Need help with crashing/freezing.

fang06 · September 20, 2011

ok i thought i would come on here and ask for some help since i started playing FO:NV again. i have played nearly 400 hours on this game and have dealt with the constant crashing and freezing that happens between 10 and 30min of gameplay ever since i bought the game and installed it. it does not matter what i am currently doing it either crashes and gives me the "fallout new vegas has encountered a problem and needs to close" or it will just simply stop responding while all audio continues to play forcing me to end the process, now i know my computer is old and is nearing the paper weight stage but in these times i can not afford to buy a new computer or build one. for people that want to know my specs im using:

Windows XP Professional Service Pack 3

Intel® Pentium® D CPU 2.80GHz (all my dxdiag says and yes.... its old)

ATI Radeon HD 4650

3070MB RAM

here is my dxdiag for any 1 that wants to sort through it

Reveal hidden contents

also my mod list:

Reveal hidden contents

i use FOMM for installing all my mods i use BOSS to sort them and i use FNVEdit to make merge patches when needed. i also have the NVConfigiator installed to help lower unneeded settings. i have tried many things to get the game to work but none of it does anything to help with the constant crashing/freezing. all my mods are updated to the latest version.

Edited September 20, 2011 by fang06

GrindedStone · September 21, 2011

Disable Autosave, Quicksave, and don't use the continue button from the main menu. Also don't overwrite any save games, as in ever... EVER! lol Press Esc each time, this pauses the game, then create a new save. Never add or subtract mods from the load order or change them in any way, as in, IN ANY WAY! lol It's better to comit to a load order than take any risk from you changing something after the game has started. If you gota change something wait until you are ready to start a new game. The game will auto correct if you change something, the problem is that it doesn't always work...

Long load orders need a merge patch because each mod overwrites the last mod where those two mods contents overlap, and the one that loads last wins. There is a lot of list type data, you got mod A mod B mod C. The first two mods A and B have these large lists of cool stuff, an so does mod C, but the game is going to ignore mods A and B because the person that created mod C didn't know or give a hoot about mods A an B. So Merge Patch or Bashed Patch creates a file that uses every file as a master, meaning anything can be put in it, for example a list of all the stuff in mods A B C all in one list.

If you have 100 mods, then about 25 of those mods (give or take) the creator didn't know or didn't care about cleaning the mod before uploading it. (psst, psst, most don't care because they are stoopid jerks lol extra points woo hoo) Identical to master records for example spread across a load order can cause just about any problem that a person can have, and most of the time it's random. Setting delete to disabled, clean masters, sort masters are also part of the cleaning process but cause single issues. IDM will cause what seems like global random issues an crashing as well.

65% of all computer problems are caused by Viral Malware. There is nothing (quote "nothing") you can do about this, short of unpluging your computer from the Internet an getting the updates for your O/S on disc in the mail (lmao yeah right) 6 months full time use or about a year part time use, will trash (quote "trash") the opperating system, however to a degree just using a computer will trash it over a 6 to 12 month period. Nothing runs as well as a freshly installed O/S on wiped drives (formated) You need a O/S install disc to do that, an most idiots don't have one, don't know how (or don't care :P lol)

I would argue that most gamers are total if not complete idiots, that being said most modders are gamers, an make their mod the way a gamer would, which if you have been keeping score "IS THE IDIOT WAY" lol This is all fun an jokes, but it represents 97% of all mods ever made for Fallout 3 an New Vegas (TES Nexus doesn't count because more than 3% of those people know what they are doing) The problem is when the end user comes in they have no idea about this so they pick mods based off how cool they are an get into a greed pit of distruction, breaking the game, from using stupid mods.

Avoid any overly complex mods, and certianly any mod which is even near stupid. Only the minimum amount you can not live without. This requires common sense. CASM is great and also clean, but if a person isn't lazy they can just press Esc an create a new save game that is one less mod, one less game mode script running. Same thing for iHUD it's great it's clean, but set your HUD to white color an 4 clicks from transparent, now you can just barely see it an it's harder to aim, making the game more fun, and basicly doing the same job as iHUD only without the game mode script.

