Is Steam automatically downloading patches and applying them? How would I know? How can I tell what version of NV I am running? Thanks.

Yes it does. Read the Game Update thread. It's a locked thread and probably the third one down.
http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1123616-game-updates/

Go to the Steam Library>(Right click)Fallout NV>Properties>Updates>View Fallout:NV update history

That's the list of applied patches or is it the list of patches that exist?

I forgot a step in there.

Steam Library>(Right click)Fallout NV>Properties>Updates>View Fallout:NV update history>Product Updates

But anyway....

Applied as far as I understand it.

Here are the versions in order of update.

1.0.0.240 (Original install version not a patch.)
1.0.0.268
1.1.1.271

Right click the FalloutNV.exe and select Properties>Details to see what you have.

Hello. This may seem like a simpleton question, but where do i find the FalloutNV.exe ? I would expect to be able to find this and the game files I loaded from the disc, but my computer seems reluctant to give them up. As far as I know I have searched all files - repeatedly etc. I wish to add the dll939 fix also, but can't locate the file to drop it in. This is doin my head in... Any advice would be appreciated? Thankyou. Also, following the directions to view updates, I can only see 2, of which the last was on the 22nd October and they do not list their ID code on the screen. So where is the I.D. for these patches and is the 22nd Oct the most recent PC one? Thanks again..

"wherever">Steam\steamapps\common\fallout new vegas

There have only been 2 patches. ID has me confused, unless you mean game version? If so, the latest version of the FalloutNV.exe is 1.1.1.271. (Right click it>Properties>Details)

Thankyou

Have looked around a bit and haven't found any better place to post what I will say, but since it involves Steam auto-updating and whether there may be missing EXE's, this seems about as good a place to post as any-- so I can get out of here and back into New Vegas yumminess.

Primarily, my post will deal with installing Fallout: New Vegas by means of a 56k modem (not an impossible task at all).

I bought this game on Monday, because people were saying it was unplayable-- which intrigued me.

I started installing early afternoon Monday, the initial phase of which (from the disk) took less than a half hour. But Steam never ceased the process between installation and upgrade (which is smart, since it allows the upgrade to be built into the installation). The initial upgrade (at the time I installed) was about 450 MB in size, which takes a while for a 56k modem to manage. Before the completion of this 450 MB upgrade, no EXEs existed in the New Vegas directory and no record of the installation was made within the Windows registry, ie: the first 450MB upgrade is an intrinsic part of the initial installation.
Something funny happened after about fifteen hours of installation, and Steam was closed (well, crashed). Here is the Catch-22 "funny" point: Steam doesn't take well to being closed. It doesn't lose data, no siree, but it must check the data it has received before proceeding. So, if you start a 450 meg upgrade, for example, and Steam crashes, closes or is closed at the 350MB point, then when restarted, data will appear to download, but on closer inspection is really being dumped, until it gets to the 350MB point again, at which time the upgrade will resume. In short, though an upgrade may be paused, and a connection may be dropped, with no apparent repercussions, if Steam is closed, then the upgrade process will essentially (that is to say from a temporal standpoint) begin anew when the upgrade process is resumed.

Started upgrading the second time, Tuesday around noon. Shortly after 3:30 in the morning I was back to where I had been when the Steam software had crashed the day before. Now, this cannot be stressed enough: Do not mistake Steam "not responding" to be a form of crashing. It is in the nature of the Steam software no cease responding when it doesn't want to respond. Open a text file over it, and it will look like text until it is back in a responsive mindset. When it is like this, just ignore it. It will awaken eventually. And for crap sake do not close it!

Anyhoo, Fallout New Vegas was installed bright and shiny the next day. Went to run it. It crashed at the opening credits. Hooked into Steam. Steam said, "Wait a moment" and started installing a 131MB patch (didn't look to see any specs, as didn't give a poop). When the 131MB upgrade had been installed, I once again went to run it-- and once again, it crashed at the opening credits. Hooked into Steam. Steam said "Wait a moment" and started installing a 41MB patch. When this was done, ran it-- sound and memory nightmare. But this too seems to be a minor issue that may be solved.

