This section contains information about bugs, crashes, and issues along with some possible fixes.
I played and enjoyed Fallout 3 on the PS3, but I ran into some severe issues with it. The game crashed frequently and it ran at a lazy snail's pace, especially when I was playing the DLC quests. I also ran into bugs, like a teleporter not working on Mothership Zeta. Although in that particularly mission, I was able to resolve the issue, but with the other issues I had with the PS3 version I was not able to complete some of the DLC. Since I got a new computer months ago, I thought I'd play the game on the PC, thinking the PC version would be more stable. I was kind of right and yet not.
Before I bought the game for the PC, Steam showed a notice that the game wasn't "optimized for Windows 7". I'm running Windows 8.1 and was concerned with having issues with the game. Although, I didn't think it would be too bad since older games, like Morrowind, work just fine on my PC. Travis told me that his wife was able to get the game running in Windows 7 after a fix, although he didn't have any issues with it. He suggested I try the game before applying any fixes, which I did, but was unable to get the game running without additional software.
When I first tried to play the game, it's main loader opened just fine after clicking the "Play" button in Steam. The next step (after optionally configuring settings) to get the game running was to click the game's "Play" button in it's loader. After doing so, the game just disappeared from my screen and didn't load. I found out that I had to install Microsoft's Games for Windows Live application. After doing that, the game was then able to load. I didn't have to sign into GFWL nor have it running along with the game.
Still, the game was quite unstable, it crashed often. The only way I was able to recover from a crash was to hit Ctrl-Alt-Del and tell Windows to restart, I was not able to just close the Fallout 3 window. Although this was very annoying, it made me very glad to have a very high-end gaming PC because I was able to reboot and get back into the game in less than 5 minutes. Still, the game was crashing way too often and I decided to search for resolutions.
Finding fixes for the game's issues was very easy with a simple Google search query. I was able to access some of the resolutions fellow Steam gamers had with this game. One of the main fixes was editing a couple of lines in a .ini file. That same forum post also suggested installing GFWL, running the game or GFWL in compatibility mode (which I did not do) and installing a .dll into the game directory. I did edit the .ini file and found the game to be more stable. After that minor edit it crashed a lot less, but it still crashed at least a few times per day. Putting the .dll file into the game directory did not seem to change the game's behavior. For reference, I am talking about the post at the following link: http://steamcommunity.com/app/22370/discussions/0/846940248950664435/
Even though it crashed less often after the applied .ini file edit, I was able to complete and enjoy the game. Other than crashing, I noticed much fewer bugs in the game than I did in the PS3 version. The bug I mentioned above in the PS3 version on the Mothership Zeta did not occur on the PC version. In fact, the only bug I came across was during another DLC quest in Point Lookout. While helping the Ghoul defend his house from the local insane tribe, he kept telling me to help him defend his house even though we had already killed the first wave of tribal members. The resolution for this bug was easy to find and easy to get around. I simply had to make him "unconscious," which meant I had to shoot him. Shooting him didn't cause him or his dogs to attack me. It didn't kill him either, he just went "unconscious" for a while, got back up, and then told me to follow him for the next wave of tribal attacks.
This section may contain possible spoilers
I don't believe I played the game very differently than when I had played it on the PS3, although there were some definite changes. I didn't meet Dogmeat until very late in the game when I went exploring the Scrapyard because I had a key for a safe there. When I did meet him, I told him to wait for me at the entrance to Vault 101 while I was searching for the safe. When I was done, I went to Vault 101's entrance, found him, and told him to follow me. I then fast traveled to Megaton, got into my "Luxury Apartment," and told him to stay there (I didn't want him getting killed). I think I met him earlier in the game when I played on the PS3, but I still told him to stay at our place in Megaton.
I also disarmed the bomb in Megaton and got the sheriff/mayor killed so that I could get into his place to get the bobblehead. I collected all of the bobbleheads while playing on the PS3, but on the PC version I got all but one of them. A wiki page for the game suggested getting the ones that upgrade your S.P.E.C.I.A.L. stats after hitting level 30 because at that point you can take a Perk that puts all of those stats at level 9 and each bobblehead increases those stats by 1. I did not follow this suggestion.
