Fresh Install Freeze Problems

[maboru]

Having gotten a little burned out on Skyrim I decided to go back to some good ol' Guns and Grenades action. I reinstalled FO3 GOTY, having played it before many times on this rig with little problem, this time I have a few that I never experienced before.

 

Freeze On Save Game Load - At first I just rebooted to get it to work but I remembered that starting a new game and immediately hitting esc when the cut scene starts allows a save game load. No problems in game though.

 

Freeze On Exiting The Game - I seem to recall that there was a simple fix for this that escapes me at the moment and my searches have come up empty. No freezes or CTDs in game either.

 

Readius Pip Boy Light Won't Turn On - I remember having this problem before but can't recall how to fix it, I think it was fairly simple though but again searches came up empty.

 

The game still plays great at a constant 60fps with hi-res mods and all and these little irritations are certainly not game breakers because they're the only glitches I have. However since I've played it before entirely glitch free I'd like to get back there. The only changes I made this time were adding the unofficial patches and Fallout Remastered. I've checked and cleaned all my mods (that don't specifically say 'Don't Do That!') with FO3Edit and Bash Patched them. I haven't yet Mastered any because I haven't added all the new quest mods I want to try yet and I'll have to make a list of the mods that specifically say 'Don't Do That!' before hand.

 

If anyone (with a better memory than mine!) can help me out here I'd really appreciate that. If not then I'll keep working at it in between game sessions and post back here with what I find.

 

Thanks.

[eric31415]

For the freezing, did you remember to edit this line in your .ini?

 

bUseThreadedAI=1

 

And add this;

 

iNumHWThreads=2

[Jeoshua]

Crashing when Exiting:

 

Some mods do this. There is generally no telling how or why, there is no reason for it half the time. The game engine is just touchy that way.

 

Download and install Fallout Stutter Remover (You'll need FOSE for this). Run the game once, shut it down, then edit the ini file that is created in Data\FOSE\Plugins. You'll want to make sure Fast Exit is turned on. While you're in there, you can set some more features, or turn some off. If you're a frame rate nut, you'll want to turn OFF the Framerate features. By default they'll set you up with a maximum 30 FPS (but of course, a much smoother experience overall)

Edited January 21, 2012 by Jeoshua

[maboru]

@Eric31415, thanks but I never needed the core tweak before in FO3, FONV or Oblivion (i7-875) but I tried it anyway just now and it showed no effect. I think that fix is more for some rigs with in-game crashes than just load save and exit crashes.

 

@Jeoshua, thanks as well, I did filter all mods and ran Undelete and Disable References after removing Identical to Master records (it's amazing how many mods need that even with the BOSS suggestions, not to mention the unrecognized ones!) I even went through them and checked all the red conflicts and straightened out what I felt were oversights that needed correcting but I'm no pro. The Unofficial Patches and Fallout Remastered of course showed the most, but that's what they're there for and I had to make a few judgment calls on over-rides. I tried to keep it to a minimum with Remastered and ignored the minor name change stuff as long as I didn't get red on red at the end of the lines although I still can't figure out the NNAM - Canopy Shadow conflict loser stuff from the UOP and Remastered. I may have to reinstall your mod if I did screw anything up (I tried not to do anything too outrageous though keeping in mind the intentions for your mod and I'm not having any in-game problems.)

 

BTW- Your mod does make my game run much more enjoyably and I have endorsed it. However I'm thinking about dropping the UOP if it comes to that.

 

Edit: I'm also getting this from FO3Edit -

00:21] Background Loader: [Fallout Remastered.esp] Building reference info.

[00:21] Background Loader: <Warning: Unused data in: NAVI \ Unknown \ NVCI - Unknown> - Probably something I did but do you see this as a problem? (Oddly enough it's the only warning in my load, unlike my FONV!)

 

Again, the load save and exit crashes happened from the install before I went in with FO3Edit or ini tweaks and don't really bother me that much but that Readius no pipboy light is much more of an inconvenience. I really don't want to revert to the vanilla pipboy and I really wish I'd saved the old Fomod I'd made for Readius! (Actually, I still have one in FONV, I'll copy that one over and see if it works in FO3.)

[AlfredTetzlaff]

Hi,

about the light, If I remember correctly, the default key is "B". This setting should be changeable through the Readius options menu (also "B", hold for 3 seconds).

