Fallout 3: Video/Display Freezes, sound keeps going

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.

Happy Camper | Reply

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

3/14/2010 4:46:02 PM #

NICOLAS HEAD YOU ARE THE MAN EVERY FORUM I HAVE BEEN TO HAS FAILED AND YOUR ADVICE IS SOLID MY MAN ...NICE ONE !!!

whites32 | Reply

3/17/2010 12:04:36 AM #

thx vry much brother ! Playing for an hour just now , and no more crashes !

Frank Jr | Reply

3/19/2010 4:28:08 AM #

Oh my fucking god, it worked!!! It seemed that i cant get Fallout3 working with my new computer, but then i found this page! I am so glad for this. Thousands thanks to you! <3

Morgoth | Reply

3/21/2010 7:55:55 PM #

This worked like a charm...no more freezes. Lower performance, of course, but it's playable now! THANK YOU!

Gondring | Reply

3/28/2010 6:51:55 AM #

OMG!! Thanks so much for this, as others stated I was almost ready to completely drop this game even though I had just recently bought the expansions and just started playing them. It was so frustrating for me cause I got to a point where it would freeze after only 30 seconds in-game and I'd have to ctr-alt-del.

Predator | Reply

4/4/2010 1:06:23 AM #

This thread deserves praise. Thank you so much. I had given up on FO3 since I upgraded my computer but this fix made it work 100% again! Thank you so much!

Damien | Reply

4/10/2010 1:53:00 PM #

Hey...It work for crashes...but still getting freez the game.,....wen i put pipboy or i use conversacion..con somebody help me ?

Maxi | Reply

4/11/2010 1:54:18 AM #

I have still porblems with it it still crashes I have done this fix, tryed clean boot ,new sound drivers thats it so far and my game still crashes

I have an acer Aspire 5740g
intel Core i5 430m ( 2.26gHz, 1066MHz FSB )
Ati Mobility radeon HD 5470 op to 2234 MB hypermemory
4GB memory
DVD-Super Multi DL drive

Can someone Help me please I would like to enjoy Fallout 3!!
Thank you

Chappy | Reply

5/9/2010 3:33:41 AM #

chappy , i got the exact same pc as yours , this trick did fix it for me..maybe you did something wrong , try again

ssketis | Reply

4/11/2010 12:00:47 PM #

A big thanx to the poster. More than a year old post and yet i had to look for hours to find it. It didn't actually solve my problem with the crashes but it pointed to the right direction. Seems that there is an issue with multicore cpu's, even with patch 1.7 and nvidia 196.21.
I bought a i5 750 (genuine quad core) and upon installation of the game i encountered the first crash. After a lot of search on the net i stumbled upon your post that described the problem. I did what you said but i only slowed the problem, not solved it. Then it hit me. I run the program so it could show on the task manager as a process (fallout.exe), right click the process and select "Set Affinity..." then checked only two processors to work with the process and that worked!

teddysim | Reply

7/27/2010 12:19:55 PM #

Thanks for the extra info. i have the same core as you (overclocked 4.0) and it slowed it down but didnt stop it. now it works

anthony | Reply

4/24/2010 6:55:21 AM #

Hi - Tried the suggestion and sorry to say didn't work for me, i.e.
Game freezes within a few miuntes of gameplay yet sound continues.
Could not find 'fallout.ini' on system so updated the 'fallout_default.ini' as itw as the only one I could find (I'm no techy).
Games still freezes
Any other suggestions?
I was a fan of the original Fallout and have had this game for nearly a year and blew the dust off it when I got my new Toshiba laptop (1GB Video RAM, 4GB PC Ram, Windows 7)
Any advice you can offer will be appreciated.

Kevin | Reply

4/24/2010 4:30:40 PM #

Didn't make much of a difference, even with the latest patch installed the game is still crashing like a bitch. Have also tried all kinds of shit from disabling codecs to using a CPU affinity manager that forces the game to run on a single CPU. The game crashes after about 5-10 min of gameplay. The exception code is always: 0xc0000005! My guess is that 0xc0000005 crashes are related to shitty coding as none of my other games crash anywhere near this often.

Anonymous | Reply

5/4/2010 7:53:09 AM #

U are godsend, thank you for the solution. Now my game doesn't crashed every minute. In a matter of fact i only got 1 crashed for 6 hour playing

Budi | Reply

5/11/2010 6:11:20 AM #

Hey Dudes maybe i am totaly blind but i cant find the iNumHWThreads=2 please some help

Frede | Reply

5/14/2010 12:04:39 AM #

You ADD that line, you don't try and find it.

Nicholas | Reply

5/13/2010 7:23:28 AM #

Hello,

I have windows 7...I don't see a falloutinfi. file....onle three others not that one,,,any help would be appreciated

Josh | Reply

5/13/2010 7:30:37 AM #

The only files I see are:

FALLOUT

Fallout Prefs

Renderer info

and a SAVES file

Any help would most appreciated

Josh | Reply

5/14/2010 12:04:04 AM #

Have you played the game at least once?

