.

 

 

 

The reason's why fallout crashes mainly is because it's so freaking huge.

 

 

 

But there's a poop ton of stuff you can do to avoid crashes.

 

 

 

 

 

 

1. never auto save or quick save, disable all autosaves, each time you want to save, press esc an create a new save

When you load up a game don't use the continue, instead pick load then pick a game to load, It's also not a bad idea to

go inside a small cell, a small inside place without any npc's or really anything in there an save, but once you get good save

habits you can save where ever you need. I have a S**thole trailer I live in which I save most times right there.

 

2. Never delete any saves until you are ready to delete them all an start over, because you are going to add in a new mod

so to speak don't risk adding or removing mods once your game is started. Just keep playing until you die a really bad death

then it's time to delete them all an start over. Not a big deal since you get new mods with it.

 

 

3.You'll want to read an follow the tweek guide, but you don't have to do everything it says, you have to make good choices

http://www.tweakguides.com/Fallout3_1.html Which good choices would require some computer an system knowlege

It's a good guide, but it's old, so it's not really 1.7 patch stuff, but for the most part you can trust what it says.

 

 

4. You'll want to update your grapics card drivers to the current, get the download from whoever made the grapics card

Update your direct X to the current, XP is 9 end user runtime or something weird...

 

5. Find your windows prefetch folder, it's in C:/windows/prefetch something like that, well delete all that crap every so often

keep the prefetch folder though, just delete the stuff inside, clean your recyle bin out too every so often

 

6. don't overclock your CPU or your RAM Fallout doesn't like that, an it mucks it up a bit

 

7. read the radio stutter thread in nexus forums, download the required audio codecs for fallout 3

 

8. decomp your hardrives every so often

 

9. mess with your page file, put a page file on a seperate drive than whatever you fallout is installed on, or put a page file on both

the page file is virtual memory an should be double whatever your amound of ram is, but that's huge so you can also just follow what windows

says it should be

 

 

10. Install fallout 3 in it's own folder on the hard drive, not C:/program files/bethesdasoftpoop/fallout3

You want C:/bethesda softworks or even better D:/bethesda softworks, seperate from system

 

 

11. patch the game to 1.7 or current, or use master update with 1.5 if you want, 1.7 is better though

 

 

12. Turn off AA an AF via the fallout 3 launcher, pick the other settings via the tweek guide as you like

But when it comes to AA an AF turn them off, then force whatever AA an AF you want via your grapics card

control interface, or control panel. You get better quality AA an AF without the perfomance loss.

 

 

13. If you can manually install mods then do so, auto installs can cause problems, I know that the kind like FOOK 2 work well though

It's still risky...

 

 

14. It probably wouldn't hurt to right click the properties on your fallout 3 folder an turn read only off, then yes apply to all folders

but you don't have to do this, it's only a I hope this helps

 

15. There are certian behaviors you want to avoid doing like getting really drunk then exiting the game, stuff like that can load up next time

you load fallout

 

 

16. You want to learn how to use FO3edit, mostly you want to learn how to fix all the junk an conflicts in your load order

 

17. To avoid about 25% of the crashes you can create a merge patch with FO3edit, I recently told a fellow fool how to do it see this topic

http://thenexusforums.com/index.php?showtopic=165826&hl= Merge patch process

 

 

18.You can run 200 mods together, but you'll have to spend about 2 weeks fixing it with FO3edit. It's best to start small an work your way up.

Simple is always better. It depends on how much game time you have gotten recently. If you haven't played for a while then getting

or working on a 150 mod load order is going to drive you crazy, while a load order of about 50 or so would have good stuff an provide

the game time you so desperately need.

 

19. learn how to install mods

 

20. When you start a game, you want to make sure it's a good start. Sometimes you get a bad load up of Fallout 3 which is headed for

CTD land without you even knowing it. For one thing when you start an exit V 101 there's about 20,000 scripts which are all wanting

to start working at the same time. You want to make sure that goes smooth. Maybe even start up a few mods at a time in a small

room without any NPC's in there. The goal is to get a known good save game post V101 escape. Maybe 1 in 3 starts are good.