Start with the Vanilla game, No DLC, no mods, nothing. Well nothing except for the largest sandbox style persistent worldspace games ever created. Fact is that if you don't play the vanilla game then you don't really know what mods to use or what the game even needs anyway. This is a great time to test the game to the max an see how well it runs. It's also a great way to get an idea for the next mod you want to create. Start there then slowly build something more one step at a time. Only what you need, not all that flashy problematic bullpoop. (quote "bullpoop") lol

deckel11 · September 22, 2011

Try playing without NVWillow. I tried for months to solve my own crashing/freezing problems which started for me around the time of patch 1.3. The other major change I made at that time was installing Willow. After trying EVERYTHING else, I finally gave up and uninstalled Willow. Like magic, my game became stable again.

GrindedStone · September 22, 2011

Nothing runs like a fresh install of the O/S. Mostly this is because installing the O/S also wipes the drive clean of all data, like those pesky spywares an viral malwares that are eating up 1/8 of your total system Ram. It takes about a full day to perform a total system install. Mostly due to windows updates for XP being over 200, along with the optional foundation softwares. Thankfully though you only have to do it once or twice a year. Start with the windows install disc an your activation code. Put that in, an reboot the computer, don't boot from disc. This should lead into the windows install, don't repair, install. This should lead you to the hard discs. You delete an set as Raw following the instructions, which leads to formating the hard drive, an then installing windows. It will launch an you pick settings. Then install drivers you have on disc. Open up set program access an defaults, add new programs, then click the windows update to start that really long update. Get yourSP1 SP2 SP3 updates first which have to be in that order to work. Then take the rest of the 200 high priority, an manually select any optional .NET frameworks, an any signed hardware it detects. You get all that junk on there, defrag it, set the page file. You'll need adobe flash player, java, direct X, Visual C++, an .NET framework pretty much. You should take the Windows media player update an Internet explorer update. Install Fallout, then defarg it again. hmmm I like defarg better... It's more lol than defrag.

fang06 · September 22, 2011

first thing first thank you both for replying. now on to the rest. grindedstone i have casm installed so i don't have to use auto-save function at all and i also don't use quick-load or quick-save. when i save it i always open the menu and make a new save. then when im done for the day i clean out my saves file and leave only my newest save i just made b4 i closed the game.

i do use a merged patch its just i did not include it in the load list, was the only thing i did not include in the load list.

speaking of malware/viruses i have my anti-virus i have installed McAfee (free with my service provider and does a decent job) i also have malwarebytes anti-malware (paid for) protecting my computer plus 1 other scanner that helps clean my registry, scans for a few malware files, and a few others. it has its own defrag in it but i only use the defrag that came with windows.

now about my mods i can uninstall about 6-9 more but most of my mods are compat patches that work for the DLCs/project nevada/WME. about the IHuD i use it for its function, as in it hides the ugly vanila HUD while im not in combat so its not taking up half my screen. i have a small monitor that uses max 1280x 1024 at 60hz (i have to use vertical sync or i have unbelievable frame skips, go from docs house heading up to the station and by the time my monitor catches up im halfway there).

now about the vanila game. i did play the game vanila for a MONTH after it was released. i bought it about 2 weeks after it was release as best buy had a sale for the pc version for half off lucky me as i just upgraded my computer with more ram and a video card. for that month me and my brother were playing NV it would crash about every 30 min even on vanila and no mods were installed.

now for your second post. it would take me atleast 2-3 days to install everything to get windows running properly as i have to get my account info from my ISP so i can get my anti-virus and try to find my modems driver disc. i do have my OS CD and the other driver CDs. paid $15 more for it when i bought my computer when i didnt know much 6-7 years ago from DELL.... i regret it so much now since i know how to build my own pc and how cheap it is compared to buying from big companys.

deckel11 i will uninstall willow for now and see if that changes anything. i do have the latest update for it and i did a clean install of it. i pefer to remove a mod and install everything again then to just update 1 single file. i will remove willow and a few other things and will get back to you and say if it works or not. will update my mod list to reflect it little later.

deckel11 even after taking Willow out it still crashes.

thought i should add this. i own 1 other steam game L4D2 and it doesnt crash even when i play it for 16 hours straight no interuptions and neither does the other 7 games i have installed on my comp.

