Zephyr102 Posted July 12, 2011 Share Posted July 12, 2011 (edited) Alright, this is a new one on me. I remember sporadic lag bombs, but it was NEVER this bad, or I wouldn't even be reg'd here. So it's been a while since I played Fallout 3. After some dabbling and a couple video driver updates, tho, I've had the urge to pick up and replay the ol' DC experience in near-Vanilla form (fond memories of Liberty Prime chucking mini-nukes at "Communist" Enclave). But she's bein' an ornery bugger- even more so than I remember. After a reinstall, patching, some INI tweaks, reverting back to the default INI, minimal settings and zero mods (not even Broken Steel), and MORE patching thru the God-forsaken Windows Live thing, it starts up fine. But without (or with much?) fail, it completely drops my GPU within a minute of gameplay (even faster if I enter combat), and "Frames Per Second" literally becomes "Seconds Per Frame." Even exiting the game becomes an excruciating task, let alone getting out of the vault. Everything else I've been playing has been running fine and looking good doing it, but one stubborn old Gamebryo title still takes my rig down a notch. Is this the doing of the aforementioned nVidia drivers? Did I miss an INI tweak? Halp! Rig specs are in my sig. The setup has run FO3, Oblivion, and many other high-demand games well enough in the recent past. Edited July 12, 2011 by DJZephyr Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Eiries Posted July 12, 2011 Share Posted July 12, 2011 Beh... Fallout 3 would tend to run like crap with my 9800 GX2 regardless of what settings it was on. I could dump the resolution until everything was a blur, exteriors would still turn into a chopfest after a couple minutes. Interiors as well, but it was less noticeable. I'm gonna go out on a limb, cross my fingers, and say there's nothing wrong with your GPU and it's just Fallout being lame. If you haven't tried it yet, get this. It really helped me out when I was in your predicament... it won't make it run perfect, but it'll at least be playable again (hopefully.) PS: I eventually upgraded to a Radeon HD 6950 after the 9800 went caput. Made all the difference in the world, Fallout 3 runs smooth as glass now. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zephyr102 Posted July 12, 2011 Author Share Posted July 12, 2011 (edited) Gah! Knew I was forgetting sumtin. Some of those optimization mods are indeed lifesavers. Will drop her in and give it another go. Would love to upgrade my rig again- an SLI'd pair of spankin'-new GTs, moar RAM and Windows 7 would be l33t- but I'm flat broke for the time being. Well, it seemed to help a BIT, but it still stops using my GFX card after a minute or two. I hate doing hard wipes, but I'm runnin' out of ideas for this one.... Edited July 12, 2011 by DJZephyr Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BlackRampage Posted July 12, 2011 Share Posted July 12, 2011 Have you tried such a simple thing as lowering the graphics settings? With that rig you might want to turn both anti-aliasing and anisotropic filtering completely off. Speaking about ini tweaks: have you tried this one?(make sure to backup your old one first) Also, how come you haven't updated your direct x to version 11? And don't forget to have your graphics card(s) drivers updated to the latest version. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zephyr102 Posted July 12, 2011 Author Share Posted July 12, 2011 (edited) Re-read my post- I tried running at absolute-minimum-everything, save my screen resolution. Didnt even switch on FOSE or any mods/DLCs. And this thing USED to run FO3 with quite solid visuals all the time. As for my DirectX version, 9c is the latest version compatible with Windows XP. 11 is designed specifically for Win7, which I don't yet have the funds for. Tis why I'm not blowing things up in Just Cause 2 just yet... Good call on the Extended INI, tho- another tidbit I personally forgot about. Will give it a shot tonight. Well, that didn't work. Neither did an uninstall, followed by a full wipe and clean reinstall. Hell, this damned rig is even having a hard time telling it's my one and only (and 100% genuine) GOTY main disc- the launcher seems to want to believe it's a backup.Figures- the one game I have the urge to play again is the one game this worthless pile of circuits refuses to run. FOOK it, I surrender for the night... will wrestle with cranky bits later... Edited July 13, 2011 by DJZephyr Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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