 

 

21. the system cache gets corupt, it's confirmed an there is no fix for it, I kind of think this is where the bad game starts comes from

or the bad load up of fallout 3, that happeneds sometimes. You know when you get a good load up because it all works great with great FPS

The big fix for a system cache is to reboot the computer, cleaning out the prefetch, temp internet files, an recy bin also wouldn't hurt

reboot the computer then give it a while to get fully started, secondary process stuff doesn't load up for a min or two, an if it's vista you might

as well walk away an go get a coffee.

 

22. want a edge, launch fallout 3, wait for while don't click, wait for the main menu to pop up, this will give you a good load up in the prefetch

I'm not really sure, but it's better, then the main point is, when you select load, which brings up all your save games for you pick one

Don't pick one yet, Ctrl Alt Delete, enter the task manager, then right click the fallout 3 process, change it's priority to realtime or whatever

then hit the X, an click fallout 3 on the taskbar. It doesn't always work, sometimes you load into fallout 3 and can't see anything

just hit tab, an it brings up the pip boy, hit tab again it now draws the place you are in, but it might be going corupt, it's better to just exit

and try again so that it loads up an you can see, and everything looks normal, performance wise it's just going to make it so that things won't

interrupt fallout's process, it's not really an edge, but it's worked well on other games...

 

 

23. It doesn't hurt to do a test game, that is install fallout 3 then patch it, then run around crazy without any mods to get a base run

of how it's performance is, try to make it crash or find a issue, you can also spend time trying to minimize the stutter effect, I know it sounds totally ghay, but doing stuff like this got me to where I use max settings with only the major cell area change stutter. Which is because I worked all that stuff out via the tweek guide before I dumpped a poop load of mods in the mix. RAOTW Random A**hole of the wastes

Make a charicter that is stupid an certianly going to die running around trying to tax the system into a crash in order to rule out things.

 

24. Sometimes when you force AA an AF, like if you went from no AA an AF to SLI 32XQ without rebooting, fallout 3 isn't going to like it

Which you can just exit an reload, or do the clean up the system thing an reboot relaunch, it doesn't always happen though. A lot of the wierd

stuff is just from how your settings are, which brings me back to doing the ghay test game, that's where you want to pick an try out all the

crazy settings, until you get something good.

 

 

25. Advanced load orders, are going to require Override.esp which you create with FO3edit, it's hard work, but also the only way to fix the stuff

you can't fix by normal means, there's a thread on it, it's long... But it's not as long as the FO3edit tutorial which is like 200 pages.

 

 

26. there's only about 1,000,000 issues with archive invalidation, I use the one built into FOMM an haven't had many problems, but, sometimes I have to unpack something from the default location inside the .BSA files. Like say my charicters hands are black like a black person's hands would be, but it's a white charicter, well I had to unpack the textures for those to folders inside the fallout 3 data folder like it was a mod. The trick is

we use FOMM to unpack .bsa files, what you do is select two files for FOMM to unpack an it will automaticly unpack the folders for them as well

just unpack them to the desktop an you see the data folder path you need to use in order to make the game use that texture instead of the one

in the .bsa which keeps getting screwed up. Removing archive invalidation then turning it back on will work sometimes too.

 

27. You run into problems, but you need to learn a good way of ruleing out things for the diagnosis, systematicly, not randomly

You need a known good save, an first you need to see if it happens each time, or if it's just a fluke.

 

 

28. there's a poop ton of other stuff, get out there an start reading an learning.

 

 

29. hmmm Something rather useful is purging the cell buffer The best way to do it is not with the mod that purges it for you

you ~ an type PCB, but doing it the old school way I was doing it proved to be risky, it depends on where you are when you PCB

Sometimes it will auto PCB when you fast travel, sometimes not, it's weird, sometimes you can purge it while you are in the cell

you are trying to purge, an then others not. What I've started doing recently is using the tools in Groovatron more...