Edited September 22, 2011 by fang06

michel92 · September 22, 2011

Quote
Never add or subtract mods from the load order or change them in any way, as in, IN ANY WAY! lol It's better to comit to a load order than take any risk from you changing something after the game has started. If you gota change something wait until you are ready to start a new game. The game will auto correct if you change something, the problem is that it doesn't always work...

Damn, you're a crazy one hahaha but I like your style, and you seem to understand what you're talking about. So, some questions: You really never change a load order in a given save? You wait until you start a new game? Not doing this would really compromise the stability of the game? Isn't a clean save enough?

Thanks in advance.

fang06 · September 22, 2011

wanted to add to this that when i kept getting the "fallout has encountered a problem and needs to close" window when i clicked the click here to see what cuased it it kept coming up with the l3codecx.ax file as the reason why it had encountered a problem. so i moved it out of my system32 folder to see if it would happen again since its not a CORE file and i was able to play for about 40 min this time till i received the error again. but this time it was caused by nvse_1_1.dll having a problem. keep in mind i went from 10m-30m of crashing (30m if i was really lucky and only stayed in the same cell doing stuff) to a 40min gameplay. after the second attempt to play it i froze in 10m of starting the game. i cant test anymore for the day as dawn is coming and i have to get off the comp. i do have the latest NVSE.

GrindedStone · September 22, 2011

I reckon the only way you will ever play Vegas on that computer is if you wipe the hard drive an start over. I know you don't want to hear it, but that don't change nuthin. Take a few days to get your things together *burp* favorite songs, pictures, work you did, save games, stuff you don't want to lose an dump that on a .rar disc. There are still a few things you can try over the next few days, but it's all going to be a big waste of time. Nothing more than experimental rumor. So focus on the parts that you want to copy to disc an keep, before you trashcan the lot of it.

1. You only have one hard drive an it's full of junk from what I saw in the dxdiag.

2. You can't learn how to build computers unless you learn how to install a O/S builds an foundation software.

3. You'll get a performance boost in XP, applications, and games.

4. You don't plan on buying a new computer until this one is smoked.

5. You had the FNV issue 12 months ago an you still have it now.

6. You don't want to waste time trying a bunch of random things to fix it.

7. You paid 15 bucks for the opperating system disc.

8. Dell dumps a lot of 3rd party poo on a install before shipping it.

9. You needed to update your BIOS 5 years ago an you didn't and this is more easy to do than that.

10. It feels good like a new computer does.

fang06 · September 22, 2011

ok first i have reformated and did that a year ago and i ddo know how to install a OS as i did go to a year long computer class a few years ago that taught me DOS and 95 all the way through to XP. but as i said i might have solved my crashing issues by taking the l3codecx.ax file out of my C:\WINDOWS\system32 folder. and before i did that i goolged the process found out what it was and looked at a few posts in other sites that ppl said they had problems with and when they removed or deleted the file it went away. i played NV for almost 2 hours before it decided to lock up while i was fast traveling to goodsprings. that is a massive improvement from the 10-30min gameplay i had before. and grinded i can tell you love reformating HD's and how "new" they feel but dont keep telling ppl to do it. yes it may solve a lot of problems but then again its a last resort.

GrindedStone · September 23, 2011

I've only told two people in 4 years. Is that last resort enough? It's been a year, guess what, it needs it again. Fallout or Vegas you should start with the patched Vanilla game an see how long you can play. A month of 4-8 hours game days without a single issue would be a good test run. You won't get that with the mods you have installed or the near full hard drive. I run XP 32 an I have the l3codecx. You understand how preposterous that is, right? The game uses mp3 wav an ogg. At any rate you don't have enough testing yet to say anything. Treat the symtom or treat the root cause? It's easy in diagnosis to get them mixed up. You have no control group, only a mess of possible causes and rumor. You are going to have to do something to lower the number of possible causes. If you can think of a better way to do that then speak up.

Fallout New Vegas

Need help with crashing/freezing.

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