Fallout: New Vegas - still messed up even after patches?

[AsianGunNut]

Hello all,

A few days ago, I decided to purchase Fallout: New Vegas. I immensely enjoyed FO3 and its expansions, and I heard that FONV was a similar experience in a new setting. Sure, I knew there had been bugs on its release, but I also heard that after multiple patches, the game was finally playable.

I purchased the game on Steam, knowing that it would be updated automatically.

And boy, what a fine game it was! I clocked about 14 hours of gameplay, having a ball of a time. Not a single crash or problem. And then, problems came. I was on the way to Boulder City when the game began to stutter, and then it froze completely. I couldn't even end the process from task manager, because my entire system was frozen. I had to force shutdown.

This happened multiple times. I start the game just fine, and can play for a few minutes. It starts to stutter. I stop moving, wait a few minutes and move on, but the freezing happens again. I press the Esc key to pause the game and it often freezes completely. When I bring up the Pip-Boy, the game stutters, sometimes hanging for several seconds, and then abruptly shows. The same happens when I press a weapon hotkey, or holster one. Sometimes Ctrl-Alt-Del works, sometimes it doesn't. I spend several minutes afterwards, ending processes and shutting down Steam.

I have since worked on a myriad of fixes. I've verified the integrity of the game cache, defragmented the game (from Steam), completely uninstalled and reinstalled the game. Still no joy.

I've lowered my settings in the launcher, but I couldn't see this being the problem, as I am able to run FO3 on max settings very smoothly. In fact, I was on max settings for 14 hours before the crashes started happening.

I've tried turning off autosave, and manually saving to new files every time. No luck.

I tried running the .exe under Windows XP SP3 compatibility mode, and run as administrator. No go.

I've updated my graphics drivers, still no joy.

I've searched forums, but have only found console advice, or advice that was pre-patch. I'm seeing no coverage about the game now, after all the patches - it seems like no one else is having problems.

What could be the issue?



I'm running an Intel Core 2 Duo E7400, an EVGA GTX 460 and 4 gigs of RAM. I'm playing on a 1920x1080 monitor.

For the record, I was running the game at max settings for several days without problems. It only just started happening. I've invested 14 hours into my character...I really don't want to start over. It would be such a letdown.



I appreciate any help you can give me!

 

[Nihilis]

Corrupted save file? Seeing as your saved games are the one thing that's constant (I assume this by the way you write that you still have 14 hours invested, indicating you kept your saves.) You've changed everything except your saves as far as I can tell. I think that's the most likely thing to my mind.

Just a few questions

Does it still do this when you create a new character and start a new play-through?

It's just this game isn't it? No new found problems with other games?

What temps does your card run at under typical gaming conditions? Have you overclocked at all?

The first time you noticed a problem, how long had you been gaming for? Longer than you had before on Fallout:NV?

---------------

I'm just asking so we can rule out heat damage, though that is a wild shot.

It'd also help if you gave us a quick run down of the major components in your rig, including your cooling solution(s)

Sorry to hear about your problems 🙁 I hope we can figure out the problem and fix it.
-Nih

 

[HEXiT]

id go with the corrupted save also...
if you have kept it up to date with patching you may not know of the same game issue.
after a while early patched saves were found to have cause memory leaks leading to reduced performance...
so try this.
rename your save game folder and move it out of the default folder.
start a new game and see if the problem starts again.
if it does then its not the save. it may be the pagefile.
i guess your not using an advanced defragger like disktrix ultimate defrag... if not get a copy of that or similar. auslogics defrag, and piriform defraggler are good free 1s that will enable your page file to be defragged...
http://www.auslogics.com/en/software/disk-defrag/
http://www.piriform.com/defraggler
1s done clean your registry. do not compress it, just clean out any old data. reboot and retry the game from a fresh start.

 

[josephb65]

Ditto on the save.

I've played this game considerably, and experienced a nearly identical issue to what you described. Hexit's advice is very solid in this though I always caution individuals without registry experience (not the wedding kind of course), perhaps a friendly restore point before re-installing instead hmmm?

Gah, edit for idiocy.. My issue did in fact turn out to be a corrupted save game.

 

[AsianGunNut]

Well, I've tried starting up a new save file.

It played more smoothly for a while, but I'm having the same problem. At least I was able to Ctrl-Alt-Del out of the game.

I don't think it's overheating, as said before - I'm playing other games, even demanding ones like Crysis and Arma 2, without issue.

For now, I don't think I could lose if I reinstall it (after all, I did delete my corrupted file and I'm about five minutes into a new one). If that doesn't work, I'll try the registry thing...what exactly does that mean?

Thanks everyone for the help - I'll report back to tell you if it works.

 

[josephb65]

The registy is in a nutshell a file the computer uses to keep track of everything and how it uses that stuff together, seriously ... what could go wrong with editing it right?

So... for starters there are several simple programs that can clean up loose ends in the registry without usually causing to much damage. For basic clean up I use the ever reliable CCleaner look here for it...

http://download.cnet.com/ccleaner/

Create a restore point first and then trust it's auto clean function since you CAN back out on this after... it's simple and free but those folks who build it would love a donation, don't doubt it for a minute; especially if you like it!

The program is available all over the web as are a number of other programs that help the uninitiated to F with their Reg. Cnet has number of them on it's site. My biggest caution with this would be that some of the programs like to lurk in the background and do other things.. all for fees.. CC is off when you tell it to .. a lovely feature in today's world of packed system trays.

Hope it helps and since I just can't seem to say it enough


Make a restore point people!


P.S.
Feel free to PM me if you like and we can set up a chat and walk through this stuff if you like, or not.. either way best of luck.

Edited for P.S.

 

[HEXiT]

ccleaner is all you need. just open it , click on regestry cleaner. and scan for issues. select fix all, then no then fix all. thats it. reboot. btw using a restore point will infact restor a bad registry too. so its poinless using system restore if your gonna clean the registry first. do it after.