So I just recently started to play Fallout 3 again and I started having freezing issues. My Xbox 360 froze three times during an hour of playing! I played 50 hours on this file a month prior and didn't have any problems AT ALL, what is going on? I read online that clearing your cache can help, so I did. This got me nowhere except upon loading my saved game I got a message "This save relies on content that is no longer present, some items may not be available" but I loaded it anyway. It loads for a few seconds before freezing during the load... EVERY SINGLE TIME. I also only have this problem with Fallout 3... So did I just screw all my saves by clearing the cache? Because if memory serves clearing the cache doesn't erase your saved game...

Same thing happened to me, but I did an update and now everything is working fine. I didn't clear my cache so I don't know if you'll be okay or not.

This exact same thing happened to me. I've tried multiple save points... they all freeze and the console has to be shut off. I cleared the HDD cache as well to no avail, but received the same "This save relies on content..." message. I'm extremely frustrated.

Well, I solved my loading freeze problem. Every time I started the game I was given a window of about 15-20 seconds before the game would freeze. I was in Megaton (during the day). I decided to run to the nearest building which was the Clinic, but it still froze every time I went outside the Clinic. After giving up and starting a new game today, I had an epiphany. The "wait" feature! Inside the Clinic, I pressed the back button and waited until it was night time in Megaton. I was then able to go outside without the game freezing and then made it to the Wasteland area and saved. It seems that saving within the Megaton city limits(but not within one of the homes/shops) is conducive to the game freezing up. It could be the amount of NPC characters wandering about the town during the day. The combination of their scripted functions along with the graphical stress of drawing all of the complex features of the area seems to lead to freezing. This could also be compounded by the games autosave feature, but I'm not sure.

One other possibility is that I "warmed up" my Xbox by going through the starting phases of the game again, and physically, the Xbox machinery was able to work up to it's maximum electronic potential, if you know what I mean. Maybe, hopefully, Bethesda will figure this out and release some sort of patch that governs NPC functionality or reworks how much stress the game is able to put on the Xbox at a time. They're damn good at designing games, hopefully their customer service skills and problem solving natures can triumph the issues on the console ports! Good luck!

mine freezes every time i use VATS. doesnt matter weather there are bad guys present or not. it just freezes. any ideas??