Fallout 3: Video/Display Freezes, sound keeps going

by Nicholas Head 7. February 2009 00:35

Ever since Bethesda came out with the 1.1 patch for Fallout 3, I couldn’t play the game anymore. Once I got into the game and started wandering around, I’d randomly “freeze” up… the video would stop updating, but the sounds/music would still play. Keyboard clicks and mouse clicks did nothing, requiring me to ctrl+alt+del and kill the task manually.

It looked like I was SOL until the next patch, but I found some help online:

The game engine has some issues with processors that have more than 2 cores. You can force the game to only use two of them and it will stop the freezing. I haven't had it freeze once since I did this several days ago.

Open up the fallout.ini file in: My Documents\My Games\Fallout3
Find the line:

bUseThreadedAI=0

change it to:

bUseThreadedAI=1

Add another line after it and insert:

iNumHWThreads=2

This will limit the game to 2 cores and prevent the engine bug from causing the game to freeze.

Surprisingly, this worked like I charm. I do indeed have a quad core processor, so it sounds like this was the culprit. Why 1.1 broke the game for me.. I have no idea. It sounds like Bethesda needs to do some better testing on multi-core processors.

Hopefully this helps someone else out there!

1bf7af1e-19df-4109-bb78-6c1825b8333e|29|4.7

Tags:

bugs | video games

2/20/2009 5:00:37 PM #

thank you very much my friend i had the same same problem it freezes usualy when i was in battle and the screen just didnt move but the music still played i,m gonna try you're trick and hope it works

julien | Reply

3/5/2009 8:54:21 AM #

IT WORKS!

had crashed every 2-10 minutes before. now im playing for 5 hours and it works!

THANKS!

alex | Reply

3/7/2009 4:44:22 PM #

Yes it worked for me as well.

Thanks for posting this I was about to give up on what is a very good game.

Hope Bethesda sort this problem out soon. Especial as they have already released 1.4 patch with out fixing this problem.

Thanks again ^-^/

Dan.C | Reply

3/7/2009 8:50:42 PM #

Thank so much mate, I was getting very p#$sed of at this.

Chris | Reply

5/3/2009 6:51:14 AM #

u save my life
i had exactly the same prolem and a look for solution for a long time .....and u have find it ,i have 2 cores processors like u and now it s work perfectly
thannnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnks man ^^
(sorry for my poor english)

DonClemenza | Reply

5/12/2009 10:36:16 AM #

I owe a pint

Mario | Reply

5/26/2009 9:30:26 PM #

Thank Jebus, I never thought I find a solution to this s***. Tried everything and thought I'd looked just about anywhere. Almost gave up there o.o You've saved my game. Thank you =)

McBeak | Reply

6/18/2009 8:53:01 AM #

LEGEND! OMG! I haven't been able to play Fallout 3 in so long...at first thinking it was the patch, then mods, then other hardware issues like gfx drivers and things, and eventually I come across this gem of information that stops my crashes completely!

Couldn't play for more then 10-20 mins before without a crash, I'm at around 2.5 hours now and no crashes.

Genius.

James. J | Reply

7/14/2009 6:22:52 PM #

You are a god! I've looked everywhere for a fix to this. I played all the way through the game quick saving every second and dealing with a crash every 10 minutes. Now I can play Broken Steel without having fear. I am in your debt.

Wes S. | Reply

7/22/2009 3:43:47 PM #

Yeah, my phenom II on win7 was crashing every minute because of this. Thank you so much. Like, it was literally crashing once per minute.

You wouldn't happen to have a fix for the thing that makes people look like their necks are broken, would you? you know, when their head rotates sideways or upside-down?

Zed Potts | Reply

8/6/2009 12:31:05 AM #

OMG, YOU'RE GOD-SEND!!! THANKS!!!

Czero | Reply

8/10/2009 12:12:36 AM #

After trolling the internet for over an hour on this problem, these settings did indeed fix my problem on Windows 7 + Phenom II!

On Ultra display settings, it does stutter slightly whenever there are multiple AI attacking, but it keeps going without freezing. Finally!

Thanks a million.

Happy Camper | Reply

8/10/2009 12:26:36 AM #

BTW, I'm on v1.6, so they still haven't fixed the issue.

8/13/2009 1:08:52 AM #

Hi.. thanks for your share. I almost give up with it. I will try your trick, hope it works..

hery | Reply

8/14/2009 7:14:50 AM #

wonderfull..!!! it works... thanks alot..

duday | Reply

8/17/2009 12:16:25 PM #

Thank you very much! Now I can play game with no freezes! ;)

Janis | Reply

8/17/2009 4:19:43 PM #

thank you for sharing, makes me happy and confident going with an i7 soon, i was worried about gaming compatibility issues.

