Is the Unofficial Fallout Patch still relevant? : Fallout 3

» Sat Feb 19, 2011 6:20 am

I've always played Fallout 3 using the UF3P but my most recent play-through has MMM, FWE and a few other mods I've never used before, I'm getting *way* more crashes than I used to, the most recent and consequently game ruining crash is at the Jefferson Memorial Gift Shop, I'm at the stage where you return to Project Purity with the Rivet City scientists, I simply can not enter the building, I've tried removing every mod in my list with no luck, COC'ing into the cell doesn't work either, something has been seriously messed up in there.

Spoiler

Fallout3.esm
Anchorage.esm
ThePitt.esm
StreetLights.esm
BrokenSteel.esm
PointLookout.esm
Zeta.esm
Unofficial Fallout 3 Patch.esm
CRAFT.esm
CALIBR.esm
FO3 Wanderers Edition - Main File.esm
Mart's Mutant Mod.esm
DCInteriors_ComboEdition.esm
Xepha's Dynamic Weather.esm
FO3 Wanderers Edition - Alternate Travel.esp
Unofficial Fallout 3 Patch - Operation Anchorage.esp
Unofficial Fallout 3 Patch - The Pitt.esp
Unofficial Fallout 3 Patch - Broken Steel.esp
Unofficial Fallout 3 Patch - Point Lookout.esp
Unofficial Fallout 3 Patch - Mothership Zeta.esp
BSMovieSkip.esp
DarNifiedUIF3.esp
sc_slaves_stick_around.esp
GalaxyNewsRadio100[M].esp
CONELRAD 640-1240.esp
Existence2.0.esp
MoreMapMarkers.esp
Confessor Cromwell has a Break_EV.esp
DCInteriors_DLC_Collectables.esp
FO3 Wanderers Edition - Main File.esp
FO3 Wanderers Edition - DLC Anchorage.esp
FO3 Wanderers Edition - DLC The Pitt.esp
FO3 Wanderers Edition - DLC Broken Steel.esp
FO3 Wanderers Edition - DLC Point Lookout.esp
FO3 Wanderers Edition - DLC Mothership Zeta.esp
FO3 Wanderers Edition - Optional Restore Tracers (automatics only).esp
WeaponModKits.esp
WeaponModKits - FWE Master Release.esp
WeaponModKits - OperationAnchorage.esp
WeaponModKits - ThePitt.esp
WeaponModKits - BrokenSteel.esp
WeaponModKits - PointLookout.esp
WeaponModKits - Zeta.esp
Burnification.esp
Nova Interaction Revised.esp
Mart's Mutant Mod.esp
Mart's Mutant Mod - DLC Anchorage.esp
Mart's Mutant Mod - DLC The Pitt.esp
Mart's Mutant Mod - DLC Broken Steel.esp
Mart's Mutant Mod - DLC Point Lookout.esp
Mart's Mutant Mod - DLC Zeta.esp
Mart's Mutant Mod - FWE Master Release.esp
Mart's Mutant Mod - FWE Master Release + DLCs.esp
No[EMPTY]ContainerMessages.esp
Faster PipBoy Light.esp
Magic Pip-Light (30 Brightness).esp
ReducedUndiscoveredCompass(kalniel).esp
BigTownRobotFix.esp
Xepha's Dynamic Weather - Main.esp
Xepha's Dynamic Weather - Anchorage.esp
Xepha's Dynamic Weather - The Pitt.esp
Xepha's Dynamic Weather - Broken Steel.esp
Xepha's Dynamic Weather - Point Lookout.esp
Xepha's Dynamic Weather - Night Eye Edition.esp
Xepha's Dynamic Weather - Anchorage (NEE).esp
Xepha's Dynamic Weather - Sandstorm.esp
Merged.esp

Total active plugins: 67
Total plugins: 67

The crash happens with the last eight save files, over 15 hours, it appears that something somewhere has broken.

Anyway, I've decided to reinstall Fallout and start fresh, it's galling but you get used to it with Bethesda's games, I've spent the last couple of days trawling the Nexus forum pages for MMM, FWE and UF3P, I've noticed quite a few people commenting that they no longer use the patch as it causes an increase in CTD's and corrupted saves, others have said that it's no longer applicable since official patch 1.7, which I kind of doubt considering Beth's track record on bugfixes.

So before I start a new game without UF3P I was just wondering what the general consensus is.

Thanks.

» Sat Feb 19, 2011 10:11 am

It's not the UOF3P thats causing the crashes, the the extra strain MMM + FWE + weather + large retextures put on you system, or more specifically the extra strain on the game engine.
Thought of trying Wrye Flash? It can really help with stability issues.

EDIT: That said, there may be scope for updates to the unofficial patches, just like there have been for oblivion.

