I open the game, click new, hit escape to go through the intro video, and then it "loads" forever. Audio cuts out and loading wheel stops spinning, occasionally both start back up again for about 5 seconds. The first couple of times it was like 15 to 20 minutes and then it let me in, but then once I was in game, anytime I tried to do something it would take a couple minutes to load whatever event. Like clicking on the SPECIAL machine made it freeze for a minute or two, and then continue like nothing happened. Now though, I cant even get it to load at all. I will turn it on and go to bed, and it wont be loaded when I wake up.

It doesn't give me an error message, but it is apparently logging errors with windows that can be found in the event viewer. To the best of my (and bethesda tech support's) ability, these messages are largely useless. Most of it is hexidecimal, and searching for whatever parts seem to actually stand out yields nothing helpful. Bethesda's tech support's most recent email indicates that they have given up, and directed me here to see if any other users had encountered, and solved the same issue.

Things that have been tried:

validate cache

disable vsync

disable AA

run as admin

update video drivers

compatibility mode for windows xp SP3

disable NPC emotions

create new windows user, try running from there.

remove all mods (which I think they still don't believe I never had for this game)

in fallout.ini set iFPSClamp=0 to 60

run directx redist included with game

change nvidia application profile from adaptive to max performance power usage

run game in fullscreen

Change windows "user account controls" to never notify

restart computer in selective startup mode with all non-essential programs disabled

in fallout.ini change bUseBlurShader=1 to 0, bUseThreadedAI=0 to 1 and add iNumHWThreads=2

in compatibility mode, disable visual themes, disable display scaling on high DPI

from documents\my games\falloutnv, Remove all contents, including save folder to a folder on the desktop

replace my falloutprefs file with one sent by tech support

in fallout.ini increase iPreloadSizeLimit to double the default

completely fresh install of the game

Fallout 3 game of the year edition has the same behavior. Skyrim does not, nor have I encountered this on any other games. Any further suggestions would be much appreciated.