Harry | Reply

8/18/2009 7:59:14 AM #

Harry,

I just upgraded to an i7 running Windows 7, and Fallout 3 (latest ver) has been working great, even without the INI hack.

Nicholas | Reply

11/30/2009 2:27:49 PM #

Not working for me suspect its a driver issue as with older drivers it works fine but when i update the problem occurs and with the last 2 or 3 versions of nvidia drivers released. Humph!

michael | Reply

8/20/2009 8:43:21 PM #

Thanks so much, the game would crash constantly, sometimes after only a few seconds! This has fixed it, now it works great!!!

Matt Chan | Reply

8/29/2009 2:04:43 AM #

Fantastic post, been running in a windowed mode for the past few months, this now allows me to run full screen and not crash for hours on end....one post has made this game playable again.....superb work

Paul Curtis | Reply

9/12/2009 12:55:03 PM #

Did the trick.thanks

PELLE | Reply

9/12/2009 10:34:27 PM #

Many thanks! Worked for me as well. I was about to think there is no hope for these freezes...

Alin | Reply

10/10/2009 4:44:28 PM #

Yes its works thanks. Although I had to disable AA as well, but everything else is at max.

Hopeful they will fix it soon.

h143570 | Reply

10/20/2009 8:34:22 AM #

Ok here's the thing, my game started to lag up like after 5 minutes of play and my system i check it and shoul run the game normally .. i have all setting on lowest and screen res on lowest... that's all good... BUT i get this lag out of the blue... i tried yourr thing and looks like it's fixed but i got this other one... I lost most of the sounds... like... when a ghoul attacked me, i could hear him running towards me ... and the grunts my character did and backround music, but i couldnt hear gun shots or nothing like that... WTF...

anonimity | Reply

10/21/2009 3:40:11 PM #

Don't work for me

The game freeze after that change in the fallout.ini

Any other ideias ?

Deacon | Reply

10/24/2009 6:53:39 PM #

Didnt work for me eiher , im gettin really anoyyed lol. any other suggestions or can any1 post their config on.

Ben | Reply

10/31/2009 2:03:22 AM #

The iNumHWThreads fix works great for me. I have a Intel I7 (which is one chip with 4 cores) processor running on an Asus P6T v2 deluxe motherboard running @ 4 Gb 1600 Mhz DDR3 memory and an Asus 9800GT Matrix 512 Mb video card. Almost everyting on ultra quality, except for AA at 4x instead of 8x.

Would fallout be even smoother if it could use all cores (more than 2)?

Gerard Alberts | Reply

11/29/2009 9:21:03 AM #

Works fine but for me decreases performance since the game uses 2 cores instead of 4.

Ljungquvist | Reply

1/22/2010 11:15:35 PM #

Just wanted to express my thanks to original poster on this. Upgraded to core i3 & Win7 64 bit and F3 stopped working. This seems to be the only solution that is making this game work

Bubba | Reply

2/12/2010 7:32:19 AM #

Thanks a lot! It worked perfectly and only took 5 minutes to do.

Mads | Reply

2/13/2010 3:22:37 AM #

thanks mate that really works I wish I could find you and say thanks but that's a little impossible. THANKS again pal

Teko | Reply

2/19/2010 5:04:33 AM #

this was the only thing that worked. Awesome post.
setup: i7 920, 6gb ram, ati 4850x2, win 7 x64.

USER1 | Reply

2/20/2010 10:07:36 AM #

Wow, months of playing dealing with the crashes, had to save often, tried every trick I found on the web but only reduced the crashes, couldn't come near eliminating them. Until now. Doesn't fix every bug, game still likes to slow down (like when you loot a corpse and the inventory window no longer leaps up, but takes it's sweet time showing up), but this tip certainly curbed the crashing for me so far. They mysterious 'sudden freeze' outta the blue while in a house or other small area, as well as the extremely occasional outdoor crashes all seem to have been tamed.

Thanks muchly for sharing this tip. I'm sure I'll keep saving every ten steps outta habit for a while, but looks like the need to do so is much reduced. Kudos!

Drastica | Reply

2/26/2010 5:17:43 AM #

Still crashes for me, you guys have another clues as to what else?

Bakachan | Reply

3/7/2010 2:43:54 AM #

Worked great for me, I've got an intel i5, before I coulden't even get past being born

Englishman | Reply

3/8/2010 10:56:51 AM #

GREAT I've searched many webs with sollution but this is only one that help.
I'm surprised that this works even on i5 pentium beacuse this 2 cores only imitate 4 cores. Indeed there are on 4 cores but this fix even problem with i5.

Nunki | Reply