PS3: Game Freezes

[Ancient_One]

Is anyone else experiencing game freezes on Fallout 3 GOTY.

I have even seen fire frozen instead of moving while the game has been running.

Missing NPC's, monsters or people until the game is saved and then the save game reloaded.

Complete game freeze requiring the console to be turned off to clear.

Minor game freezes which clear after a minute or so.

People are indicating they are experiencing issues but it's not specific to just Fallout 3. Someone said Borderlands was also doing this.

Will be interesting to see if it's firmware related.

Just wondering if others are experiencing game freezes.

[click]

I read that the game of the year edition of fallout 3 is the worst game for freezing. It has something to do with the dlc. Also with boarderlands it's being patched

[Ancient_One]

It's interesting what comment are flying around at present.

Some say it's a bad build. Bethesda standard.

Others say the cache is not being flushed out so the memory gets filled up causing the freeze.
(Patch 1.6 Optimized memory with multiple master files) Should have fixed this I would have thought.

What's interesting to note is the patches they say they have applied to the game.

If you read 1.1 bug fixes I have to say that some of those are exactly what I'm experiencing at the moment:

Fixed issue where certain NPCs would occasionally disappear from the game. (a save and reload caused these guys to reappear.)

Fixed issue where dead NPCs would occasionally come back to life. (a save reload caused these guys to reappear alive)

Fixed several instances where quest item stayed in inventory permanently after completing quests. (I still have a slave collar in my inventory)

I'm wondering if the patch was poorly implemented on the PS3 or if the patch was applied to Fallout 3 it was not correctly applied to Fallout 3 GOTY.

Would backing up and deleting the save file from the PS3, reinstalling Fallout 3 GOTY version and patching, then placing the save file back onto the PS3 solve this problem.?

Where it the patch applied.?

[click]

I read today that the game also freezes when someone signs in on your friend list
Does this happen to you aswell

It seems like the GOTY edition is in a pretty sorry state atm
Alot of people with problems
I hit the Bethesda website trying to find a fix for your problem but there is bugger all about it in their help/support section. Surprise Surprise


A1 maybe give this ago I just found it on a trophy site
I found something useful, whenever the game just starts to freeze up, press the PS button in the middle of the controller and the PS3 will force itself to go to the PSX menu. And after the menu loads up, sha bam! you can resume without it crashing.

[Ancient_One]

Interesting fix mate.

I think I might have found a partial fix as well.

I read somewhere that when the Canadians had troubles Bethesda indicated after saving your most recent save file to remove all the rest.

So on a hunch and taking a chance I deleted all but the most recent save in the Save Data Utility folder.

I also found an Options save file. Deleted that as well.

Found another file in the Game Data Utility folder and deleted that to.

Call it a spring clean.

Went into the game and no troubles so far.

Interesting enough the game didn't require patching on starting so I don't know if that was an issue or not. I also don;t know where the patches are saved and referenced from. Background process?

The game recreated the file in the Game Data Utility folder initial it was small but went back to it's previous size of 6701MB.

The Options file has not returned so not sure what that was about.

The game seems to run a lot more smoothly and I even received a message while playing which did not freeze my game.

Fingers crossed all is well otherwise I will just have to put up with it.

[Ancient_One]

Nope no good. Play in areas covered by Fallout 3 itself and the game runs smoothly.

Go to an area which is based on the expansions and you suffer from game freezes to varying degrees.

I found if you save often and now and again load it seems to clear things up for a time.

The time when it is mainly effected is when a lot of action is happening on screen.

Explosions, multiple enemies attacking, movement and selections start to crawl and a freeze can occur at this time. The worst of times.

It's still a fantastic game so not worried by it overly.

[Pure Mongrel]

Is this a PS3 only issue? I bought the GOTY edition for the XBOX but have not played it yet.

The "immersion" the game promises would seem to be destroyed by these annoying bugs

[Grimm]

I had a similiar experience with the PS3 GOTY edition. The core game areas were stable but the DLC areas became borderline unplayable in sections.

I had frequent freezes that usually cleared themselves after anywhere from a few seconds to a minute, as well as less frequent complete lock-ups. When this happened I found a less harsh solution than cycling the power was to simply eject the disc. After a few seconds, the console would beep a couple of times and reboot to the login screen. This also avoids the 'You failed to shut down the console properly' message.

Another issue I encountered that apparently is fairly common is at the start of the Mothership Zeta DLC. The game will freeze at a specific point of the opening cutscene. As far as I can tell once this happens the only workaround is to revert to a previous save, so I would suggest making an extra save file or two before starting this section.

[Pure Mongrel]

Thanks for the info Grimm. I don't know if this effects the XBOX version as well, but I will be saving constantly just in case

[Ancient_One]

Thanks Grimm that is my next section to complete.

I have just about finished the Pitt and have already completed Point Lookout, Broken Steel and Operation Anchorage.