Update the patch status... or else the game will go back to the store.

I will loudly complain to both the store and will also get in contact with their supplier.

Can we get a status on the Ps3 freezing issue?

I gave up waiting and sent mine back this morning. They won't fix the freezing/lag issues so there is no point waiting for them. They are too busy trying to fix minor glitches.

Walmart would not allow me to return this POS game. They can only exchange it for another copy of the POS game. What a waste of $$$. Saddened by this...was always a huge fan of Fallout. For those who actually got to return the game...which store or which walmart accepted the return?

I hate to admit it, but I'm beginning to think you guys are right.
I bought F:NV on release day and put http://i72.photobucket.com/albums/i181/rainmagick/DSCF2978.jpg hours in before the freeze/crash problem started for me; but when it did start, it snowballed to the point that the game is completely unplayable. I've had to shelve it and I'm trying to keep the faith that Obsidian and Beth will get this issue resolved.

However, it's becoming increasingly difficult to remain optimistic.

Not to bring personal issues in to this or sound "boo-hoo, poor me" and all, but I pretty much spent $60 I shouldn't have on this game. It was my decision and I know that and, as I told my spouse at the time, I had been waiting for this game since I first heard about it. I absolutely LOVED Fallout 3 and I couldn't wait for New Vegas. I'm not blaming anyone but myself and I'm really not whining; it was my decision. Sadly, it's one that I am beginning to regret, especially with CoD: Black Ops hitting the shelves soon.

Anyway, that's beside the point.
I'm becoming more and more disheartened from checking these forums every day in the hopes of some sort of announcement that progress is being made. Yes, I've seen the sticky about patch 1.01 and that the higher up's are reading these forums and "passing along" information to the developers. Still, that is a far cry from someone in authority coming straight out and saying:

1.) Yes, we are very aware of the freezing and crashing problem.
2.) Obsidian and Bethesda are committed to resolving this issue and are making use of all available resources even if it means a delay in the Holiday release of our DLC.
3.) Obsidian and Bethesda apologize for the inconvenience this issue has caused to our customers.

An official statement including those three statements would completely put my mind at ease and allow me to justify to myself the fact that I spent $60 USD on a product that just takes up shelf space.

I guess it really doesn't matter in the long run what I think or feel. Heck, according to a lot of people out there, I'm just making things up or overly exaggerating the "problem".

Well, I am telling you point-blank that I am not making anything up or exaggerating anything.
I don't want anything from Obsidian or Bethesda other than clear cut assurance that THIS issue ... freezing and crashing, which literally prevents me from playing the game at all ... is at the top of their list. All I want is for the game that I bought in good faith to play. That's all. I can deal with bugs and glitches and I would be content to avoid quest bugs just as I did in Oblivion (anyone remember "Mystery at Harlun's Watch"?) just so long as I could play the game in the mean time.

This is a serious problem.
For those of you reading this who have not experienced freezing/crashing, then I'm honestly glad for you. I would ask, however, that you not be jerks about it and try to understand where I (and many others) am coming from.

Anyway, that's my half-cent on the matter.

Bethesda know quite well that anyone who says they returned/ are going to return the game don't usually do it and if they did do it that its only a very very small number of people. Thats why they don't reply to these threads or listen to the fanbase and thats why they release unplayable games like this one. They know that after all the [censored]ing is done the people doing the [censored]ing will be back again for fallout 4 or elder scrolls 5 because they have a unique gaming experiance.

Mate instead of [censored]ing, either return the game quietly, wait a few weeks for a patch and play something else or put up with the constant freezing like everyone else is. These type of threads never work. I know mate because I made dozens of these threads when Fallout 3 released and 2 years later that game still freezes every minute for 5 seconds.

Sadly, I think most of this is very true. Not just of Beth and Obsidian but of gaming companies in general.
I offered my opinion on this topic http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1131071-i-want-my-money-back/page__st__20__p__16584058__fromsearch__1&#entry16584058.

As for Beth/Obsidian not responding in these threads ... I don't think they really know how to reply without pissing off at least some segment(s) of their consumers.

im glad i have civilization V to hold me over until the freezing issues are fixed..my icepack under the ps3 trick doesnt seem to do it all the time anymore..

