Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Fallout 3 keeps freezing when I'm playing.

It works fine for the first 45 minutes of the game, but once you get into the overworld it only lasts a few minutes before freezing up.

I have no mods and its running on the lowest graphics level.

BTW its the Game of the Year edition if that helps.

I found that this helped me, just the changing values bit, not the downloaded dll.

Step 3: Open up the Configuration file in Notepad, (Which should be named "Fallout_default")press Ctrl+F and find the following line of text. NOTE: THIS IS CASE SENSITIVE

bUseThreadedAI=0

You must change this to:

bUseThreadedAI=1

Step 4: Directly underneath the changed line of text, create a new line and type:

iNumHWThreads=2

Step 5: Save the config file and then close. Then try to launch Fallout 3.

I always recommend trying direct x 9 on these older games if they are misbehaving.

Just add -dx9 on the launch options

Fallout 3 GOTY is not, by default, compatible with Windows 7.

You can minimize some of the crashes by following the steps here but ultimately you're going to have some level of instability regardless.

Check out one of the other dozen odd threads on this topic in this board too.. Oh, not being snide, I just remember posting helpful links to patches and mods that increase the game's performance and reduce crashes in a few of them.

Sorry, Dakka's search engine is crap. I figured there were other threads but I couldn't find them.

Oddly enough, I reset the graphics to default(which is High) and it actually works for at least 30-45 minutes before crashing.

Thanks for the info people.

Yeah it is. It'd be nice to just be able to search for topics with a certain word, then have only those topics displayed (rather than the current system which chucks out every post with the instance of the word in one big list). Someone needs to bother Lego about it. =P

I turned up this thread, and another one discussing Fallout 3 crashing. I don't know if they're relevant, but you'll see my generic bug fix post in each of those. Google "Fallout 3 Crash Dakka Dakka" and filter results for Dakka and you'll turn up more probably (or have a go at the Steam forums, though YMMV).

Though... I'll say that I ran both 3 and New Vegas on a laptop with Windows 7 a few months ago and didn't experience any problems related specifically to the OS. I mean the games crashed at least a couple of times in one session, but that's normal with games on that engine. ...Which is to say, are you sure its down to your OS and not just the unstable games? Download the mods/patches that I linked in those posts and see if they help (then go and download a couple of hundred other mods after those. Those games are so much better when their modded to all hell).

There's a certain amount of mitigation that you can do but ultimately, you have to accept that the engine used for Fallout 3 (and to a lesser extent, Fallout: New Vegas) is pretty crappy and buggy. Get into the habit of saving often.

 filbert wrote:
There's a certain amount of mitigation that you can do but ultimately, you have to accept that the engine used for Fallout 3 (and to a lesser extent, Fallout: New Vegas) is pretty crappy and buggy. Get into the habit of saving often.

My finger pretty much lives on the quick save key whenever I play Bethesda games.

Ironic then that quicksaving actually causes more crashes.

 Wyrmalla wrote:
Ironic then that quicksaving actually causes more crashes.

As someone who tends to get involved in some games, spamming quicksave pretty much prevents me forgetting to save and ending up losing it all to a crash.

Ah, I just mean that quicksaving leads to the game becoming more unstable (it doesn't like the way files are just created willy nilly). Conventional autosaving's fine though. To work around this there's a mod that saves your game every couple of minutes (or whatever time you set it to). That said, quicksaving's still a necessity I think. Eugh Bethesda code your games better.

 Grey Templar wrote:
Sorry, Dakka's search engine is crap. I figured there were other threads but I couldn't find them.

I use google directly and it works for me. To do so, go to google (obv) and enter your search term and then add site:dakkadakka.com to the end, as so:



It's handy for issues beyond the one at hand, of course.

wow, 45 minutes? Mine crashed when I tried to pick my stats...and for some reason I couldn't see any of the mustache/beard/hair options on character select. my character was always bald with no facial hair no matter what i did with the slider.

Not going to lie, Fallout 3 is the most buggy, temperamental, and unstable non-"in permanent development" game I have ever experienced ( with the possible exception of Mechwarrior 3. Its "flip a coin upon install. If heads your hardware is compatible, if tales you will never be able to play this game without pulling the guts out of your computer" factor was legendary even on windows 98...imagine trying to get it to boot on 7. The soul crushing irony is that I can actually get it to run stable and look good, but I can't record it without crippling graphical errors in the recorded game-play footage).

There's a guy on Youtube that goes by the username Zemalf that did like a 153 video Let's Play of Fallout3 with some realism mods and I don't remember seeing his game die. Not saying it's a workaround, but if you message him, he's a pretty nice dude, and you might get an answer on how to resolve some issues.

He runs a pretty insane rig too, so I don't think it's a hardware issue. Maybe compatibility mode may resolve an issue or two?

On the topic of gameplay,

DANG is it hard to keep a steady supply of ammo handy. And staying healthy is a chore.

I will say it definitely feels like a post-apocalyptic survival situation. A more updated version of this game, on par with Skyrim, would be really awesome.

