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Ok so I'm backlogged in my gaming (see half a dozen posts about kids and other stuff). I finally got around to updating to Win 7 and playing Fallout 3. However, I'm constantly constantly constantly running into crashes. I've tried every tweak I could find online and it STILL crashes like a mad dog driving a stick shift. I tried, among other things, a tweak limiting the number of cpu cores the game could access, a tweak involving the installation of the k-lite codec pack, lowering the resolution from 1920 x whatever, running without the pip boy radio playing, running with it playing, running in 1st/3d person modes, playing in XP service pack 3 compatibility mode….I have found no method that lets me play for more than about an hour w/o the game crashing. It seems to crash mostly outside, while running between (invisibly defined) zones.
I'm not using a state of the art pc–only an E6850, 2 GTX 280s–so obviously a generation behind, but still this game has been out a while so it should be a heck of a lot more stable than it is.
I'd hate to give up on FO3. I'm thinking maybe I'll try Oblivion again and see if it's stable–it was running fine in XP so I shouldn't have issues with Win7 (yeah right). So far my impression of Win7 is blah. Games at least *worked* in XP, and I had started FO3 and not experienced these kinds of problems.
I would appreciate any suggestions.
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Are you playing with mods? The exact same mods installed in the exact same order that you played on XP without crashing?
If not, I'd blame the mods, not win7.
Mods will cause a game to crash if installed incorrectly, or in the wrong order, or mixed with incompatible mods. Often crashes occur without apparent reasons (although there *is* a reason under the hood). As most players install a unique mod mix, it's difficult to compare one player's stability to another. Unless both of you install a very similar mix of mods in a very similar load order.
Reading Spike's mod list & load order is beneficial, especially her revised load order that works wihout crashing. Check your mods against her list & see if there are any glaring differences between your load order & hers. Then check your mod readmes for any known conflicts you might have missed.
Next week I will begin gathering mods for a FO3 install on win7. Unfortunately, that won't help you this weekend.
The only sure fire way to find the problem mod(s) is load & play a few at a time. Only add more when the current bunch works. There's another way to test when your mods are already installed: split them in half, test each half. Any half that crashes, split in half and test each half. Problem with that method as I see it is your load order never stays constant so when it comes time to add back the halves that don't crash….it's once again "load & play a few at a time."
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Just a data point. I played the game in xp without a problem. When I installed it in Win 7 64bit and used my last save it still runs pretty good but I get occasional freezes and one crash. It seems more unstable with Win 7. I'm not using any mods.
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FO3 is aggravating for many reasons--including that (re)installation takes a long time. But yep that's what I'm going to do: review Spike's mods and use the ones I like. Then go from there.
The crashes occur for me exclusively outside. It might be the ambient sound mod. Maybe I'll try first to disable that one.
I'll keep you guys informed of my travails.
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Eewwww, Scout, thanks for your data point. [Image Can Not Be Found] Googled that very issue last night: moving saves from XP 32-bit to Win 7 64-bit. It would be difficult to muster the will to start over if the game crashes (too often).
Interestingly (to me), when I tried to reinstall Steam on my new C:Win7 it "saw" my old Steam and downloaded games on (former C:XP) E: and thus did nothing at all. Didn't try to play any so it may not work. Now I'm wondering what will happen when I try to reinstall Fallout 3 on new C:Win7. Will it report the game's already installed on E:? This is rocking my set of world beliefs as we're taught from infancy that software/applications must be (re)installed from C: & put in the registry to work.
Edit: to add, for some inexplicable reason, forum software will not allow me to add a slash () to a drive letter. Slash that I put between ( and ) but is now removed, yet again.
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Hi Ernest,
Sorry to hear about your troubles. If you're pretty
far along in the game, there seems to be a bug that starts crashing your
game sometimes. I know I've experienced similar trouble in the past.
I've read about this online as well, but can't remember where.. A good
way to test that out is to load up a game from a few days ago when you
weren't experiencing the crashes, and run around outside for a while. If
it doesn't crash, you may just have a corrupted(?) save file.
That said, there is also a good chance that it is just your mods
(or one of them.) I thought I read that you had MMM installed somewhere.
I've always had trouble with this one. It's not so much that the mod
itself is bad, but that it's so big that often times other mods conflict
with it. Many mods have a normal version and an MMM compatible version.
But I wonder about all the mods that SHOULD have an MMM version but
don't. Turning that one off mid-game may cause some inconsistencies in
inventories and the like. Ambient sounds could also be a problem...
Have
you posted your load order somewhere? I'm no expert with that sort of
thing, (usually let FOMM order it for me, then tweak what looks
obviously wrong) but I don't mind taking a look at it to see if I can
spot something.
Best of luck and keep us updated. [Image Can Not Be Found]
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Thanks everyone for the suggestions! After days of messing with mods, I've finally gotten a version running again which is essentially
identical to the one I'd had before, with the difference that I cut a couple of quest mods, tried to lower the total number of mods, and
created a merged patch.
Thanks to Spike for posting about that fella who'd created a how-to video on installing mods. Though it was limited to a few of the big ones–FWE, MMM, WMK, EVE, and Project Beauty–it still introduced me to how to use FOMM and to the need to create a merged patch.
We'll see how this one goes.
—
EDIT: After much struggle, I mean MUCH STRUGGLE, an insanely epic kind of struggle, struggle like the first time playing Wizardry I in that dark area with all the spinners, struggle that only accurately can be described in bold italics, a Shadow of the Colossus-scale of struggle, and far too many reinstallations of everything, keeping in mind that installation of FO3 takes forever anyway, I learned 2 things: 1) apparently FOOK2 isn't compatible with FWE and there's no FOIP file to harmonize them; 2) NMC's texture pack in its original size may have been causing the crashes. So I'm reinstalling again leaving out FOOK2 and using NMC's "performance pack". I'll report back with the results.
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