Fallout 3 GOTY edition on steam keeps crashing. How can i fix this?

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Mr-Possible

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#1 Mr-Possible
Member since 2010 • 115 Posts

I know that there are so many threads about this already but i cant find any information that would apply to me. I purchased the game through steam today, taking advantage of the awesome summer sales, and love it however i cant deal with the crashing. It just freezes and i have to end the task to do anything. What can i do to stop it?
I can easily run the game and my specs are;

Windows 7 Ultimate 64 bit
Intel I5 2500K
Geforce GTX 680
16GB RAM

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YoshiYogurt

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#2 YoshiYogurt
Member since 2010 • 6008 Posts
The game crashes a ton for me too, it's quite ridiculous.
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Miroku32

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#3 Miroku32
Member since 2006 • 8666 Posts

I remember this. Had to change some configurations in the .ini file. Let me check if I find the fix.

Try this:

Step 1)
Open up the fallout.ini file in: My Documents\My Games\Fallout3
Find the line:
bUseThreadedAI=0
change it to:
bUseThreadedAI=1
Add another line after it and insert:
iNumHWThreads=2
This will limit the game to 2 cores and prevent the engine bug from causing the game to freeze.

Don't remember if those were the lines I changed though.

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cain006

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#4 cain006
Member since 2008 • 8625 Posts

I had to change something in the settings file, had something to do with quad cores or something.

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-Unreal-

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#5 -Unreal-
Member since 2004 • 24650 Posts

It's a crappy console port and it's made by Bethesda.

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kozzy1234

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#6 kozzy1234
Member since 2005 • 35966 Posts

Yeah i had some crashing with F3 also, wierd I had barely any issues with New Vegas though.

Try to edit the INI file as others have said and also maybe try a different gpu driver?

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poktanju

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#7 poktanju
Member since 2012 • 25 Posts

I remember this. Had to change some configurations in the .ini file. Let me check if I find the fix.

Try this:

Step 1)
Open up the fallout.ini file in: My Documents\My Games\Fallout3
Find the line:
bUseThreadedAI=0
change it to:
bUseThreadedAI=1
Add another line after it and insert:
iNumHWThreads=2
This will limit the game to 2 cores and prevent the engine bug from causing the game to freeze.

Don't remember if those were the lines I changed though.

Miroku32
i had the same problem and editing these lines in the .ini worked for me. also, if you do a search for fallout 3 ram boost, there's info on how to get fo3 to use more than 2gb ram.
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wis3boi

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#8 wis3boi
Member since 2005 • 32507 Posts

try the ini fixes above. The game is terribly unstable, even moreso when you start adding mods into the equation.

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CBN16

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#9 CBN16
Member since 2012 • 407 Posts

I posted a long list of what to do to fix this that made it run perfectly. For some reason I can get banned for that and the thread is gone.

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Mr-Possible

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#10 Mr-Possible
Member since 2010 • 115 Posts

I remember this. Had to change some configurations in the .ini file. Let me check if I find the fix.

Try this:

Step 1)
Open up the fallout.ini file in: My Documents\My Games\Fallout3
Find the line:
bUseThreadedAI=0
change it to:
bUseThreadedAI=1
Add another line after it and insert:
iNumHWThreads=2
This will limit the game to 2 cores and prevent the engine bug from causing the game to freeze.

Don't remember if those were the lines I changed though.

Miroku32

I tried this and was able to play for a good hour and a half before it crashed which is certainly an improvment. Its just so annoying becuase games that are far older work absolutely fine with windows 7. :/ including oblivion which is another bethesda game

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the_bi99man

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#11 the_bi99man
Member since 2004 • 11465 Posts

I remember this. Had to change some configurations in the .ini file. Let me check if I find the fix.

Try this:

Step 1)
Open up the fallout.ini file in: My Documents\My Games\Fallout3
Find the line:
bUseThreadedAI=0
change it to:
bUseThreadedAI=1
Add another line after it and insert:
iNumHWThreads=2
This will limit the game to 2 cores and prevent the engine bug from causing the game to freeze.

