Cool, well if the game runs, I guess don't worry about it for now. I understand about error messages though. They make me nervous, too.

Yeah I checked the box to not show the message again. It does bother me a little, but I’m not going to worry about it. Fallout3 needs a remaster just to make it play nice on modern systems!

Added in mods and they seem to be running fine, so I guess that’s all for now! Thanks for the suggestions y’all!

Lmao, for a moment I read only this and thought that was what it said or that you were making a joke. As if the message was saying "It's a Bethesda game. Of course there's an error. What did you expect?"

Same here.

Lol

It is my turn to have Fallout 3 issues again. I started up a new playthrough as Blood Raven today. But I have been getting CTDs like crazy. Sometimes it is when I try to load a save. Sometimes it is just at random points in the game. I never seems get more than 5-10 minutes without a CTD.

I have gone through a ton of fix attempts. I tried that Windows 10 fix I linked to last page. That did nothing. I think because it is for the Steam version of the game, and I have the Gog version. I made sure I was using a fixed refresh, had v-sync on. I put in compatability mode for Windows XP, ran it as administrator, etc... No joy.

My last gasp has been to install New Vegas Anti Crash, and run it in borderless windowed mode thanks to the mod One Tweak.

So far this seems to be working. I started it up and let it sit running for about 40 minutes without a crash. So fingers crossed that one of those two things fixed it.

Edit: And it just did it again. Sigh.

I was about to ask Windows 10? But you've already thought of that.

Last time you played (as Jan, as I recall) were you using the Steam version but now it's Grand Old Games version. Have you ever used GoG before (not that it should matter, but maybe it does)?

Also, is this a Brand new game, as in, starting over from scratch with everything? Hmm, I guess a better question: Are you using the same mod-set from last season? Is there anything new?

Actually, 40 minutes of play might be about what you can expect. Vicious and Cho's game... with both of their games I'll save & reload (assuming I remember to) after a half-hour or so, due to Fallout 3's memory issues, and solely to avoid the dreaded crash which I know is going to come. That's as good as it gets.

I feel it’s past time for Fallout3 to receive the remaster treatment. BGS has paid so much attention to Skyrim, but meanwhile the games that saved and elevated their company (Morrowind, Oblivion, Fallout3) barely run on modern machines. I’m not even advocating for graphics improvements or any extra stuff. Just fixes that will let them run more smoothly on current PCs. I really don’t understand why this hasn’t happened yet.

I reinstalled Fallout 3 (using the Gog version), I think I had the Gog version the last time I played. But I am not sure if I installed it before I went to Windows 10 or after. So maybe that had something to do with it.

In any case, I just did a test while I took a bath. I started a new character, ran through the opening childhood bits up until Amata tells you that your father left and Jonas is dead. I left her standing there in the bedroom while I took a bath and puttered around. I came back over an hour later, and it was still running. So it looks like that did the trick.

Now I will just have to start adding back mods, and see if one of them is what is causing the crash.

I have spent all day fighting with Fallout 3. As soon as I started adding mods, it started crashing again. I went through all the 'standard' tweaks: updated my video drivers, reinstalled the game, set it to run as administrator and in compatability mode for Windows XP, ran it in a window, used New Vegas Anti Crash, etc... I even tried a couple of the Windows 10 fix mods, that have you put a d3d.dll file in your base Fallout folder.

What finally seems to have worked is the Fallout Anniversary Patcher mod. It does a lot of things, the main one being downgrading the game to the previous version (which worked better with mods). It also removes the Games for Windows Lives stuff, makes the executable large address aware, fixes a mod limit bug, and more. It works with both the Gog and Steam versions of the game.

If you are using FOSE, don't start the game with the fose launcher file after installing this (It won't let you if you try). Instead start it with Fallout3.exe, and it will automatically use FOSE if you have it.

So far so good with this. I hope I am not jinxing it by talking about it.

Wow, that took full 'SubRosaTech' mode to fix! I sure hope it works.

I hope it works for you. There are so many Fallout 3 CTD fixes on Nexus, none of them really work 100%, from what I've found some of them don't work at all.

Ugh, ok, so I’m testing mods and playing a bit while I’m doing so (which I guess is my first mistake). The character I’m currently running has finished the first chapter of Moira’s quest and I noticed that the Unofficial Patch wasn’t activated, so I activated it. Now certain NPCs are running around in their underwear! It was definitely the UP that caused this, so I loaded a new character from the auto save point just before stepping out into the wasteland and it seems to work just fine. I’m so confused.

Too much skooma will do it to you.

Sorry, not constructive but couldn't resist! So funny!!

I’ll smack you

This is one of the reasons I do not use the Unofficial Patches in any Bethesda game. I have found they always cause new bugs, even if they fix old ones.

Wow really? Can you cite some examples? (I honestly don't know.)

