New Vegas review from NMA, too good to be true???

[Mangoose]

On the .dll fix:

I've been receiving a lot of emails about this, so I thought it important to finally speak out about it. An unofficial 'fix' to performance issues in Fallout: New Vegas has been doing the rounds for the past week as some sort of global solution to all problems. I do not recommend this D3D9 Fix at all, as it causes Fallout: New Vegas to falsely redetect your graphics card as a lower model, and in turn use a lower shader package. It can reduce image quality and cause a range of long-term problems. A much better solution is to use the ToggleEmotions (temo) console command in each Fallout: New Vegas session to temporarily disable facial emotions on NPCs, thereby removing the major source of the slowdowns which may occur in areas where there are several characters. This method will not reduce your image quality or cause other potential problems. This is also a good time to remind everyone that PC gaming does not involve any quick fixes. If you're having performance issues in Fallout: New Vegas or any other game, the correct solution inevitably involves properly optimizing and maintaining your entire PC, along with research and intelligent tweaking of the game, not just grasping at the first quick fix that happens to come along. Additionally, official patches and driver updates resolve many of the legitimate problems, so some patience is also involved.

Tweakguides.com

"temo" works great from my experience tonight.

 

[DalekFlay]

ToggleEmotions doesn't do the job nearly as well as the .dll file, and I don't see a visual difference (I tested it after reading his post). Not sure what other problems he is referring to, but nothing going wrong yet in 40 hours... I don't even get crashes.

So I'll stick to the .dll fix.

 

[Shannow]

Fuck, this didn't work after all. The game crashes after a few minutes of playing every time I run it.

So now I have no idea what else I can do apart from saving every minute and restarting after each crash. Boy, the joys of being an Obsidian customer!

If you bought the game, I'd really recommend using the New Vegas support, since we can't really help apart from pointing to the most common fixes. They can either provide you with a solution or become aware of the problem with your kind of setup and perhaps put a fix in the next patch.

 

[hiver]

Fuck, this didn't work after all. The game crashes after a few minutes of playing every time I run it.

So now I have no idea what else I can do apart from saving every minute and restarting after each crash. Boy, the joys of being an Obsidian customer!

have you tried lowering or disabling some of the heavy features through options in the game and adjusting card performance with on a side?
V-sync, tripple buffering, no AA etc?

 

[gothfox]

On the .dll fix:

(skip)

"temo" works great from my experience tonight.

Personally I don't see any visual difference between .dll or no .dll. I would definitely not disable fucking NPC emotions to see more shaders though, in my book this is plain retarded.

 

[gothfox]

ToggleEmotions doesn't do the job nearly as well as the .dll file, and I don't see a visual difference (I tested it after reading his post). Not sure what other problems he is referring to, but nothing going wrong yet in 40 hours... I don't even get crashes.

So I'll stick to the .dll fix.

You shouldn't get any additional crashes and "long-term problems" is a fucking red herring. The only thing this dll does is forces the game to choose a different shader rendering path, that's it.

 

[Elwro]

V-sync, tripple buffering, no AA etc?

Sure thing, the game still crashes after a minute or two with no AA and no anisotropic filtering etc. I managed to play for a minutes this morning before going to work with all the "x fade" (x = creature, tree, etc) options set to minimal, without any crash whatsoever. But the game is ugly to the point of unplayability (= can't see the enemies until they're in front of you) in that state.

I also experienced a "black screen" crash when entering a house, but otherwise, the game only crashes outdoors for me.

I'll turn ALL the graphical options off, see if the game runs, and than turn it on one after the other.

Civilization V, Risen, and the original Fallout 3 (which are the games I've played recently) work perfectly on my rig. The drivers are brand new and were specifically designed to improve support for Nvidia cards. I tried all the hints from the official forums to no avail. Well, maybe I'll start a new thread there just for kicks.

 

[hiver]

I didnt look into details, having ati myself, but i read somewhere that some specific types of nvidia cards and/or drivers have big problems with it.
Short of buying an ati card maybe you can try rolling drivers back a few versions.
Maybe it would be worth it to reinstall the game itself after those changes too.
yknow computer vodoo stuff and all.

I got a couple of complete freezes myself even with skidrow version but since i adjusted card drivers for a bit more performance etc, didnt have any.
Still running it at almost as high as it can go.

 

[Suchy]

I'm about 20hrs in with SKIDROW and dll fix, running on Windows 7. So far I had one crash, the only annoying bug I'm experienceing is when one of my followers gets stuck on reloading animation. Happened a few times with Raul, removing his weapon for a moment helps.
I haven't noticed any difference between the dll fix or vanilla, but the dx9.dll allowed me to play it in actual 3D (with iZ3D monitor) which earlier wasn't possible.

FNV is a good game, I'm definitely gonna buy it when I wander near a gaming store next time (retail, never the steam crap). When you look past engine limitations, the game's actually a damn good RPG, with decent writing, memorable characters and great exploration. Worthy of Fallout name.
Oh, and finally you can die in VATS.

In Fallout 3 I wasn't bothered by first person perspective or dated graphics, not even realtime combat. But everything else about that game sucked ass. It left me with bad taste stuck in my mouth, like after a night of hard drinking and smoking cigs. There was no fucking way I'd buy NV before "demoing" it first. And while NV looks and plays almost the same as F3, it's a completely differnet, and good game.

 

[Dolar]

I also experienced a "black screen" crash when entering a house, but otherwise, the game only crashes outdoors for me.