So:
1) Yes, Steam does upgrade NV automatically (at this point do not even bother setting it to not upgrade, as it needs upgrading).
2) Sometimes there are no EXEs to be found-- at which point in the installation, they wouldn't work if they were there anyway.

I use US Robotics iBand banner traffic monitor to see whether Steam is downloading data, and how clean the connection is. Main situation in dealing with Steam with a 56k modem is patience. Get a clean connection, and it will figure the situation out eventually.

And don't fiddle with it!



Bethesda works in mysterious ways-- blessed be the name of Bethesda.

Well that explains a few things. I'm on a slower, often unstable dialup connection, 24-26.4Kbps (3-3.3KB/s, ~18 cable-mile from the telco CO). Bought the retail DVD from Amazon pre-order, started the install last Saturday. Steam crashed on Sunday, Tuesday, and earlier today. Rebooted on Monday, Wednesday, and yesterday because I dual boot Fedora Linux and needed to check email and what not. So when Steam says FO:NV is still at 96%, 6690.7/6919.4MB a full week later it is not merely reporting wrong, its actually accomplished almost nothing due to these interruptions.

I started http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1130725-steam-requirement-customer-abuse-by-gamesas/, in which I argue Steam should be optional and requested a standalone installer and patches for non-broadband users. One post noted auto-updates can be disabled, but in testing that had no effect. Then later on I tried to suggest the community write an open letter to gamesas explaining why making Steam a requirement is unreasonable and even offer to develop/maintain both a standalone installer and patches (legally), and arguing Steam only breeds piracy among non-broadband users -but- a moderator deleted my post and relegated the whole thread to Community Discussion. Oddly the moderator said she was doing me a favor, apparently suborning organized customer criticism results in being banned from these forums - I see that reaction as making a bad situation worse, which explains the calls for a lawsuit.

Can anything be done to accelerate this process?

Is there some way to proxy partial updates so when Steam restarts its validating from a local cache instead?

I saw another thread mentioning the patches can be copied over from another install and then validated more rapidly than if updated normally via Steam, are these available anywhere for free download? (I don't know anyone in my local area with FO:NV and broadband)


Note to moderators: This is a good faith attempt to resolve this problem, cracks to bypass Steam were available within hours of the FO:NV release. Be reasonable.

I am a very patient person. I can accept the scripting bugs, I know they'll get fixed. Luckily I've had about 6 crashes in 153 hours of play and I know what caused them, so I don't do that any more. BUT STEAM IS PISSING ME OFF!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Simply finding the version number requires [censored] instructions from someone on this forum. No I will not clean up my language because STEAM IS [censored] PISSING ME OFF.

I have been very, very, very, very patient with Bethesda and the bugs. It happens. I know this and I accept it. But I have NO PATIENCE for Steam. I haven't allowed it on my machine for years and if Beth doesn't get rid of it, I'm afraid Beth games will not be allowed on my machine either. My7 best friend will not buy FONV until there is some sort of HACK that gets around it. I DO NOT NEED ANOTHER LOGIN JUST TO PLAY A SINGLE PLAYER GAME AND NO, I WILL NOT SAVE ANY PASSWORDS ON MY MACHINE. And that is just the start of my complaints about Steam.

As long as the Steam software is not closed, it will continue upgrading from the point where it is at, even if the connection is dropped temporarily.

Sometimes it stops responding for ungodly periods of time when it is functioning normally. Cannot add much else at this point, as this is all I have learned.

When Empire: Total War first came out, installation seemed to be similar (regarding not resuming where it left off). Eventually, the installation of that game came to use a form of caching that would resume from the point at which download stopped. Probably that will eventually be the case with Fallout: New Vegas as well.

FalloutNV.exe is only 16MB and FalloutNVLauncher.exe is only 2MB-- yet a large part of the installation process seems to entail toying with downloading these two files, and then dumping the data. Over my head.