In Oblivion, some items do not get cleared when a cell is offloaded. Items that would normally get cleared from memory. I'll let you figure out what impact that might have...

Also in Oblivion - and this is my pet complaint! - the Honorblade of Chorrol is downgraded from a bloody good sword to a plain silver longsword!

At that point I stopped looking.

All these years (especially when the official forums were opened) whenver a n00b player would ask "which mods should I get?" the answer usually started with UOP. So this is my first time hearing anybody say avoid them.

Come and think of it though, I never installed any unofficial patches for Fallout 3.

Supposedly this can be fixed by simply loading your save game with all of the mods turned off, then saving the game, then turning all of the mods back on and reloading the save. Will try and report back tomorrow.

I don't remember the bugs the UOPs caused anymore. It was a long time since I used any of them. Now when I come across a specific bug, I just fix it, simple as that. I don't need more headaches.

That's so crazy though, Khajiit. All those people suddenly lost their clothes due to just that one change! WTF.

Yeah, specifically the caravan merchant guards (including Crow himself), and the water parasite sitting outside of Megaton. I haven’t been that far afield with this character so I’m not really sure how widespread the issue is.

Just downloaded New Vegas from GoG. Finally, got this game on PC. So where should I start?

Whoa, Ultra High Quality, that's what NV puts my computer at, sweet. GoG gave me all the DLC too: Caravan Pack, Dead Money, Honest Hearts, heck yes. I cannot wait to mod this fricking game. And roll my first toon. Maybe I'll transfer Linda Hand's game over from Xbox!

Anyway, where do I start? Like is there any unofficial (or even official) patches I should get? Oooh, script extender?

There is an NVSE script extender.

You probably need to do the old multi core CPU fix for Fallout 3 with NV as well, where you edit the .ini files.

There is also a NV Stutter Remover. If you need the latter for Fallout 3, you probably need it for New Vegas as well. There is also a New Vegas Anti-Crash mod. But it is not compatible with the New Vegas Stutter Remover. So use one or the other.

There is a Fallout Mod Manger that works on both FO3 and NV as well.

The Gog version comes with the game's .exe already patched to be able to use 4gb. But there is a 4GB patch you should get from the Nexus anyway, as it has compatibility fixes for the script extender and other things.

There is a version of MCM for New Vegas - the Mod Configuration Menu. Its not necessary. But you might have mods that make use of it.

Same with UIO - User Interface Organizer. A few mods need it to work.

Great, that's awesome, especially the .ini stuff and 4GB info. That didn't occur to me.

How often does NV crash? Fallout 3 crashes (for me) more often than Oblivion, and waaay more often than Skyrim or Morrowind. My FO3 CTDs about every half hour, like clockwork. Literally, if I get roughly half hour into the game (especially exteriors) and I remember to, I'll just go ahead and save/exit/reload, because I know it's gonna crash anyway. And I'm okay with that. As long as it's not crashing every 2 or 3 mins, I'm okay.

Could be because of a weather mod I've got, and I believe this is so because weather mods do affect the outdoors, of course. Everything else in my FO3 is rather light. I don't use a stutter remover, haven't got any extensive texture mods, and frames are capped at 60. Anti-crash stuff doesn't help; I've tried a few fixes over the years. So I believe the half-hour CTD phenomenon has something to do with optimization? Something like that.

I don't plan on modding New Vegas too extensively (no really...), maybe a few little touches like a Blanket mod for sleeping, so what's a mostly-vanilla game like?

I think how often a game crashes often just comes down to a matter of luck, or what might seem like luck because the reasons for the crashes are often so complex that we just can never understand them. We all have different computers, with different hardware in them, sometimes different operating systems, and we run the games with different settings, and with different mods. So I think one's mileage varys a lot game by game.

For me New Vegas is usually more stable than Fallout 3, but less than Oblivion or Skyrim. OTOH, Morroblivion has often given me endless nightmares. But I also have fewer mods for New Vegas, and spend less time playing it than FO3.

I recently reinstalled Fallout 3 from scratch with the Gog version and had endless troubles with random CTDs. Look back through this thread about a page and you will find it. I eventually fixed it with the Fallout Anniversary Patcher, which rolls the game back by a version. You might try that with your Fallout 3.

True, all PCs are a bit different, especially gaming PCs.

Morroblivion sounds like just getting it to run is an adventure in itself. Well in any event, sounds like New Vegas could be more solid than FO3. I won't be installing weather mods into the Mojave. For Maryland/Virginia/DC, it's just wrong not to see some rain, but inclement weather is not as frequent in the desert.

I went back and read your troubles. That's crazy your FO3 crashed so much in the beginning, and that's even before modifications.

