Fallout 3 not multi-core compatible?

[CooCoo2]

Like everyone else I've been trying everything to get this darn game to run. Seems odd that I can run 14 yr old games fine, but Fallout and other certain games just don't like to run right. I've tried all the bogus interwebz tricks: codecs, live fixes, putting Fallout in Emulation mode, patches ...etc

The game still crashes. I did some digging and up came this:

http://pcgamingwiki.com/wiki/Fallout_3#Game_crashes_randomly

Good info here, and links to Live Disabler here at Nexus, and the Patch as well.

I also found out that apparently, Fallout does not like multi core chips above two cores? Not sure about that , but dusting the cobwebs out, i seem to remember this being accurate.

I found this link as well and sounds an awful lot like what most of us are having issue with. I haven't tried it yet, but maybe you guys might want to give it a go . Lots of people say this solves the issue with crashes and non starts .


by Nicholas Head 7. February 2009 00:35

Ever since Bethesda came out with the 1.1 patch for Fallout 3, I couldn’t play the game anymore. Once I got into the game and started wandering around, I’d randomly “freeze” up… the video would stop updating, but the sounds/music would still play. Keyboard clicks and mouse clicks did nothing, requiring me to ctrl+alt+del and kill the task manually.
It looked like I was SOL until the next patch, but I found some help online:

The game engine has some issues with processors that have more than 2 cores. You can force the game to only use two of them and it will stop the freezing. I haven't had it freeze once since I did this several days ago.

Open up the fallout.ini file in: My Documents\My Games\Fallout3

Find the line:

bUseThreadedAI=0

change it to:

bUseThreadedAI=1

Add another line after it and insert:

iNumHWThreads=2

This will limit the game to 2 cores and prevent the engine bug from causing the game to freeze.

Surprisingly, this worked like I charm. I do indeed have a quad core processor, so it sounds like this was the culprit. Why 1.1 broke the game for me.. I have no idea. It sounds like Bethesda needs to do some better testing on multi-core processors.


Hopefully this helps someone else out there!

[CooCoo2]

So futher digging brought up the best guide to get this game running I've seen. If you have issues and have not seen this guide please read it, might help?

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=464708211

[seany65]

You're right. It is odd that some games from years ago can be played but more modern games have trouble with more modern pcs. I've got XP and I've had games 'designed for' win XP not work at all, and yet game who's specs want Win98 and don't even mention Win ME work fine.

[CooCoo2]

Maybe it's a MS thing ? Look at GFWL...ouch, caused more headaches than it was ever worth. Then there is Direct X , another disaster , and then there is the Xbox. The Xbox was one of the biggest disasters to hit PC gaming,as it caused MS to stop all development on Windows gaming enhancements ,because they wanted people to buy an Xbox.

Now MS has the nerve to try and say they intended the Xbox to work in tandem with PC gaming? Yeah...sure, if the Xbomb was selling they wouldn't be using PC gamers as a crutch again to shore up crappy sales on Xbomb's . I can already see GFWl version 2 as MS isn't using Steam or other services to sell those Xbox exclusives to PC gamers.

C'mon Vulcan and Open source ! I can't wait until MS gets the heave ho!

[TheMastersSon]

Newer games demand more from PC components than older ones. So in at least some cases crashes are caused by excessive heat (cpu, video etc), system settings (e.g. overclocking that's not entirely stable), inadequate power supplies etc etc) that don't surface until the computer is adequately stressed. I've seen this many times, where nothing seems to help until the hardware is changed, or cooling improved, and voila no more crashes -- and they had absolutely nothing to do with the game software.