Why Fallout New Vegas Crashes Pt. 2
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- čas přidán 18. 11. 2023
- You guys took what I found in part one and created a much, much bigger picture of what's actually going on behind the scenes!
If you're going to put the effort in, I should too, so enjoy part 2!
The guys at VNV asked me to ask you to NOT mess with your cell buffer settings in your .ini. Seems like sound advice.
Part 1: • Why Fallout New Vegas ... - Hry
extremely loved how you used the glass pitchers to explain memory leaks
I didn't even notice that until I read your comments
@@oddshorts-is5df good thing you saw the comment to appreciate explanation of memory leaks
In retrospect, I should have done a cut to a pile of 400 glass pitchers.
@@speedingoffence You can make more I subscribed :D
Can confirm. The visual aid helps a lot.
It doesn't crash... It fails successfully... because it just works.
Just as Bethesda intended
It’s a feature
it's just a built in feature to make sure every once in a while you take a break and go outside lol
Well I'll be damned, Todd. It really does just work.
I wish some of my bad memory leaked outa my hed
I just followed the Viva New Vegas guide and probably only crashed maybe twice in my entire 90h playthrough. More specifically, it was probably the FNV 4GB Patcher that solved most of the crashing issues, though I still recommend any new players to follow the guide.
Seconding this guide being very stable and good
It's without a doubt the best modding guide out there for new Vegas.
Viva New Vegas is a great base, and not overbearing if you skip the extended section, great start to your own modlist.
Yeah, i mentioned it under the first video aswell.
I agree, viva new vegas is very stable. I played a full hundred hour playthrough with one or two crashes.
There is also the "4 GB Patch" which modifies the game's exe file in a way that sets the "LARGEADDRESSAWARE" Flag which allows 32 bit Applications to use more than 2 gigabytes of RAM.
Another "Mod" that i use is "DXVK" which basically replaces DirectX with the "Vulkan" GPU Interface. It increases the game's performance dramatically for me. The biggest drawback is that it doesn't work with older GPUs.
Would love to see the trilogy be complete and a third video with this applied and tested
I would recommend checking that claim using something like VMMap to see overall memory usage. What you're seeing in task manager isn't the entire memory, and doesn't show everything contributing to the 4gb LAA limit.
While DXVK can reduce *stutter*, a lot of d3d9 games from the same period texture/model info is stored both in RAM and VRAM (default vs managed dx pool, and other causes), and this behavior translates over regardless of dxvk. I would also suggest trying out dxwrapper, which has an option to enable its own exception handling, as well as support for D3D9On12. I'm not sure if this is the case in new vegas, but I would be interested to know if it wasn't.
I didn't know DXVK existed. Gonna try it out.
Yes. 4GB patch is a must once you start layering mods
I can't help but imagine Dr. Evil saying every single word in quotes with his air quotes voice.
The thing what makes the gate to camp mccarran different is, that this is a Worldspace transition and not a transition to an interior cell. The same effect should happen if you move from the main NV world to a DLC World.
For a solution you may have more luck if you look into the ini and not the geck. And for a mod, maybe you can call that pcb with a Srcipt extender command.
Mccaran is a worldspace?? With how memory hungry it is, and how close it gets to the limit, it makes me wonder if it wasn't originally, but was later found to be more stable as its own worldspace for that memory clearing benefit
@@BARMN89 Yes it is. If i remember correctly Interior cells cant have a skybox so every Outdoor area that are separated by a loading screen is its own worldspace. Also worldspace doesnt use less memory then a interior cell (more likely the opposite), it just purge the buffer if you transition between 2 Worldspaces.
Autopurge is a garbage mod, just turn the cell purging on in the ini, since that is safe and forced purges aren't. I don't get why people still parrot this misinformation after it's been debunked like 8 years ago now.
Another good place that is different from the NV worldspace is Caesars Camp; it's contained in its own separate worldspace where its own magic happens.
You could remake the *whole game* in divided worldspaces if you really wanted to take complete advantage of the systems in place, but this comes with the drawback of having to reload everything between them. It's why when you go from one worldspace to another (There are a handful.) there is always a large load as the game kicks everything out of RAM; reloads the next area, builds it from the map, and then renders it for us.
@@EddieSpaghetti69 I will mention, 'kicks everything out of ram' is slightly wrong. It just clears the references to each bit of data. It doesn't actually touch the data, but unless you try reading outside of allocated memory spaces, none of that data matters anyway since if the space its using is reallocated it'll overwrite the allocated data to the new thing.
This is why unloading stuff is basically instant no matter how much it is. Most things take more time to load than it takes to deload the entire address list several times over.
There is a mod called Zan Autopurge that executes the PCB command for you. However, it’s obsolete nowadays because it’s a leftover command from development, and it can lead to unforeseen consequences over time. The INI tweaks in the Viva New Vegas modding guide perform the same function without any risk.
Yea dont use that mod
@@CommunistHydraIt's not a mod it's a guide. It's outdated, but there are .ini tweaks which are still used (Gamer Poets has them in some descriptions).
For me it's not seeming like they've been working recently.
@gratefulguy4130 viva new vegas is outdated? No it's not. It gets updated literally all the time.
@@gratefulguy4130 Viva New Vegas is not outdated.
@@gratefulguy4130 Gamer Poets is known for spreading disinformation and hiding deleting critical comments
"Why did the game come out like this?" 18 months to develop a 100 hour RPG and its DLCs for a SKU of 3 different platforms (2 of which are underpowered gaming consoles) will do that to ya!
Absolutely. I didn't want to get into that quagmire in the video, tho. It seems that is was actually really, really close, too- perhaps 2 months close.
Lets hope this video does well, it was very informative like the last
Thanks again! It's been a ride.
@@speedingoffence I can only imagine
return of the king
The reason it's 2GB is not actually because 4GB would crash the system, it's reserved for shared kernel memory. That remains true when the 32-bit binary runs on 64-bit (WoW64). These are things that may be used across processes and thus memory needs to be reserved in *every* process for it. These can be things like file handles, network handles, deliberately shared memory for IPC and basically every "handle" or kernel-managed object the OS hands out. That would probably include some DX9 handles like the interface as well.
