Is the area southwest of Camp McCarran cursed?

[Quadsword]

Seriously, I don't get it. Any time I fast travel to any location that's considered part of fiend territory, I'm guaranteed to crash two or three times. I had to reload the game three times before I could get into the Sunset Sarsparilla Headquarters without immediately crashing. I've also frequently had the audio cut out completely, usually followed by a CTD a few minutes later, gotten stuck in the ground, had my controls lock up forcing a restart, and all other manner of glitchy nonsense.

I'm not the only one who experiences this, am I? I don't remember this area being so glitchy way back when I first played New Vegas on console. I try as hard as I can to avoid this area because I'm afraid it might eventually corrupt my save data or something.

[talgaby]

Yes, it is. That cell and Freeside are the two most prone to crashing. Vanilla, modded, no matter.
The usual stability fixes help a bit, but if you are there, just get ready for crashes. It is quite common. My record was crashing 10 seconds on average once. With NVAC, it was boosted to around 60 seconds.

[Docsprock]

Yes, it is common. Just to be safe, in that area I often fast travel nearby then walk to my destination.

[Quadsword]

Originally posted by talgaby:

Yes, it is. That cell and Freeside are the two most prone to crashing. Vanilla, modded, no matter.
The usual stability fixes help a bit, but if you are there, just get ready for crashes. It is quite common. My record was crashing 10 seconds on average once. With NVAC, it was boosted to around 60 seconds.

I'd just like to know what it is about this area that makes it so crash prone. I was playing for a little over 3 hours the other day, not a single crash in sight, then I had to go to an area near the South Vegas Ruins for a quest - fast traveled, audio cut out, crashed shortly thereafter. Kept reloading autosaves, getting different glitchy results each time (stuck in the floor, movement controls not responding, etc.). I was actually terrified that my save data was corrupted and I had just lost over 50 hours of progress, but I loaded a save from before I fast traveled and suddenly everything worked fine.

[Ladez]

Originally posted by Agent:

I'd just like to know what it is about this area that makes it so crash prone.

There are so many variables that it's nearly impossible to know for sure. Crashing on fast travel or cell transition is a good indicator of the auto-save feature choking, though. Auto-saves are dangerous because they can't always tell when the engine is in the middle of doing something critical.

Originally posted by AndreyKva the Vik Boss:

Zan's Autopurge

That is generally considered a placebo at best and outright harmful at worst. PurgeCellBuffers is a debugging function and should never be executed in normal play. Enable the built in auto-purge system instead by modifying these values in all of your INI files:

[General]
bPreemptivelyUnloadCells=1

and

[BackgroundLoad]
bSelectivePurgeUnusedOnFastTravel=1

[Quadsword]

Originally posted by Ladez:

Originally posted by Agent:

I'd just like to know what it is about this area that makes it so crash prone.

There are so many variables that it's nearly impossible to know for sure. Crashing on fast travel or cell transition is a good indicator of the auto-save feature choking, though. Auto-saves are dangerous because they can't always tell when the engine is in the middle of doing something critical.

Originally posted by AndreyKva the Vik Boss:

Zan's Autopurge

That is generally considered a placebo at best and outright harmful at worst. PurgeCellBuffers is a debugging function and should never be executed in normal play. Enable the built in auto-purge system instead by modifying these values in all of your INI files:

[General]
bPreemptivelyUnloadCells=1

and

[BackgroundLoad]
bSelectivePurgeUnusedOnFastTravel=1

I changed the lines you said to change in every INI file and disabled the mod - the game went back to its usual, crash happy state. Reenabled the mod and the crashing went away.

[Washell]

Originally posted by Ladez:

Originally posted by Agent:

I'd just like to know what it is about this area that makes it so crash prone.

There are so many variables that it's nearly impossible to know for sure. Crashing on fast travel or cell transition is a good indicator of the auto-save feature choking, though. Auto-saves are dangerous because they can't always tell when the engine is in the middle of doing something critical.

Between various better bodies and texture mods, I once managed to have dead ghouls crash my game to the desktop. Once I threw on a different set of meshes and textures everything ran fine again. I made the connection after I realized every time I shot ghouls and either saved and reloaded, or revisited the area, the game would crash.

If it had been a random piece of clutter or such, I would have never found the source and either have given up on the game or done a complete reinstall.

Originally posted by Ladez:

Originally posted by AndreyKva the Vik Boss:

Zan's Autopurge

That is generally considered a placebo at best and outright harmful at worst. PurgeCellBuffers is a debugging function and should never be executed in normal play.

You're the only one I've seen recommending against using PCB or Zan's mod. Care to elaborate a bit further? I've used the command many times in a 150+ hour TTW playthrough and never ran into issues.

If it's merely the thought of it being a "debug command", that's silly. Most, if not all commands you use through the console are also used by the game and its scripts.

[Ladez]

Originally posted by Washell:

You're the only one I've seen recommending against using PCB or Zan's mod. Care to elaborate a bit further? I've used the command many times in a 150+ hour TTW playthrough and never ran into issues.

It aggressively and indiscriminately purges data in a way that breaks scripts, quests, AI packages, the works. You don't have to look far in the comment section for examples of people running into problems as a result. It also forces the reloading of assets without good reason.

This is also backed up by statements from mod authors much more experienced with the engine's internal workings than me. These are the people that I trust to provide advice with a basis in hands-on experience and observable fact. I'm just relaying the information.

Originally posted by Washell:

If it's merely the thought of it being a "debug command", that's silly. Most, if not all commands you use through the console are also used by the game and its scripts.

What's silly is the notion that debugging functions are safe to use indiscriminately without care for the effects by the end user. There's a difference between debugging functions and general purpose scripting functions. The former is used by developers to test stuff as they are building the game and may be used under rare, specific circumstances (sometimes by mistake!) in scripts that are included in the shipped game. The latter provides core functionality that is used extensively in scripts by developers and modders alike.

If it makes your game not crash, then good for you. Just remember that an issue not being immediately apparent doesn't mean it's not there. Much like auto-saving, using it at just the wrong time and place could spell trouble. I'm not telling you to remove the mod, I'm telling you to be aware of the potential side effects and pointing you to another, better solution.

[talgaby]

Originally posted by Agent:

I'd just like to know what it is about this area that makes it so crash prone.

We don't know, although my suspicion is the AI packages. At least three human factions have spawns there, including one that technically immediately assigns a waypoint outside the cell. I also tend to have the most crashes when a fiend and an NCR patrol meet.

[Quadsword]

Originally posted by Ladez:

If it makes your game not crash, then good for you. Just remember that an issue not being immediately apparent doesn't mean it's not there. Much like auto-saving, using it at just the wrong time and place could spell trouble. I'm not telling you to remove the mod, I'm telling you to be aware of the potential side effects and pointing you to another, better solution.

Since you've brought this up, I looked it up and read about some of the issues people have had using the AutoPurge mod. I would like to remove the mod to avoid the possibility of a broken game, but removing it turns the game back into its usual, crash happy self. It's hard to enjoy myself when I have to reboot the game every hour or so... but if I use this mod, there's a possibility it could break something, so I'm kind of stuck between a rock and a CTD.

Although... now that I think of it, any of the times I've tried playing the game after removing the AutoPurge mod, I've been in infamously unstable regions of the game world (Freeside, Fiend Territory).