I've been dealing with the full system lock-up issue since release, and have noticed a few symptoms of the game engine issues that may be causing some of the freezing problems. I am a software and database engineer, but do not have any knowledge of game design.

The freeze I am referring to is when the game stops, the HDD activity indicator stop and stays off forever, but the ambient sound and radio continue to work. The game engine is still running, but is in full halt, and there's no way to turn the game off. I cannot access PS3 menus, and ejecting the disc won't stop the game. I am forced to hold the power button for a hard reset. I believe this type of freezing is caused by a data retrieval deadlock.

When I am wandering the wasteland, I get the HDD loading hiccups. Once I've been walking for 20 seconds, the game will start the hiccups. Every 3 or 4 steps, the systems stops as the HDD loads the data for the game engine. I can stop this from happening my monitoring the HDD activity indicator on the PS3, and stop walking every time it lights up (solid for 3 or 4 seconds), once he indicator goes off, I can continue walking and not have the system hiccups.

I've had a few instances where I am dealing with a hiccup, which some addition actions are going on in the game. This could be a city loading, some NPC's attacking each other, or some sounds loading from the distance (Boomers, etc.).

I have a feeling that while the HDD is dealing with the constant loading hiccup issue, if another process comes into play and needs to get some additional data off the HDD (not part of the normal wasteland wandering engine), that both processes end up in a data retrieval deadlock. This makes the most sense, as the game engine seems to be working fine (ambient sounds continue), but the HDD indicator goes off, and the game engine will not attempt to load the data it needs to continue.

This problem is not as simple as an infinite loop check, it is caused by inherited rights and permissions of the different code objects, and their ability to override each other and determine the order of precedence. If this were handled correctly, the game would hiccup just as badly (I am not addressing that issue), but the conflicting processes would eventually get in line and get their data. What I am seeing is the conflicting processes standing next to each other saying "You go first", "No, you go first", "No, you go firsts", and on and on and on.

Hopefully the next patch will address this problem, as well as the cause of the game engine not loading data early enough, causing the constant hiccup issues. Please feel free to contribute your thoughts on this topic. I'll be referring it to the forum leaders in hopes they can pass along these observations to the responsible developers who are trying to tackle this problem.

I have to agree with you.. I don't have much experience with
software programming... but when I watch the HDD light I see
it blinking and that's when the hiccups are the worst...
obviously it means the game is loading data and of course the
performance will decrease because the content that you are
about to encounter has to be loaded first before you can see it
and continue the game...

It's interesting because I have alot of other games and I see the
same thing going on... the HDD light is blinking and data is
being accessed and loaded, but with those games I see no
hiccups or visible evidence that performance has been
temporarily altered because data is being loaded to move
forward with the game...

So to me this means that the way this particular game is
handling the data access/load process is bad...
something is wrong with the way this is being implemented..
since other games are doing the same thing and there is no
visible alteration to game functions...

M

This situation is never a problem for games that are not open ended. The "level" can be loaded and is ready to roll, the HDD access is more for specific details, textures, or scripts.

This problem is a carry-over from "poor" modular programming for an infinite open world system. I cannot fathom the true complexity of this system, and am knowledgeable enough to not say "They should just fix it". This is inherent in the structure of this game engine. I only call it "poor" in comparison to a game like GTA IV, or RDR. Two very open world games that never have a problem with buffering the necessary data for seamless transitions in an open world. There is no patch that would correct this problem, but hopefully they can patch the exception handling to correct a HDD access deadlock like this. The hiccups will remain, but it won't crash the whole system.

Also, just another thought. Since this problem seems to only effect some PS3 users and not others, they are probably not entering the HDD load hiccup "locked mode" while data is buffering... This is the root of the issue, if the data buffer hiccup never happens, the full system lock never happens, hence why so many users never have a single freeze of this nature. Although simply handling the deadlock process precedence may be enough to stop the freeze, the HDD buffer issues are the systemic problem.

