Random BSOD

[niadly]

As constant crashing is such i wide spread problem, i figured Bethesda would have released a patch that addressed the problems in the coding, but it seems they were more interested in putting out Expansions like the Pitt which, i like, but is full of glitches, so much so, in fact, that it required its own patch to correct...and they have not released updates to fix MANY problems with the DLC on Xbox360 version (case in point, in The Pitt, when collecting ingots, there is a giant section of flooring that you will fall through to your death because apparntly, they forgot to code that section of the roof top)....washing my hands of Bethesda and most likely going to rent NEW VEGAS before even considering a purchase...I remember the good ol dy when instead o just porting a badly coded console version to the PC, it was the other way around, I only recently got back into PC gaming anf Fallout 3 killed it for me.

[niadly]

contacted Bethesda, and recieved RA# for defective merchandise, they said they will send check after they recieve the original product. I recommend anyone who's FO3 will not play without crashing send them a message.

 

however, that might be too late, i just read that NEW VEGAS will have the exact same CRAPBALL engine that Fallout3 has....yeah, its 2010 and Bethesda is still using an engine from 1995....

[myrmaad]

I play Fallout 3 most of all, currently. I do a bit of modding using the GECK (which I love) as well. I have no crashes.

 

I would be interested in listening to Commander Crazy wax lyrical on the subject of nVidia drivers. He's impressed this old girl-geek several times already.

 

I hope you checked out bben's advisory list thoroughly. Since you barely acknowledged his post, I think you may have missed it.

 

There are always many many programs running in the background during gameplay, that's why utilities like GameBooster are so popular, it automatically shuts down all that annoying crap that prefetches and front loads and back ends -- you know that long list of items you get when you examine the Task Manager? Any software that creates a popup message can crash your game, as well, for example if Windows has done an automatic update, or if your Virus Scanner is queued to check for updates, these have been known to cause a CTD.

 

It's odd that some of us have so few troubles, but I let very little run on my computer, I'm a control freak, and nothing runs without my permission.

Especially during Game Play.

 

Is this your first computer? Because I remember the days when if you called a PC's technical support group with any issue, they would have you reinstall the Operating System, losing all your original files, as it was considered that in order to help you, the computer had to be in it's original state. If there are people like me that can run the game with no issues, it seems kind of -- logical -- that it's an issue with the user's computer configuration.

 

So in conclusion, it just seems if you were serious you would have paid closer attention to bben's advice and maybe not have been so quick to discredit the advice you got from Commander Crazy. But then again, what do I know?

 

ooh ooh Here's a Thought:

http://www.google.com/search?num=100&hl=en&newwindow=1&safe=off&q=nvidia+196.21+problems&cts=1271330718554&aq=f&aqi=&aql=&oq=&gs_rfai=

[BossDweebe]

I have just started into F3 in the past week or so. I am running it on an XP machine and a Win 7 machine.

The Win 7 machine was locking up frequently, so I started playing on the XP machine. The XP machine likes to CTD, or do the black screen error message, or BSOD that is so loved by players of Bethesda games.

Neither of these games has any mods yet. I just started downloading today.

 

XP machine. While I had defraged my HDD, I hadn't run the disk clean up for a while. There was about 55 million files that hadn't been used for a while on my game drive (compress old files).

I used to keep up on this but read that it may slow down opening files and apps, but I thought, I'll do it again anyway.

It took a very long time especially as the defrag after was huge,

but was it worth it ? You bet

Now I'm back to my old routine, because I never noticed any speed increase anyway - my brain doesn't seem to work in milli seconds -

No more CTD, well almost, remember this is still a Bethesda game. Not to put them down. It's just that they make cutting edge games and take chances and this causes problems. I except that, but the machine has to be clean and tweaked to within an in inch of its nanos.

Also, I try to squeeze as much eye candy as I can out of every game. So you might say I'm asking for it, but this is a computer not a console.

I play heaps of games and always tweak to the max, but nobody does it better (crashing) - Bethesda your the best...

 

Long story short - use disc cleanup regularly (if only because it takes a long time after about 2 million), defrag, and try my other old fav -clear the page file on shut down - (My XP machine has only 2 Gig RAM)

There is a freeware app called - TweakNow PowerPack 2009 - that I use to set this up on my Win 7, and I use the old Tweak XP for - you guessed it...

 

Win 7. The big chill (freeze/lockup).

Still a mystery, but after trying several things from several sites I had a full 3 hours w/o a freeze then another several in a row. Then more 3 hours more success.

I did several things that I did not think would work, and still don't know why they did.

A lot of threads reckon that Realtek, and some of the other sound chips/codecs caused the lockups.Sadly one of several things that MS left out of Win 7 is the 'compress old file' option .

 

1) Another person said he uninstalled Nero. So I did that.

 

2) I also read that if you disable ffdshow you will stop the freeze. I looked, but could not find ffdshow on my machine, but I had just picked up the Win 7 codec pack from a magazine so I installed that. Now I have ffdshow, so I disabled that . Weird, I know, but I think it helped.

(I see it did not help you. So many variables eh! ).

 

3) While I was at it is disabled the Win 7 super duper indexing option on my game and applications drives to free up some more memory.

Well, actually I did this first, and the game started doing regular CTD instead of freezing.

 

4) Then I thought what the 'ell, and installed the latest Realtek audio drivers.

 

5) Most freezes seem to happen when I am micro managing - dropping and placing things in the workshop (I wish things would fall like they did in Oblivion), and I think fast travel makes freezing more likely.

I found that if I restart from the same save it will most likely happen again, so I tried doing the fast travel to the location an then save again before entering the building. The chance of a lock up is much reduced.

 

specs - Win 7/ phenom 965/Nvidia GTX260/ 4Gig RAM/Realtek on board audio - XP/Opteron 180/Nvidia 8800GT/2 Gig RAM/Creative SB<br>195.62 Nvidia drivers.

 

EDIT: Can someone tell me what would be causing my post to loose it's format ? Maybe I edit too much.

Is it maybe because I used the quick post ? Thanks -

 

EDIT AGAIN: Why didn't I come to the good ol' nexus in the first place ? Just read about the quad core issue. I'm on to it....

 

EDIT : Back again - Yeah! The quad core fix fixed it up real nice.