» Sat Feb 19, 2011 9:18 am

I don't use them, but I didn't really thoroughly test to see if they were the cause of issues I saw, but I have personally had less crashes without them. Also, when I used them, it was before I used Flash, so that may also have something to do with the issues I experienced.

Personally, I would probably need to see them updated before I used them.

» Sat Feb 19, 2011 3:10 am

Beyond using it fix the animation bug in Oblivion I'm clueless as to what Wyre Flash can do to prevent crashes, I don't suppose either of you could break it down into a few sentences? :foodndrink:

» Fri Feb 18, 2011 11:37 pm

Beyond using it fix the animation bug in Oblivion I'm clueless as to what Wyre Flash can do to prevent crashes, I don't suppose either of you could break it down into a few sentences? :foodndrink:

It will greatly reduce mod conflicts through its use of Bash Tags provided through use of BOSS (and the helpful folks like Torrello who keep the masterlist updated and get new tags and such added all the time) - and this can increase stability for a simple reason. If Mod B overwrites something Mod A would add to a section that Mod A must have to work right, we could get a CTD when Mod A calls its needed info and Mod B has overwritten it. This, of course, is a very simplistic view as to what all Bash can do for you, but I think it is good enough to make the valid point. Please note, that a Merged Patch from FO3Edit will not work as well as a Bashed Patch simply due to the use of the Bash Tags provided by BOSS.

» Fri Feb 18, 2011 10:08 pm

I've installed and generated a bashed patch going from what I can learn from the pictorial guide but I've already noticed a few missing pipboy icons and letters appearing before all my weapons, honestly, I'm getting in over my head here, I have zero experience in creating mods and I've never used the G.E.C.K so I'm wondering if I'll end up doing more harm than good.

I can't seem to find any updated guides, they all assume you're using the Oblivion version, it's not making life easy :sadvaultboy:

» Sat Feb 19, 2011 6:29 am

I've installed and generated a bashed patch going from what I can learn from the pictorial guide but I've already noticed a few missing pipboy icons and letters appearing before all my weapons, honestly, I'm getting in over my head here, I have zero experience in creating mods and I've never used the G.E.C.K so I'm wondering if I'll end up doing more harm than good.

I can't seem to find any updated guides, they all assume you're using the Oblivion version, it's not making life easy :sadvaultboy:

Some of those issues may relate to the mods not having Bash Tags suggested for them, and so the textures and up getting missed. Could be some other things too. If you know what mods are specifically missing things, you can try and report in the BOSS thread for assistance.

» Sat Feb 19, 2011 7:32 am

I've read a bit more and I'm still having issues, I'll post a few screenshots tomorrow, I'm wondering perhaps if playing for 35 hours with a Fo3edit merged patch and then switching to a bashed patch is the issue, just a wild stab in the dark though.

» Sat Feb 19, 2011 9:03 am

I've read a bit more and I'm still having issues, I'll post a few screenshots tomorrow, I'm wondering perhaps if playing for 35 hours with a Fo3edit merged patch and then switching to a bashed patch is the issue, just a wild stab in the dark though.

Possible, may want to take a stab at heading to a safe interior and resting for a few days to clear data

» Sat Feb 19, 2011 10:33 am

I do not use the unofficial patches anymore as most mods, like FWE, MMM and 1 of the weather mods fix the same problems. Second, the unofficial patches were written during FO3 version 1.1 or 1.2 and FO3 1.7 fixes many broken item too.

With over 200 mods installed, I looked at all of the changes in FO3edit and almost everything the unofficial patch fixed were overwritten by other mods in my load order.

» Sat Feb 19, 2011 3:10 am

Now I'm not sure how the whole merged patch from edit is created, but I assume it takes all the mergable mods it sees and creates 1 file for them all, if is also removes the mods it merged from the data folder, then you switched to Bash, all those mod need to be put back into the data folder. When they're merged into your bashed patch, they should then by deactivated, and will show as green text, with a + in their box from the mods tab in bash.
This is just a guess tho, never ever used edit for this feature, just it's original use of looking at and editing mods

» Sat Feb 19, 2011 3:02 am

I am a latecomer to FO3...never used it, so I will never know!

» Sat Feb 19, 2011 1:18 am

Now I'm not sure how the whole merged patch from edit is created, but I assume it takes all the mergable mods it sees and creates 1 file for them all, if is also removes the mods it merged from the data folder, then you switched to Bash, all those mod need to be put back into the data folder. When they're merged into your bashed patch, they should then by deactivated, and will show as green text, with a + in their box from the mods tab in bash.
This is just a guess tho, never ever used edit for this feature, just it's original use of looking at and editing mods

Edit's Merge doesn't really do much, sadly. It'll merge some lists, but that's about it. It doesn't even do the "semi-deactivate" thing the Bash patch does; you need to keep all the mods active to use the merge.

