Hi guys and Merry Christmas. I am thinking about playing Fallout NV for the first time(PC version), but I'm a bit scared to. I understand many people consider it a great game, but all the talk of the game crashing constantly and bugs are giving me second thoughts.

I played Fallout 3 on an old PC back in 2010 and while it ran the game fairly well, I was often met with random game freezes, and a nasty bug where it would slow my framerate down to a paltry 5fps.

I'm on a much better PC now so my question to you is, how stable is the game after all the updates and patches, compared to Fallout 3? How often does it crash?

More importantly, which mods and utilities do you recommend to make the game more stable and maybe a bit prettier? I'm not looking to add a gazillion mods, just a small handful that most people consider essential.

Anyway here are my specs:

Intel Core i7 950 OC'ed @ 4.0Ghz

Nvidia EVGA 680GTX OC Edition 4GB

6GB DDR3 Ram

2TB Seagate HDD

Ermn… Without being an absolute geek Id say those spec's should be more than ample to play both the vanilla, the DLC and add a handful of Mods with little to no issues.

Crashes happen, but honestly, in my long time of playing the Vanilla/dlc versions I got very few crashes on a pc. And my rig was smaller than yours.

I would say that if you had an option to get New Vegas on the PC or a console, definitely get it on the PC. Just like the saying "There's an app for that", if there is something that irritates you about (or is lacking from) the game, there's a mod for that. Console commands do wonders for troubleshooting and bug fixing as well (as long as you aren't svcked into the urge to use them to cheat).

Don't overload your game with dozens of large mods. If you want to make it prettier, the necessities are "more grass", "Fellout NV", "Improved Interior Lighting", "Nevada Skies", "Improved LOD texture" (or something along those lines) and "NMC's texture pack" (small, medium, or large versions depending on the quality of your graphics card). Fellout NV gets rid of the disgusting orange tint in the stock game, more grass simply makes the empty areas more interesting, and NMC's essentially improves the graphic detail of everything exponentially. The ground terrain in New Vegas looks horrible from a distance, so the LOD mod heavily improves upon it. Improved Interior Lighting makes the lights less generic and more realistic. It gives you the ability to turn lights on and off. It also tends to make interiors darker. Nevada Skies adds weather (sandstorms, rain, etc) and makes the evenings darker. Electro-city is a nice touch to this (separate mod), as it adds light to lamp-posts on the road and makes it easier to see at night as a result. New Vegas' absolute biggest flaw is the fact that saves get bigger as you encounter more and more content. Even on a solid PC, you're not going to be able to push more than 200 hours on one playthrough. Save when needed, but don't overdo it.

In case you didn't want specifics, the simple answer is "hell yes, New Vegas is worth it, especially on PC".

EDIT: Added some more mods to the recommendation list.

Thanks buddy

Now what is all this about BOSS, Nexus Mod Manager, gme script extender, etc? Do I need all three of those and if so, what order do I install them in?

Of course, Bethesda's games are really meant for PC due to the very active modding communities.

As for crashes, you will have crashes for any Bethesda games on Win 7/8 prior to Skyrim due to the lack of Large Address Aware and the fact that as you play, the game engine will eventually run out of memory (and thus freeze or crash). It isn't the game so much as the OS, or rather that the engine was not designed to be used on Win7/8 (or any 64-bit system).

Likewise, you'll need to tweak the .ini file slightly to address the multicore modern hardware because the engines for FO3/FONV (and Oblivion and older Bethesda games) were not made for multicore.

For modding, be sure to use Wrye Flash and NMM (the former for install and management and the latter for launching the game via FOSE/NVSE).

The problems with the game don't go away using mods, of course. Still, it's better to play on PC so that you can customize the game to your liking.

Installation instructions are available for BOSS (and use BUM, too, for user list instructions for mods not recognized by BOSS), NMM, and NVSE (or any mod, for that matter). The utilities have their own threads on the forums, and any mod has a ReadMe telling you how to install it. However, NOTE that you should use Wrye Flash for installing and managing mods (and save profiles, too). It is very worthwhile to learn how to use the tool.

One more note: regarding console commands, remember that activating the console in FONV automatically shuts down any tracking of achievements, including in-game challenge perks/achievements. This is fixed by simply quitting and re-entering the game after using the console, even if you just accidentally open it.

I strongly recommend using CASM to handle saves and set it to the max count (50) and saving every minute.

I don't recommend the various texture mods for FONV since they really don't do much for the game and add a lot of overhead. Instead, I highly recommend the character aesthetic mods so that the NPCs as well as your character are actually likable.

You may want to use the mods that allow you to adjust the UI.

Another highly recommended mod that is used by many other mods is Mod Configuration Manager (MCM). It's basically a utility that hooks up with mods that use to (e.g., the UI mods) so that you can configure them via an in-game menu.

I don't know what "BOSS" is. Maybe I do, and I'm just not thinking.

Nexus Mod Manager is essentially making the use of mods very user-friendly. Fallout New Vegas Nexus is the mothership of Fallout mods, so that's where you need to base your modding out of. There's a link to download Nexus Mod Manager on that site. From there, you'll be able to download mods you find on the site through Nexus Mod Manager instead of manually dragging folders all over the place (there's a button option for 'Download with Mod Manager' on most of the mods).

Fallout Script Extender, or FOSE, is something that I haven't dealt with extensively. Some mods which add new features to the game (such as the use of motorcycles, cars, etc) can't function with the regular game and need a way to extend the script so that they can actually function. FOSE is essentially a Fallout launcher (you'll open the game using FOSE instead of the regular Fallout launcher) which enables you to use complex mods. I've tried it, but I am not fond of it. I have found that the game is more heavily prone to crashing and having internal issues when I run FOSE.

EDIT: nevermind

Don't use NMM for New Vegas... That mod manager is a piece of crap.

Instead, I recommend either http://www.nexusmods.com/newvegas/mods/36901/? or http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/1334/? (its on the Skyrim nexus but it works for NV too)

There is a difference between these two.

1. Fallout Mod Manager (FOMM) modifies the games files directly and can be hard for people new to modding to understand and it no longer displays which mods need to be updated because of changes on the nexus, but its still way better for installing mods than NMM and some mods older mods actually need it.

2. Mod Organizer extracts each mod into a separate folder and creates a virtual directory in the games data folder so you can use mods without having to directly modify the game. This is a really useful feature if you use a lot of texture or menu modifying mods because you don't have to worry about installing mods in the right order. Just the order the manager loads them in. This one also tells you when a mod is updated and alerts you when a downloaded archive will not work correctly so that you can change it. The downside is you can't use Unified HUD with it so you have to install all the mods that use it in FOMM.

About BOSS:

BOSS is a utility that automatically sorts your plugins in the 'load order' according to their predefined order. It hasn't been updated for New Vegas in a long time so you will probably have to sort a lot of mods yourself even if you use BOSS. I use http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/311/? to create my own sorting rules so I don't have to resort them every time I run BOSS.

About Wrye Bash:

I don't use it to install mods because its a pain in the ass but I've heard its really good too. I mostly use Wrye Bash to create a merged patch and check which mods have a different masterfile order.

I can't really say how buggy the game really is. Some people have absolutely no problems with it on PC, some do. It all depends on your computer.

I suggest watching Gophersvids on YouTube for mod installation and tutorials. As for Mod managers it's all rather subjective and can vary depending on what you want it for, most just want plug and play mods, most mods can be plug and play, however most if not all mod authors have a installation section on the mod page or in the read-me file, if the author suggests a certain method like putting his mod at the bottom of the load order listen.