Greetings. I've been having problems with Fallout 3 ever since I started modding it. I can get around 45 minutes of smooth gameplay after my PC starts up, but it all goes to hell after that. I will either freeze during a VATS action, black screen crash during internal < - > external cell changes, or randomly CTD as if I typed qqq in console. Upon relaunching the game, I might get 20 minutes of so-so performance before it will freeze or crash again. I have to restart my PC in order to get it working smoothly again.

I have applied the 4GB patch, but to no avail. I tried unpacking Fallout - Meshes.bsa and Fallout - Textures.bsa and repackaging them uncompressed, but the game REALLY didn't like that (crash on load). Anyone happen to know why?

I'm using FOSE 1.2b2 and Flash 24. Here is my load order:
I am also using NMC's texture pack.


My PC should be able to handle this setup just fine.
Q6600 @ 3.15GHz
4GB DDR2-800
Windows 7 Home Premium x64
nVidia GTX 460 1GB


These problems are not present with a standard install. If anyone can provide input, I'd appreciate it.

Thanks .

Have you added

iNumHWThreads=2

to your FALLOUT.INI? If not, insert it after bUseThreadedAI in the General section of the .ini.

Also change the above bUseThreadedAI=0 to =1

AFAIK these settings help FO3 + multicore cpu's.

Maybe that will help. AFAIK, freezing indicates some sort of system trouble, drivers/chipset/hardware... I too have a 1GB 460 and have been very happy with the new 266.58 drivers.

That you are getting over 20 minutes of no problems indicates that it is not a mod issue - that is unless you are going to the same area each time by that time mark.

Seems more of an OS/hardware issue.

Are you using FO3 Stutter Remover. I recently saw Skyranger~1 admit that he knew that http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1163995-relz-oblivion-stutter-remover-osr/page__view__findpost__p__17154721 perhaps it is a similar issue with this.

Actually one of the first things I always do when testing stability is take stutter remover out. So far my game does not benefit that much from it unlike Oblivion. If it is then let him know as he is known to do a flurry of work then disappear for months at a time. We are lucky to have him.

If using Master Update you could try master restore and see if that changes things.

You could try a clean boot then see it the crashes continue.

Yep... I wouldn't recommend using FSR unless as an attempt to run the game on a weak comp. OSR, on the other hand, can drastically improve OB's performance for any set-up.

Well I do like the fast exit feature of FSR. That is worth the price of admission to me.

Thanks for the tips, guys, but I am not using FSR. I've been intending to avoid that particular piece of software as I've read it is buggy, and it doesn't have a heap replacement method (only reason I use it in Oblivion).

The game doesn't always get 20 minutes runtime, that's just the average. It can last as long as 45 minutes, or as little as 30 seconds, though those two extremes are rare. The crashes always occur during worldspace transition, vats, or during heavy combat. The assault on GNR at the beginning of the game is one of the worst.

Anyway I found this in fose_loader.log. I hope it's not disabling the 4GB fix.

launching: Fallout3.exe (P:\Games\Bethesda Softworks\Fallout 3\Fallout3.exe)
clearing large-address-aware flag

I think recently in the memory management thread on the Oblivion forums I read that some were having better success also running the 4gb patch on the FOSE loader AND the F3.exe

forgot where though - http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1071593-oblivion-w-laa/

But if you did that already the try the opposite - or just the opposite of what you did.

Also test without any LAA too.

Really that is my measuring stick - I know a heavily modded F3 game can be playable without FSR or LAA - those are just icing on the performance if you will. I always remove such things when doing serious testing. I would not expect the far less optimized Oblivion.exe to be able to do that though.

If the crashes can happen within a few minutes though that could very well be a mod issue. I've never used Fook2 though so I'm not the one to ask. Maybe ask on their forum. You have a small load order. Would be easy to remove mods and see whether stability returns.

Well, I removed the bashed patch, and did a FO3Edit merge and a MasterUpdate. The unpredictable crashes have been significantly reduced, and some newer attributes have appeared that were not there before. I figured the community would have adopted BASH by now, but due to the fact that the bashed patch didn't work, and the fact that the modding community is less than 10% the size of Oblivion, I suppose it's just a lost cause . Oh well, at least I know what to do from now on.

Actually no 'the community' has not taken to the bashed patch I don't think they have for NV either.

But for what it is worth I've used the bashed patch since available and do not master update and by staying stringent about not using problem mods I've got a load order well over 210 (250 if you count merged into bash mods) and very stable.

What I don't use that you are using is Fook2.