The other thing is that Bethesbryo games allocate a fixed chunk of memory (it's 256MB in Skyrim, 512 in Skyrim SE, no idea about fallout) as heap space to then manage itself. It that memory runs out the engine isn't smart enough to allocate more, because that'd be impossible on a console where you just have that memory and definitely no more (talk about shitty ports and console-centrism). Though script extenders can and usually do resize it, and various mods for Skyrim actually replace the internal allocator from the pre-allocated chunk with a system one (because that also has some other benefits)
hi >/////
It actually is smart enough to allocate more.
The problem rather, is that the allocator is buggy, so every time it has to expand that working area, there's a 99% chance of it crashing.
The main workarounds (the memory patch in SKSE itself, and the standalone SMME predecessor) was to make the initial allocation bigger so it wouldn't have to grow later on, sidestepping the issue.
@@billy65bob Hm, I think you're right, the fixed allocated block might've been a change introduced with Papyrus.
I believe that the cell buffer purge upon entering Camp McCarran happens automatically, due to switching from one exterior "WorldSpace" to another. Unlike interiors, these world spaces are divided into a grid of "cells" that are loaded automatically in the background, as the player moves about. There are also some _fake_ exteriors that are really interiors without a cell grid, but with a skybox overhead, e.g. to make an enclosed courtyard inside a building.
Purging the buffer on _every_ transition would not be a good idea anyway; it can lead to errors in the gameplay, when cells are purged while a running script still expects them to be buffered. That's kinda bad coding, either on the part of the script writer or the developers of the internal script engine - one should never just _assume_ that a cell one wants to access is still buffered - but there's (almost) nothing to be done about it, so emptying the buffer constantly is not a good solution.
excellent content of this video and the previous one aside, good on you for taking the thumbnail critique like a champ lmao
Glad someone got it. I think it might have mostly fallen flat.
Cool to see someone getting to the bottom of this and sharing it.
I guess it depends of the definition of "mod" you have but you could certainly rewrite the executable to be 64-bit. It's a monumental task for sure. An alternative would be to port the game to another engine, OpenMW shows promise in that regard. Originally intended to be a reimplementation of The Elder Scrolls Morrowind in a newer engine, it also shows promise regarding FO3, New Vegas, Oblivion and even Skyrim.
There is a minor problem with creating a 64-bit version of New Vegas in that it's probably illegal. OpenMW is built off of a game that did exist with a non-DRM version of the code, but New Vegas, on PC, always ran through Steam's native DRM. It's pretty trivial to bypass, but the bypass itself is illegal, and releasing an x64 New Vegas executable would probably run afoul of the DMCA's anti-circumvention provisions.
It would be illegal to give people a full copy of New Vegas even with a new executable. However, to the best of my knowledge it would not be illegal to give people an executable that would use the existing assets from someone's legal install of New Vegas. OpenMW and many other engine rewrites of games work this way. Nobody can stop you from reverse engineering a program if you follow the rules (which are too extensive to go into here).
It's "possible" in the sense that if we really wanted to, we could destroy the moon with extensive mining and explosives. It would take an utterly herculean amount of effort, and according to people who have actually poked around in the engine's code, it wouldn't even give much benefit. The 4GB Patcher already exists, DXVK exists, numerous other engine bug fixes and performance mods exist. Simply rewriting the executable in 64-bit wouldn't do that much. Now rewriting the rendering pipeline to use DirectX12 instead of DirectX9--this is more possible, and would provide a much more significant benefit; This is also something that an insane Polish engine modder--Wall_SoGB--is currently in the very early stages of working on (last I heard.)
Oddly enough, the grounds here are actually in a funky grey area. While FO3, NV, Oblivion, Skyrim, FO4, and even *Starfield* all use *modular packages* which will get you in a ton of legal trouble if you distribute their data packages. *However,* the actual GECK and building kit for the aforementioned games is all available for free (Sans Starfield but that might change.) which isn't really covered via distribution but from *reverse engineering it.*
If you break down their engine they'll be mad like Ferrari gets. If you can make your own engine from their design; a "knockoff Ferrari" it likely will pass in a US Patent office as its own product. It'd probably make Todd upset but eh, I guess "It just works" can be applied there too.
@@HumanityAsCode, technically, the DRM-free version of the executable, and its development, would run afoul of Section 1201. Like, it's dumb, but it is something you're not allowed to do.
For conventional copyright infringement claims, you're 100% correct. Or, at least mostly correct. A lawyer could credibly argue that the .exe constitutes the, "heart of the work," and that could create a mess of your fair use defense, but, this is all really hypothetical.
It's actually a known issue that Section 1201 causes problems that have nothing to do with copyright infringement, but nobody's been particularly interested in fixing those issues, so far.
Ive known about and used the pcb command for years but I had no clue it directly affected RAM like that, nice videos fam very informative
NVSE is pretty important for a lot of scripting mods. Including stability ones.
4GB patch doubles the usable ram, that's good!
Ultimate Edition ESM Fixes - Cleans up the game files to increase stability
Heap Replacer - This really improves stuttering for me
NVTF - helps stuttering but also allows higher FPS
Glad to see a knowledge sharing followup
subbed, great video looking forward to the trilogy ;)
Viva New Vegas is an amazing bugfix/stability modlist that people should use it's very stable and if has great documentation for installation
Dragon Age: Origins for the PC is a game that is notorious for having a memory leak issue, its code does not let go of any memory allocated necessitating the use of bandage solutions that do not fix the actual problem, FNV therefore can count its lucky 38's.
My own fix for when the game starts showing it's about to crash, like with the terrain becoming very low-res, is to save and quit to the main menu, then manually loading the first hard save. (vs Quick save)
You're a hero for making these videos. I knew for a fact that the game itself is simply not very stable, but I can never just prove it.
