Just wondering if there was any type of mod for FO3 similar in function to Oblivion's "http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=22282." The mod basically prevented crashes for Oblivion in the case that Oblivion suddenly had the urge to crash...

If there isn't a mod like this for FO3, is there one in the works?

I'm just asking because I'm tired of FO3 crashing for no apparent reason, all the time, after only a few minutes of play. I'm also tired of having to start up the game about 5-10 times just to play between 30 min to 2 hours worth of gameplay. I http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1105020-have-some-sort-of-an-issue-here-i-cant-seem-to-solve/page__p__16173712__fromsearch__1&#entry16173712 and got zero responses for my issue. I noticed that that part of the forum is pretty dead, and they only offer the same solutions to everyone (specifically the quad core fix...). No offense to those people though. So, just wondering if there is any type of crash prevention system available, or in the works.

Note: Fallout Stutter Remover, Unoffical Fallout 3 Patches, FO3Edit Master Update Mode, Merged Patches, RAM Boost, 3GB Switch, and Quad Core Fix suggestions/solutions/mods are not crash prevention systems nor do they solve many crashes. They just provide smoother gameplay (for the most part). So these don't count. I've tried all of them (except for RAM Boost and 3GB Switch) and I still get crashes constantly.

Fallout3 always crashes for a reason. It's just up to you to work out what that reason is.

CPS in Oblivion knew some common reasons, but you could do more yourself.

It may be related to your graphics card. Mostly when FO3 crashes on me it just freezes the screen and becomes unresponsive, but on occasions I have seen it freeze, crash to desktop and display an NVidia error message.

There's unfortunately no crash prevention system modification for Fallout 3 as far as I know.

There is always a reason for why something crashes. 99.9% of the time it is because the program is not getting a resource it is requesting.

Post a DxDiag in your other thread.

I'm fairly certain that almost everyone has experienced a crash in fallout at least once. I have zero evidence to prove this though... :facepalm: I'm sure that, a lot of the times, fallout just decides to crash for the same reasons over and over. I think, then, that a CPS would be possible for fallout. Especially if it was done for oblivion. Maybe people could ban together to determine some of the common reasons for fallout crashing. I have no idea how Windom Earle did it, but maybe someones up for the task/challenge. Sigh... just wishful thinking in hope for a stable game...

In the end though, its definitely up to the end user to figure out whats wrong to fix his or her problem. I, unfortunately, dont know what the problem is (Not my VG, ATI Radeon 5870. Dont think its resources either, 6 GB RAM).

I'm gonna update my other thread to see if I get any new responses, though I doubt it . dxdiag and new mod list...

Personally, I doubt CPS could really be doable in Fallout3. The sort of bugs Oblivion had (e.g. crash on exit, crash on bad specular, etc.) are fixed in Fallout3. Fallout3 usually crashes when it's told to do something outlandish by a broken script or a corrupted save. You can't really prevent those sorts of crashes at runtime. It's like jumping out of a window, you can prevent death by not jumping out of the window in the first place but once you're already in the air, there's not a lot anyone can do.

Yep, I have to say that when FO3 crashes on me it usually isn't because of lack of resources or video. Most of the time it seems to be a mod that adds items to the wasteland or a bad navmesh. Cleaning the mods and converting a few to esm's have all the difference. Occasionally I will get a crash related to MMM, only 1 so far in RC6 Beta2. The game I am currently running has had only 1 crash in 47 hours of play with 153 mods (esp/esm).

Having a crash-free experience with FO3 + mods is more a matter of luck than anything else i suspect - system specs, number of mods, you name it, it′s luck i tell you!

Not being able to debug and pinpoint exactly what happened at the time of the crash is this games biggest fault.

Madscientist> did you have a relatively trouble free play with the vanilla game? If so, i recommend that you start unchecking mods in your launcher to see if one is causing the very frequent crashes ( did you merge anything or overwrite? ) . If not, then there′s not much you can do i′m afraid. Robber804 hit the nail on the head i think: "Most of the time it seems to be a mod that adds items to the wasteland or a bad navmesh."

It′s been a while since i played fo3 myself. Played the vanilla for say 110 hours with only a couple of crashes, but as soon as i added mods - BOOM-ya - crashes became common. Sometimes i can play for 5 hour without a single crash, other times 2-3 crashes an hour.

No crash prevention system will be developed for this game i think and no amateur dev can make one as long as the sourcecode for the engine is locked up in Fort Knox...

