After all this time I have never played any DLC (despite owning all of them). Now that I run them enabled, the game crashes rather frequently, so I was hoping that the forum has formed a common consensus as to which one is best to leave out?

The most common crash for me seems to leave the game running, but drop out to the desktop (whiile leaving the last animation frame frozen onscreen). at which point, one may run other software if they can do it blind, or ALT+Tab between software (none takes the foreground) ~ and even switch back to Fallout 3 (causing the music to continue, but the game is locked up, with no sounds or interaction other than music).

The only thing that works is to shutdown. Telling Windows to shutdown will dutifully cause all applications to exit or be closed (including Fallout 3); then it logs off and shuts down as is normal for Windows.

I had some bugs with mothership zeta, which in the end led to me removing it.

Well... All I can say is that based on the overwhelming direction of the poll, I removed only the Zeta DLC from the game, and was then able to play for a couple of hours without a crash; where as before, I could not play 10 minutes (more or less) after the start of the escape in vault 101. :shrug:

Clearly something is messed up with Zeta or something in Zeta messes things up.

on the pc mz svcks i use a teleporter but when i want to go back with the same teleporter it doesn't work and i'm stuck

All the DLCs work just fine for me. At best Zeta only has some scripting errors, so trying to push the "My game crashes because off..." card onto Zeta us complete bull. There are many reasons why your game could be crashing, and proof of that is the fact that the game DOES still crash for you.

I cant even remember the last time Fallout crashed on me...

I haven't noticed any crashing that I could link to any particular DLC. One thing I do that seems to help crashing overall (you might want to give it a try Gizmo, if it isn't already one of your regular habits) is periodically waiting/sleeping in game for 3 consecutive 24 hour periods. That should allow all of the game's resettables to reset and, besides reducing my crashes, seems to improve performance for a time.

This also seems to help with Morrowind and Oblivion. I don't think it's my imagination, although one never do know.

Edit: Damn, I just realized this topic is old news. I'd better get some coffee in me.

Fallout 3 has always crashed for me (Quad Core), but with Zeta installed it crashed every 10 to 15 minutes. :shrug:
What happens is when in combat, there will be a noticeable frame rate stutter, then it locks up.
(it happens with or without loaded mods ~other than the DLC)

I think what I'll try to do is find out from the Wiki where that DLC begins, go there, then enable it and play from there.


That's something to try. I usually have only done that when reverse Pick-Pocketing Enclave Armor to BOS knights (see SIG link).