I'm also well aware that mod conflicts can obviously cause crashes, but again, I absolutely knew the game engine is just not very stable because of how it handles many various things. Thank you very, very much for making these videos to tackle perhaps one of the most important overarching topics regarding Fallout New Vegas.
This channel is so underrated. You’ve earned a new subscription.
That's an awesome thing to say! Thank you!
Awesome videos on your explanation. This plagued my experience. Now I am able to play the game thanks to you 😄
Starkerealm really explained it perfectly in the comment on part 1 no wonder you'd qoute him good video always wanted to know why exactly it crashes hope you can grow your channel off of thebnew Vegas crowd. :)
According to the Fallout Fandom Wiki for NewVegas, the console commands are a carryover from Fallout 3. The clear ram tool you are using is only partially correct.
"PCB RunMemoryPass 1" is the proper or correct syntax for clearing unused requested memory.
Being basically a game that was to be frank a mod to F3, many issues were going to carry from the previous game. It's clear in the time span they had to develop, they had little QA testing as everything would have been done within the studio. In addition to few QA testers, would be even less developers working to iron out the bugs. A closed-source engine like gamebryo would only lead to more issues. Actor save bloat, really crappy purging techniques and RAM optimization made this game into why it crashes today!
the majoras mask of the fallout series. it's loved by all. (shame fo3 story was bland)
So, there are mods that exist that do exactly what you described with the whole purge cell buffer thing. I believe it was called Zan's auto purge or something of the sort. With that being said that mod has been rendered useless as I believe the newer versions of NVSE or some of the stability/bugfix mods that many people use do that by default. I believe there also exists a setting in one of the INI files that does this too. The first couple of sections (basically before any content is being added) of the Viva New Vegas guide is a great way to ensure stability and reduces crashes to once in a blue moon. I think my recent go with a lot of additional mods with Viva New Vegas as a base, was almost 8 hours of gameplay. You'd have to read the mod description pages to get more info as I do not have all of the information off the top of my head.
Just wanted to let you know your an amazing content creator with alot of talent
Hey thanks!
These vids are great, thanks for doing them and teaching people like me what the actual issues are, rather than the usual 'it bad' stuff.
Maybe you've found a niche for your channel? Best of luck.
Thanks!
I highly recommend the Viva New Vegas mod guide. Was able to play 9 hours consecutively of Old World Blues without it crashing once. Don't believe I actually had ANY crashes with it, but 9 hours was the longest I played in one sitting.
I use CASM a lot so that in case of crashes, I don't have to worry. Yukichagaa unofficial patch is also great for stability, as well as the FNV 4GB exe.
All that being said, avoid new Vegas anti crash. I believe it's obsolete now and the last time I tried running it, it only broke things further. I almost never experience crashes anymore with my setup, and when I do CASM almost always saves my ass.
I've been hearing that we should be using Tick Fix instead of Anti-Crash.
Is CASM just an expanded autosave? Nothing wrong with that, just want to understand what they're all doing.
Thanks for the take!
Speaking of obsolete, CASM. Use Stewie Tweaks and his Save Manager option there, it's infinitely better and more stable than CASM.
@@speedingoffence Tick fix and anti-crash do different things. Stutter remover is the obsolete mod that tick fix replaces. The thing with anti-crash is that it simply stops the game from crashing, even if something goes horribly wrong which then can lead to save file corruption.
i tried uninstalling nvac and my game crashed on startup so im kinda stuck with it lol
@@kouriier6112 Okay, so NVAC is a don't-remove-mid-game mod.
Mods required for a smooth and crash free Fallout experience:
Xnvse
4gb patch
Heap replacer
Jip nvse
Johnny Guitar nvse
Lstewiesaitweaks
Mod Limit Fix
New Vegas Tick fix (Nvtf)
Unofficial patch nvse plus
YUP patch
Combat Lag Fix
This one is a maybe but
- New vegas anti crash (Some say its no longer necessary)
All of these are publicly available on Nexus mods and will drastically improve stability and performance for folks wanting to play New Vegas again.
A good thing to note about Mod Limit fix is that while it is designed to increase FNVs 130 mod limit to 254 it also improves stability and performance even if you are nowhere near the new limit.
@@benito1620 Didnt even know that myself, great to know, adding combat lag fix as well hopefully this gets pinned or hearted
Good thing I spotted this video before commenting on the first one 😅 Great job on tracking this down and presenting it all quite accurately!
First, minor corrections:
1) no, 32-bit game won't crash your 32-bit Windows if it tries to use 4GB of RAM
2) and no, 32-bit game on 64-bit Windows still cannot use full 4GB
The reason for both is how OS deals with memory when running an application. Due to the way x86 CPUs work, the easiest way to separate memory between OS and user code is to just split *the address space* in two chunks - yes, regardless of how much RAM your computer has, the whole 4GB address space is divided into two parts.
When OS or an application need to use more physical RAM, OS tells the CPU "hey, please map this section of address space onto that chip of RAM". And if it was the OS that needed more memory - it is mapped onto OS-owned address, if it was the app - onto the application-owned address. (All this is one level below memory allocation/release manipulations that are involved in the memory leaks)
Now this part is a speculation on my part, I did not check if this is what actually happens. There's a concept of memory-mapped files. OS allows the application to say "please map that file on disk into this address range". It can be done for any file, but most commonly it's used for loading libraries (*.dll files). It's not taking more RAM that is normally counted towards an application usage - because OS knows that is has a copy of it on the disk, it just treats it as cache and can re-use the physical RAM pages involved as it wills, transparently for the application. Combining this with the above: loaded libraries does not consume RAM but still eat the part of the address space; and the size of the address range used depends on particular libraries and their versions that you have installed - which can be the reason why the threshold for crashing varies the way you observed it.
And finally to the useful part: yes, someone with intimate knowledge of the game's code can write an NVSE plugin to hook into the right spot and improve memory management. I'm not qualified to judge how hard that would be though, a lot depends on how the game is written and I'm not familiar at all with the internals.