One thing I did do differently was the "Into the Pitt" DLC quest. This time I did not kidnap "the cure" and I killed the guy who wanted me to kidnap her. This made my time in "the Pitt" much shorter and I therefore did not spend as much time in it since I didn't have to do the related quests when kidnapping "the cure."
I remember helping Sydney in the National Archives when I played the game on the PS3. I don't remember her being with me long, perhaps because she did not stay alive very long after becoming a companion. She was quickly killed by Super Mutants after joining me. I still took her weapon which proved very helpful later in the game.
As for Eden, I again convinced him to destroy the Enclave as I had done originally. As for the end game, I finished it the same way by letting Fawkes go into the radiated Purity Project area so that me and Sarah Lyons wouldn't die. I was then able to play the Broken Steel quests which are only available after finishing the main quest line in the game. I remember starting that DLC when I played it on the PS3, but I know I did not complete it nor did I get very far with it due to the severe issues I had with Fallout 3's DLC on the PS3. I was able to complete Broken Steel on the PC, however.
After completing the main quest line in Broken Steel, you're left with "two unmarked quests" from two of the DLC's characters. However, I decided not to participate in those quests as they were just about collecting items which help in obtaining caps and XP. By the time I started Broken Steel, I was already at level 30, which is the max in the game with the Broken Steel DLC.
I remember some point in the game I was desperate for caps because I needed Stimpaks and ammo. There were probably only a couple of times that I hoarded some junk to sell so that I could get some caps to buy what I needed. I also turned in Blood packs to the vampire, Sugar Bombs to the ghoul that wanted them, and Scrap Metal for the guy in Megaton. Eventually I had 200+ Stimpaks and thousands of caps.
At this point, I want to tell you what's next for me. I've only played The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion once and it has not yet been a year since I played it on the PS3. Before I went to bed last, I noticed that Steam had a couple of versions of it. There's the Game of the Year Edition and the Game of the Year Deluxe Edition. I decided to get the Deluxe version, it apparently comes with more DLC. Thanks to Steam's Summer Sale, I spent about $13 (50% off) for the game and can't wait to get started. I really enjoyed Oblivion and there are a few things I want to do slightly differently. Running into some of the Dremora in Skyrim and hearing them made me really miss Oblivion. I also thought the game was very beautiful. Honestly, I'm surprised that I still want to play it so badly, it is an awesome game.
I played and enjoyed Fallout 3 on the PS3, but I ran into some severe issues with it. The game crashed frequently and it ran at a lazy snail's pace, especially when I was playing the DLC quests. I also ran into bugs, like a teleporter not working on Mothership Zeta. Although in that particularly mission, I was able to resolve the issue, but with the other issues I had with the PS3 version I was not able to complete some of the DLC. Since I got a new computer months ago, I thought I'd play the game on the PC, thinking the PC version would be more stable. I was kind of right and yet not.
Before I bought the game for the PC, Steam showed a notice that the game wasn't "optimized for Windows 7". I'm running Windows 8.1 and was concerned with having issues with the game. Although, I didn't think it would be too bad since older games, like Morrowind, work just fine on my PC. Travis told me that his wife was able to get the game running in Windows 7 after a fix, although he didn't have any issues with it. He suggested I try the game before applying any fixes, which I did, but was unable to get the game running without additional software.
When I first tried to play the game, it's main loader opened just fine after clicking the "Play" button in Steam. The next step (after optionally configuring settings) to get the game running was to click the game's "Play" button in it's loader. After doing so, the game just disappeared from my screen and didn't load. I found out that I had to install Microsoft's Games for Windows Live application. After doing that, the game was then able to load. I didn't have to sign into GFWL nor have it running along with the game.
Still, the game was quite unstable, it crashed often. The only way I was able to recover from a crash was to hit Ctrl-Alt-Del and tell Windows to restart, I was not able to just close the Fallout 3 window. Although this was very annoying, it made me very glad to have a very high-end gaming PC because I was able to reboot and get back into the game in less than 5 minutes. Still, the game was crashing way too often and I decided to search for resolutions.
