Fallout 3 crashes/freezes !?!???!! – PC-Gaming
Just received fallout 3. I have an aging PC by most people’s standards:
Gigabyte GA400Npro motherboard – At least 6 years old
Kept alive with AMD 3200+XP CPU – (That’s one core – Barton for the w1n)
1 gig of corsair XMS v (overclocked) RAM
ATI X1950pro sapphire turbo doing all the hard work. Catalyst drivers 8. something from Nov 2008
Windows XP sp2 -
Nvidia on board sound card with some ancient drivers from 2004=]
Here’s how I managed to get past my persistent Black screen then CTD.
Usually comp is pretty stable.
Last problem I had was with Gears Of War running at 2 fps. Gave up on it thinking it was my PC finally admitting graphical defeat and begging to be put to pasture to simply churn out word documents. Turns out one x1950 pro driver update later and it was fine on medium settings.
Anyway, Fallout 3:- Installed it, perched the little nodding figurine on desk, and flipped through instruction book whilst it installed. Clicked play.
– Black start-up screen – then :”Fallout 3 has had to close – sorry for the inconvenience” – again, and again and again.
Hit the forums and tried:
1) Patch – no joy
2) Completely clean driver install – latest 9.whatever catalyst drivers. – No joy
3) Looking for FFshow codec. Couldn’t find it – I ended up uninstalling Community Codec Pack I had, and installing the k-lite codec pack, then disbling FFshow in the options – still no joy
4) Updated windows – There were a few critical things I hadn’t installed, but none looked particularly relevent – none the less, did it. – No joy
5) Uninstalled games for windows – no joy
6) Tried the page file ‘fix’ (secretely knowing it wouldn’t work) – No joy
7) Playing in windowed mode/compatability for other windows mode/disable visual themes mode/ tinkering with antialiasing etc etc – No F***ing joy.
Tried loading through the DVD, through the fallout 3.exe, tried defragging HD, disabling everything deemed ‘possibly unnecessary’, under and overclocking the RAM, CPU and GPU, disabling Norton, turning off t’internet- Still wouldn’t show anything apart from black screen then CTD
Then thought I’d just uninstall games for windows again – did this
Tried to uninstall fallout 3. – No icon in add/remove programs – possibly caused by deleting games for windows first?
Ended up just deleting the fallout 3 folder.
Used DVD launcher and clicked play again. It started to re install.
Saw one forum tip that said open up DXDIAG in run menu and turn hardware acceleration for sound to minimum – Did this.
Didn’t install the patch.
Reboot of comp. Now it starts and runs on medium settings with not one glitch. Bizarre.
So:
Latest catalyst drivers (clean install++),
Uninstall of games for Windows Live (previously there from Gears of War)
Hardware acceleration for sound set to minimum,
Not patched.
Good luck. Hope this has helped someone.
Dave
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