Well Mike, i've already tried what u suggested to no avail. Disabling all of the mods usually doesnt cause anything. Though I havent tried playing this way long enough to know for certain if a vanilla gameplay is crash free. Systematically disabling and enabling mods has given me nothing. Sometimes I'll think I found the problem, only to have the game crash on me again? I've got about 70 mods loaded. The majority only add weapons or armors. I also have several texture replacers. Currently, my game crashes a lot. It doesn't take long either.

How exactly does one clean a mod? is there an automatic way of cleaning them, or do I have to go through each one by one?

The resources for learning about cleaning mods and the reasons why are to be found more in Oblivion pages than F3 pages.\

By far mod cleaning seems to be more accepted the longer a game is out. Morrowind mods - heck even some of them come named 'cleaned.' If just does not seem to have been accepted as a part of the process with F3 who seem more concerned with promoting masxterupdate than cleaning unneeded and sometimes harmful records out of mods.

http://cs.elderscrolls.com/constwiki/index.php/TES4Edit_Cleaning_Guide
http://cs.elderscrolls.com/constwiki/index.php/TES4Edit/Mod_cleaning_tutorial_with_TES4Edit
http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Tes4Mod:Tes4Edit#Cleaning_a_Dirty_Plugin

Use FO3edit like you would Te4edit in these tutorials (actually FO3edit is just TES4edit renamed with a few extra features).

The origins of crash prevention system developed by Windom Earl was from a thread that Elys started called http://www.gamesas.com/?showtopic=870869 which led to Elys' crash shield (prevented a few instances of crashing) then Windom picked it up to make http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=22282 - I can't find an active thread about OCPS.

But Windom, Elys, and now it seems even Skyranger_1 have moved on and hence development of these script extender plugins has stopped.

It is important to note that while OCPS did prevent certain crashes it did not stop all crashes (by far) and often it made it so that problems could continue to fester under the surface - things that could have had another answer or be resolved and therefor not need OCPS.

FO3Edit really could use a "Remove Identical To Master from All ESPs" function.

Fo3Edit and BOSS are the most effective anti-crash system that we have for Fallout3. Use BOSS to get your load order as good as it can be, and then use Fo3Edit to create a merged patch and resolve the conflicts in your mod-order. Finish-up with Fo3Edit MasterUpdate, and your as good as you can be for Fallout3 modding stability.

Reading through the forums and comments in nexus, I've noticed that most people arent really concerned about cleaning mods. Indeed, the only suggestions are usually the ones you mentioned, MUM mode and merged patches. In Oblivion, mod cleaning was much more important and more regularly suggested than in fallout. I find it odd that that is the case. You'd think people would carry on what they've learned from one game to another... I mean, if FO3Edit is just a retooled TESEdit and both can still clean a mod, why not carry on the practice of mod cleaning from game to another?

Thanks for the links, I'll start cleaning my mods to see if that makes any difference.

As for a Fallout version of OCPS, does fallout not produce error codes like Oblivion did? Is there no possibility of a an F3CPS at all? Someone mentioned something about the Fallout source code being 1) required, and 2) not available to the community, and someone else mentioned that most of Fallout's problems are more mod related than engine related (since most Oblivion engine bugs have been fixed for Fallout). Any thoughts/clarifications/explanations on this?


This would be really helpful as I am about to go through 70 mods and individually clean them all, one by one...


This seems to be a standard procedure suggestion. I've done it and, unfortunately, doesnt work as well as I'l like it too. However, I wont dispute what you've said. It definetely seems to be the first step to a crash free game for most people.

I'm sure it does what is missing is the mind to construct a FCPS.

And I agree - I wish more mod makers would consider cleaning before releasing (at least checking), but it is a new game and so attracted many who were not used to this in Oblivion/Morrowind and it is a much more stable game inherently than Oblivion ever was, which got some to think it not as necessary perhaps.

Hattix-
I've found the remove deletions to be the more serious cleaning needed. I think Fo3edit needs to do it case by case because it will clean with relation to the masters as well, so errors and mistakes could happen by cleaning a dependent esp prior to a master. I suppose it could be set up. I still think it a good idea to review what it wants to clean out before saving.

Miaximus (the guy who wrote the manual)-
With all due respect I disagree - have you read over the reasons for cleaning at the first link I gave above. Why would those reasons be different for this game?

The problem with simply using a crash prevention system as a solution to CTDs is that it doesnt correct the underlying issue. I used weOCPS for oblivion for a while. It circumvented some crashes, but ultimately I had to re-do my mods to solve the issues. Although I have more oblivion mods than before, I never get crashes due to bad data anymore.