I followed this framework when I installed NV and it made crashing almost non-existent. I personally didn't follow it to a T, and stopped short of anything that affected gameplay balance. But the utilities and tweaks alone are 100% worth it.

https://vivanewvegas.moddinglinked.com/intro.html

Very noice, thanks Kane.

Game is installed but I haven't messed with anything yet. I will, though.

It's a fun game! I enjoyed it way more than Fallout 3.

I enjoy FO3 more, but New Vegas is great, too. I love the juxtaposition between both games.

I really wanted to b34t NV on Xbox, honestly, really tried and tried. But there are a few things which I've been really wanting to change, and it got to the point that I wasn't enjoying some aspects of the base game. Hence getting it on GoG the other day.

Right after speaking to Doc Mitchell (NV) the game freezes. This is literally right after he sends us off, and the door's right there. Game just freezes.

It did this on the very first day I started the game, good thing I save often! And this was before I did anything at all. No mods. No script extender, nothing.

I followed that guide you linked, Kane. Did maybe half of the things on that list before I stopped because I don't fully understand everything I'm doing. Anyway, that made no differnece! Still crashes just after speaking to Doc. Installed script extender. Still crashes after sspeaking to Doc Mitchell.

I press Alt + tab so I can see the desktop and there's a weird window which popped up. It's black & white text. Full of a bunch of info, but nothing to do with errors. No idea what to do!

I never ran across this one, so I am not sure what the culprit is. The most famous bug involving Doc Mitchell is of his head starting to spin in a circle when you are creating your character.

I just did a quick search, and see a lot of posts about people having crashes as soon as they leave Doc Mitchell's house. It seems that turning down the graphics options might fix it. Once you get past that area, save the game, turn things back up, and it often seems to work.

GOOD! Phew, thanks! If there's a lot of others who've had this prob that's a good thing because it's well-documented. I didn't even bother to google this time, because we've got several here who've seen a lot in Fallout 3 and New Vegs, so thanks.

How interesting. Exactly the same issue and fix regarding the lab area in Bioshock 2.

Still freezing.

I just tried LOOTing the game, and I did notice the DLC does need to be cleaned. But I went ahead and tried the game after LOOT was done. Game still froze, but I got an error message this time.

Runtime Error!

The application has requested the Runtime to terminate in an unusual way. Please contact application's suppport.. bla bla bla.

I don't know if any of that makes sense to anyone here. Gonna get FNVEdit and see if cleaning DLC 1). is possible and 2). makes any difference.

I made a video of what I'm talking about.

Game freezes after speaking to Doc Mitchell.

What it not seen is the mouse cursor, which abruptly POPS onscreen as the game freezes. Probably nobody knows what can be done about this, so I'll post this at other sites as well. But that is what's happening.

One idea I have is to get a manager and turn off all the DLC. Maybe that'll make a diff. But for now I'm done with Fallout today!

I take it you tried lowering the graphics setting Subrosa talked about? I know it sounds weird that would be the issue but it was regarding Bioshock 2.

So you don't even get to the door or go outside. The crashes I was always seeing reported were if people did that.

I suppose you could try running the game in Windowed mode, and see if that changes the crash. I think you can set that in the launcher. The mouse cursor popping up makes me feel like the computer is switching away from the game to give your desktop the focus, but not making it there? I am admittedly grasping at straws. Maybe using Alt+Tab to cycle between windows might bring it back when this happens. I don't know.

mirocu: I didn't change graphics settings because other folks who've had issues are talking about happens after we get outside the door, and as we can see, I never get outside!

SubRosa: Sure I'll try windowed mode. In fact that's exactly what I do: Alt + Tabtabtabtab. That's not shown in the video. But Yeah, I can alt+tab until I get back to desktop.

But yes, that's the feeling I get too. The game's trying to slip out to desktop for some reason. Blea. I have no idea what to do.

This was supposed to be easy! I'm doing everything right!!! So I'll try windowed mode and like I said, I also want to get a manager so I can turn off DLC. See if that makes any difference.

More issues! This time with Fallout 3. All kinds of problems. Black screen on launch is the latest one. Youtube video after patch after "HOW TO FIX" .... I'm getting nowhere.

Screw it, folks. Screw Steam, that is. All of this seems to be Steam's BS. I'm starting over with Grand Old Games. Granted, my copy of New Vegas from GoG is still broken (see video link above). But maybe the GoG version of FO3 will be just fine.

Let you know if I'm successful later. Ciao.

You are just having the worst luck with computers lately. You had better check for gremlins.

Hee hee yah, right? Gremlins.

Thing is, all my other games are fine now: Skyrim, OB, Morrowind, etc. Only FO3 got messed up.

The GOG version initially worked. That is, the basic install from GOG (without mods) worked. Then I began copy/pasting folders and files over from the Steam folder into the folder I just made. Kept starting the game occasionally, making sure it still started. FOSE in the new folder? Everything still starts fine.