Nicholas | Reply

5/27/2010 3:26:50 PM #

The FALLOUT file that you mentioned is indeed the one that you are looking for. Your computer must be set to not display extensions for files types that are known. Once you open the FALLOUT file it should display MANY lines of text which are the games properties. Click "Edit" in the top of the window and then click "Find" and type or copy and paste the text from the article into the text field and it will display and highlight the text you are looking for. SImply change the 0 to 1 and add in the additional text from above into the line below. Save the file (and a back up of the file to a different location if you want to be safe) and start the game and it should work.

Zach | Reply

5/17/2010 3:49:19 AM #

Thx my friend
This forking in 100%

filazaf | Reply

5/20/2010 2:09:06 AM #

hey there everyone!

Thanks for this excelent sollution, i have a core i5-520m laptop and it kept freezing. now, i did this trick and the problem is solved. though, i'd like to ask u guys if this is 100% safe to do? is this really safe for my processor?

cheers

Seps | Reply

5/21/2010 8:11:50 AM #

Hi all! i've 4 core in my computer so for me it'll be :

bUseThreadedAI=1
iNumHWThreads=4 <--- not 2 ?

sry if you found my english bad ^^'

Ryu | Reply

5/27/2010 3:20:13 PM #

No, you are supposed to change it to 2. The reason is because the Engine utilized by Fallout 3 has a bug and cannot properly utlilize 4 core CPUs which causes the game to freeze. Making the change to the bUSETHREADEDAI=0 and adding the additional line of text disables the use of 4 cores and sets it to use only 2 cores which fixes the freezing.

Zach | Reply

8/29/2010 6:49:41 AM #

No, you allow fallout to run just on 2 cores, because the error is caused by some bug in communication between more cores. Unfortunatelly it doesn't work for me. I suspect that the program uses "wrong" cores. I've got Intel Core i5 with two processors, each one containing two cores. And It seems that there is active one core from each processor instead of both cores of single processor. Thus not evoiding the code that causes deadlock.

Martin | Reply

5/22/2010 5:51:10 AM #

I can not find bUseThreadedAI=1 ANYWHERE!

Paul | Reply

5/27/2010 3:14:21 PM #

All you have to do is click on "Edit" in the toolbar menu at the top of the Notepad window, then click on "Find". Lastly, copy and paste the text from the article's fix into the Find window. This will automatically highlight and show you the property in question. Just change the 0 to a 1 and copy and paste the additional property code one line below and voila.

Zach | Reply

5/26/2010 9:29:26 AM #

I CANNOT thank you enough! It worked like magic! At last i can enjoy a good game! Thank you a million times!

AlexMyth | Reply

5/27/2010 3:12:27 PM #

All you have to do is click on "Edit" in the toolbar menu at the top of the Notepad window, then click on "Find". Lastly, copy and paste the text from the article's fix into the Find window. This will automatically highlight and show you the property in question. Just change the 0 to a 1 and copy and paste the additional property code one line below and voila.

Zach | Reply

5/27/2010 3:13:30 PM #

Sorry, I replied to the wrong comment

Zach | Reply

5/26/2010 12:18:16 PM #

I cant find the file?
help me please!!
Just tell about where i have to search because i have been searching trough it for about 3 times but i just cant find it..

Dave | Reply

5/27/2010 3:11:28 PM #

Hey Dave,
All you have to do is click on "Edit" in the toolbar menu at the top of the Notepad window, then click on "Find". Lastly, copy and paste the text from the article's fix into the Find window. This will automatically highlight and show you the property in question. Just change the 0 to a 1 and copy and paste the additional property code one line below and voila.

Zach | Reply

5/28/2010 6:45:01 AM #

Hey man thanks, it worked and i can finally play the game ;)

Dave | Reply

5/26/2010 8:50:51 PM #

Fallout finally works on my new computer. This game is awesome, and I was so bummed it didn't work. I did the fix and now it works flawlessly. Thanks so much for the fix.

Bryce | Reply

5/31/2010 1:06:57 AM #

Thanks. This problem was really annoying. Especially that I have to struggle to run Fallout on Windows 7 in the first place. Anyway it seems to work perfectly though I have only 2-core processor but it has HyperThreading Intel technology so for the system it looks like four cores.

Zephiryn | Reply

6/4/2010 8:22:42 AM #

Thanks!

This solved my problem. Excellent solution.

Nihilus | Reply

6/7/2010 8:34:25 AM #

Got exited and tried it on my chinese version which is a poorly translated mess. But Still crashes every 15 minutes or less. I Don't have a quad processor though, so maybe my problem is different though it sounds the same.

zoiks | Reply

6/9/2010 12:39:26 PM #

MANY MANY MANY THANKS!!!!!