The usual suspects for fallout 3 that Ive encountered:

1. Bad ini configuration - Changing some settings can cause/prevent crashes. Allowing fallout 3 to use more than 2 hardware threads (as with a quad-core processor like mine) can cause the game to freeze sometimes. I kept having this happen with an unmodded game during the chargen quests, and it was extremely frustrating for a new player lol. This can be solved with:

bUseThreadedAI=1
iNumHWThreads=2

2. Bad data files - This is pretty common. Dirty mod files, corrupt saves, all kinds of junk can cause this. I even had a mod that would corrupt if it was flagged as an esm (such as by the master update). So its best to check all of your mods after applying something like that. Mod conflicts can possibly cause CTDs, although most of the time they just make certain things not work.

3. Not enough RAM - If the game runs out of RAM, it will CTD. This is most common with heavily modded games, or if the game is left running for a long time and many areas are visited. If the game consistently crashes at ~1.7-1.8 gb RAM usage, this is probably the case. No crash prevention system can bypass this type of crash, for obvious reasons. Its fixed by giving the game more space to run, which would require the large address aware patch. Many people dont recommend this for a 32-bit OS, as it can be a LOT of trouble to get working correctly (believe me, I did it lol).

Personally, I dont use FO3Edit's merged patch feature to resolve conflicts (although I do use it for other things). TES4Edit (the same program, but for oblivion) had a merged patch feature, but most people advised wrye bash instead for more versatility.

It's not that simple. Some mods shouldn't be cleaned -- MMM for example. There are records in MMM which are deliberately included to overwrite others even if identical, due to ensuring coherence in load orders. This is true both between modules in MMM and MMM in relation to other mods (especially). And FOIP plugins most certainly should not be cleaned for the same reason. Doing so could really fubar your game.

I don't doubt some mods are dirty, and cleaning could be helpful, but like everything else with these engines there's no blanket solution for anything. Like hand-making merged patches, ultimately it depends on looking at the mod and seeing if duplicate records are intentional or not. If you're not sure, don't touch it, or ask the mod author.



Yes deletions are a very serious issue and common cause of CTDs. For modders -- no record, of any sort, should ever be deleted from Fallout 3.esm under any circumstances. If you want to 'remove' something, there are better ways of doing it. Post for help in the GECK forum.


On the topic of a Crash Prevention System, I would certainly like to see one like the Oblvion one.

Well all the guides I link to for cleaning pretty much cover the basics of mod cleaning guidelines.
a. know what your doing.
b. don't clean overhauls.
c. don't clean esp that have other esp as masters unless you really really know what you are doing.

For fallout I never recommend cleaning the likes of FWE, WMK, MMM, FOIP or anything like that. Just like with Oblivion not to clean OOO, MMM, and so on. So I'm definitely not advocating cleaning without thinking about it.

Recently downloaded a few mods off of Nexus with 600+ deletions each. Worldspace additions and cell additions are the largest source of these things and something as innocuous as a house mod can have a lot of potential issues when combined with other mods that effect the same area. Yet then instead of cleaning I see it again and again people recommend Masterupdate instead.

Oh man, youre right about the overall dirtiness of FO3 mods. I had a mod that would crash with the master update so I decided to take a look for myself. Guess what? 13 identical to master records and 1200+ deleted references!

EDIT: It fixed the crash issue, but caused some funky anomalies. Some of the undeleted references started showing up, and I had to manually disable them with the console. This is probably related to the save file containing old module info.

Yeah Arthmoor on Oblivion Forums would have more to say about that but I'm guessing that the references were to world space objects being misnamed. he mentioned that with people messing around with the unique landscape patches.

I'm curious what mod and what anomalies.

The anomaly I encountered was that some of the deleted references were showing up, despite being disabled as well as undeleted. I think its because I had already saved the game before with the dirty version of the mod. Its nothing the console cant fix. Although when I use master update, Im still getting over a thousand "Unable to be resolved" ONAM entries.

I noticed that I had one of the mods being shown in the screenshots for the mod cleaning example, so I went ahead and cleaned it too lol.

I took some of your advices, cleaned my mods, and made fallout large address aware. Game seems to run fine now. Finally, a stable game I can play uninterrupted by CTDs :fallout: ! Thanks for all of your help people, specifically Psymon and Skullknight (RAM explanation) :tops: .

And who knows, maybe someone will be motivated to making a crash prevention system after reading through this thread. Its certainly possible for someone to take up the challenge and starts it similarly to the way Elys did...