Don't remember if those were the lines I changed though.

Miroku32

This. Just picked up GOTY Edition myself the other day on Steam. Crashed every 30 seconds or so. Did this. Works perfectly now. Apparently it's an issue the game has with Quad-Core CPUs. Doesn't like them, so this limits the game to only use 2, which it was designed for. Funny thing, I only have a dual-core CPU, and I was getting the crashes, and this fixed it.

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the_bi99man

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#12 the_bi99man
Member since 2004 • 11465 Posts

[QUOTE="Miroku32"]

I remember this. Had to change some configurations in the .ini file. Let me check if I find the fix.

Try this:

Step 1)
Open up the fallout.ini file in: My Documents\My Games\Fallout3
Find the line:
bUseThreadedAI=0
change it to:
bUseThreadedAI=1
Add another line after it and insert:
iNumHWThreads=2
This will limit the game to 2 cores and prevent the engine bug from causing the game to freeze.

Don't remember if those were the lines I changed though.

Mr-Possible

I tried this and was able to play for a good hour and a half before it crashed which is certainly an improvment. Its just so annoying becuase games that are far older work absolutely fine with windows 7. :/ including oblivion which is another bethesda game

I think being able to play most bethesda games for more than an hour before it crashes is as good as it's gonna get.:P That INI file edit definitely fixed the problem that you were having. It was the Quad-Core CPU issue. Loads of people got that same problem, making for constant crashes.

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wis3boi

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#13 wis3boi
Member since 2005 • 32507 Posts

[QUOTE="Mr-Possible"]

[QUOTE="Miroku32"]

I remember this. Had to change some configurations in the .ini file. Let me check if I find the fix.

Try this:

Step 1)
Open up the fallout.ini file in: My Documents\My Games\Fallout3
Find the line:
bUseThreadedAI=0
change it to:
bUseThreadedAI=1
Add another line after it and insert:
iNumHWThreads=2
This will limit the game to 2 cores and prevent the engine bug from causing the game to freeze.

Don't remember if those were the lines I changed though.

the_bi99man

I tried this and was able to play for a good hour and a half before it crashed which is certainly an improvment. Its just so annoying becuase games that are far older work absolutely fine with windows 7. :/ including oblivion which is another bethesda game

I think being able to play most bethesda games for more than an hour before it crashes is as good as it's gonna get.:P That INI file edit definitely fixed the problem that you were having. It was the Quad-Core CPU issue. Loads of people got that same problem, making for constant crashes.

It's the engine from oblivion, it's terribly made. Whatever they did to skyrim is like magic, I've yet to see skyrim crash since release day.

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FalloutNeil

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#14 FalloutNeil
Member since 2014 • 25 Posts

This is still valid. My Fallout 3 was working perfectly on my Win 7 Pro 64bit system until the latest set of driver updates and it literally killed it.

Sometimes I could play for 5 minutes but most time under 30 seconds, I spent a couple days working on it before I ran into this post.

Editing the .ini file worked perfectly.

Big thanks!

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_SKatEDiRt_

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#15  Edited By _SKatEDiRt_
Member since 2007 • 3117 Posts

is this on the steam version? ive always had problems with the steam version of things. they crappify it or something and then put in on steam. I have the retail version (CD) and that fixed all my problems.

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Gamesterpheonix

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#16 Gamesterpheonix
Member since 2005 • 3676 Posts

Fallout 3 wasnt made for Windows 7. It requires tweaking to get running and probably mods to really bring up to speed. I bought it in gift form a few months back but then traded it away when I saw how much trouble Id have to go through to run it. Luckily for you I saved and still have the thread that would help fix the problem:

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=149946772

Hope that helps.

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kitty

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#17 kitty  Moderator
Member since 2006 • 115429 Posts

This topic is well over a year old, going on two in fact. It's served it's purpose. I'm glad topics like these help out people having the same issues, but we encourage that you make a new topic rather than bump a old topic such as this.