I'll turn ALL the graphical options off, see if the game runs, and than turn it on one after the other.

This sounds weird, but install new audio Drivers. That has solved a lot of peoples problem having the same issue.

If that does not work, Run Dxdiag, go to the first sound tab and turn sound acceleration to normal(2 tics to the left) Go into the sounds section on the control panel, under speakers and advanced settings and make sure sound acceleration is normal there as well.

It helped me I was having freezing and crashing, but these steps pretty much solved that.

 

[Suchy]

Oh yea, I have x-fi and when I tried to route the game via Alchemy, it made it crash after a minute or two.
Alchemy wasn't necessary anyway, since the game uses real DirectSound audio and 5.1 works right away.
Still, sound can be an issue.

 

[RK47]

I notice performance improvement if I turn off the radio completely. No big loss really, it was the weakest point of the game. Despite Three Dogs being such an annoyance, I find the track mix in FO3 much more enjoyable and varied than New Vegas.

 

[Elwro]

install new audio Drivers.

Already did...

That has solved a lot of peoples problem having the same issue.

... but it didn't help in my case.

If that does not work, Run Dxdiag, go to the first sound tab and turn sound acceleration to normal(2 tics to the left)

That's a good idea, I haven't tried that out yet! Will try when I get back home.

 

[1eyedking]

guys don't play fallout new vegas play intelligent games like left4dead lol

Sadly, L4D1 is the better game. It's got great design from almost everywhere you look at it.

PS: WHAT THE FUCK HAPPENED TO MY AVATAR. Fixed.

 

[Lockkaliber]

I'm 40 hours in, I've had one CTD and at one time a barkscorpion somewhat warped into the ground. I could kill it anyway though.

Boone with 9 in CHA and a sniper rifle is a fucking murder machine btw, even takes out death claws and shit from afar in just a few shots. Insane.

 

[Achilles]

FNV is a good game, I'm definitely gonna buy it when I wander near a gaming store next time (retail, never the steam crap).

Boy, are you in for a surprise when you pop the disk in the drive.

 

[Mortmal]

install new audio Drivers.

Already did...

That has solved a lot of peoples problem having the same issue.

... but it didn't help in my case.

If that does not work, Run Dxdiag, go to the first sound tab and turn sound acceleration to normal(2 tics to the left)

That's a good idea, I haven't tried that out yet! Will try when I get back home.

Did you try to shut down the audio card completely ? I bet its an integrated one on your motherboard, turn it off in the bios and check.You could also use steam in offline mode, disable cloud
Anyway post your sytem spec.
http://segmentnext.com/2010/10/19/fallout-new-vegas-errors-crashes-freezes-fixes/
also try number 15

 

[spectre]

I'm about 30 hours into the game now, up to a point the game felt really good. the whole cowboyish theme fits the setting, the writing and quest design is no longer cringeworthy, combat is challenging for a change etc. Not exactly fallout, but close enough for me.

Unfortunately, I ran across the same goddamn glitch nobody was arsed to fix since Failout 3, the ncr decided to go trigger happy on me, despite the fact that I was "liked." Even got a radio to call ncr reinforcements... maybe they got mad I didn't?

So, lemmie share may rage with you, fellows, atm, both the ncr and crimson caravan shoot me on sight fo no apparent reason, and any console cheats to raise reputation I tried don't do jack about it.
Too bad the last savegame is ages old so no rolling back

Maybe I'll just side with the legion then, the non-ncr areas seem to work ok. Oh well.

 

[Havoc]

Wait 3 days... or change armor.

 

[Elwro]

@Mortmal: Yes, unfortunately it's an integrated card, since the only motherboard which wouldn't conflict with my old RAM and video card had too few PCI slots :-( (long story; my old mobo died).

I already tried most of the fixes from that site, it didn't occur to me to change any AI options but I'll try this if other things fail. My system specs are Win XP SP 3, 2 GBs of RAM, some new AMD dual-core processor the detailed name of which I forgot, and a GeForce GT 240 with the latest drivers.

 

[Mortmal]

@Mortmal: Yes, unfortunately it's an integrated card, since the only motherboard which wouldn't conflict with my old RAM and video card had too few PCI slots :-( (long story; my old mobo died).

I already tried most of the fixes from that site, it didn't occur to me to change any AI options but I'll try this if other things fail. My system specs are Win XP SP 3, 2 GBs of RAM, some new AMD dual-core processor the detailed name of which I forgot, and a GeForce GT 240 with the latest drivers.

start menu-->execute type dxdiag youll have your cpu name and other things.

 

[Elwro]

I know, but I'm at work

 

[Mortmal]

I know, but I'm at work

WTF? someone with a job ? in my codex?!

 

[Suchy]

FNV is a good game, I'm definitely gonna buy it when I wander near a gaming store next time (retail, never the steam crap).

Boy, are you in for a surprise when you pop the disk in the drive.

SKIDROW fixed the problem. I'm not even going to install Steam. Heh I probably won't even unwrap the box. My Risen copy is still wrapped in tinfoil.


@Elwro - which Windows are you using? I couldn't get it to run on XP, but in 7 the game works flawlessly.

 

[Clockwork Knight]

PS: WHAT THE FUCK HAPPENED TO MY AVATAR. Fixed.

This is kinda creepy, but I noticed it decided to stay away for a while when you said NV is "between aqverage and good". It came back when you complained about the art direction.

That thing is haunted.