Yeah Groovatron is not all fun an games, there are some great tools in there.

 

What I end up doing is placing a transport marker, which actually helps when I'm running around outside in the actual wasteland

It helps because you can slowly make your way across the whole thing, an you lose less, because you can always go to your small cell

an create a save, then bam back to your transport marker. You can also fast travel to a white room or a black room, which provides

fast travel out of areas where you can't fast travel, like If i'm inside I can go to black room via Groovatron, then fast travel where ever I want

Even better I can place a marker, then go to black room, PCB purge cell buffer (wow look at all that crap) then use groovatron to

get back to the same spot I was, only without all that corupt data slowing me down, an continue, also when I want to unload a bunch of stuff

I can save time by putting a marker at the vendors then just loading up with 1200 pounds of stuff, an use groovatron to transport

There are some times when I use it to save my life, F this I'm vanishing, but I don't use it alot like that

The primary use is to purge the cell buffer without fast traveling, but it's become rather useful making my way across the wastes without crashing

an having to do it all again. It's a mobile map marker.

 

Also there are some tools which allow you to fix NPC's if they are freaking out.

 

They get stuck, an you can restrain them an un-restrain which will reset their AI

 

The ~ then type TCL helps too, the player gets stuck, an TCL will turn off mesh collision,

 

You can access NPC inventory with Groovatron, which sometimes is helpful, if say something is wrong

 

but what's important is you can look for a missing mesh, like the big red !, by seeing what is in their inventory

 

And then there's only 1,000,000 other really awesome reasons to use Groovatron an umpaanimations.

 

 

 

30. The mall, the GD mall is so corupt, I swear you can fast travel there 10 different times and see something different each time

Heck if the fog of war pops up, just go back, an fast travel again, it will probalby fade the next time. You can crash just fast traveling

to the wrong spot, mainly the mall, but it doesn't rule out anywhere else on the map. Crash when you save is a sign of a corupt save game.

Which is where we roll back. Sometimes it's better to fast travel near the place an move toward it, but that's not always the case.

You might have to try a few places before you get what you were looking for.

 

31. The smart folks say the super complex mods are not really worth it, simple just works so much better I guess, it doesn't stop us from using them

But I mean if you get into a place where you are crashing all the time maybe it's time for a simple load order of mods, or maybe ditch that super complex one for a more simple version...

 

32. Idk, the fire rate gets chopped up, an messed up, sometimes you can fix it by unequiping the weapon then exit the pipboy an equip it again

Seek cover first, but it's led me to start thinking that I should stop using mods like MMM-natural selection which eat system resources

You have to make good choices like that, maybe drop something to gain something, and yeah I know it stinks...

Stutter an chopped up stuff is from stutter locked into the game and also mouse lag, you can't get rid of it, but with some work

you can reduce it so you don't notice.

 

33. If I use Enclave commander, to air drop in 100 brotherhood of steel grunts in a area, and then purge the area, yeah I make sure they all

go back to base, before I jet out of there. All I'm saying is if a mod runs a script, you need to wait till it's finished to move on, You can't really

leave the wasteland in total chaos then come back the next day, it's a sure way to end up going corupt. There might be times when you need to

wait 4 days for a respawn because you got in there an caused so much chaos that it's never going to work again.

 

 

 

 

This is so bad, I'm sorry, I tried, but all the info just doesn't want to come out.

[csb]

Some really good points in the above. The key (especially with large mods like MMM and realism tweak mods) is to use FO3Edit to find and resolve conflicts (I added to the post in the link above). I just redid my whole merge patch thing for 208 mods, it took a day -- but mainly because I do my merge patches manually now and I modularize my patch plug-ins. More work, but easier to maintain if I add something new.

 

The MS Word version of the the FO3Edit Guide can be quite cumbersome. Get the Web-enized version of Miax's great FO3Edit Guide, it's easy to use and allows you to position pop-up windows so you can follow the steps while actually working in FO3Edit.