However there's a potential workaround too: on Windows the usual split between application and OS address space is 2GB/2GB - lower 2GB go to the app, upper are reserved for the OS. Which is precisely the reason why normally a 32-bit app can only use 2GB of RAM. And to somehow support applications that needed more than that, 32-bit versions of Windows allowed to pass /3gb boot flag at startup, which would change the split to 3GB/1GB, giving the applications more address space to work with.
For 64-bit Windows /3gb flag probably doesn't work, but likely there's still a way to change that memory split for 32-bit applications. Quick search turned out this, but I have not tried it: www.caliper.com/learning/how-do-i-enable-the-3gb-switch-in-windows-to-make-more-memory-available-to-32-bit-windows/
So, to vastly oversimplify, a 32-bit OS could exceed the 4GB total by using something akin to (but not literally) virtual memory?
@@speedingoffence in OS development "virtual memory" refers to the subsystem that manages allocation and mapping of memory addresses onto physical RAM and swap, so it's literally always present in any modern OS :)
I assume that you mean "something that looks a bit like RAM, but not really", in which case - yes, 32-bit OS absolutely can allocate more than 4GB of memory in total to all applications that it runs. Notable example is just having a huge swap file.
To make use of more than 4GB of physical RAM both CPU and OS must support en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Physical_Address_Extension. (And I vaguely recall there being a hacky driver for Windows that would present the RAM above 4GB as a RAM disk, so you could place a swap file there.)
But none of that allows allocating more than 4GB to a single application - with only 32 bits for memory address, there's just no way to work with more than that. (PAE mentioned above technically allows it, but applications aren't allowed to manipulate the page tables - that's limited to OS only)
A proper remaster, with all the unofficial mods incorporated and patched all-in-one into the game, is what's needed. It's been noted in a few forums that some performance improvement mods won't work with the current .exe version of FO3 1.7 - it has to be rolled back to work. I doubt Bethesda will do it for either games, and that's a damn shame. They'd make a fortune remastering them.
There have been leaks of Bethesda's game scheduling showing that they DO have some sort of remaster planned in the coming years.... for Oblivion and Fallout 3
"all the unofficial mods" ? what do you mean. All the mods the community has ever made? lol
@@aravenofmanyhats9867 I think the OP means the unofficial patch mods such as YUP etc.
Dont give them ideas
Honestly, keep Bethesda's fingers as far away from NV as possible. Dunno about you guys, but I don't like FO3, 4, 76, or the tv show... so basically everything Bethesda made for Fallout.
Just follow the Viva New Vegas guide for a good baseline to work off of, it'll include all of the necessary stability and performance tweaks that you need
While I do imagine there are some memory leaks in New Vegas (they're often hard to avoid even for experienced developers), most of the memory issues do indeed come from how memory is managed.
There are two elements to this: "Why do they keep things in memory?" and "Why don't they free memory more often?"
For the first question, well, to reduce load times. Go inside a small house? No reason to unload the exterior you'll have to return to. Walking between NPCs for a quest? You'll have to keep doing it, no reason to unload that area. It all has to do with just how many load screens there are in the game, and trying to reduce those associated load times for players. They could absolutely have every load free memory, but if a player is traveling back and forth between cells for whatever reason, this is going to increase load times dramatically.
The latter question is more complicated. Firstly, those doors are chosen to free memory solely because the developers knew it was neceessary or they'd hit the memory cap instantly for those areas. It's a stop-gap measure to avoid crashes. With fast traveling, the developers make the assumption that players won't be returning to a nearby area any time soon if they fast travel away from it, so it's safe to free that memory.
Now, the reason for managing memory like this is largely just because it's "easy". Ideally, memory would be freed based on its distance from the player, but this was likely not implemented for a few reasons. The foremost is that it's far more difficult and would require more development time, which they're not going to invest when they have a "functional" solution. The second is likely engine limitations - you can't measure distance between an exterior player and an object in an interior cell, so it's hard to fit into the game's cell system. The third is keeping in mind the technology at the time, increasing the uptime of memory management could lead to stutters on slower hardware.
This memory issue is also the reason Skyrim Special Edition is so much more "stable" - it's 64 bit. Most of the original game's crashes were for the exact same reason as New Vegas'.
tl;dr I believe the memory-related crashing is due to engine constraints and those in charge effectively saying "good enough".
New Vegas Heap Replacer has a slightly more complex installation process for it to work, but once you get it going, it works flawlessly, boosting performance on low-end systems significantly. I haven't tried my mid-range desktop just yet
*Mods to install for stability (and nothing more):*
- FNV 4 GB Patch _(patches game to use 4 GB of total memory and auto launches next mod)_
- New Vegas Script Extender / xNVSE _(most mods need this)_
-- JIP LN NVSE Plugin _[required by Unofficial Patch]_
-- JohnnyGuitar NVSE _[required by Unofficial Patch]_
- New Vegas Anti Crash _(handles exceptions gracefully where the game would fail and crash)_
- FNV Mod Limit Fix _(increases some engine limits, useful even without many mods)_
- IStewieAI's Tweaks and Engine Fixes _(fixes engine bugs)_
- IStewieAI's Engine Optimizations _(optimizes engine functions)_
- New Vegas Tick Fix _(fixes time related stutters, decouples physics from framerate)_
- Yukichigai Unofficial Patch
- Unofficial Patch NVSE Plus
- Combat Lag Fix
- OneTweak _[optional] (to run game in borderless window to avoid alt-tab crashes)_
- ActorCause Save Bloat Fix _(fixes save bloat to avoid save corruption)_
♦This is still not the optimal way to run this game on modern hardware! This modlist is only for running the game properly.
♦It is highly recommended to use DXVK to have massive improvements on performance and fix alt-tab crashes properly, but it needs a lot of tweaks for input latency and mod compatibility, so I did not include this.
♦FNV 4 GB Patch is still required on GOG versions! The patch does more than memory patches.
♣ Do not try to install this manually. Use Mod Organizer 2. Do not use Fallout Mod Manager, Nexus Mod Manager or Vortex.
