fallout 3 makes my PC freeze altogether

[greenquesadilla]

since FO3 is so old, and having spent hours on end searching for results on the internet to no avail, i doubt i will get help for this. anyway, whenever i play for more than 10 seconds, everything in the game starts to lag/freeze up (first sound, then NPC behavior, then controls, then, if it hasn't already, fallout 3 stops responding). if i go for 20-30 seconds, my entire system freezes, forcing me to press the "power" button on my PC for it to stop. i've checked my heat and it is definitely not overheating.

 

i play on a laptop with vista, 4gb RAM, GeForce 9300M GS 512MB video card, Intel Core 2 Duo CPU T6400 @ 2.00GHz, and everything has been updated (drivers, directX, etc).

 

i use gamebooster to disable all background programs and have tried disabling all of my mods. i have also tried adding "bUseThreadedAI=1" and "iNumHWThreads=2" to my fallout.ini. on top of that, i lowered my grids to load to 2.

 

if it makes any difference, i play with an xbox 360 controller. FO3 is the only game that does this. skyrim, oblivion, and FNV work just fine for some reason.

[Ark of Truth]

Load order please

[Kashiwaba Tomoe]

Is the GAME freezing, or JUST the controlls ?

 

It could be a codec issue, delete the music folder (at leat vanilla music) and it is fixed.

 

Also, the game age has nothing to do with it, it's Bethesda's incompetence at bug testing, and generally not giving a fuck.

If it IS the bug Im refering to, it's one that dates back to Oblivion, to give an idea how little they give a fuck.

[greenquesadilla]

Load order please

 

how do i get the list with NMM? i've switched to that lately.

 

It could be a codec issue' date=' delete the music folder (at leat vanilla music) and it is fixed.[/quote']

 

i just tried that. i ended up with the same problem, but without any music.

 

...and yea, from experience, it is clear that BS (bethesda softworks) stopped caring about bug fixing after making so much money off of these games over the years.

[Kashiwaba Tomoe]

just post a screencap at least of the loadorder in NMM

 

Also if its anything like FOMM, under load order there should be a copy to clipboard option.

 

edit: yeah, look at the decline in quality and the dumbing down of games since Daggerfall.

 

Hell look at how they utterly fucked up Fallout.

 

If the gaming press wasnt too busy sucking cock, they'd have a field day with 'they call THIS a RPG' articles.

[greenquesadilla]

here is my load order

[Kashiwaba Tomoe]

Also have you tried BOSS ?

 

Also, is this a new issue ?

 

IF so, deactivate a mod a t a time, until it works.

[greenquesadilla]

Also have you tried BOSS ?

 

Also' date=' is this a new issue ?

 

IF so, deactivate a mod a t a time, until it works.

[/quote']

 

i thought BOSS was included with NMM. also, i have deactivated all mods, set every setting to a bare minimum, downloaded the K-lite codec pack and added the exception for "fallout3.exe", and the problem still won't go away. maybe i should get my xbox copy back from a friend and just stick to the console version?

[KainsChylde]

BOSS Masterlists are implemented with NMM, but it doesn't currently do anything. You still, for now, need the independent BOSS program.

[greenquesadilla]

BOSS Masterlists are implemented with NMM' date=' but it doesn't currently do anything. You still, for now, need the independent BOSS program.

[/quote']

 

okay, now i used BOSS for the load order. the game still slowly comes to a halt, but instead of freezing after around 10 seconds, the game freezes after around 20 seconds. at least that is progress (?).

[Kashiwaba Tomoe]

Just to be sure, try FOMM.

 

Doubt that has anything to do with it, but worth a shot.

[johneb]

Fallout 3 was really hard for me to get to play also...it would CTD every time I tried to leave the vault.

Seems there was something I implemented that 'fooled' the game into thinking it was using a single core machine...sorry I can't remember exactly what I did but I finally got FO3 playing fine.

Sorry to namedrop but Gregathit was a great help to me and he could possibly aid you.

[greenquesadilla]

Fallout 3 was really hard for me to get to play also...it would CTD every time I tried to leave the vault.

Seems there was something I implemented that 'fooled' the game into thinking it was using a single core machine...sorry I can't remember exactly what I did but I finally got FO3 playing fine.

Sorry to namedrop but Gregathit was a great help to me and he could possibly aid you.

 

i think i know which line of the fallout.ini you are talking about. going to test it.

 

edit: never mind, that actually made matters worse.

[greenquesadilla]

okay, so i editted the fallout.ini set "bEnableAudio=0" and "bEnableAudioCache=0" and the game worked fine. apparently it is an audio problem. i did the codec fixes so idk what is wrong.

 

did more testing and found that "bEnableAudioCache=0" wasn't what made it work. "bEnableAudio=0" is what fixed it. however, playing fallout with no sound is like being deaf.

[Kashiwaba Tomoe]

Next question: Does oblivion have the same problems too ?

 

Many parts of the audio system of the engine are horribly fucked, I know some other folks beside myself that have had the same issues with both games.

 

Basically, Bethesda doesn't give a fuck about fixing shit.

[greenquesadilla]

Next question: Does oblivion have the same problems too ?

 

Many parts of the audio system of the engine are horribly fucked' date=' I know some other folks beside myself that have had the same issues with both games.

 

Basically, Bethesda doesn't give a fuck about fixing shit.

[/quote']

 

since oblivion uses the same engine and is working for me, maybe i'll look to see if anything i tweaked there will help with FO3.

 

anyway, yea, sadly it seems it is up to the players to fix their games, for pc at least. for some reason i've always had better luck playing console versions (except skyrim for ps3) of bethesda games.

[Kashiwaba Tomoe]

If you're in the mood to get banned or flammed by fanbois and ignored by staff, go to the Bethesda forums and ask them why they don't bother to fix their shit.

[greenquesadilla]

http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1442346

this guy had a similar issue, but no one answered him.

 

http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1399670

this guy said he somehow fixed the problem by installing the game STALKER, but i don't have much space that i am willing to spare so i can't do that fix.

[Slammer64]

You might try this if you haven't already:

Open up the fallout.ini file in: My Documents\My Games\Fallout3

Find the line:

bUseThreadedAI=0

change it to:

bUseThreadedAI=1

Add another line after it and insert:

iNumHWThreads=2

This will limit the game to 2 cores and prevent the engine bug from causing the game to freeze.

[greenquesadilla]

You might try this if you haven't already:

Open up the fallout.ini file in: My Documents\My Games\Fallout3

Find the line:

bUseThreadedAI=0

change it to:

bUseThreadedAI=1

Add another line after it and insert:

iNumHWThreads=2

This will limit the game to 2 cores and prevent the engine bug from causing the game to freeze.

 

unfortunately, i've already tried that. i think that the problem is some sort of codec issue, since it is only the sound that is causing the freezing. when i disable it in fallout.ini, the game works perfectly, except for the fact that there is no sound.

 

i think i am going to try disabling one codec at a time to find the source of the problem, but that will take a very long time.

 

EDIT: screw this. i just going to say "forget it" and uninstall this crap. i'll just buy it again for xbox. having spent a week and all of my free-time that i could been using to hang out with friends, i wasted it trying to get this shit to work. oh well, thanks for the effort guys. i got more help here than anywhere else. even though the suggestions didn't work, its the thought that counts, i suppose.