Sadly i'm going to trade this in as the freezing is getting more frequent and i feel constantly having to reset the PS3 ain't doing it a world of good.

Shame as there is a great game in there struggling to get out.

Why? If he returns the game quietly he has no chance of changing anything. If he's going to return it he might aswell make some noise about it just incase by some fluke Bethesda actually do take notice. Sure it will annoy some of the users here who already have sticks up there arses, but who cares what they think? I don't care. I doubt awwe cares either.

There's nothing to lose here by making complaints, other than the possibility of annoying people who are actively searching for a reason to be annoyed.

Just return it for a full refund i did i was not going to put up with this after the problems they never fixed with fallout 3 goty.This company is a joke they have a record of buggy faulty games.

His complaining ain't bothering me. I said that so he doesn't waste his breath. Complaining only wastes our time. We've been here before with Fallout 3 and that game freezes worse than when it first launched

Weirdly, I took F:NV over to my friend's house ... he just bought at brand spanking new 160gb PS3 today ... and the game is running fine.
He's made his character (which took him a frustrating half hour! LOL!) and explored all of Goodsprings and done all the quests.

Now, I have to wonder ... and please understand where I am coming from ... will his game go the same way mine did?
By that I mean, I got roughly 55 hours in to the game before I started seeing the now constant and random freeze/crash problem. In fact, the game only became totally unplayable for me at http://i72.photobucket.com/albums/i181/rainmagick/DSCF2978.jpg hours of game play. For me, that was five days worth of play. What I wonder is this: In five days or a week or whatever, is my friend going to suffer the same freeze/crash horror that I have been dealing with?

To be honest, I am really, really annoyed that he is able to keep playing.
I know that sounds childish and dumb but ... well ... dangit! I just do NOT understand the problems going on with this game! I don't understand why some PS3 owners (sorry, but I don't care about the rest) are having major freeze/crash issues while others are not. To me, it makes no sense. I mean, I have a first gen 60gb PS3 and yeah, it's old. Still, I've kept it clean and on its own shelf so I can't believe hardware is a factor, especially since ALL my other games and movies play just fine, including Fallout 3.

Again, I am at an absolute loss.
I don't think I know enough about software and computers to even begin to speculate. I guess, maybe, that makes all of this even more frustrating.

I think it is related or at the very least has something to do with the memory in the ps3 and how the game uses it during gaming. I personally think the ps3 doesn't have enough memory for this game but if its not that it could just be the game isn't optimized to run on the ps3's small internal memory. Memory and don't get that confused with hard drive or hard drive space, can have a big effect on anything, it can cause errors, crashing, freezing, etc. If I were the one to be tasked with fixing this freezing problem I would start looking there.

I have the 120gb slim ps3 and it seems the only time it will freeze during gaming is after several hours or loading a lot of big places like the strip or the more populated areas.

As much as I hate to admit it, I am thinking you are right.
My friend's new PS3 is the 160gb with the supposed "new wider and better" heat sink ... according to him ... and the game seems to be running flawlessly.
Still, as I said, the game ran flawlessly for me on my first gen 60gb for like 65 hours of play.

The whole situation is just strange.
I guess I really don't know enough about software design and computers to make sense out of this. All I know is that this is the first PS3 game that I have seen which freezes and crashes the way it does. Also, I've never heard of a game with such diverse behaviour. By that I mean ... it reacts differently on the PS3. The fact that there are those (my friend included) who have no problems at all ... well, it's just insanely strange.

To be very blunt and honest ... if I were not experiencing these constant random freezes and crashes myself, I wouldn't believe it.

I don't know what else to say. Right now, as I type this, I am watching my friend make his way to Primm.
It's been over an hour and he has had no freezes or crashes. There have been a few "bugs" with Geckos being caught in rocks and stuff but nothing major.

I just don't get it.
I don't understand how this game can be so different for so many different players.

