Crash at Jefferson Memorial

[Rocketpants]

Hi,

I'm on Win 8.1, been having quite a few crashes randomly throughout the game but nothing that a restart or reload won't fix. However I'm up against the mother of all crashes now, at the sub basement in Jefferson Memorial.

I've been to this location earlier on in the game and it was fine, but when I started the Water for Life quest, fast traveling or getting anywhere near JM made my game crash without fail. I used a console command to get inside JM but now entering the sub basement also causes an instant crash and not even a teleport console command will stop it. I simply can't get into the basement.

Any ideas what I could do besides skip the quest entirely? I've disabled all mods, used teleport commands, I have turned off InvalidateFiles, used crash fix mods, added the ThreadedAI trick, none of it works....

[Rocketpants]

Thanks but I tried that already. It has never stopped my game from crashing.

I don't know why this happened but I found the best way, on a PC at least, of avoiding having to start the game all over again. If you're on a console you're screwed. For anyone interested, how to skip a quest without breaking anything can be done like this:

In my case I was literally stuck half way through the Water For Life quest. I looked up the quest by name on fallout.wikia.com and it gives you two important bits of info - the quest ID, and further down the stage numbers for each part of a given quest. To skip past and complete each of these tasks you press ~ to open the console and enter the following:

setstage {QUEST-ID} {STAGE#}

So I was stuck on the part where I had to turn on the pump controls, I had to go to the basement which always crashed my game. I entered:

setstage 00014e8b 40

This moved to the next "stage", ID'ed as stage 40. I kept repeating this as necessary until I got to a point where I no longer had to be in the basement.

This is different than using the CompleteQuest or CompleteAllObjectives commands because while they will complete the quest for you, they skip over the individual stages of the quest and you'll be stuck on that quest (ie. it's broken). When I tried this originally the game said I had finished Water For Life but when I spoke with Dad he still told me I had to go to the basement. So use setstage instead.

[josh]

Do you have any mods that modify the Jefferson Memorial? I know you said you disabled them, but do you mean you just unchecked the esps or you actually uninstalled them? When it crashes repeatedly at the same spot, it's almost always because of mod conflicts or because of the AI bug.

And just to be clear, you modified the FALLOUT.ini file, and not the Fallout_default.ini, right?

You can also try setting iNumHWThreads to 1, instead of 2. And if that doesn't work, you can force your comptuer to start with just 2 cores active to see if that is causing the problem. You can do that by typing in msconfig into the start bar, then boot > advanced options > tick number of processors and select 2 > restart computer.

If you do change that, don't forget to change it back afterwards.

[Rocketpants]

Originally posted by Stuck:

Do you have any mods that modify the Jefferson Memorial? I know you said you disabled them, but do you mean you just unchecked the esps or you actually uninstalled them? When it crashes repeatedly at the same spot, it's almost always because of mod conflicts or because of the AI bug.

And just to be clear, you modified the FALLOUT.ini file, and not the Fallout_default.ini, right?

You can also try setting iNumHWThreads to 1, instead of 2. And if that doesn't work, you can force your comptuer to start with just 2 cores active to see if that is causing the problem. You can do that by typing in msconfig into the start bar, then boot > advanced options > tick number of processors and select 2 > restart computer.

If you do change that, don't forget to change it back afterwards.

Well I have graphics mods that change practically everything so yes I probably do have something installed somewhere that alters Jefferson Memorial in some way, but not anything that specifically does, no. But, before starting the Water For Life quest I had been to JM before and it never crashed. You would think if it was a mod that it would have crashed then as well.

Yes, I changed Fallout.ini not Fallout_default.ini. I've also tried changing the multi-core fix numbers, and removing it entirely, and changing the number of active cores in Windows. Doesn't do anything for me, I still get crashes beyond even this specific problem. But this one stopped me in my tracks because a reload didn't fix it.

I skipped the quest and everything is okay for now so I'm just going to cross my fingers and hope I don't encounter anything else game-breaking again. Someone suggested on Reddit that I verify my games files on Steam which might be worth a try, although I'm afraid it might actually break my game completely if it messes with anything.

[Mike]

Originally posted by Rocketpants:

Well I have graphics mods that change practically everything so yes I probably do have something installed somewhere that alters Jefferson Memorial in some way, but not anything that specifically does, no. But, before starting the Water For Life quest I had been to JM before and it never crashed. You would think if it was a mod that it would have crashed then as well.

Have you patched the exe to be Large Adress Aware? The more mods the more memory it needs. It could explain why you have a crash at almost the same spot, the memory the game is allowed to allocate from the system runs out.

[Rocketpants]

Originally posted by Rantoc:

Originally posted by Rocketpants:

Well I have graphics mods that change practically everything so yes I probably do have something installed somewhere that alters Jefferson Memorial in some way, but not anything that specifically does, no. But, before starting the Water For Life quest I had been to JM before and it never crashed. You would think if it was a mod that it would have crashed then as well.

