Fallout Series

[EggChen]

I do have Autosave on, I'll try disabling it.

I have reinstalled Fallout 3 for the third time now, still same problem, this time I didn't patch the game to see if that was the issue... guess it is not.

I have a couple of other things to try tonight, I read in a games mag that GPU tweak programmes can cause problems. Now I use Rivatuner to control fanspeed only, no OC, but I'll try disabling that as well.

[rockingmtranch]

I believe I have my Fallout3 fixed. I'm playing on Ultra High, no overclocking of anything, anti-virus running in the background (for testing purposes) and all BIOS set to default. Runs beautiful. What I did was, I installed **choke** Vista Home Premium **cough** and with the exact same hardware, the game is glitch free (knock on wood). Specs to follow:

Vista Home Premium 32-bit
BFG GTX260 OC and GS Series BFG 650 Watt power supply
XFX GeForce 8200 MCP Socket AM2+ Motherboard
AMD Athlon 64 X2 4600+ Socket AM2 BOX CPU @2.4GHZ
OCZ SLI 8192MB PC6400 DDR2 800MHz (4x2048MB)
ZEROtherm Butterfly CPU Cooler BTF90
Mitsubishi 320 Gig SATA HD
120mm multi light case fan with adjustable speed

Running XP Home was nothing but freezing, stuttering, and crashing on ANY setting. Changing settings never made a difference. I **choke-gag** was never going to purchase any Windows products again (not even a Microsoft Mouse) so I'm basically coming out to y'all here. Games for Windows is what I want to play so I had to bite the bullet (6 inch round from a Destroyer) and upgrade from my old, old XP. After replacing ever single piece of hardware, tweaking BIOS and other settings until my hair had all fallen out, I didn't know where else to turn. If I run into any problems, rest assured I will be back here and tell ya.

[jamie1992]

Started making my own Vault, Naming it Vault 31.

http://i36.tinypic.com/2nlwvpd.jpg

Its only a start, the end result will be a HUGE complex, with many twists added to it, and will have its own little backstory and everything else.

Would have made it show up in this post, but it complained about Pixel height etc, so ill just leave the link there.

[audioave10]

Rockingmtranch...is your Vista 32bit or 64bit? It is important that
we know which one it is since these latest games are a bear to get going for some if not all of us.
Good Luck with your new OS!

Jamie...looking forward to a Vault Mod if you should decide to release it.

[rockingmtranch]

Sorry about that. I edited the post to show 32-bit. I struggled over the decision between the two and read enough trouble with 64-bit to go this route.

[EggChen]

I'm 64 bit, and can honestly say apart from the lack of Zone Alarm, I have had no problems... that is presuming my Fallout 3 problem is not a 64bit issue. It does not seem to be from the forums.

An update, I have tried everything posted on the forums and here, still no joy. I have a £20 game collecting dust, and not even installed. Lets hope a patch sorts it out, as I really wanted to play this game, I loved Oblivion and that type of game in the Fallout world is awesome, at least the bits I could see in my short game.

Next... I don't know, wait for a patch or install XP on a partition to see if that works with this game!!

[jamie1992]

My install of Fallout on XP fell apart, serious, worked alright for about a week, after that it just did not want to do ANYTHING, wouldnt load games, start new games, change levels, nothing, so i uninstalled it after 3 reinstalls, and went to my vista partion, and its worked perfect for about a month now maybe more, i lose count, anyway my XP fallout install went FUBAR for no reason at all.

Everything was still exactly the same as it was when i started, it just fell apart, kinda odd.

[rockingmtranch]

Hmmmm....that is odd Jamie. I felt for sure this problem was hardware related until I change OS and now all my problems are gone. Now you have me worried that it is only a matter of time. Here's a quick thought....I save my saved games folder (Fallout3 only) and it was 412 mb. Could the saves fattening up like that be causing some problems? Maybe a way to thin them out?

[jamie1992]

Hmm, i dont think the saves folder size is the problem, i think its just the game install being GHEY, not sure mate, time will tell i suppose, maybe we could all keep our eyes out for any signs of problems and maybe we can find the culprit after awhile?

[rockingmtranch]

I just realized also that all my saves were from XP. Hmmmm...

[audioave10]

I HAVE read where the savegame folder can get too full. Some got
their game running better by disabling the autosave feature. As I
play, I delete older saves I don't think I'll need. It's worth a try and
a 400MB save game folder some claim was slowing their game down.

[rockingmtranch]

Well my save game folder went from 412mb to 977mb in two days. Dated back to Nov 14 for crymanys sake. And at this point, all new saves were almost 5mb. I deleted most and ONWARD HO! (even though, still no problems but why take chances?)

[EggChen]

Well I appear to have found the fix, but I'm still annoyed.... why buy a quad core, when a game released a considerable amount of time after quad cores hit the shelves cannot cope with it!!!!!!!!!!

A guy posted this on the Bethseda forums, and it worked for everyone that tried it. I guess it makes the AI use a different thread, and limits the threads to 2, effectively giving me a dual core processor.

I had tried going to one core, still the crash, so I guess the AI had something to do with it as well, and this is the strange thing... it only happened in empty houses, so maybe a memory leak with the AI code or something? In basic terms,

Code: Select all

If AI_present == 0 then
       Crash
       Annoy the shit out of customers because we are a bunch of incompetent fuckwits
       Moan like a little girl when our next game is pirated rather than purchased
       Go out of business and get a job at McD's
End (Using Task Manager)

Anyway, all that aside, find your fallout.ini file in username/documents/my games/fallout 3 (at least in Vista) and add/change the following lines... the first line should already be there, change it and add the second line.

bUseThreadedAI=1
iNumHWThreads=2

I have been running around a small house for ages without problem, before it was always less than a minute.

Now to start a new game....

[audioave10]

Egg...I posted that for you on page 7...you silly person.

[EggChen]

Maybe I did it wrong last time or something (I've tried so many things its ridiculous).... or something else I have tried since is needed as well....

Thanks Dave!!

Edit: Come to think of it, this install (4th one) is not patched, I wonder if that was causing problems as well.

[audioave10]

The 1.015 patch is for Securom to work right with the launcher. It
does not help the game. That's why you should install from the disk
and not the launcher. Then make your own shortcut from the on-disk Fallout 3 .exe. No disk needed that way although I am talking about the US version. 2008 is the worst year ever for PC games as
we are all beta testers!

[rockingmtranch]

2008 is the worst year ever for PC games as
we are all beta testers!

Boy, you got that right

[EggChen]

Well, I am really getting into this game now!! Have stumbled on a few neat battles between Raiders and Scavengers... one Raider wielded a flamethrower so I took him out first, then the Scavenger I was helping grabbed the weapon and toasted everyone including me. Also, I love the mini-nuke explosion when you blow up a car. One went up in the town of Minefiled with about three mines around it, looked awesome.

It does seem a bit easy though, I have not even left Megaton and the surrounding area and I am tooled up!! Playing it on hardest of course.... Which brings me to mods, I'll be looking for one that gives ammo some weight.... it seems odd that you can carry 30 fragmines without any weight penalty (I sweeped the town of Minefield to get them all). Too many weapons?

Sniper rifle
Hunting rifle
Assault Rifle
Shishkebab
10mm pistol
Combat Shotgun
More ammo than I could use.... for the pistol and assault rifle anyway.

Just off to the SuperDuperMart, and those Raiders will not stand a chance (I got that far before my crashes started last time).

[rockingmtranch]

I rather enjoy the no weight ammo. Sure it's not realistic but when I'm facing one or more Deathclaws, there just isn't enough in my bag!!!!