lordhaw

Just so you guys know, I tried rolling back my AMD drivers to 15.7 which didn't work either. Then I decided to uninstall the Steam version and install my GOTY disk version of FO3 and bam, it worked properly again. I don't know why though. It got to the point where I could not load FO3 without it crashing, even with vanilla through Steam when trying to start a new game or loading an existing game even with the multithreading fixes put into fallout.ini for vanilla. I had uninstalled and reinstalled the Steam version with the same results. But here I am with the CD install of FO3 and it just works. Tends to make you think there's something with the Steam version for some reason. Anyway, working and I'm happy. But I'm willing to try and figure this out if anyone wants to see why this might be.

Thanks. I suspect you are right and this has something to do with it. It's very inconsistent between two different setups with MO and the original problematic one went from working with texture issues to non-functioning without me even touching anything on it and all these issues with the current attempt. I'm going to muck about with this a bit to see what may or may not work. Thanks for all the pointers.

Yes, in a way. I wiped my computer and reinstalled Windows 10 from the most recent ISO. Prior to this, Windows 10 was as up to date as it could be but it also was an upgrade install from Windows 7 and not a fresh install. The problems did occur after the reinstall of Windows 10. But everything was reinstalled including Mod Organizer. Plus I started using the Steam version of FO3 after the reinstall rather than the CD version. Drivers are up to date I would think as I got the most recent AMD drivers after the reinstall. I'll look up that Windows 10 thread and try a few things.

I backed off every single mod I added in this go, redoing the bashed patch along the way and now I'm back to the last working config...and it still has nothing on the main menu screen. No cursor and no menu at all, just the default Fallout 3 power armour image at the start. I don't know where to go with this now. Seems like I'm wasting my time. But I've had this working on STEP and Windows 10 perfectly fine with MO before so I have no idea why I'm having so many issues since redoing my PC.

Arrgghh! Just finished the latest chunk of my test setup and I'm now getting no menus on the main screen and so can't start the game. Tonight's chunk involved section 18.9 through 19.3 in the guide and functioned perfectly fine prior to this. The core mods in these sections were already installed and it was working fine prior to this. Guessing a mod did this. Here's my list. Any ideas? I could disable each one by one from these to see but thought I'd ask first.

Fixed the grass issue so can ignore. There were some setting differences in the display section of the falloutprefs.ini between the older install and the test install. Made them match and grass now looks right. Changed fLightLODStartFade=3500.0000, iMultiSample=0 and added iPresentInterval=1. One of these fixed the issue with the grass. Onward in trying to break the test setup

Current test is up to 75 mods, with 70 active. No issues in regards to exclamation marks, but am having some texture issues. Comparing a similar scene from the other problematic mod setup to the current one shows rather grainy grasses on the current ones and proper looking grasses on the problem one. Also the road textures are different. The ones in the test setup do look like the NMC ones, not sure which texture mod changed them in the problem full STEP setup so not necessarily an issue. Not sure what's up with this grass difference though. Also another strange thing is that in the problem MO setup I needed to have bUseThreadedAI set to 1 but I had to leave it at 0 in the test install. The test MO install is a copy of the problem one, with all the mods removed and then I've been reinstalling one by one. From problem MO setup From test MO setup

Well so far I have run a vanilla test using a clean save with of course no issues. I ran through the vault and then through Springvale and through Megaton. Exited and entered Megaton multiple times with no issues. I just finished a test with just the Core guide mods, LOOT run, mods cleaned, FO3LODGen run and the changes added as a mod, a bashed patch created. Ran the exact same test with the exact same save. Absolutely no issues. 50 mods with the Core guide used, 49 after bashed patch. Next test is to set up with all guide mods and a regen of the bashed patch to see both the mod count and what happens. Just not sure if the problem will hit after a certain mod count or not this time around. A previous experiment did but not sure this time around. This same run in my previous non-test MO setup generated texture errors and other problems depending on the mod count until I lowered below 200 and the texture issues still show up occasionally. But so far so good in the test setup. I forgot just how horrid vanilla FO3 looks. I haven't played vanilla for years and it was an eye opener. Gives you a perspective on just how much a few changes, especially the NMC and UHQ textures along with Vurts make to the game. Not quite sure how I am going to test this with all mods. I'd like to split it up so I try at different mod counts to see if there is a point where it starts to go south. How many mods should an all mods setup with the guide and a bashed patch have?

