Well, like the rest of you guys, after patch 1.2 my game would crash in less than 20 minutes --Randomly--.
I've been surfing through the topics in here about possible sound / driver incompatibilities.

I tried uninstalling the game and wiping Steam completely off my computer, reinstalled a new fresh version of New Vegas and yet it would still crash.
Well, I tried a couple of remedies to the CTD -- Turning off Avast, Exiting Steam while the game is running, Driver updates, etc. Still they didn't work.

Finally, I remembered that it might possibly be sound/video/codecs, blablabla.

So i uninstalled Realtek High Definition Audio completely.

Voila! Haven't experienced any crashes. Been playing for 2 hours. I even had mods installed.

-Using NVSE beta 5
=Bullet Time
=Sprint Mod
=Pipboy Readius
=Reload bug fix
=Perk Every Level

No errors/ NOTHING

Specs:
Windows 7 32 bit
AMD Athlon 64 x2 Dual Core PRocessor 4000+ 2.10 GHz
Nvidia 8600 GT 512mb GDDR3 Driver 260.99
2.00 GB RAM

---
Yeap, I know I have a crappy system, but it runs Fallout on High smoothly with no problems!
---
I can confirm that the patch 1.2 fixed the bugs they listed, EXCEPT the "lever action" weapons (getting stuck and stuff).
Other than that its working pretty well now

I Have XP SP3.

I had Freeze and CTD's but they were not related to Realtek in any way. They were caused by codecs (Not Realtek) and Fallout New Vegas not being fully Quad Compatible.

Using Realtek Drivers 2.54 I have no issues whatever.

Oh :P. Well I didn't have any codecs that i downloaded externally other than Realtek. >_> It seemed to have fixed my problem.

Never had crashes with this game before Patch 1.2, then after the patch I had CTD. Then now i uninstall Realtek and It solves my problem. lol Well guess it only works for me. -_-

Congratulations,

Right from the start after downloading the game from Steam I have been plagued with continual random crashes after 5-10 minutes of play. The game would run OK on my Laptop (Sony Vaio FW series) but would just crash at any time it felt like it, even if the game was idling without any input.

After the last patch I noticed that the game ran smoother and also that every time I moved from one location to another, whether indoors to outdoors or another location on the world map the game would crash without fail.

I had tried all of the suggested fixes posted on the Forum (dll, ini changes, run in windows mode, AA disabling, etc.) but none of them worked. The only one I had not tried was the Directshow filter reset for the codecs since I assumed that this was only applicable to Wiindows XP.

Becoming rather hacked-off with the whole situation by this time I decided I would give Directshow a try and low and behold no more crashes. I can now run the game on Ultra setting without any signs of a crash occurring. According to Steam I have been playing the game for 50+ hours, although I am not sure how their time counter works because even if I play the game for a few minutes it clocks up another hour or so.

I have been reading on the Forum a lot of gripes about the game bugs, Bethesda, Steam and Bethesda using Steam for their DRM. Personally I like Steam because I work overseas where access to the purchase of new games is not possible. Steam gives me access to the latest games and I have never had any problems so far using this method. Bethesda have, through reasons of their own have elected to Steam to validate Fallout New Vegas and as the mechanism for updating the game. Many people do not like this, however it is a question of choice. Do you want to play the game or not. Personally I have no qualms about using Steam and enjoy the service they provide to me.

My answer is: I want to play the game, not install a third party software that controls the game I paid for. Most of the games today auto configure themselves according the hardware you have; you just double click on the game shortcut icon and you are ready to play the game. You can't do that with Steam, you have to change gazillion settings in the third party software just to play the way you want. I agree that is a great market choice, being able to download a game anywhere in the world is a great idea, but for people who but the disks, Steam SHOULD be optional, I have the disk, the game can check whenever it wants, I have 3 DVD bays so I don't change disks often, those who complain about scratches are careless, I have disks 10 years old and they work just fine. Piracy is not an excuse for forcing me to install Steam, I've seen a pirated version of the game working flawless and without Steam, I want that, and is tempting because is even free. But I love to support developers, I love to have the big box with the cards deck and the chips, but the developer seems to not trust me even if I bought that big box.
My game worked just fine before last patch, but now crashes to desktop every 10 minutes or so, I don't know who's fault is, but the pirated game works just fine even with the last patch cracked. I had to create accounts on Steam and here just to ask for a solution and the only fix I can find is some system tweaks that customers came up with. No developer ever steps into the forums to read about their stuff, however, you got any game torrent and you find an easy fix in a matter of hours.
As I said, it's OK for you to like Steam, not for me, it should be optional. I don't like to have run another program to play my game, that's it.

ummm.. Correct me if I'm wrong, but if you'd already bought the game and were playing it, you wouldn't need to create an account on steam... wouldn't you have done that in order to play? o_0

Pretty sure he meant he had to create accounts to access the forums.

ah, thanks. Personally, I rarely go to the steam forums, much less post there.. so I couldn't remember if my forum account there was created with my steam account or not.