♣ The list is in order, meaning you should install these in the same order (or reorder them after install). Mod Organizer 2 does not sync mod load order with plugin load order automatically! Use "Sync Plugins with Mod Order" plugin to automatically do this.
♣ Mod Organizer 2 loads the topmost items first. The lower mod in conflict, takes precedence.
♥ Visit the Viva New Vegas website to learn about the ins and outs of New Vegas modding and what to install. It's a lovely guide, but I do things a tad bit differently than his guide, so either use mine or fully use his (because that guide is more than pure fixes). I highly recommend modding the game for more than stability, as the game is really janky, and I am so not playing without sprinting.
Just a note regarding OneTweak and DXVK: I was running the 'old' version of OneTweak and recently began using DXVK and noticed the return of the double cursor bug which OneTweak is supposed to fix.
"OneTweak but Really Updated" by WallSoGB fixed that for me, seems better for DXVK usage (only in windowed borderless mode obviously).
I tried vanilla FNV last year, crashed horribly. Then I tried one of the most popular "fixes" on Nexus, can't remember the name, but was terrible. Then I tried the Viva New Vegas guide, and it solved all my problems. Until I installed too many other mods, then I started getting more crashes.
The reason for the games lack of polish is simple, Bethesda refused to give Obsidian any slack when it came to development. The game was made in about 18 months and Bethesda had a deal with Obsidian that if NV did well enough they had the potential to make more Fallout games in the future. Fallout NV how ever fell a tad short on the contracted agreement so that deal was dissolved.
Many people believe that Bethesda's meddling in Obsidian's development of the game was intentional in the hopes that it would cause the game to not do as well for the initial sales, because they didn't want to share such a profitable IP.
This is actually not true, some developers and designers that have since left Obsidian have talked about how Bethesda was never the problem, but the Obisidian itself. There were some way too creedy higher-ups that wanted the extra money promised by Bethesda if they can release it by certain date. Oh and the money? It originally was never requested by Obisidian - it was something Bethesda just wanted to add in as bonus if they do good job.
Chris Avellone has talked ALOT about Obisidian and how the higher-ups there are a bunch of fuck-ups. You should check it out!
Viva new Vegas and ttw modding guide by the same guy. Smoothest I’ve ever had fo3 or fallout new Vegas EVER play in my life. Soooo many mods installed THAT WERENT INCLUDED and the game ran no sweat
All of the recommended/required mods for TTW and NVAC, the game runs smooth as butter with these on even though I'm using a pretty old i3 laptop with an HD 5500 (although my SSD REALLY helps the system, especially loading saves, not so much on a lot of gameplay that saves on the RAM).
Edit: to be more specific, NVSE, 4GB patcher, New Vegas Heap Replacer, and I think that's about It that makes the game more stable, however, on The Best of Times Guide (really good when installing TTW, I always go back to him), there's a small section of configuration on script using MO2 and seems pretty important as well, but that's too much of programming mumbo jumbo for my brain so I've got no idea what It does.
I'd be curious to know what the "Commit charge" or "Commit size" is for the process at the time it crashes; this is a normally-hidden column in task manager's detailed processes list, but can be toggled on to show what should be the total of all outstanding (not returned) virtual memory allocation requests the process in question has made to the operating system, whether it has used/filled them or not yet. There's a chance this doesn't include any video memory allocations, but I expect you'll find that the number is much closer to the 2GB limit than the normal memory amount shown by task manager.
Just a quick correction on the 2 GB situation: Windows will normally limit 32-bit programs to 2 GB of memory not to protect the operating system, but to protect older programs from themselves.
Computer hardware doesn't have a way of handling negative numbers natively, so software will usually just divide a number space in two and call one half "negative". For example, if you could only represent numbers from 0 to 200 but wanted negatives, you could say that 0-100 is positive while 101-200 is negative. So if you encounter 101, that's actually -1. A lot of older code tended to treat memory addresses this way, so they would behave unexpectedly if they encountered a value above the halfway point (2 GB), since they would see it as a negative number. The "4 GB patch" you see a lot just sets the "Large Address Aware" flag on the executable, which basically tells Windows "I can handle addresses bigger than 2 GB properly, please disable that protection".
You can actually have multiple programs using 4 GB of RAM on a 32-bit Windows installation without any issues, due to paging. Basically, Windows is the only one that has direct access to your RAM, every other program has to ask Windows when they want to read or write somewhere. This allows Windows to keep part of a program's memory in a file on the hard disk, without the program even knowing about it. This was used a lot back in the days to basically "download more ram" (increase the size of the page file).
Also, it's actually possible for a 32-bit program to allocate more than 4 GB RAM: the 32-bit limit applies to the *address space*, that is, the amount of memory that a program can access at any given moment. A program can actually request memory from Windows then unmap it from their address space, basically saying "I don't need to access this right now", then map some other piece of memory on the same address and use it. Think of it like scrolling through a long ebook: the whole content of book is always available, you just need to scroll to the paragraph you want to read at that moment. However, Fallout New Vegas doesn't do this as far as I'm aware (although some clever modder could probably add it in).
GTA San Andreas modders managed to convert the 32 bit executable to 64 bit.
Hey, while there's some really good stability mods out there, it's always adviced to use a guide. The current best is Viva New Vegas.
Viva New Vegas is a vanilla friendly modding guide that has a long list of mods you should use for nv, a list of vanilla+ mods you can use, and a list of mods you should never use, along with substitutions.
The main bulk of the guide takes me about an hour (though I am very careful with following the install directions) to complete, with the bugfix section alone taking up 30 of those minutes.
I was using the same fixes as was shown in a reddit thread on getting New Vegas with stability mods running on Steam Deck; I use these both on my PC and Steam Deck, though there's probably a better solution for both by now:
NVSE (New Vegas Script Extender)
FNV 4GB Patcher
New Vegas Tick Fix
NVAC (New Vegas Anti-Crash)
Unrelated, I also added the Yukichigai Unofficial Patch (YUP) afterward to fix minor bugs in progression in quests, small functionality fixes here and there, etc.