» Fri Feb 18, 2011 9:28 pm

I have deactivated the Unofficial Patch and it SEEMS to crash less. I will have to play more to feel confident that this is really true.

» Fri Feb 18, 2011 11:19 pm

I have deactivated the Unofficial Patch and it SEEMS to crash less. I will have to play more to feel confident that this is really true.

I've been playing without the patch too, so far I haven't had any of the outdoor cell loading crashes that were plaguing my last install but I've also moved over from Windows 7 x86 to x64 which might skew things, not that I'm crash free, that would be the insane dream of a madman, I've had a few quick-load crashes and one or two randoms that I couldn't pin down to anything specific but I need to play more.

I'm still using a FO3edit merged patch as I couldn't get my head around Wyre Flash :blush2:

» Sat Feb 19, 2011 6:21 am

So far I've had about five or six crashes over 22 hours, not so terrible, the best part is I haven't had a single dead end crash, previously a whole cell could be totally off limits, utterly fudging the game.

I'm not sure if it's the lack of UF3P, the move to x64 or just dumb luck but at least I can play the game for hours without a crash, I am noticing little bugs that the unofficial patch fixed but ho hum :whistling:

» Sat Feb 19, 2011 9:42 am

For me it's unreliable. Usually I get over ten ctd per session, this happens when I am changing cells in the underground DC metro, loading a quicksave after dying, and sometimes when walking around the wasteland. Sometimes ( rarely ) I will go through a whole session without crashing once and I can swear that the performance is much, MUCH better than usual.

Without the unofficial patch there came one instance in every game it crashed on F5 before the quicksave occured. I could not quicksave at all and I though my game was screwed.

Not giving up, I found a solution posted by someone who had this exact problem. The fix is to have your character diie asap, by killing your character anyway possible ( grenades and mines are the fastest way ) and let the autosave return you from the last save, and quicksaves will work again. It has something to do with animations that should or shouldn't load.

» Sat Feb 19, 2011 8:51 am

Quicksaving has been proven unstable and should never be used. Using the console and typing PCB does the same thing as dying right away. You can use a automated Purge program on Nexus but use the "fixed" version. Search "purge" on Nexus.

» Sat Feb 19, 2011 11:37 am

I've definitely had crashes from quickloading during the death animation, I've also developed a habit of not quicksaving while walking, just in case it saves during a cell transition.

I've also noticed better general performance on the sessions where I can play for hours, it's as if the game has "locked in" somehow, hard to explain but I remember feeling something similar with Oblivion, I do have worries about Skyrim, Bethesda make fun games but the bugs, oh dear god the never ending bugs.

Indoor crashes appear to be related to the multicore fix, I get fewer of them after tweaking the ini file.

» Sat Feb 19, 2011 12:48 am

Hey. I had two LONG play sessions with not one crash. Force VSync off. Ticking the box does nothing. You must edit your fallout.ini and

change iPresentInterval=1
to iPresentInterval=0

My game has not crashed since that change. To offset the screen tearing I enabled triple buffering in my ATI Catalyst control panel. However, force disabling VSync increased microstuttering, and needed another offset:

I changed iFPSClamp=0
to iFPSClamp=60 ( same value as my refresh rate )

The two tips above were taken from TweakGuides: Fallout 3
Now the crashing, the tearing, and the microstuttering was dealt with. One problem left: some areas degenerated into slideshows.

To address this I defragmented my Fallout 3 folder with GameBooster 2.3

These three things allowed me to play sans ctd and return all settings to ultra, and I hate myself for having been so negative to not try this earlier. Much earlier.

» Sat Feb 19, 2011 12:54 am

Hey. I had two LONG play sessions with not one crash. Force VSync off. Ticking the box does nothing. You must edit your fallout.ini and

change iPresentInterval=1
to iPresentInterval=0

My game has not crashed since that change. To offset the screen tearing I enabled triple buffering in my ATI Catalyst control panel. However, force disabling VSync increased microstuttering, and needed another offset:

I changed iFPSClamp=0
to iFPSClamp=60 ( same value as my refresh rate )

The two tips above were taken from TweakGuides: Fallout 3
Now the crashing, the tearing, and the microstuttering was dealt with. One problem left: some areas degenerated into slideshows.

To address this I defragmented my Fallout 3 folder with GameBooster 2.3

These three things allowed me to play sans ctd and return all settings to ultra, and I hate myself for having been so negative to not try this earlier. Much earlier.

» Sat Feb 19, 2011 11:23 am

Edit's Merge doesn't really do much, sadly. It'll merge some lists, but that's about it. It doesn't even do the "semi-deactivate" thing the Bash patch does; you need to keep all the mods active to use the merge.

Agreed, FO3 Edit is rather useless when it comes to merging mods. A better tool to use is the FO3 Plugin Utility. It requires Java to be installed and may require some figuring out to get it working, but it's a good tool for merging mods.