Fallout 3 (not GOTY, old standard version) freezing constantly (W7HP)

So yeah, I bought FO3 way back when in early 2009, shortly before my desktop killed itself. I didn't get to play much of it before the computer died. But now I have my new lappy and it's plenty powerful enough to chew through FO3.

Or it would be, if it didn't lock up constantly.

FO3 will randomly freeze every few minutes and it doesn't seem to matter what I do. I have updated to the most recent patch and I have tried running it in compatibility mode with Aero disabled. I've tried using the GFWL disable tool. Nothing seems to help. It will continually freeze randomly, but seems to do so most often when opening the Pipboy or when manipulating switches or doors in the world.

It worked perfectly (albeit slowly) on my old computer, but it was very different from my new one. My old one was a desktop with a single-core Athlon 64 3500+ and nvidia 9600GT desktop graphics. The new PC couldn't be more different (Core i5-430M and Mobility Radeon 5650). Not to mention the old PC was running Windows XP Professional SP2 (x86), while the new one is running Windows 7 Home Premium (x64).

Now I know people have said that FO3 doesn't like quad-cores. I wonder if my i5's Hyperthreading is giving it fits. I've also heard not to install it in the Program Files directory. I haven't tried these things yet since I just read about them now, but I'll mess with it some tomorrow.

Any other suggestions?

 

It may be actually a driver (not graphics driver) problem. I made a thread last year describing my solution. It may help you: http://forum.notebookreview.com/gam...-solution-music-stuttering-freezing-game.html

 

I've done all that codec mess. I have the newest CCCP beta and I've made sure that ffdshow is disabled for fo3. Going to try the quad core fix and see if it does anything.

This is one of the few things that makes PC gaming somewhat annoying.

Edit: Limiting FO3 to 2 cores and disabling antialiasing seems to have done the trick.

 

The Bethesda engine is quite special. It took me my good 3 or 4 days of looking answers on the internet from forums and so on. The best thing I'd do is to keep looking and don't give up. Fallout 3 is a great game.

 

Since I disabled antialiasing and limited FO3 to using only 2 cores, stability has greatly improved. I have not played for a long session yet (as I am otherwise engaged) but I was able to sit and play for fifteen minutes without a lockup. Before, it was running for no longer than five or six minutes before freezing.

 

Just to add, I also had a constant freezing problem until I also disabled the game to only use 2 cores while leaving everything else the same as before. Hasn't froze once in over 2 hours over playing vs the 1 freeze every 10mins before the switch.

Heres how to do it....

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.

 

i did this and it seemed to work until i left the vault and now i get random crashes. its not the same it doesnt freeze anymore , just crashes completely.

 

lets bump this maybe i cant get some help on this

 

If all else fails, backup, format, re-install windows, reinstall drivers, latest drivers for your gpu, re-install game.

then it will work!

I've got an OCD thing about formatting my laptop, and re-installing windows, i do it like every 2 weeks lol, i just love it being fresh and new.