Finding fixes for the game's issues was very easy with a simple Google search query. I was able to access some of the resolutions fellow Steam gamers had with this game. One of the main fixes was editing a couple of lines in a .ini file. That same forum post also suggested installing GFWL, running the game or GFWL in compatibility mode (which I did not do) and installing a .dll into the game directory. I did edit the .ini file and found the game to be more stable. After that minor edit it crashed a lot less, but it still crashed at least a few times per day. Putting the .dll file into the game directory did not seem to change the game's behavior. For reference, I am talking about the post at the following link: http://steamcommunity.com/app/22370/discussions/0/846940248950664435/
Even though it crashed less often after the applied .ini file edit, I was able to complete and enjoy the game. Other than crashing, I noticed much fewer bugs in the game than I did in the PS3 version. The bug I mentioned above in the PS3 version on the Mothership Zeta did not occur on the PC version. In fact, the only bug I came across was during another DLC quest in Point Lookout. While helping the Ghoul defend his house from the local insane tribe, he kept telling me to help him defend his house even though we had already killed the first wave of tribal members. The resolution for this bug was easy to find and easy to get around. I simply had to make him "unconscious," which meant I had to shoot him. Shooting him didn't cause him or his dogs to attack me. It didn't kill him either, he just went "unconscious" for a while, got back up, and then told me to follow him for the next wave of tribal attacks.
This section may contain possible spoilers
I don't believe I played the game very differently than when I had played it on the PS3, although there were some definite changes. I didn't meet Dogmeat until very late in the game when I went exploring the Scrapyard because I had a key for a safe there. When I did meet him, I told him to wait for me at the entrance to Vault 101 while I was searching for the safe. When I was done, I went to Vault 101's entrance, found him, and told him to follow me. I then fast traveled to Megaton, got into my "Luxury Apartment," and told him to stay there (I didn't want him getting killed). I think I met him earlier in the game when I played on the PS3, but I still told him to stay at our place in Megaton.
I also disarmed the bomb in Megaton and got the sheriff/mayor killed so that I could get into his place to get the bobblehead. I collected all of the bobbleheads while playing on the PS3, but on the PC version I got all but one of them. A wiki page for the game suggested getting the ones that upgrade your S.P.E.C.I.A.L. stats after hitting level 30 because at that point you can take a Perk that puts all of those stats at level 9 and each bobblehead increases those stats by 1. I did not follow this suggestion.
One thing I did do differently was the "Into the Pitt" DLC quest. This time I did not kidnap "the cure" and I killed the guy who wanted me to kidnap her. This made my time in "the Pitt" much shorter and I therefore did not spend as much time in it since I didn't have to do the related quests when kidnapping "the cure."
I remember helping Sydney in the National Archives when I played the game on the PS3. I don't remember her being with me long, perhaps because she did not stay alive very long after becoming a companion. She was quickly killed by Super Mutants after joining me. I still took her weapon which proved very helpful later in the game.
As for Eden, I again convinced him to destroy the Enclave as I had done originally. As for the end game, I finished it the same way by letting Fawkes go into the radiated Purity Project area so that me and Sarah Lyons wouldn't die. I was then able to play the Broken Steel quests which are only available after finishing the main quest line in the game. I remember starting that DLC when I played it on the PS3, but I know I did not complete it nor did I get very far with it due to the severe issues I had with Fallout 3's DLC on the PS3. I was able to complete Broken Steel on the PC, however.
After completing the main quest line in Broken Steel, you're left with "two unmarked quests" from two of the DLC's characters. However, I decided not to participate in those quests as they were just about collecting items which help in obtaining caps and XP. By the time I started Broken Steel, I was already at level 30, which is the max in the game with the Broken Steel DLC.
I remember some point in the game I was desperate for caps because I needed Stimpaks and ammo. There were probably only a couple of times that I hoarded some junk to sell so that I could get some caps to buy what I needed. I also turned in Blood packs to the vampire, Sugar Bombs to the ghoul that wanted them, and Scrap Metal for the guy in Megaton. Eventually I had 200+ Stimpaks and thousands of caps.