Most of the game obviously isn't in memory at any given time. For example, when you're in Rivet City the information that pertains to Megaton or even the Wasteland itself isn't in memory (unless they're bad programmers). That's why it loads when you enter Rivet City or when you go back back into the Wasteland -- the info is put into memory, overwriting the irrelevant info. In other words, you don't deal with that much information when you're in Rivet City, and the amount isn't much more after having played 300 hours than when you enter for the first time. Everything that has happened outside of Rivet City isn't in memory, only in the save file.

A lot of people experience problem early when they enter Point Lookout or The Pitt, despite not having anything from the Wasteland in memory, and despite not even having been in these locations for very long.

It seems clear that the freezing gets worse the larger the save file is, but since a larger save file doesn't mean more info in memory the "not enough memory" theory doesn't explain why freezing (and other bugs) correlates with size of the save file. If the problem is lack of memory, why doesn't the game freeze until you've played 50+ hours? (Which is usually the case.)

I'm not saying it isn't memory related somehow (for example memory leaks can be really insidious at times), but not in this sense.

Consider the fact that different parts of the code are executed depending on how you play the game. For example, when using VATS a part of the code is running that otherwise never would be. So while everyone plays the same game, they do not in fact execute the (exact) same code. A lot of the code is inevitable of course, but it is still being run to different degrees and at different frequency, and it could be that some playing styles simply activate the buggy code more than other playing styles. The effect could be accumulative, like a lot of small memory leaks that eventually cause a freeze.

That's one possible explaination. I hope people read this because apparently many are mystified by how big the difference is, and some conclude that because they don't experience any bugs they don't exist. That conclusion isn't logical.

@JaymesB

I have a 250Gb Slim PS3. Bought Fallout3 GOTY Edition, a year ago. The game ran flawlessly until +50 hours in, while doing DLC quests, 100% trophy hunting, etc... "polishing the game", lets say.... Then freezes become common... after the 80th, unplayable. My save file is at 83 hours and after 5-15 minutes it will go into a complete crash (depending on what I do, it looks like sewers or metro doesnt bother much, so 15 minutes, while the wasteland does reduce it to around 5 mins).

Please, do come back when your friend gets into +50 hours like you did. If by then he has no crashes, or he manages to go to the 100th hour without a single crash, then, well, we could begin talking about differences between PS3 models, user playing behaviour, etc. But if he's just began, it's not fair to make comparisons.

My New Vegas will arrive to my mailbox within the next few days. Hopefully I'll be able to enjoy over 50 hours without crashing like I did with Fallout 3, hopefully even more as there are no stupid DLCs loading more "poo" into my save file and so on. I'll comment in the forums whether I get impressive gameplay or constant freezes...

LoL, another "change your business practices, screw what your shareholders think or I'll take back the game you already got paid for!" thread.

Children these days...

You sir, are in fact the child here. One that clearly does not know the price of a pennys worth. It is those sort of comments that are unwarranted and getting threads locked, which contained useful information.

If you have nothing principally helpful to say, then do not convolute the thread with meandering comments.

JaymesB, you have clocked up 65 hours worth, 7000KB worth of data, and I have noticed in the forums that save sizes have become a factor in some freezes. It would also explain your friend starting a new game - small data size - with no problems. Have you tried beginning a new game, on a new file and see how long it is to the next freeze?

Reno

There should be a Computer/Video game regulator, like there is for Mobile, Internet, Energy and Telephone etc. It should be easier for the consumer to complain and get resolutions. The industry needs a "Big brother" watching over it so these things cannot happen anymore as its getting worse and worse for the people who ultimately keep the industry alive, US! and we get treated poorly month after month. Fallout NV is the latest game that proves that most companys think they can get away with this trash.

Fallout NV is like a Bacon and egg sandwich, except someone put little bits of crap in it. You want to enjoy it but you cannot.

I will keep updating in this thread.
Please, you do the same when your copy gets to you. The more honest and unbiased information we can put up here in these forums, the better.



I have a feeling that you are right.
I have, in fact, tried starting a new game on my own system but the freezing/crashing problem was even worse, which is beyond my understanding.
My friend suggested that my old first generation 60gb PS3 might just not be able to handle the game which is why we are experimenting on his new 160gb slim.