The game does tend to have large areas where they really isn't anything of note. Spaces between buildings, pointless allyways, etc... that don't add a whole lot to the game. And its hard to pick your way through the cities. Too many impassable areas that make it feel a little funneled as to where you should go.

In the base game ammo and strimpaks are ridiculously easy to find. Even with realism mods there's still way too much if you spend your time searching (at least in New Vegas is justifiable given that the Gun Runners are active in the region). Were you playing with a mod that reduced the spawn rate to 10% of its original values?

I liked 3 because of its emptiness. I used mods like Fallout 3 Interiors, which added an interior to most buildings, to stick things in those sparse locations when you come across them. New Vegas just packed so much in, which was nice, but I'dve liked to have just wandered for a bit without constantly finding things for a bit. Hopefully Fallout 4 will follow through with the advances that Skyrim made in terms of making interiors more interesting. Obsidian's games may have better writing, and link in with the original games more, but I do kind of like just the scale of Bethesda games.

...That said I foresee having to mod the hell out of Fallout 4 of course. I don't think I even made one playthrough of Skyrim without some sort of mod installed (points to buying the game a month after everyone else).

Maybe I just burn through ammo too fast.

I can usually keep .32 ammo around, and energy cells are no problem, but 5.56 and shotgun ammo is much tougher.

And I have a bunch of useless 5mm, at least until I get a minigun.

 Grey Templar wrote:
On the topic of gameplay,

DANG is it hard to keep a steady supply of ammo handy. And staying healthy is a chore.

I will say it definitely feels like a post-apocalyptic survival situation. A more updated version of this game, on par with Skyrim, would be really awesome.

The game does tend to have large areas where they really isn't anything of note. Spaces between buildings, pointless allyways, etc... that don't add a whole lot to the game. And its hard to pick your way through the cities. Too many impassable areas that make it feel a little funneled as to where you should go.

I don't know if you've played New Vegas, but trust me, the setting and scenery in 3 are much better.

Ah right, at least in New Vegas you can break down your ammunition and recreate it as different calibres (should you have the casings for them, or the required perks). But use enough mods and every ammo type is worth something somehow - even ones that add in loads of new ones and tons of guns. Still, my playstyle's not really one that just unloads lead all over the place, rather I just find a decent semi-auto with good damage then aim for the head (I made it all the way through 3 and New Vegas with an AK-74. Well barring the end of 3 where even loaded up with AP rounds I was burning through a few clips to take down a single Enclave trooper. Bloody power armour. ...Though I suppose that's what grenade pistols are for).

I do remember right at the start of fallout 3 having major resource problems. The problem was, going into an area, you were using just as much ammo killing the guys there as you were finding.

However, as more variants of guns turn up, you very much soon reach a tipping point where you're just blazing away with whatever you want, however you want.

I played both games (and Skyrim) with a damage mod installed. The base games seem to be set up so enemies are a bit bullet spongey. I prefer for people to be a bit more fragile however. So unless you're wearing armour (and even if you are depending on how good it is), in my own modded version of the games it was possible to kill someone (or for them to kill you) in a couple of shots at the most. ...That does however come afoul slightly due to the high number of enemies that spawn in one location though.

Personally I think that both of the newer Fallout games gave players too much resources. I didn't like going into a run down convenience store and finding it full of items just sitting out in the open. I mean its not as if there's a guy just roaming about plonking down crap for you to find. Rather I prefer post-apocalyptic games where loot is rare unless you search particularly hard for it and apply some skills like lockpicking (items inside cabinets may not have been looted, though that's iffy). I think I had a mod installed that ran a script over my other modded loot lists so that there was a 60% chance for the player not to find anything (excluding junk items like bits of paper, screws, etc).

...But that's all just how I like to play those games (and Skyrim to an extent with its tombs - I even altered the loot lists in that game so certain currencies would appear based on the location. No modern coins in dungeons, rather it'd be ancient Nordic ones. Or in cases foreign coins from Akavir, or old Imperial ones may turn up). I liked the start of the games because you'd be using whatever piece of junk you could get working and find the ammo for. As the games progressed, yes I wound up being able to be more selective about my gear. However, in Fallout 3 especially (the Gun Runners skewed New Vegas a tad) I seldom felt like I could just empty out a half dozen clips during a single outing. Like in Metro 2033 the inclusion of junk ammo was a great addition for my own survivalist type playstyle. It was fun to be able to scrounge up your old casings (there's a mod that has them drop on the ground after being fired so you have to pick them up rather than have them dumped in your inventory) and use them again eventually (though with a higher chance of messing up your gun than brand new bullets). Weighing your last magazine in your hand (another mod that caused guns to not automatically reload themselves to full, but rather based on how many bullets the mag was filled with) and seeing the message, "it feels light", as a group of Raiders sling plasma at you's never a good moment (though that's what the sprint button and a crowbar's for - uh, the crowbar's from a mod that breaks open locked doors).

Bleh, whatever. ...I have a thing for the series/ post apocalyptic setting. I need to give S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Call of Pripyat, Misery (that hardcore survivalist makeover of that great game) a go again. =P

Well at least Skyrim made ranged attacks do more damage. They were almost worthless in Oblivion.