Hi guys!

So, when i originally got Fallout 3 a while ago I had to stop playing because I ran into the bug where you cannot save your game after a certain point (the drainage pipes in the Project Purity quest). This occurred mod free. This was all on older patched versions of fallout 3 so i took a break for a year or so.

Now using fook2 and a whole bunch of other stuff, i ran into the same problem!!!!!!! My game has run fine, with minimum, with few ctds, until i enter the drainage pipe in which you first see the helicopters. in fact, i cannot enter this section without turning off autosaves. i have played for an hour past this section without saving and whenever i try to save, it ctds.

i have read about some possible solutions (roll back video drivers, etc.) but they are not solving problems specific to what i am seeing.

i was just wondering if anyone here has any ideas because y'all are so helpful in the past.

thanks for any and all help!

n.

i had the same problem, but i suspected it was related to broken steel + unofficial fo3 patch. anyway, i only found out later, so at the time this happened i did the following: the drainage pipe will lead you outside, to an open pipe. so instead of going there via the pipe, which will crash, take the normal exit and then type "tcl" in the console. this disables collision and you can fly to the location where you would exit the drainage pipe. once you're inside the pipe, type tcl again and just continue to play normally from there on.

Try this - if you have a Fat Man, point it at the ground and blow yourself up. For some reason, it seems to clear something that causes the CTD. Then save, then try to exit.

It seems that Fallout 3 starts to choke on its own bloated saves after awhile and doing this clears the bloat temporarily. Note that I said to use the Fat Man and to point it at the ground. This is to assure that you die in one move and not incur negative karma for killing bystanders.

My crashes, which don't actually crash to the desktop, just freeze, occur because my follower gets stuck. If you have a follower, and you are using PC version, move them to your position using PRID and "moveto player". See http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Fallout_3 for how to use these commands.

Can you perhaps briefly explain the mechanics of how this cleans savegame bloating?

Oh oh oh it's magic! :shocking:

No, truthfully, I don't know how or why it works. I only know that it does. When I was having the problem of CTDs every time I tried to save (or autosave, when leaving town or fast traveling), I searched for a solution to no avail. All anyone would say was "you have corrupt saves" blah blah blah but never explain how they became corrupt. I removed my whole series of saves, just deleted them, and started over. After awhile, guess what? It started again.

That is when I found that solution. SOme guy suggested it and was ridiculed for it as being the stupidest thing someone ever heard, but I was desperate, so I figured, why not?

Now, here's the really funny part - not only does it seem to clear some sort of bloat (temporarily), but it appears that some wacky dev though that seeing your broken and mangled body fly through the air was worth a laugh because, when you do die this way, you are actually awarded experience!

Now, what it might be doing is this - when you travel, your graphics engine caches all manner of video data so that you can seamlessly move without stuttering and waiting for each frame to fill. Perhaps what is happening is that the game does a soft reboot when you die like that, and removes those bits of data, allowing you to have to gather them again IF you travel that direction. That's about the only thing I can think might be happening.

does this clear all of the savegames, or just the one that you save after probable death? which...i cannot save after.

after blowing myself up, the save option is no longer available. can you clarify this a little? thanks!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Experience that doesn't matter at all since it loads up your last save immediately afterwards.

I use this method (nuka grenade, remove armor, stand over grenade most easily done in a corner) and it keeps the game saving in many cases. Learned about it off of fallout3nexus.com, someone in the file section posted the procedure there.