One thing I did notice back with ETW was that when it was patched without completely deleting the game and reinstalling (which is to say, when it added the patches after the game had been installed rather than during installation) it almost never worked right, and crashed randomly.

Fallout: New Vegas seems to have installed successfully onto my system-- and, in twenty hours of play has never crashed once (even during in-game saves and reloads, which in Oblivion and Fallout 3 as a rule, crash my system every third attempt at most). System use is between Oblivion and Fallout 3.

The only major bug I have seen in the game so far is that if it is not told that my Radeon HD 3850 AGP card is instead a NVIDIA GeForce 8600 GT card, nothing whatsoever works correctly. Why? I dunno. Guess it's just the way things happen.



Edit: Concerning the "fix" that I used for my system, and the problems I was having.
I used the Silent Hill 4 fix (silenthill5patch11) and not the much debated "d3d9.dll fix" which didn't do anything for me. Both fixes entail modified d3d9.dll files. The d3d9.dll in the fix I use is about a third larger than the other one. My problems were not just a matter of the game running slowly, but more in the way of: leave one building and silently shoot a gun and silently punch the air and silently run to another building, then, when entering the second building, there was "Bam! Bam! Bam! Punch! Punch! Scrabble scrabble" all in a wad. The other d3d9.dll fix did nothing to help this problem. There are at least three d3d9.dll fixes out there, Chiiiilllldrennn-- and there will probably be more before such a simple techno-turd as this is solved officially-- so do what ya gotta do, ... if ya gotta.



Bethesda, blahblahblah ... .
Obsidian, yadayadayada ... .
Steam, meh ... .

Try Catalyst 10.10c, the full package is yet another large download but its supposed to fix the graphics issues.

My opinion of Steam is mixed. The underlying concept is excellent - anything which increases the accessibility of new, old, and indie games, while removing the need for physical media is real progress. On the other hand Steam is pathetic, its draconian abuse of both non-broadband users and seemingly developers too as Steam is reliably cracked within hours of a game release, even pirate patches are updated regularly (i.e. pirates providing better customer support to non-broadband users than publishers). The implementation seems atypical of a game studio - highly stylized, lots of BS, performs exactly as expected under perfect conditions but goes FUBAR if you so much as look at it wrong. I'm certain something else could supplant it easily - for lack of a better example, its like MySpace awaiting a Facebook equivalent to emerge. Unlike the social networking sites, Steam appears to be in a weaker position, its unlikely to survive a major drop in market share due to its reliance on direct sales and the liability of the existing customer base. Fortunately for Valve, all the other publishers are too obsessed with consoles and anti-piracy to realize there are better approaches than draconian abuse of paying customers. If Google ever enters this market expect everything else to cease to exist within several years. I believe there is also a significant niche for a free open source platform.


Back to the original topic, just noticed hitting "play" stops all active downloads and starts downloading FO:NV again. Might be useful as a means to stop the Steam client (app id 7) update from hogging bandwidth and/or prod an idle FO:NV update. As long as the "Preparing to launch..." dialog is open it doesn't restart the Steam client update. No clue if it disrupts the FO:NV update process, don't have the necessary tools installed to check.

Thank you for the suggestion, but this fix is for Windows 7 systems that are having trouble primarily with frame rate.

My drivers and settings are in optimum condition.

There are at least three types of "problems" that are involved in this "fix" issue-- mine being the "problem" of a card that fully supports all used types of shader that is having trouble processing this game.

Fallout: New Vegas is a "special needs" child.

Just to check the matter out, I just attempted to run the game using four different approaches-- original driver settings and three of the "fixes" (of which the original settings and two of the fixes resulted in a startup of a new game that took ten minutes to show anything, two another five minutes staring at the fan, etcetera). On my system, only one of the solutions results in a startup that takes twenty seconds and is perfectly normal. The game is simply goofy.

Now look-- I've wasted play time and soiled myself!