Fallout 3 works at last! I have tried over 6h with every other solution and nothing worked.

Fallout 3 patched 1.7

Windows 7 64 Bit with an iCore i3

Fallout 3 is an awesome Game!!

Sven | Reply

6/13/2010 7:01:17 AM #

I couldn't play for 2 minutes without it crashing, after i did what you said, i've played 30 minutes so far, no crash.

Thanks alot man

Alexander | Reply

6/17/2010 9:43:44 AM #

So i followed the directions posted and i thought it worked, the ini file saved properly and everything, however, once i was inside craterside supply trading items it crashed again.... same problems as before with video frozen, audio still working. my version is patched all the way, disabled my mcafee to free up resourses, and still no luck, always the same type where im inside a small building talking and/or trading.

Acer Aspire M3202
AMD Phenom 8550 2.20GHz
3.0 Gb Ram
32bit Vista
ATI Radeon HD 4650

If someone has a fix or solution to work with this particular incident i would be most grateful. i have scoured the ends of the earth looking for a patch, official or otherwise, and other fixes and cant find a damn thing. i am really hoping this can get fixed.

Andrew | Reply

6/21/2010 6:42:38 PM #

Thank you for the tip. For whatever reason, this fixed the problem my dual core machine.

Greg | Reply

6/22/2010 9:07:06 PM #

I didnt even have a quadcore and it worked. Duel core for me

11matt556 | Reply

6/23/2010 6:57:57 AM #

Yeah!
Finally I can play the game without any crash!
Thx for this remendous hint!
IT WORKS PERFECT!

Professor | Reply

6/23/2010 6:34:37 PM #

... I spoke too soon. The next night, it started crashing again. I'm going to try reducing performance settings to see if that helps. Also I've had a look at http://www.tweakguides.com/Fallout3_3.html but nothing stands out as worth trying.

Greg | Reply

6/29/2010 4:25:54 PM #

Thank you so much for this!

leo | Reply

7/10/2010 11:23:56 AM #

SOLVED: What solved my freezes was the suggested fix to install the latest 64-bit and 32-bit klite codec packs. I played the game for 70 hours without freezes then I got a Xonar D2X and 5970 and then it started freezing, usually after 10-30 minutes play. I tried the iNumHWThreads=2 and = 1, disabling all codecs, disabling audio cache in the .ini. I didn't try lowering any graphics settings cause it always froze after a sound such as crickets chirping or other ambient sounds. Sometimes it would freeze at the start of a melee battle when all the enemy/battle sounds started.

Jeck Lamnent | Reply

7/10/2010 2:36:41 PM #

Thanks, works for me.

kornel | Reply

7/11/2010 9:58:37 PM #

Thank you very much, it appears to have worked for me as well. It took me a while to find this page so I hope others in the future have an easier time of getting the solution.

Java | Reply

7/15/2010 4:50:06 PM #

Works for me as well!

i5_430M
4 GB RAM
Ati Mobility Radeon HD 5650
Windods 7 Home Premium 64 bit

Thanks a lot indeed!

BTW: For Fallout 3 GOTYE don't forget to install Microsoft Games for Windows Live! V. 2.0

Sinc

Sinclair | Reply

7/16/2010 7:20:27 PM #

Thank you kind sir. this completely fixed my freezing problem.

Kle | Reply

7/20/2010 12:35:27 AM #

I've reinstalled the program several times, to no avail. I thought I had found a solution when I found this site but when I searched for bUseThreadedAI=0 I found that it didn't exist. I did the Edit->Find thing but nothing. I re-installed fallout again but now fallout.ini doesn't exist. WHAT THE HELL IS GONG ON!? Someone help so I can get back to playing my favourite game!

Ryan | Reply

7/22/2010 7:01:11 PM #

SWEET POST thanks!!!!

bobdabalina | Reply

7/23/2010 2:05:13 PM #

That is just Awesome. THANK YOU VERY MUTCH! Now I will go and do backflips of joy!

Nikolai | Reply

7/27/2010 5:22:53 AM #

YES! Thanks! Finally, FO3 in Core i5 and Radeon HD 5 goodness <3

FalloutBoy | Reply

7/28/2010 1:40:35 AM #

omg u r awesome

terrry | Reply

7/28/2010 6:45:09 PM #

DUDE!!!! LOL, THIS IS GREAT. I have been playing for like 3 hours now and the game seems perfect, thanks man, you're awesome. P.S.: Before I couldn't play more than 20 minutes.

Joshua | Reply

7/30/2010 5:41:33 PM #

Many thanks from France ,everything's working like a charm now
i have a quad core Q6600 and my game used to freez constantly until i applied this fix =) .

KeLt | Reply

8/8/2010 9:42:51 PM #