Hope this helps

[maboru]

Thanks Alfred, that's what I forgot - remap the "B" key! Unfortunately I also discovered that it was the Readius that was causing my problem of freezing on initial game save load so I uninstalled it and now I'm trying to track down that problem.

[maboru]

Okay, I finally got a chance to work it out.

 

The freeze on loading save games was due to Readius but by simply hitting "Continue" instead of "Load" starting the game works fine, it loads the last manual save and then I just load the quick save from there. ( I've found that the vanilla quick save works just great as long as you disable quick load and always load it manually.)

 

The freeze on exit was caused by Clean Deluxe GOTY (sorry Jeoshua, it just doesn't work on my rig.)

 

And of course the pip boy light problem was because I forgot to re-map the "B" key to my gameboard (and didn't bother with the readme because I've used Readius for so many years.) Thanks Alfred and I'm giving you Kudos for being so polite about my stupidity (all the searches in the world won't reveal the answer to a problem that doesn't exist!) ( Lesson Learned : Always read the readme's no matter how smart I think I are!)

[AlfredTetzlaff]

No problem, I made the same mistake when using the Readius for the first time. That's why I could remember :)

About you Loading freezing, are you talking about the menu freeze? I mean instead of showing you the save game list it freezes?

If so, there are 2 solutions which worked for me over the years on several playthroughs:

1. when the main menu is loaded don't click anything instantly, wait for at least one slide change (Background slides)

2. keep the number of save games in your save game folder low, for me around 30 was good. I just moved the old ones to a different location from time to time.

 

Another suggestion, don't use the in-game quick- and auto saves, they are a common culprit for save game corruption. Auto save can also cause crashes on fast travel, sleep etc.

To circumvent those problems I recommend this little gem: CASM. Always worked for me.

 

Happy hunting :thumbsup:

[maboru]

Thanks for the input. With all my Beth open world games I start from the xxSE loader and hit esc at the first screen to skip straight to the Options screen and after the cursor appears I always hit "Load " instead of "Continue". Clicking "Load" is where the freeze happened. I've never experienced the 'freeze while waiting for the Options screen to load' in any of the games (the bane of Skyrim for many!) [i actually played hundreds of hours on Skyrim, to the point of burn-out, without any problems worth mentioning.]

 

I always limit myself to 20 total save slots (after decades of computer gaming I've learned that that's more than I ever need but with Beth games you do need to watch your back!) When I hit that limit I just keep overwriting my oldest manual saves. I always disable all 'autosave' functions (except the 3 slot timed one in Skyrim) but was eventually forced to use CASM in FONV. Don't get me wrong, CASM is a great mod but I tend to quick save often and my save identifier numbers in FONV are now over 10,000 and there is some imposed maximum limit although I don't recall what it is. I also make sure to loot only what I really need and never drop items on the ground, only put them in re-spawnable containers, in order to minimize save game bloat (another bane of Skyrim!)

 

I've found that the vanilla 'quick save' doesn't cause me any problems as long as I do it while stationary, never while moving and especially never in combat. I found that it was the 'quick load' function that sometimes corrupted the save so I disable that by re-mapping F9 to a key I'll never hit by accident.

 

Readius was definitely to blame this time for the load game freeze but I have no idea why and has now presented a new wrinkle. While slowly increasing my mod installs (one at a time as always) I forgot to toggle AI back on with FOMM at one point and started the game back up. Of course all hell broke loose eventually but I also hit "Load" instead of "Continue" by mistake and it loaded up normally. I thought Readius fixed itself but when I opened it I noticed that my Readius was smaller and the map screen was all washed out (usable but ugly.) I then saw all the texture mishmashes and realized my mistake.

 

When I hit esc to quit the game the DarnUI help screen came up for some reason and wouldn't go away as the "OK" button wouldn't work and I had to three finger salute the game to quit. When I went back and corrected my mistake bt re-toggling AI and rebuilding my Bash patch, when I started the game again it showed the same Readius problem and the DarnUI help screen popped up again when I hit esc and I had to reinstall both of them.

 

Then when I got back into the game and everything seemed fine again I got the 'crash when trying to save' bug with the dreaded .temp instead of .ess. I had to use the old Oblivion hack of committing suicide to got back on track.

 

Which brings me to my next topic...