why cant i play Fallout 3 ?

Meridian · 1 Jul 2009 at 07:32

Mal X said:
why it doesn't crash in the Vault is odd.....this is common to nearly everyone, because you're inside the vault for quite some time....the open areas outside are more graphically intensive and it crashes far more in the Wastelands than it does down below in the subways or inside buildings.....very strange. ...... Crysis was very similar too, but didn't crash nearly as often....that used to crash most of all at auto save points.

i'll try everything mentioned

Inside the vault the CPU has little to do, whereas outside it has to start calculating the positions of all the nearby monsters, NPCs etc. There's also obviously a lot more graphics to be processed. I would guess that the same thing is happening here as happened with Oblivion: the game is just finding the weaknesses in your rig. I run a fairly seriously overclocked i920 and Fallout3 has never crashed on me. I've had a couple of lockups, but I know they are the graphics card overheating. And I'm running an Xfi as well, so I'm not convinced about that theory.

But what has been said about corrupted saves is true - except generally if the saves are corrupted the game will crash the moment the save loads.

M

Phobia_mp3 · 1 Jul 2009 at 07:37

Mal X said:
why it doesn't crash in the Vault is odd.....this is common to nearly everyone, because you're inside the vault for quite some time....the open areas outside are more graphically intensive and it crashes far more in the Wastelands than it does down below in the subways or inside buildings.....very strange. ...... Crysis was very similar too, but didn't crash nearly as often....that used to crash most of all at auto save points.

i'll try everything mentioned

It's not like my pc is bad, above the average. TBH wasn't that thrilled with the game to waste time investigating the error ... Never had any issues with crysis

Mal X · 1 Jul 2009 at 08:49

Meridian said:
Inside the vault the CPU has little to do, whereas outside it has to start calculating the positions of all the nearby monsters, NPCs etc. There's also obviously a lot more graphics to be processed. I would guess that the same thing is happening here as happened with Oblivion: the game is just finding the weaknesses in your rig. I run a fairly seriously overclocked i920 and Fallout3 has never crashed on me. I've had a couple of lockups, but I know they are the graphics card overheating. And I'm running an Xfi as well, so I'm not convinced about that theory.

But what has been said about corrupted saves is true - except generally if the saves are corrupted the game will crash the moment the save loads.

M

you could be right........i'm wondering if the game is crashing....due to the fact that my PSU is faulty and dropping volts/amps....maybe my PSU is dropping below minimum specs when it's straining hard in the Wastelands.

i notice the pc straining when it's playing Fallout 3...but playing VEGAS/FEAR...the sound of the fans is lower and constant all the time...but Fallout 3 also crashes when the pc is running quietly too

in addition...top end pc's are crashing all the time too.... so this does tend to rule this out..........it could be my graphics card drivers.

to be honest, it's not worth trying to sort out... it annoys me too much, life is too short.

Darg · 1 Jul 2009 at 10:14

Have you stability tested your rig lately? Do you keep an eye on the temperatures?

It could be as simple as a CPU instability or either your CPU or graphics card overheating.

Run Orthos DC and keep an eye on temps then download a graphics benchmark and keep an eye on the temps of your graphics card during that.

If your CPU goes over 80 then it will start to throttle. If you GPU goes over 80-90 then it will start to have problems.

Is your rig overclocked at all?

Mal X · 2 Jul 2009 at 01:48

yes, the card is overclocked to nearly max ( riva tune) gtx9800...the MOBO isn't and the CPU is slightly, to about 3. 1 or 2... i cant remember.
i do ocassionally monitor the CPU/MOBO temps and it seems ok.... but i'll pay attention to it more in the future...

if anything is overheating it'll be the CPU..... because i touch the graphics card often and it's very cool... but i'm replacing the PSU tomorrow and it's been faulty for about a year........pc never crashed before this time!

pc also crashes playing VEGAS.... PAINKILLER, but not nearly as often; about once or twice a night.... it just shuts down as if there's a power cut, no warning at all.... this shut down is all the time in F3

pc strains playing Fallout 3 . the fans/ drive speed up quite a lot....but pc remains stable playing VEGAS/FEAR/GRAW .

my old PSU was a Win ATX 650.....i'm getting OCZ tomorrow

Darg · 2 Jul 2009 at 09:48

Use HWMonitor to track your gpu temps. The heatsink being cool could just mean it's not getting proper contact with the GPU core itself.

Keep HWM running in the background and it will give you the max temp of the card and the CPU.

Definitely sounds like either a heat problem or a power problem. The new PSU might help.