Hmmm, that sounds reasonable to me. I wonder if this is a problem across all platforms. Regardless, I hope it's patchable. And if it's the same problem as in F3, maybe F3 can get a patch too. I can hope at least.

I get the random 2-5 second lock ups when I am traveling in the wastes. But I have noticed that I only get full lock ups or crash to XMB when I am connected to the PSN or I am doing a background download while playing. To stop these crashes, not the lag, try going offline

I've never been online while playing and had many instances of "full-lock" freezing, as well as "direct to XMB" crash.

I did find that turning off auto-save helped me a bit, as it takes some load off of the HDD when I exit a building. I did have some of these "full-lock" freezes immediately upon exiting, as the engine was trying to work out the wasteland at the same time as a mission script action was happening, or NPCs were in an event... The less HDD related processes I have going on, the better my chances of not having a "full-lock" freeze.

Couple thoughts on this.

I think there are a few different situation that cause Fallout:NV to crash or lock-up. A lot of the arguments and confusion on these issues stem from the fact that we are using the same term to describe a few different problems that have different causes, but the symptoms are similar enough for people to group the issues under the same word, like "Freezing". It's like 2 guys arguing about what band is the most heavy metal, never agreeing because their definitions and terminology are not the same.

Full-Lock Freeze: The freezing problem I'm discussing, that is most prevalent with me, is when the frame-rate of the game drops to 0, but the engine is clearly still running, ambient sounds continue. The PS3 has not locked up, but the game's video frame-rate has halted. The HDD stops being accessed at this point, and it will stay at this point forever.

Loading Screen Freeze: I know that users have complained of freezing during the loading screen. This has never happened to me, and most likely has a completely different cause than this specific freezing I'm describing.

Black Screen Freeze: Exactly the same as the full-lock freeze, audio keeps going but the game completely halts, only with this type of freezing the screen also goes black. Happens to many people with issues relating to The Strip.

Direct To XMB Crash: I've also had my game crash directly to the PS3 menu (XMB) while exiting a house. Completely different than these other problems, but I've seen entire threads of everyone saying their game is crashing, even though they're discussing a few completely separate issues.

Very difficult to discuss and help evaluate from a developers perspective. I'll try to refer to each of these issues uniquely, hopefully the PS3 issue forum members can try and do the same, it can only help those troubleshooting these concerns.

The only type of crashing I've been having is a total lockup..
Whatever frame is on the screen when it crashes is stuck like a stop motion cam
shot, nothing is happening - HDD light not blinking, no sound, no nothing... the
controller becomes unresponsive... the only thing that will change it is to
eject the disc and a few seconds later the PS3 beeps 3 times and restarts itself...

M

I've had full lockups just walking through the wasteland, freezing on loading screens, and have been forced back to the XMB. I have had a wired internet connection the whole time, and had autosave on the entire time. I have also stopped moving when I have noticed the hdd acting up, to try to let it work itself out before moving forward. This sometimes prevents a freeze, but I still get the freezing problem quite often.

This is all on a launch 60gb.

I'd recommend turning off all auto-save options, this will decrease the load on the HDD, which is desperately needed. I've heard some people say that being offline helps, but it hasn't affected me.

I get this too a lot I would love to play this game but its not good for the system to full lock and have to hard Reset with pushing the Power button every time this happens I am wondering if its because the catch is full and theres no way to clear it.. FO3 for the 360 had the option to clear the catch after that FO3 was play able... I really would like to have this fixed ASAP with the next patch I feel like I wasted 80 bucks on a game I got the CE heh Shouldn't of though considering the freezes o well I sure hope theres a fix....

I've had the exact same issues. Never an XMB crash, but load screen crash once where I could still access the XMB and others as a frame rate crash and the controller being unresponsive. The game loads it's areas as cells. It only crashes during the wasteland exploration, never indoors. You'll notice the game runs fantastic when you're inside a building. There is no data streaming, it can all fit into RAM. The original poster nailed it on the head with his anolysis.