I haven't tried the Viva New Vegas guide yet since I haven't been in the mood to play the game for some time now but seeing as the Steam version has cloud saves anyways, I might very well look into that sometime in the future and see if I can just copy that over to the Deck for parity.
i found that turning the grass down can help with the memory build up (not much but with how small the memory size it has it does slightly help atleast on my pc)
as for mods i just look for fixs and test them and try them out i haven't played new vegas much as of late so i don't remember the mods i was using for it
I played Fallout New Vegas for the first time ever back in June and played around 50 hours with no crashes.
I achieved this by searching up a stability guide where I found Viva New Vegas and installed most of the mods there relating to stability such as the 4gb Patcher and IStewieAI's Tweaks, JohnnysGuitar, Yukichigal Unoffical Patch and many others.
You might be wondering why I did this instead of just playing purely vanilla and the answer would be, because I've had experience with other Bethesda (and Obsidian) titles so I know what to expect. Not to mention seeing a bunch of gameplay of F:NV over the years makes you aware of these things and how to solve them. No point making my life harder or annoying just to experience a pure vanilla playthrough. (Though I only added these stability mods for a first playthrough, no new or extra content mods that change or add a bunch of things)
I also just opened up my mod manager and noticed I have both NVAC - New Vegas Anti Crash and NVTF - New Vegas Tick Fix installed and I've had no problems in my 50 hour playthrough with both installed while some people in this comment section have reported it breaking saves and doing more harm than good.
Though the last time I played was back in June so things could change if I were to boot up the game now.
Nice, I love when people talk about the unexpected features this game gives you.
The 2GB RAM limit is NOT shared with GPU VRAM btw.... the GPU Firmware completely independently through the driver decides what gets how much VRAM and can use "theoretically" unlimited amounts of VRAM in a 32bit system.... and even in case the RAM should get filled up.... Windows would just write whatever is too much or rather what it thinks will not immediately be needed into the Pagefile
Most likely problems that causes crashes in Fallout NV are references to dead addresses.... it's written in C.... the garbage collection is handled by the programmer not the language in C.... which is great.... in theory.... the problem is... if not done correctly it can lead to problems.... games have many millions of lines of code... and Bethesda/Obsidian used/are using inhouse Engines for FO & Elder Scrolls... the great thing about Unity and Unreal is that you have thousands and thousands of people testing in real time and reporting bugs.... so you can fix them easily.... inhouse Engines have only the people programming inhouse to test the Engine... which is best case scenario like 30 people.... and like 3 interns trying to actually fix the bugs...
Add to that that FNV is basically just a Mod for FO3 and plenty of artifacts are left over.... it's pretty inevitable that this was going to be a problem
Josh Sawyer: *writes notes doubly faster*
When you mentioned Purge Cell Buffers I swear I've had a mod like that before.
There are two that I know of. Apparently they don't play nice with other mods, though. The conclusion's up btw!
This is fascinating!! I'd be very curious to see the same sort of thing for Fallout 4. As someone who's had a number of playthroughs corrupt and crash on me, it'd be great to know what max to look out for and if the pcb would work in it too
I don't think FO4 has the same issue. FO4 is 64-bit aware, and that allows for, literally, 16 million terabytes of RAM. We're going to be good for a least another 3 or 4 years.
I'm not sure what the problem is in FO4, but it sure has one. We'll see if I can scrounge up some time to find out.
I use xNVSE with basically all of its major plugins (JIPLN, ROOG, IStewieAI, JohnnyGuitar, etc) some of which do provide performance and stability. The 4gb LAA executable extender, DXVK Vulkan replacer, NVAC, NVTF, and an updated OneTweak for borderless windowed. I've been looking at a replacement ini on Nexus thats supposed to help with multi-threading, but I'm not sure if I had put it in for my TTW install or if its even compatible with the Vulkan replacement.
The stability mods that I run on my Tales of Two Wastelands profile in Vortex:
-New Vegas Script Extender
-JIP LN NVSE Plugin
-JohnnyGuitarNVSE
-ShowOff NVSE
-ROOGNVSE
-kNVSE
-4GB Patch
-New Vegas Tick Fix
-New Vegas Anti-Crash
-YUP (TTW Version)
-lStewieAl's Tweaks and Engine Fixes
-ActorCause Save Bloat Fix
-ActorCause Save Debloater
-lStewieAl's Engine Optimizations
-New Vegs Heap Fix
-FNV Mod Limit Fix
With these stability & engine-related mods, I've been able to have a much better experience with New Vegas modding. Even just having these bare essentials (and on a non-TTW game), New Vegas hardly crashes since it has more memory to run on thanks to the 4GB Patch. Stacking additional mods on top of this is just asking for trouble but that's modding in a nutshell. It's not gonna stop me and since New Vegas is still a 32-bit program, it will *still* crash no matter what. I believe that the only way to fix New Vegas' memory leaks is to make a sourceport for it (think of Quake's many sourceports: Darkplaces, QuaKEX, Quakespasm, Ironwail, etc).
Maybe if we had better access to New Vegas' inner code, things would be different. Time will tell, though.
I did a 50 hour playthrough using pretty much all of these with no crashes so hopefully that's a +1 to anecdotes.
Needing SIXTEEN fucking mods to make this game run properly has always been hilarious to me
It would be nice if Obsidian or Bethesda updated New Vegas to 64 bit, but that sadly isn't going to happen any time soon.
I use the Viva New Vegas modding guide that is designed to give you the most stable experience possible. It even includes a section that provides alternatives to popular mods that are outdated and cause lots of crashing like Project Nevada.
Though do keep in mind that it was originally a Vanilla+ guide but has since split in to two sections which are VNV Core which is the stability framework for all load orders and VNV+ which gives you the Vanilla+ experience meaning that for anyone else reading this that's new to FNV modding you are under no obligation to use VNV+ just VNV Core if you want to avoid lots of crashing.
Stewies Tweaks, New Vegas Tick Fix, New Vegas Anti Crash, FNV Mod Limit Fix, DXVK, and 4GB patch. I don't crash anymore with a heavy modlist. Alot of mods just to fix New Vegas but it's worth it to grab all of these.
why not write a batch file that reads the memory usage of a program and when it gets to a certain point using a simple if/then process do the purge?
