Fallout 3 looking for help on reproducible crashes

[skora]

I have to say, the game is great. Its been an adventure trying to make it playable. Except for in the latest spot, I've been able to fix or work around the issues. Here's what I'm experiencing:

Maybe these all have something in common:

1. Rescuing Riliy's rangers, as we kill the last Super Mutant, one of the NPCs start to say something and then the game locks/crashes. I ran out the front door during the fight and then the quest objective didn't get completed, so that was left unfinshed, but I was able to continue the game.
2. When talking with Roy Phillips about his entry to Tenpenny Tower, the quest gets activated and then the game locks up as the green quest text appears on the screen. Just don't talk to Roy, no lockup/crash to worry about, game continues.
3. Listening to the emergency radio broadcast from Vault 101, at the end as the quest gets activated, lockup/crash. Don't listen, game continues.
4. As I am leaving Raven Rock, I see Fawkes doing his thing. But as soon as I hit that top step, the game locks up and then crashes to desktop. I can wait for him to come to me, and he can leave, but every time I hit that step, crash/lockup. This one I can't work around. I've tried fast travelling, same thing.

I'm guessing it has something to do with the questing script, but don't know enough about program to offer anything more than a guess.

Here's what I've tried so far:
No DLC or mods at all
Installed/Reinstalled in both XP and Win7 RC. Same thing, reproducible in both OS.
Drivers updated
Patched to 1.7
Tested without any patches after reinstall
Multi thread ini fix
FFShow ins't installed, so I did install it to add FO3 to the expection list
Disable audio device
.net framework update
Keyboard and device keys to default
Returned all overclocks to stock speeds.
Completing Raven Rock quest at command prompt
G4WL never runs
Removed the saved games and started fresh - This presented the issue that the game now crashes just after the character creation when the mother starts to bite it in the OR. I really don't want to use a very early saved game to try getting back to the same spots only for the same thing to happen.

As you can see, I've tried every fix I've been able to find on the net. Support from the bethesda website is useless too. I'm hoping someone has knowledge of the backside of the program and can identify a path towards a fix. Otherwise, I might just have to walk away from this great game and never give bethesda another dollar of my hard earned money. Yep, I'm on the far edge of frustration with this.

 

[Major7up]

Can you list your setup? We may not be able to help but I suspect that there may be something about your particular setup which is the root cause. If you are using nVidia GPU's you may also want to look into updating the bios on them (do some research first to see what you have and if there are known issues). In my case, an outdated/bad bios on my 9800GTS was the root cause of games crashing as you have described (it was Fallout 3 in fact).

 

[expensive gamer]

i would also like to know how you are playing the game. is it installed from a disk, an iso or did you grab the files from somewhere, because in my experiences with that game, some of the content is corrupt.

 

[skora]

Thanks for offering to help. My stats are in my profile, but here they are:
E5200 OC to 3.6ghz 31 idle/ upper 50s load
Sunbeam core contact freezer
Asus P5Q-Pro
4gb OCZ DDR2 800 running synchronous underclocked below 800 (can't remember off the top of my head)
4850 factory OC to 680/1050 (tried at chipset stock speeds too and no help)
Corsair 550VX
Mid ATX case
Older 160gb HDD
All the drivers are up to date.

The game is a retail copy installed from the DVD.

Any chance this could still be a sound issue even after the same crashes with the onboard sound disabled? I have an old SB 5.1 Live in storage I could install, but these all see quest related and I don't think the sound is the issue unless theres a specific sound that these 4 spots play that they don't on the other quest objectives.

 

[jay_l_a]

This probably doesn't help in the slightest, but I'm still stumped with similar problem with a similar spec'd machine:

http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/102439-13-strange-unreal-tournament-crash

 

[Major7up]

I doubt it is a sound related issue but it is possible. The best way to troubleshoot whether or not this truly is a hardware problem is to try different components. Try you other sound card and see what happens. Try some other RAM stick and see what happens etc. It is even possible that it is your power supply that is the culprit. Though not a common occurrence, I have seen seemingly fine power supplies cause these kinds of problems as well as a myriad of others. If you have another video card try it. In this manner you can logically eliminate each item. Once you have tried testing your parts then it is safer to say that it is a software/driver/OS issue.

 

[Guest]

Mine also crash to desktop when you escape from raven rock just when you step up the stairs it would crash and I've played the game from previous saves this is deffinitely a bug .. very buggy game worthless dont buy it.. after all tha time i've spent playing it.. only to find out in the end you cannot finnish the game... near the end... sucksss...

 

[skora]

Mine also crash to desktop when you escape from raven rock just when you step up the stairs it would crash and I've played the game from previous saves this is deffinitely a bug .. very buggy game worthless dont buy it.. after all tha time i've spent playing it.. only to find out in the end you cannot finnish the game... near the end... sucksss...

After dealing with Bethesda useless support, I gave up. Completely uninstalled. Then found some files in the save data folder in my docs. Destroyed those too. Gave it one more chance a few weeks later and it worked. All my old saved games worked, new games, very very few crashes and nothing reproducible. Save only your game files and blast EVERYTHING else, not just uninstall, but delete. See if that works for you.

 

[Mousemonkey]

This topic has been closed by Mousemonkey