Or should I just give up, assume it's going to crash now and then and save often? I guess you can offer me some suggestions if you have any but I'm mainly wondering if I'm simply being too demanding of what is acknowledged to be a bug-ridden game. My game crashes to desktop with the "FalloutNV has stopped working" error sometimes as frequently as once every 20-30 minutes and sometimes as little as once a day. Does this sound normal? I'm still running through process of elimination but I dunno if I'm just wasting my time expecting it to run crash-free. Let me know what y'all think!

Hi fountainhead,
I play New Vegas with MissionMojave-UltimateEdition bugfix mod, and it's great.
Enjoying it so much, before doing the four DLC I started a new game in hardcoe mode.
Also added MM-UE Plus (which is a small collection of mods to enhance, not change, the vanilla game).

Anyway the game is solid. Quite stable!
Freezes very occasionally, usually with the roulette wheel showing (going through a loading-screen doorway or whatever) but pretty unusual and only after 4-5 hours nonstop gameplay. But I'm used to that, heheh...

Game needs a restart after many hours.
Then good to go for another 4 or 5...
Actually it's funny, but the DLC seems more stable than the vanilla game in the default Mojave worldspace.

I have found a good high framerate with fast, smooth, fluid gameplay is important to stability.
Target 60 fps (average) with minimums in the 50s or (worst case) the 40s.
40 fps (average) is just not going to cut it...

Geez, Steam says 800 and something hours!
But yeah, I hear you - I could never do so many hours with the game freezy/crashy like you describe.
Just takes all the fun out of it, or what?