Copied all my mods over (Data folder that is) and Hit a snag. The game immediately CTD'd, but that's expected because I haven't finished moving other files & folders over. So I did that. Copied the DirectX9c folder, Edit Scripts, GeMM, ArchiveInvalidationInvalidated! and other folders and files from the Steam folder into the new one. Now the game starts. Menu screen shows up. I try clicking Continue and the game CTDs at that point.

Tried clicking New, as in new game, still CTDs on launch.

Disabled all mods, only the base game + DLC is left. Still CTDs on launch. But at least I made some progress. Something's missing. Just gotta figure what the heck.
`

I suggest downloading the latest version of FOSE. I think I had to when I installed the Gog version of Fallout 3, because it did not like the older versions.

You probably need to redo the old multi core CPU fix for Fallout 3, where you edit the .ini files.

Ok, I remembered having some issues with the Gog version of FO3.I went back and found where I talked about it, two years ago. Here is the main post:

****
I have spent all day fighting with Fallout 3. As soon as I started adding mods, it started crashing again. I went through all the 'standard' tweaks: updated my video drivers, reinstalled the game, set it to run as administrator and in compatability mode for Windows XP, ran it in a window, used New Vegas Anti Crash, etc... I even tried a couple of the Windows 10 fix mods, that have you put a d3d.dll file in your base Fallout folder.

What finally seems to have worked is the Fallout Anniversary Patcher mod. It does a lot of things, the main one being downgrading the game to the previous version (which worked better with mods). It also removes the Games for Windows Live stuff, makes the executable large address aware, fixes a mod limit bug, and more. It works with both the Gog and Steam versions of the game.

If you are using FOSE, don't start the game with the fose launcher file after installing this (It won't let you if you try). Instead start it with Fallout3.exe, and it will automatically use FOSE if you have it.

So far so good with this. I hope I am not jinxing it by talking about it.
*****

The main thing is I'm really jonesing to get my story going again!!!!!!!!! Really trying my patience, to be going thru all this right when some chapters are getting written.

Anyway, nice, look at this!

I did try the Anniversary Patcher, but I tried it with the Steam version, not the new GoG. So that'll be something I'll try tomorrow.

And if that don't work, my next idea will be to install everything backwards. Instead of copy-pasting the Data folder first I'll try copying the main folder first, piece by piece, until I find whatever's causing the prob. THEN I'll do the Data folder.

I might just install everything from archives this time, though. That's what I did when I had to rebuild Skyrim back in 2018; I installed everything from the Downloads > Skyrim folder. It's good to go thru everything piece by piece. Getting rid of stuff which has become dead weight, ya know?

Just go GotY from a DISC already, Renee. Forget all the online business

Yeah, but where though? Where can I find a Fallout 3 actual disc??? Which is new, and for PC? -- Anyway, I already rebuilt my game. Took about 4 hours, but it's back. Woo hoo!

I did not need the FO3 Anniversary Patcher. What I did was started all over with the reinstall from GoG.

And then instead of copy/pasting stuff from the old Steam folder into the new GoG-based folder (really bad idea; what was I thinking?) I went to my Downloads folder. I've been in the habit of saving archives from the very beginning; a really good habit. Everything's organized. Went into the Downloads > Utilities folder. Started with FOSE.

My version of FOSE is really old; it's from 2016, and the newest version was released in 2022. However, I read somewhere that if I use the newer version then I'll have to make a bunch of upgrades, because my gamesaves are already extant. They are already based on older software. I would need the Anniversary Patcher if I went that route.

So that's gotta be why my game would instantly black-screen-on-launch. Because that happened after I threw the Patcher in.

Anyway, I installed all the rest of the utilities: FO3 Edit, FOMM, and so on. Next, the Unofficial Patch. Finally, I moved to the mods, starting with Alternate Start folder. Everything was installed from scratch this time, straight from the archives themselves.

Enough talk. Time for some gaming. Miss Vicious, here I come.

Awesome you got it running again!

Don't worry, I already fixed my (latest) prob. I'm just posting my fix for anyone else out there.

Was reinstalling Fallout 3 from GoG and was going crazy, because the black-screen-on-launch happened. Tried a .dll fix. Tried to set FO3 executable as Administrator. Tried setting Compatibility Mode.

Each of these 'fixes', I had to get up from my comfy chair over and over because the game would blackscreen, and then I'd have to get up from my chair to turn off/restart my computer. No mods or utilities installed at all, yet! -- However, at some point I discovered I could run the game in Windowed mode. HMm.

Was about to install the Anniversary Patcher when I just happened to notice that the Full Screen setting in the launcher was set at some resolution I don't use. Ah-ha! It should be 1360 x 768. Bang!! Now the game starts & runs. Phew.

It's just a reminder to myself and others: always check the small, easily-overlooked stuff too.