Still, as you've said and as has occurred to us, he is only like 10 hours in right now and it will take some time to get a true measure. He's firing up his game right now and I will keep updating here.

You could try backing up your NV game data to a storage media, deleting it off the Hard Drive and attempting then. Since you have ruled out that it does not matter the game data being in use or not, I ponder that the game may still load it up even if you are in a new game/new save file.

I can understand if you didn't wish to attempt this because obviously you may lose a lot of work you've put into it but I will try this if I get this. I am at 5600KB, on a 120GB Slim PS3 and running okay. Although I had my second loading-screen freeze at Camp McCarran which I guessed was down to the fact McCarran is very big.

Reno

On my own 60gb I did exactly that and it didn't work for me.
In fact, I actually reformatted my PS3 ... not just because of NV but I had recently finally deleted FFXI ... and tried reinstalling (both off line and on line) and starting a new game. What was truly weird is that, even after reformatting, the game hung sometimes during install and still had serious freezing issues.

I'm beginning to think, after seeing my friend play so smoothly on his 160gb slim, that the game just may not run well on older systems. I'm not sure why that would be ... maybe it's an overheating issue?
IDK.

Anyhoo, we're still keeping our fingers crossed as he plays through his game.
I have my old save file on a jump drive and we're debating on whether or not to give it a try. I'm a bit up in the air on the idea. If it works, I might have to hijack his PS3!
=P

I'm really surprised at the number of people who come here to defend the game. It's as simple as this: name ONE product you can think of that gets released with the intention of fixing it later. Don't get me wrong, patches for games are a GREAT thing, but crappy developers are using it as a crutch to push UNFINISHED and UNTESTED products out the door. I'm positive Bethesda/Obsidian knew of all the glitches and problems with the game but wanted to beat the holiday market so that saps like us would go spend our hard earned money on a broken product instead a working game. There is absolutely NO WAY they finished this game thinking it was finished. They had every intention on selling us a broken/buggy game and just attempting to fix it down the road.

Again, think of one product besides video games where this is occurring. You wouldn't buy a car advertised with 250hp but craps out at 100hp and just wait for the company to fix the problems. If you're in school, you wouldn't turn in a paper full of awful grammar, unorganized themes, etc and just tell the Professor - "No worries, I'll just email you corrections later. Just needed to make that deadline." For all those saying FONV is a massive game and it's bound to meet some problems. Yes, this is true, but going back to the term paper anology, it wouldn't matter how grandiose your theme was - if your paper is crap it turns your theme to crap. Plain and simple, if the scope of their game was too much for Obsidian/Bethesda to handle then they should have scaled back the game to meet their ABILITIES or, of course, it should have been pushed back to provide a quality product. I mean, not only does the game frequently freeze, but missions are unplayable and the faction alliances are so glitchy it seems impossible to actually maintain a logical relationship in the game.

With games outselling movies and ranking one of the highest entertainment industries it's become all about money for these developers. Half finished product. A decent title but one that can't match up to the others coming out this holiday. Screw it - push the thing out the door.

I can guarantee all of you, at best Obsidian/Bethesda will fix the freezes to a level which most players can put up with. That will be it. All the ingame glitches, buggy alliances. We won't see any solution to this. Why? You've already made your money off the game so why do the work after the fact? The game will be left as is to make room for more money making opportunities. Once the freezing gets to a level where most gamers have been silences they will be pushing DLCs on a broken game.

Vote with your wallet. Don't buy anymore of their products or DLCs. Let your friends/families know this product is not worth buying as the company is not willing to take care or communicate with their customers.

Congrats on getting my 60 bucks, but it won't happen again.

yes, you definitely should seed your word for this game in ears and the name of the company all around, i have 2 freezes in 15 hours, but thats no reason to be fine, i see how other people have major problems with this game, and thats enough for me to get angry., i dont care what engine this is and how different it is to the gta (open world game that never ever frooze) or whatever engine, if you cant develope a game for the ps3 system, then let it be, you will earn what you deserve for this [censored]. if you want to make money, you are wrong in the game scene.