Sir Random · 2 Jul 2009 at 13:52

Mal X said:
yes, the card is overclocked to nearly max ( riva tune) gtx9800...the MOBO isn't and the CPU is slightly, to about 3. 1 or 2... i cant remember.
i do ocassionally monitor the CPU/MOBO temps and it seems ok.... but i'll pay attention to it more in the future...

if anything is overheating it'll be the CPU..... because i touch the graphics card often and it's very cool... but i'm replacing the PSU tomorrow and it's been faulty for about a year........pc never crashed before this time!

pc also crashes playing VEGAS.... PAINKILLER, but not nearly as often; about once or twice a night.... it just shuts down as if there's a power cut, no warning at all.... this shut down is all the time in F3

pc strains playing Fallout 3 . the fans/ drive speed up quite a lot....but pc remains stable playing VEGAS/FEAR/GRAW .

my old PSU was a Win ATX 650.....i'm getting OCZ tomorrow

I would reset everything to stock speeds, and then retry F3. Just because temps are ok, it doesn't mean the overclock is stable under load.

Mal X · 2 Jul 2009 at 15:33

sorry, big mistake...my card is the GT8800.... Overclocked, but today i reduced the overclock to about half its original value on Riva tune.

i've replaced the PSU today ( first time ever) , a few spare cables/ sockets, it looks a right mess, it needs some cable ties...it also needs a manual to tell you what cables go where.. i just guessed

but it worked first time.... gamed for 5 minutes and it seems ok, but no longer, far too hot today......OCZ psu seems totally stable, no capacitor noise etc....but the fan is loud.

i will replace the CPU thermal paste tomorrow....that definitely needs doing as i've removed the cooler quite a few times without ever reapplying paste..( didn't realise in the past)

cpu temps today after gaming for 5 mins were 40 and 44 degrees.... card temp about the same ( Vegas 2)

Mal X · 3 Jul 2009 at 22:18

ok so i fitted new OCZ PSU 600W.........removed CPU cooler...cleaned and re- thermopasted it.........downloaded new graphics drivers.

pc is now running miles better..like it once was, played Fallout 3, it crashed only once; but not like before, this time the screen froze and i just hit ctrl, alt, delete...and i was back into windows........... but it's always been like a power cut before.

pc doesn't make surging noise any more.........fans/hard drive are constant, it feels more powerful.

VEGAS 2 gave me a few problems at first in the menu area...mouse was not responding quick enough and lagging like crazy........ but after 2 shutdowns it's ok now...

fear 2/ steam......fine, running perfectly.

Fallout 3 also looked better and ran smoother, it crashed after i loaded a saved game...Dogmeat was killed by Death Claws

.... this is a normal F3 bug.

CPU is 43 and 47 degrees under load........ card is about 31, mobo about 28....that's not bad considering it's so hot!

it's not overheating, i think the faults were :-....a seriously ****** PSU and old drivers, about a year old.

i've backed off the overclocking, the 8800 GT is now running at:-
715 core.......1787 shader.......1072.......memory, let me know if this is ok or if i can go higher

thanks

thevet · 4 Jul 2009 at 10:57

i have over 150 mods running and i get no problems at all tbh

my brother plays fallout 3 on his P4 intel pc at 1024 res on medium settings with a 7800gt gainward with no problems whatsoever

Darg · 4 Jul 2009 at 11:08

Good news Mal. If your cards that cool then you can try upping your overclock again and see if the problems come back. Keep an eye on your max card temps during gaming with HWMonitor while you test the overclock though.

Mal X · 11 Jul 2009 at 01:29

Darg said:
Good news Mal. If your cards that cool then you can try upping your overclock again and see if the problems come back. Keep an eye on your max card temps during gaming with HWMonitor while you test the overclock though.

cheers thanks, Fallout 3 still crashes but not nearly as bad as it once was :cool:

i'll get that hw monitor

Littlenose · 6 Aug 2009 at 21:58

I too am getting crashes / freezing occurring. It's mainly when I apprach a door that's about to open, or an aperture (like a window)... very frustrating as I was just starting to get into this game, but now it's like BioShock, and I'm wishing I'd bought it on the 360 to have more chance of hassle free gaming.

Minstadave · 6 Aug 2009 at 22:41

Mine freezes all the time, less so if I run as administrator.

Fenris · 6 Aug 2009 at 23:17

Meh, good luck sorting it mate, I know how annoying it can be.

My Fallout 3 is unplayable and has been for about a month for some stupid reason, crashes instantly on new game or load, tried every possible fix and nothing.

Really hacked off because I havn't had a chance to play Point Look Out or Mothership Zeta yet.

MEH!

gbradders123 · 6 Aug 2009 at 23:39

never had a crash, well excpet when my cpu got a bit warm, cant blame fallout 3 for that. took me two attempts to get into it, now i am in love!

Littlenose · 7 Aug 2009 at 06:57

4 freezes last night over a period of 3 hours, which is frustrating but not so much that i'll not play it... having fun so far

Raumarik · 7 Aug 2009 at 07:41

I found that running Xfire program crashed Fallout 3 as well as GFW

Klo · 7 Aug 2009 at 09:16

Piracy talk will not be tolarated!

CaptainRAVE · 7 Aug 2009 at 09:54

Works fine for me! Got all the DLC and a load of mods. Used to crash sometimes with higher overclocks on my CPU, but since I have pulled it back a little the game has been running fine.