At this point, I want to tell you what's next for me. I've only played The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion once and it has not yet been a year since I played it on the PS3. Before I went to bed last, I noticed that Steam had a couple of versions of it. There's the Game of the Year Edition and the Game of the Year Deluxe Edition. I decided to get the Deluxe version, it apparently comes with more DLC. Thanks to Steam's Summer Sale, I spent about $13 (50% off) for the game and can't wait to get started. I really enjoyed Oblivion and there are a few things I want to do slightly differently. Running into some of the Dremora in Skyrim and hearing them made me really miss Oblivion. I also thought the game was very beautiful. Honestly, I'm surprised that I still want to play it so badly, it is an awesome game.
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That's not awesome to hear the game suffers on PC. Fallout 3 was one of my most beloved games of the last few years and I had a really great experience with it on the PS3. I know people really suffered from a ton of glitches with it, but it was mostly smooth sailing for me. Occasionally it would lock up, but that's common on a console.
That said, I still want to head back in the Capitol wasteland at some point and at least it's possible to get the game running well enough to enjoy it.
I enjoyed it, too, but I believe I had more issues with it than any other game I've played. I had some similar issues with the New Vegas DLC, but not as serious nor as often. While I was unable to get through a lot of Fallout 3's DLC on the PS3, I was able to get through all of NV's DLC. I can only recall maybe a could of issues with Skyrim on the PS3. There was one quest I wasn't able to complete, but it wasn't part of the main quest. Also, when I first fought the end boss he was invincible. Luckily, getting around that issue was easy, you just had to let him finish speaking before attacking him. I saw other "glitchy" kind of things, but they were a bit minor. As for Oblivion, I wasn't able to purchase a property in Skingrad because the guy I was supposed to see about it died. The game showed his location, but his body couldn't be found. I'm hoping that I don't have that same issue on the PC, although having one less property isn't a major issue.
All that said, I've had issues with my PS3 for quite a while now. It often shuts off on it's own even not long after turning it on. It apparently has to do with the heat sink gel drying up or something similar. I can't even think now what we call that stuff. I could send it back to Sony for a price and they'll send me back a refurbished console. The issue is probably due to how old my PS3 is and also that for a time I had it standing vertically instead of horizontally. I have done some research and I found things that can be done to resolve the issue, but those fixes are only temporary.
Opening it up and vaccuming it out might help. I am certain that would void the warranty though, but if something was obvious you could see it. One time I had a CPU heatsink fall off. Kind of explained why everything sucked on the PC for a awhile. :D
Well the warranty has expired. I have vacuumed the vents, but that didn't seem to change anything. The PC I was using before this was had fan issues, not the CPU heat sink fan, but the case fans. Some of those fans died and I had to replace them. I built that PC. I think it supported about three case fans, although I think the case only came with two. I know it still gets hot. As for this PC, I didn't build it. It features a liquid cooling system. I haven't kept an eye on it's temperature though, so I honestly don't know how hot or cool it is inside. With the old PC, I was using some Windows Gadgets along with Speed Fan to tell me what the temperature inside was like. I could also feel the heat that was coming out of the fans. Ah, I so very much love my new PC! =)
Oh hey, how's that new GPU working out for you? Have you tried playing Terraria with it yet? If so, did you notice any difference? Remember, in another post, I said that I found that high-end and low-end PCs suffer from a slow motion glitch. I also read something about the game running off of your refresh rate or something similar. I think it's interesting that the "fix" for this issue was to turn on Frame Skip, yet I found that it worked better if I turned Frame Skip off.
The GPU is working out great actually. Wheresa I didn't get to max out all my games like I wanted, I really enjoy how much I can push the games I have to look so much better. Overall it was a great upgrade and I can keep with my current PC, which is still pretty awesome.
I just tried Terraria and frame skip off seems to be a much smoother experience. Spend a few hours starting a new level and messing around, it was fun.