Ran Viva New Vegas recently and I thinks it's a great starting off point. The only thing it's missing is DSOAL the 3d audio mod.
DSOAL is not exactly an essential mod lol
its like a old car man banger but sometimes bangs too hard and you gotta fixit
Usually by banging on it.
Honestly, the best thing I've found to keep you from crashing is disabling auto-save. its done more for stability than any program Ive ever tried. it doesn't do much for the mystery "Why did that specific action crash my game?" crashes, but my biggest problems were in the loading screens and its been great since I disabled it.
This is due to a bug with the autosave happening before the loading is complete. Stewie's Tweaks--which no one should ever be playing New Vegas without (follow the Viva New Vegas guide) has an engine-level patch that solves this bug by delaying the autosave by, like, 60 milliseconds.
I think my game crashed mostly from loading screens as well. Disabling autosaves work like a charm, but also remind you to quicksave every now and then.
@@constipatedparker5879 n-no, don't disable autosaves. Just use Stewie's Tweaks. And his save manager, while you're at it.
@@aravenofmanyhats9867 thats f'ing wild lmao, something so simple as not having it go off at the same frame as a load can fix an issue like that :P
@@Robert_D_Mercer yeah engine quirks are fun like that
Dragon age Origins pc release is also infamous fore having a memory leak without the 4 gb patch. the way you know DAO is going to crash is when the blood pool texture fail to show up instead creating a red Sqoure also the the loading screen starts to bug out
Touching on your last point, I think it’s important to go over the mods someone are likely to find on nexus but like you said are “obsolete” or outright broken. It’s a given now that all players should have a 4gb patcher for new Vegas, however there have been new mods to address previously broken bug fixed mods or instabilities brought by windows.
One of these mods that is new meant to fix the instabilities caused by win 10/11 is New Vegas Tick Fix. This coupled with New Vegas Anti Crash usually leads to a pretty playable experience that rarely crashes even with a ton of mods. You might think, “well hasn’t this always been standard?” but no cause previously super popular mods either had mod conflicts or just didn’t work. These were mods such as New Vegas Stutter Remover which many people download even today because of nexus placement but will end up leading to a more unstable experience.
I've been modding NV for over 10 years, just using MO2 and downloaded mods, no real GECK usage. Within the last month I setup a TTW load order that functions well with very predictable and avoidable crashes even with my excessive abuse of game time speed adjustment and ridiculous player sprint speeds. After so many playthroughs I play either 3 or NV in such a shallow way, just speeding through the game to get to my currently desired quest/npc/location. That usually brings crashes to the surface pretty quickly, so I'm stoked to say this iteration is working well.
TTW seems to be a hidden requirement for advanced/stability mods now due to all the modders using it. Thinking I'm going to have to bite the bullet.
I had the game working flawlessly with no crashes for years, then after some updates last year I haven't gotten that stability back at all.
@@gratefulguy4130 My NV only setup before this ran just as stout. Using the foundational mods they suggest should still work just fine without TTW. It is a pain but tracking each mod for updates before almost every launch is just what it takes to keep the patchwork functioning.
@@ZombieGFL...and then they break. If you have a stable playthrough it's best not mess with it.
Also I don't think you got what I was saying about TTW.
hey man, you should definitely do tech tutorial videos instead of your usual gaming stuff.
So my theory as to why some transitions dump memory and why some don't, as well as why fast travel is that it doesn't happen on interior cell transitions. It happens when you begin loading an unloaded world space. Places like freeside and McCarran are treated differently than, say Doc Mitchell's house or the Goodsprings Saloon. Those are interior cells. McCarran, Freeside, and the world map you travel to most places are all considered "World Spaces" - same as DLC areas such as the door to the Divide. I think the engine is dumping at the start of buffering a world space, rather than on transition. This would explain why it does it on fast travel as well. You're buffering an unbuffered area of the map.
It'd have to be a bit more complicated than that, however. When you leave the Goodsprings House, or the Casino in Primm, it's not purging.
@@speedingoffence That's exactly the distinction. The casino and houses in Goodsprings are simple interior cells, McCarran is a Worldspace, which is classified differently in the engine.
If the devs had longer then 18months to make this i genuinely think this game wouldnt have any issues alot of the "feautures" would have been ironed out still one of my favourite games by far
Word is (as in, unconfirmed) that Microsoft had a team work with them for 3 months before it hit XBox. From the comments, it sounds like it worked. Matter of fact, it seems like the whole game really just need another couple months.
@@speedingoffence is what I was thinking if they had more time I don't think there would be any issues but that's how it goes in the business they were under a time crunch and I don't think they could get an extension
@@speedingoffence The game certainly needed more dev time, it would be nice if we got a remastered version without all the current issues and with the full realization of its original vision, but that's wishful thinking.
Fallout 4 indeed uses a very different G.E.C.K.
Im loving waking up to these lil solutions to a game i dont play anymore. Still interesting to me 🤷🏿♂️
Which version are you playing? Steam, GOG, Epic etc?
Uhm about the cach purging I'm pretty sure you can set the number of cell it will cach in one of the inis under uInteriorCellBuffer and uExteriorCellBuffer I assume McCarren just has more cells
while I don't know about FNV, in Tmodloader, a (I believe, don't quote me) script extender for Terraria, someone made a mod that made it 64bit, allowing more RAM to be used
i wanted to ask even thru you propably wont see it
are you planning to make a discord or such where your followers can chat with you or eachothers and such?
I could look into that, this is all totally new to me!
There's a guide called "viva new vegas" that points to some mods to make the game run more smoothly, among other things.
I don't know if one of them includes and automatic PCB command, but i've rarely had any crash thanks to this.
Well, the 4GB patch kinda renders the PCB command moot. It doesn't fix it, it just changes the operation so it isn't a problem anymore.
