Fallout 3 Is.... Sentient?

[journe]

UPDATE: PROBLEM IS FIXED. Since there's a lot of documentation of people having this problem, and hardly any of people having even the slightest idea of how to fix it, I'll outline what I did. I'm not sure WHICH fixed it, but on the bright side, there's only two things.

 

1. I just uninstalled the Combined Community Codec Pack, as I hear some of the codes have several issues with FO3.

 

2. Let's hope it was number 1, because 2 is a major PITA. I had to get rid of "quartz.dll". On Win7 64bit, it's in C:\Windows\SysWow64. These may not be the exact steps needed, as it took me a lot of fiddling to get what I needed one.

 

A: Find the quartz.dll file.

B: Rightclick on it, click properties, then the Security tab.

C: Under Permissions, click Advanced. Switch to the Owner tab.

D: Click Edit, and change the owner to yourself.

E: Click Apply, OK, etc, until you're back to just Explorer.

F: Rightclick it again, Properties, Security.

G: This time, stay on the Permissions tab.

H: Click Change Permissions.

I: Find the account you previously made the owner. In my case, Users(Wolf-PC\Users). Select it, click Edit.

J: Check the Allow box for the very first option, Full Control. Click OK, Apply, etc.

K: This step is optional, but probably a good idea. Make an archive of some kind, rar or what-have-you, containing the quartz.dll file, just in case you end up needing it again for whatever reason. Don't just copy it to another folder, as that doesn't seem to help.

L: Delete the quartz.dll file. You can also try simply unregistering it from an elevated command prompt using "regsvr32 -u quartz.dll", but even with permissions changed, it still ended in access denied for me.

 

This has solved every issue I had, though I'm still flummoxed on how the issues came about in the first place.

 

______________________

 

 

Yesterday, Fallout 3 started having some weiiiird problems. It would randomly stop accepting input, and on some occassions, actually take control of my character. The extent of its control seems to be limited to walking about in random directions.

 

I figured probably something got corrupted, heavy mod user, I'll just reinstall and that'll fix it. Well, today, I started all over, using *none* of the same mods, and...I'm starting to get the same problems. If it helps any, my load order this time around:

 

 

 

[X] Fallout3.esm

[X] Anchorage.esm

[X] ThePitt.esm

[X] BrokenSteel.esm

[X] PointLookout.esm

[X] Zeta.esm

[X] Mart's Mutant Mod.esm

[X] CALIBR.ESM

[X] FOOK2 - Main.ESM

[X] FOOK2 - [DIK] DLC Improvement Kit.ESM

[X] FOOK2 - Main.esp

[X] FOOK2 - [DIK] DLC Improvement Kit.esp

[X] FOOK2 Main [Hotfix].esp

[X] FOOK2 DIK [Hotfix].esp

[X] Mart's Mutant Mod.esp

[X] Mart's Mutant Mod - DLC Anchorage.esp

[X] Mart's Mutant Mod - DLC Broken Steel.esp

[X] Mart's Mutant Mod - DLC Point Lookout.esp

[X] Mart's Mutant Mod - DLC The Pitt.esp

[X] Mart's Mutant Mod - DLC Zeta.esp

[X] Mart's Mutant Mod - Master Menu Module.esp

[X] Mart's Mutant Mod - Natural Selection.esp

[X] Mart's Mutant Mod - Tougher Traders.esp

[X] Mart's Mutant Mod - Zones Respawn.esp

[X] bzArmour.esp

[X] AsharasBatmanItems.esp

[X] Mart's Mutant Mod - FOOK2.esp

[X] Mart's Mutant Mod - FOOK2 - DIK.esp

[X] Console Key Binder.esp

[X] DarNifiedUIF3.esp

[X] merged.esp

 

 

 

I don't have the load order I was using the first time it happened, but it was pretty simple then. I was just running FWE. Now I'm running a new installation, new mods, new saves, etc. I completely wiped the Fallout folder after uninstalling - FOSE, FOMM, all the leftover esps, meshes, etc - all gone. It's as clean an install as you can get. Running archive invalidation as well. I don't know where to even begin going about troubleshooting with this. I don't think it has anything to do with location, either. The first time it was happening was around the Citadel, since then it's been in Rivet City, some Metro, Tenpenny Tower, and now in Megaton.

 

It may also be worth noting that around the time this began, I also was suddenly having extreme lag issues. My laptop has had no trouble running it on Ultra settings, and then overnight, it became a chore to get decent speed running Medium. The re-installation doesn't seem to have helped that, either. I've had lag issues before when I had low disk space, but now I've got about 1/5th of the disk free (100/450 gigs), and that hasn't helped either. The only idea I have now is that possibly defragging it would help, and I'm going to try that now.

 

Hopefully someone here has an idea, I'm way out of my league on this one.

[anokii]

Suggestions:

 

- definetly defrag - use a third party one - Windows utility is okay but you won't get the performance back like you would with a third party one - there are a number of free ones out there. Fragmentation is one of the killers for FO3 performance.

 

- Stop all unecessary background processes - it sounds to me like something is running in the background and grabbing too many CPU cycles or memory which is dragging FO3 down. What your proably seeing is not losing control of you character but delayed key strokes finely getting processed. I'd suggest finding a good guide on what services you can disable.

 

I know many on this forum will basically turn off everything they don't need (wireless, network, search, etc) to get maximum memory and performance. You can try a utility like "Game Booster" (free version available) which will basically shutdown all non-essential services for your gaming session. I've tried it and it's not bad.

[journe]

Alright, I'll try that Game Booster thing. I defragged with Auslogics, but it hasn't seemed to help much, which..isn't really surprising, as it reported only 3% fragmentation.

[d181sp1]

Random walking sounds to me like a keyboard issue.

[journe]

Random walking sounds to me like a keyboard issue.

 

I thought so as well, but for two things: 1) Keyboard's worked fine with FO3 since I started playing it..um..sometime last spring, I think. 2) No keyboard issues anywhere else, only problems are in Fallout. I just completed yet another reinstall, as it's crashing every 5 minutes, which is also very odd. In all this time, until now, it's been rare for me to see 3-5 crashes a week.

[journe]

Update: (also, sorry if it's not ok to doublepost for new info/bumping after a period of time) I forgot I recently uninstalled the .net framework and reinstalled version 1.1 to be able to use a mod installer for a different game, could this be causing my issues?

 

Edit: This hasn't helped either. I am officially out of ideas now.

[BigBodZod]

Update: (also, sorry if it's not ok to doublepost for new info/bumping after a period of time) I forgot I recently uninstalled the .net framework and reinstalled version 1.1 to be able to use a mod installer for a different game, could this be causing my issues?

 

Edit: This hasn't helped either. I am officially out of ideas now.

 

 

That is possible, .NET Framework v4 is supposed to be backwards compatible with apps built around v1.1 and up.

[journe]

That is possible, .NET Framework v4 is supposed to be backwards compatible with apps built around v1.1 and up.

 

Yep. For some reason, though, the San Andreas Mod Installer refuses to work with anything above 1.1. *shrug* I've got it fixed now, though, so s'all good.