So, I've had this X-Fi Titanium card for a while, and even had it working with Fallout 3 flawlessly under Windows 7 x64 earlier this year. However, after a reinstall of the aforementioned operating system in November to prepare for Skyrim, I discovered that Fallout 3 seems to really like crashing when I've got the X-Fi card enabled. If I have it on, without even using ALchemy, I'll get a crash within 1-10 minutes of playing. If I take the card out and turn onboard sound back on, I can run the game for hours with absolutely no problems.

The only thing that's changed in my system since I had Fallout 3 working is that I upgraded my CPU and got an SSD as a main boot drive. I've already applied the "iNumHWThreads=2" and "bUseThreadedAI=1" tweaks. Without those in my INI I get frequent crashes even when running onboard sound.

System specs are as follows:

-AMD Phenom II x4 955 @3.2Ghz
-GTX 560ti
-8GB DDR3 1333 RAM
-Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Titanium
-MSI 870s-G46 Motherboard
-850w PSU

Anyone else run into this or a similar problem?

First, let me say I feel your pain. Now here is the setup I have working, but there are still some unresolved issues.

• Use the stock drivers/suite that comes with the X-Fi on CD-ROM. Do not use the updated drivers from Creative's support site.
• Make sure the Creative Labs and Alchemy background services are set to their defaults in the Services Manager (services.msc).
• In the Fallout.ini (found in the user/documents based folder) make sure the audio settings are at default including the cache and stuff. Do not enable multi-threaded audio in the .ini file.
• Create a profile in Alchemy for Fallout 3, on buffers use 8, on duration use 10, on channels use 128. Enable the profile on Fallout 3. (check the dsound_log.txt generated after launching Fallout 3 to see if it is loading correctly.)
• You will not get radio stutter.
• You will get screeching/popping/cracking when using VATS (only known fix is to turn off Alchemy and DSound hardware acceleration via the Fallout.ini)

While this would have nothing to do with your issue, see this thread on how to move temp files and saves to a FDD drive to keep your SSD alive longer.

http://www.gamesas.com/topic/1495473-i-need-a-way-to-change-where-fallout-3-store-savegames/

I just installed a newer XFI card in my system and I don't have any issues with it, and I don't think I need to use Alchemy (at least I have never configured it for anything)

Have you tried installing any third party codecs? A number of people have reported that doing so fixed problems they were having with their game. They seem to have resolved issues I was having with New Vegas and Windows 7 64 bit. Two option available are the K-Lite codecs and Sharky's. I personally prefer Sharky's as they include some 64 bit codecs that I don't believe K-Lite has.

Using the DSound software renderer is definitely the most compatible. Only thing I noticed wrong with it, besides the difference in 3D-positional audio quality in hardware, was the Pip-boy radio channels stuttered. They more or less cut in and out, and only during actual music not the DJ's. Increasing the audiocache in the fallout.INI supposibly fixes it. I just tap ESC/start a couple of times and it remedies the stuttering.

Hardware audio does sound really good though, it comes with it's own side-effects.