I have around 200 mods installed and with dxvk, the tick fixer and Stewie's engine tweaks it almost never crashes due to memory, it does crash but only for bad references within mods.
TTWYUP fixes so much too.
😂 I love how the first no in 3:13 probably is for the tangent OP wanted to go on
Good catch! I cut the tangent.
@@speedingoffence I think that old saying goes "it takes one to know one"
Let me preface this with the fact that I know next to nothing about modding.
Couldn’t a mod be made that would automatically run pcb wherever a scene changes? Or at least on problematic ones like the Gomorrah?
I've got bells that jingle jangle jengle
Like ~2 years ago I downloaded some mods and tried to do a playthrough. It was my first New Vegas modded playthrough. I stepped out of Doc Mitchell's house and within 3min crashed. Tried again crashed within 5min. Changed settings, reload, and again crash. Tried again, crash. I ended up giving up and I haven't tried to play again since. I used to play on Xbox back in the day and it was great, so I was really looking forward to finally being able to play modded. It's nice to know now why it was killing itself lol I see others in the comments talking about mods to improve it. I used to play modded Skyrim so I don't know why I didn't think of downloading mods to help it run better.. either way, good video and I'll probably try again sometime soon because New Vegas is just too good of a game to never play again. Also yes, it is the GECK for Fallout 4 and Skyrim as well. I actually mod for Fallout 4, it's fun.
I know I'm way late to the party here, but I finished 3 separate playthroughs in the last 8 months. I use the Yukichigai Unofficial Patch, NVAC, FNV4GB, and the JIP LN NVSE. Only a small handful of crashes (
Never too late. People are reading these comments sections, and the more takes the better.
Such an easy subscription. New Vegas niche found.
All the stability mods on the viva new vegas guide (id assume the 4gb patch alone does a lot) and i rarely have crashes
I will say though, for whatever reason my game crashes a lot when im in the honest hearts dlc. Idk if this is a common issue, because i didnt have that issue when i played any of the other dlcs. Other than that, the game runs great and very rarely crashes.
I've been playing NV since day 1 and I still don't know what compatibility mods to use, so PLEASE follow through with the next video
It's coming. It's just me here though, and editing takes a lot of time.
@@speedingoffence good! I didn't mean to pressure you, I'm just manifesting the next video lol. It seems like there are a ton of suggestions from other commenters, so you should have plenty of material!
There is a mod to purge memory though, it's called Zan Autopurge, it's configurable even. Make sure to run it with the 4GB patcher.
Do not use that. It's old and never actually contributed to stability in the first place. PCB is a debugging command that will cause longterm issues in your save game. Don't use that. Follow the Viva New Vegas modding guide instead.
i love how you're messing with the thumbnail after being noticed by josh sawyer
Took some doing. I had to flip a flag in Fallout Edit to get that hair onto him.
My game used to crash, but not as much as other people's. I tried using NVAC and through the next two playthroughs, my game only crashed once. My theory would be: 1. There's other stuff than the memory issue that causes new Vegas to crash. 2. There's something about my playstyle that eliminates/minimizes the memory leak/bad memory management issues and/or 3. I was just unlucky in my first playthrough
Even though you couldn't make a mod that runs PCB with doors because you can't find the flags, could you make a mod that runs when the game autosaves/would autosave? Since the game autosaves on level transition, it should be possible to run PCB along with the autosave achieving a bootleg version of it.
i dont even remember any crashes while i was playing tbh
as of now playing BG3, with the amounts of bugs reminds me of FONV, with the amount of things happening underneath the game
The solution i been using is start new game then load saved game and it works.
Always make sure to save game all the time
Last spring Stewie's Tweaks (inline vanilla functions) broke the HEAP Replacer. As far as I know, you can only use one now. Although he did separate that function into a different mod.
Honestly, it seems like it's gotten to the point where TTW is a hidden requirement.
The weird conflict between Heap Replacer and inline functions has been solved for a while, afaik. Should be no issues running the two with the latest versions.
Wait, this got me thinking. Does skyrim have the same or similar issue? Because i had a playthrough where i tried using survival mode but an ui mod i was using broke it and i didn't wanna find a different one so i disabled survival mode meaning i could fast travel. I crashed only 3 times within that 200+ hour plus playthrough. I recently made a new character using a different ui mod that supported survival mode so i was able to enable it thus leaving unable to fast travel. My character just hit around 250+ hours and the sheer amount of crashing I've experienced during all that time made me wanna delete skyrim multiple times.
Now to clarify both runs were heavily modded, both around 120 mods
The first i had no mod experience so i installed alot script heavy mods and never organized my load order. Only issues i encountered beside the one mentioned above was colorful argonian faces and my 3rd person cam would break off on occasion when sheathing my weapon.
The second one i did research to avoid things like the facial glitches and cam break off. I organized my load order, kept script reliant mods to a minimum and made sure there were no mod incompatibilities. Only issues ive encountered now are the occasional T pose mid attack and the absurd amount of crashing. Oh and Riften be having my fps drop to like 10. I did alleviate some of the crashing by avoiding horses like the plague but its still pretty constant.
Viva New Vegas base is pretty much the standard for stabilizing FNV in 2023, they also have a guide for installing TTW and making it stable called The Best of Times which I prefer over playing Fallout 3.
I've been using new vegas anti crash with the 4gb patch and as long as I've got no other mods on, I can play for up to 5 hours without a single crash and usually get about 3 crashes in a 10 hour period.
Nsve script extender is god send for stability for me idk but that with 4gb patch generally makes it hassle free
Maybe this isn't the best way of doing it but you could set up an external program to nv up that could either look at the task manager for you and just type the command or it could be at a set time interval. Say every 20 minutes it runs PCB
I think it'd conflict with playing the game. You'd wind up with a's and d's in there.
My config is really outdated, but I use the NV Configurator to max out the cell buffers. I use NVSE and NVSE 4GB as well. Maybe I'm just not doing a lot to make the game crash, but I can't even remember the last time I crashed.
This is a really bad idea. Follow the Viva New Vegas guide, your game will be infinitely better and more stable.