Personally, I'm not entirely sure the whole problem, insofar as stability, has too much to to with Windows 10. I don't find FO3 in Windows 10 any more or less unstable than it was in Windows 7 with a heavily modded setup. Now I know I said earlier that things were pretty good after cutting my plugin count down to 195 with Merge Plugins but now that is not the case. Things were great but now suddenly it crashes all the time, particularly when approaching Megaton and texture issues pop up in areas that were fine before. I can leave Megaton and re-enter and have everyone there now have the red exclamation or have pink skin, when they were perfectly fine before. I can then leave/re-enter and it's fine. Here I can't say as to what the problem is exactly, but I am going through the guide again in a separate MO install with the mod list cleared and am reinstalling just guide mods, starting with just core and am documenting what happens along the way to try and track this down. Everything went to pot for me after having to reinstall Windows 10 and then redoing things from scratch with MO. My install using the guide prior to this was perfect, same version of MO too. Only difference here is that I am using the Steam version of FO3 (GOTY) rather than my previous CD based install (also GOTY), because as I said in an earlier post my CD has chips out of it around the center hole and cracks starting and I'm afraid of it flying apart or cracking one of these times...I've seen it happen. The computer I'm running this all on is not a powerhouse, an i3 with 6GB RAM and a 1GB Radeon R7 250 but FO3 has worked great with this setup, including many hires textures with no slowdowns unless ENB is used, then it's a pig. Anyway, I'm partway through that now and will let you know how it goes.

Really? I followed the guide to set it up. The only extras I added were a couple things I happen to like...GNR Building Redux and the Intro bus and Dupont Alignment, along with a couple of the user suggestions FCM, Grave Digger and Proper Drinking. And I did the bashed patch at the end which merged quite a few mods. I may have to create another copy and go through the guide again just to see where I messed up then. I've set up FO3 with older versions of the guide multiple times and this is the first I ever had any issues. I had never felt the need to use the older Merge Plugins scripts or the newer Merge Plugins until this round. Obviously my move to the Steam version from the CD version wouldn't have done anything (I literally wore the CD out, there are chips out of the disc around the center hole and cracks radiating from it...used it too much over the years ) and I've been modding FO3 for years so it's not my first kick at the can or anything. I must have done something somewhere then. Interesting. Thanks for pointing that out. It's kind of fun messing with this stuff so I'll go back and see where I went wrong.

I just recently set up Fallout 3 using Clear and Present Danger and had the exact same issue. It was strange because my last install didn't have this issue. I ended up setting up a test profile and enabled mods one by one in the same order as the guide and tested after each to find out which was causing the issue. I thought it was a texture issue but after a certain number of mods, I found the problem happened. It seems very much that if I have over 212 active plugins (even when using a bashed patch) the problem starts happening. I used Merge Plugins to create a series of merged patches of related mods to lower the plugin count. I got it below 212 and the problem mostly went away. Lowered it further and it completely went away. I am at 196 active plugins now with no issues. The worst part was that it was kind of intermittent. It always happened as I was going into Springvale. As I reached the bottom of the hill and the Red Rocket came into view, the textures disappeared and a bunch of exclamation marks appeared around the Red Rocket station. There was one visible in the distance at the school too. I would get them sometimes in the Vault prior to leaving too. The pipboy was all purple and some characters left hands were purple under the pipboy glove. Some hair and skin textures were showing the purple and some wall textures would have exclamation marks. I would start a new game and it might be OK all through the vault and then fail at Springvale or it would show varying levels of texture issues in the vault and still having the exact same problem at Springvale. Even the ESC key would fail to function in Springvale. But once I lowered the plugin count below 212 it worked except for the odd issue but at about 210 it completely stopped so far as I could see. Does this help?