Blue Screen Crash

[willf0rce]

Hey, this is actually Will_Force's brother hijacking his account for a bit of help, help with the deadliest and most infuriating of errors; blue screen of death!

 

Just installed his copy of Fallout 3 GOTY on my computer, and it was all running fine, I'd been playing for about one and a bit hours, had just left Megaton to go shopping at the Super-duper Mart when I went into combat with some mirelurks. All was well until I hit VATS and then the game stalled and stuttered for a couple of seconds, then the screen went black, then a blue screen in an odd resolution flashed really quickly across the screen, then my computer just reset itself. It's done it 3 times now; once again in VATS and once just randomly, but since it happened the first time I haven't been able to play for more than about 5 minutes. I don't suspect it has anything to do with VATS because I'd been using it fine beforehand. Also, while it is still playing in fullscreen, the window bar along the top of windows, with the 'x' and minimize buttons, keeps flickering on the top of the screen. Here's a copy of my DXDiag results:

 

 

 

Any help you could give me would be massively appreciated, loving the game so far, I've played it on the 360 and it looks so much better on PC, plus I can mod this version :)

 

Cheers, Dan

[topazwarrior]

I once had this problem too. I due to a too high video configuration. I had this problem with Oblivion and Battlefield but Fallout seem to have the same

problem. Just lower the video configuration and it should be fine.

[BossDweebe]

Have you done the quad core ini fix ?

bUseThreadedAI=0

change it to:

bUseThreadedAI=1

Add another line after it and insert:

iNumHWThreads=2

 

 

When you get the BSOD after you reboot, reboot again via windows. I found this helpful.

It may only be because my machines are set to clear the page file on shutdown.

This clears errors that may get written to the page file.

TweakNnow PwoerPack 2009 is an app I just started using for this setting with Win 7.

It should work with XP as well. I use Tweak XP on that machine for the same setting.

This will make for longer shutdowns, but I reckon it is worth it.

 

In addition, set your page file up to 1.5X your system RAM. Use the same setting for both min and max.

This will keep your page file in a nice tight block instead of being scattered all over the drive as happens with system managed.

 

Another thing I find occasionally helpful when I get a repeat crash in the same locale is to load and move around some, or into a new cell

if it is safe to do so, and don't do what may cause the crash, and make a new save. Then I reload the new save.

[willf0rce]

Have you done the quad core ini fix ?

bUseThreadedAI=0

change it to:

bUseThreadedAI=1

Add another line after it and insert:

iNumHWThreads=2

 

I've done the above fix and its been running fine for the past hour and a half, with no slowdown or crashing. Fingers crossed this was the issue! Still only running it on medium though, so I'll see what happens when I amp up the graphics a bit. Still getting the flickering window bar on the top of the screen though, I get the same thing with Colin McRae Dirt 2, I have a feeling its something to do with Games for Windows Live, so I'll have to keep looking into that. Thanks though BossDweebe, handy and simple fix!

 

Cheers, Dan

[willf0rce]

Hmmm, it looks like its started flaring up again and is repeating the blue screen crash, and its lost my saved game; not happy! Anyone else have any ideas, same problems etc? It can't be anything to do with my graphics level, an 8800GTX should be able to handle it on high surely? I'm at the end of my tether! Going to try a re-install and see what happens...

 

Cheers, Dan

[willf0rce]

Right I've reinstalled it, everything, mods, DLC and all, patched it, and it is still crashing on me! I've searched all over the internet and only found two other instances of this happening. I've tried turning graphics down to the very lowest, having HDR set to bloom or just off, and still no results. I'm at the end of my tether with this stuff, there's so many fantastic mods on here and I'm left unable to play them! This may give me a good excuse to invest in a new graphics card though, budget of around £150, any suggestions?

 

Cheers, Dan