ok so i know that new vegas uses the same engine as fo3.

since the day it came out till today...i can not run fo3 in full screen mode at all....i can run it in windowed mode but it crashes all the time. not too big of a deal, since window mode takes up the whole screen anyway. i have played every dlc except mothership zeta because it just wont run for more than 2 or 3 mins before crashing out. i love fo3 and im not complaining about the problem....i just want to know:

should i expect the same problems with new vegas?

im not looking for help in fixing the issue...there is no fixing it, ive tried everything over the past couple of years and its no use. im only wondering if having the same engine means having the same problems.

thnx.

Impossible to tell really, because it is the same engine its possible whatever your problem is may repeat itself in the new game.

They will be using an improved version of the engine most likely, if you are using mods that may be why your game is crashing.

Have you created a thread in the Hardware Section with your DXDIAG results?

You may not have tried everything.

Patches could also help with that problem

i hope you are right about it being improved.

it didnt work out of the box...from day 1...so mods are not the issue.

lol...yes i did.

everyone knows fo3 has a horrible problem with ctd's. to this very day there are many new threads on the issue (i just checked). its a problem that has been around since launch and has never been fixed.

the only thing i didnt do..and im not going to...is change my os to win7. again...im not looking for help on that issue...the workaround was to run in windowed mode, which was fine for everything except msz.

they could (and should)...but they didnt...in fact they made it worse.

The CTD's are caused by using mods conflicting with each other.
With just one mod (FWE) and all the DLC my FO3 never, never crashed

What's your machine? (I have similar problems but not quite so bad.)


If possible you should get it to work Fullscreen, as Windowed mode almost always comes at a significant performance cost.
Windowed mode is what you have :shrug: ~and fine for the short term, but In the long run, figuring out the cause would be best, as the cause probably will affect other games as well.

winxp (sp3)
amd athlon 64 x2 6000+
4 gigs ram
nvidia 9800 gt

well running in fullscreen has been the main problem the whole time. if i try to run fullscreen, any time im outdoors it becomes a slide show and crashes in about 10 seconds (sometimes immediately upon entering an outdoor area). it runs like glass with all settings on high in windowed mode...i can usually get in anywhere from 1 to 5 hours before it crashes in windowed mode (again except msz...which has random ctd's that i cant seem to stop)

the only other game i have problems with is borderlands...which either starts or doesnt...once that game is up and running its fine, i just have to launch it 2 or 3 times before it plays. no other games give me problems at all...and i run everything on the highest settings (although i usually turn shadows down)

ive been trying to fix this problem since day 1...with no luck, so i just gave up on it.

Just thank the heavens you aren't running on a console like me.
Not only does the PS3 get DLC last, but after level 10 my F3 gamesaves got so large that it crashed just using VATS....
PS3 slim with all DLC (Excluding Pitt) downloaded on a vanilla F3 disk.
Please Obsidian, don't punish me for loving consoles...

We share the same video card, the same amount of RAM, and the same OS [only technically... I run WinXP64].
different CPU's but both AMD, multicore.

Right now (lately) the game runs pretty smooth (with no DLC loaded), but will still lock up occasionally during combat (possibly its combat of more than a few enemies at once ~like say 5 or more).

Can you tell me if your game crashes more often in combat than at other times?

I have not found a solution to my crash problem, but it almost always happens during combat, where I could play for hours by avoiding combat ~or at least it really seems this way.

I have trouble with the MZ DLC (game often crashes while starting a new game (or reloading) when MZ is loaded), so I disable it.

I've run Fallout 3 since 2008, but I've had this problem since day 1 of installing the GOTY edition.

no combat has no bearing i can see.

my crashes occur in outdoor environments. i dont usually get far enough to be in combat. the game will often crash out immediately upon entering an outdoor environment...if it doesnt crash right away, then it will become extremely laggy...and then crash out anytime, but almost always before a minute. if i stay indoors its fine.

i can not determine a pattern for crashing in the mz dlc....sometimes its fine for a while and sometimes it crashes every 30 seconds...with no lag or warning of any kind.

i never get any kind of error msgs, and there is never an entry in my windows error log. it just crashes to desktop and thats it.

Perhaps this discussion will be better suited to the PC issue section?

well it wasnt meant to be a pc issue thread....but a question about the how the engine might work.

im NOT trying to fix a pc issue.

Reasons.
a) Corrupted install or save game.-reinstall
B) Conflicting mods-remove
c) Quad core caused crashes- easily fixed
d) Codec Conflicts-fixable
e) Drivers-easily fixable
f) Computer does not meet specs-size of checkbook
g) Software / AV / Background application-fixable
h) OS-fixable
g) OS updates-fixable
etc...

However New Vegas is supposed to have been optimized for multi core and Win 7 PCs.

I sure hope so ,I had to replace the atimudgpl.dll library with the 64 bit one to stop HDR flickering due to Crossfire in FO3.
I also had to use the ini. to do the quad core fix.

I shouldn't have to do stuff like that to get it to run...but it's not totally their fault as they never mention Win 7 support on the box. Just XP and Vista.

However the game plays beautifully and flawlessly...19x12,4AA,15AF,Maxed everything,V-sync on...never budges from 60 ( Win 7 64 )

Mine doesn't do that, it locks up the system or will crash "owning the foreground", and Nothing can be run (except sometimes Task Manager ~if that works, then FO3 can be killed, and all goes back to normal).

I would try a reinstall of the graphics driver first, If it still crashes, reinstall the game with no DLC and run it. If it still crashes, I would run a RAM checker.

**It occurs to me to disable your sound card and run the game with no sound to see if it doesn't crash ~this is trivial, and would exclude audio issues (like codec conflicts ~or buggy codecs).