Have you patched the exe to be Large Adress Aware? The more mods the more memory it needs. It could explain why you have a crash at almost the same spot, the memory the game is allowed to allocate from the system runs out.

Yes, good suggestion but I have also done that. I've done pretty much everything possible to improve game performance. And the game runs great, when it's not crashing. I think it's got something to do with my mod load order, it's not something I have customized much beyond allowing LOOT to automatically sort it. I'm working now on getting a better order together.

[swheedle]

have you tried reloading a save from before the first crash happened? this is some next level stuff you guyscare talking about but just in case you didn't try this, give it a shot.

[Rocketpants]

Originally posted by swheedle:

have you tried reloading a save from before the first crash happened? this is some next level stuff you guyscare talking about but just in case you didn't try this, give it a shot.

Unfortunately I didn't have a save available from before I noticed the crash at Jefferson Memorial that also didn't crash. All my saves crashed there, I didn't have one from way back when I went there the first time and Jefferson Memorial didn't cause crashing.

My game in general has been crashing fairly frequently since the moment I left 101, which I guess might have been an indication of more serious issues but I put it down to it being Fallout 3 :) I also just wanted to play the damn game after days of modding it. So some of this may be my fault for not being vigilant enough.

[swheedle]

exactly how many mods do you have? if it's more than a few of any size than that could be causing your crashes. also makesure that you have no backround programs open when you are playing, that helps a lot.

[Rocketpants]

Originally posted by swheedle:

exactly how many mods do you have? if it's more than a few of any size than that could be causing your crashes. also makesure that you have no backround programs open when you are playing, that helps a lot.

Oh I have a lot. About 40 in all, almost all of them are graphical mods, only a few add any content (Mart's Mutant Mod being one of them, which actually I uninstalled today). I'm aware that this might be the problem, particularly because I haven't really customized the load order outside of letting LOOT do it's thing automatically.

Someone told me on the Nexus forums that the mod Better Graphics Performance may have caused irreparable damage to my save file and to other mods below it in the load order (LOOT put it quite high up). It apparently removes data that nearly all of the other mods rely on and uninstalling it isn't enough. I have noticed a difference after removing it, some of the graphical anomolies I've seen have since vanished so that's a good sign of something. But the game still crashes, even after resetting Archive Invalidation as the guy on Nexus suggested. The only reliable fix would be to start the game over. Could be true, I might test that theory by starting a new game just to see what happens.

[Rocketpants]

For those interested, all the crashing was being caused mainly by a mod I had installed called Better Game Performance. This mod completely broke my game and it turns out is also totally unnecessary. So if you have that installed and are experiencing a lot of ctd nonsense, get rid of it asap. Be warned though, your save file may have been corrupted by BGP and you might have to start a new game. But it's better than getting 60 hrs in and then not being able to finish the main quest.

Also of note in my quest to fix my game:

- The mod Purge Cell Buffers is also useless and for me caused a fatal ctd when trying to start the Mothership Zeta DLC. Delete it, it's also garbage. Instantly solved that problem for me.

- If you have Project Reality installed put it right at the bottom of your load order.

- If you game starts stuttering, don't jump on the Stutter Remover mod. Save your game and reload it. Often it will fix that ♥♥♥♥♥ right up.

[*Manti Lordr*]

I know its necro but I just want to thank to rocketpants , performance V 4 my as s some mods can break your game folks

[Huemongous]

Originally posted by Rocketpants:

Thanks but I tried that already. It has never stopped my game from crashing.

I don't know why this happened but I found the best way, on a PC at least, of avoiding having to start the game all over again. If you're on a console you're screwed. For anyone interested, how to skip a quest without breaking anything can be done like this:

In my case I was literally stuck half way through the Water For Life quest. I looked up the quest by name on fallout.wikia.com and it gives you two important bits of info - the quest ID, and further down the stage numbers for each part of a given quest. To skip past and complete each of these tasks you press ~ to open the console and enter the following:

setstage {QUEST-ID} {STAGE#}

So I was stuck on the part where I had to turn on the pump controls, I had to go to the basement which always crashed my game. I entered:

setstage 00014e8b 40

This moved to the next "stage", ID'ed as stage 40. I kept repeating this as necessary until I got to a point where I no longer had to be in the basement.

This is different than using the CompleteQuest or CompleteAllObjectives commands because while they will complete the quest for you, they skip over the individual stages of the quest and you'll be stuck on that quest (ie. it's broken). When I tried this originally the game said I had finished Water For Life but when I spoke with Dad he still told me I had to go to the basement. So use setstage instead.

OMG thank you so much. I just picked up FO3GOtY to hold me over till ME:A and I had this exact issue. Anytime I went into that damn basement the game would become corrupt. Sometimes I'd make it all the way through to the Brotherhood citadel without a crash but any game saved after going in the basement would NOT load up after. Crashing the game. I used the method you posted and you saved my play through! Thanks again!