=) I'm glad it's working out for you. Yes, I saw that you were playing Terraria, I figured you were testing it out. It surprises me that people suggested turning frame skip on, but it works better when it's off. I still want to play Terraria again. I'm still waiting for a Starbound update. Even though I enjoyed the game the first time I played it, I got very disappointed in that the only thing that got me to explore new worlds in new sectors was so that I could get better materials to make better weapons and armor. I'm hoping that the change in game progression will fix that a bit, although the real fix would probably be to add more quests and give players more reason to visit other planets. That's one thing that I like about Terraria, there's much more to do than to just mine for better materials.
I played this game primarily on PC, as when it came out the only console i had was a dusty old PS2 and i also ran into quite a lot of issues, but they seemed to keep up with the updates pretty well while the game was really active. The only time i ever had real issues i was very glad i was playing on a PC because you can... umm... well, make the game do what you want, with scripting it a bit. perhaps unethical, but if you're only using it to hop over walls and doors that are supposed to open that dont, i don't regard it as cheating. Fallout 3 and Fallout New Vegas brought me literally hundreds of hours of entertainment and i am entirely glad they exist.
I never got too much into the Elder Scrolls games. I played Morrowind at a friends house and couldn't get into it. not my kind of fantasy game i suppose. However, i do enjoy Skyrim every once in a while and i'm glad to see theyre making such beautiful progress with the series.
Awesome, thanks for the comment, Zach! I think a bit of what you're talking about with regards to making games do what you want could be considered mods or cheating. I don't really think those are extremely unethical, perhaps some what, but developers seem to support and allow some mods. I'm not sure how many hours I've spent on Fallout and New Vegas, but I enjoyed them. I doubt that I will play New Vegas on the PC as I played it on the PS3 with very few issues. Still, I might some day.
I think Morrowind is kind of hard to get into, so I can agree with you there. Skyrim, on the other hand, is awesome. Oblivion is the one that comes in between the two and out of the three I believe Oblivion and Skyrim are the best. That said, I think if you like Skyrim, you'll like Oblivion.
I don't like to consider it modding or cheating when all you're doing is patching yourself through a glitch. for example there was a part in the PC version where after you rescue all the kids and take them back to little lamplight, you're supposed to talk to the mayor and he opens the gate for you to come in, but after you go back the mayor isn't up on the stand where you can focus on him and talk, he's on the ground behind the gate and the only way i found to fix it was to go in and place my character on the other side of the wall. from there you have the chat, he opens the gate, and you pretend nothing happened.
I was the only one i knew who played New Vegas and truly enjoyed it. I feel like it was a great game, but i felt like it was just a really long expansion pack because they were released to closely together and they were virtually the same game.
I'd give oblivion a try, it had a huge following and all my friends played it. I was just so put off by morrowind i didn't bother with it. The only reason why i ended up playing skyrim is because i bought a used copy for my little brother and had to test it out first and it sucked me in for a few hours... haha!
I didn't have issues with Little Lamplight. I did rescue the kids from Paradise Falls (I think that was the place) because I killed the Slavers instead of working with them (that is when I played the PC version).
I liked New Vegas. I liked how the actor who plays Odo on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine was the voice of the computer in the game. The one thing I didn't like about it was that you don't get to choose a new perk every level, it's every other level. Eventually, that wasn't such a big issue for me.
Yeah, I don't think Morrowind is as great as Oblivion and Skyrim. I'm not sure what lead me to play Skyrim, but I enjoyed it. Jon would agree with you about the first few hours. Oblivion really exceeded my expectations. I'm currently playing it on the PC even though I played it on the PS3 for the first time last Fall.
Thought i'd share that Fallout 3 and New Vegas are both on sale for less than five bucks on Xbox Live with Gold right now!
That's a great deal. I want to play Fallout 3 again in a bit, I have it on PS3 but I am thinking of playing it on PC.
After hearing all my friends complain about how many unresolved problems and glitches they had with the games on their consoles, i'm all about telling people to play them on PC. As i said earlier, i don't really consider it cheating when all you're doing is pushing yourself through a problem that the game company can't or won't fix.
I agree. If a bugged out game won't allow you to progress, clipping or other cheats are a totally viable solution.
I've walked away from console games because I couldn't fix a save or the like. Totally sucks to abandon progress like that.