Back to Fallout New Vegas (Ultimate Edition)

September 11th, 2013

I decided I need another rpg to play alongside Skyrim and since I'm very fussy which types of games I'll play, it had to be Fallout New Vegas. I can't play rpg's that are isometric or have turn based combat though so it limits me somewhat. It's not that I "can't" I just dislike them.

Now, I know there's some controversy over which Fallout game is better and my preference has always gone to New Vegas. Better writing and story being the main things for me. I've never played the very early games and most likely never will and in my experience Fallout 3 was even more buggy. The story in itself where we had to restore pure water to the wasteland was honorable, but I really hated the "daddy" complex...it was so sickening at times, it made me cringe.

It took me a few days to get my heavily modded NV install stable, but now it runs perfectly with no issues, no crashes...at all. It would crash nearly every time I entered or exited a building or new outdoor cell which as you could imagine was a little annoying...

This happens on a vanilla game so adding mods just added to the problems.

My load order:
Active Mod Files:

spoiler:

I'm also using a LOT of RiRes textures (optimized) which changes pretty much the whole game from environment, weather, clothing and armour to weapons etc, etc. I more or less just went through the top 100 mods and chose my list from there since I hadn't played for around 18 months. I was using earlier versions of a lot of the mods in my list though.

For stability purposes I'm using the multicore ini tweak, the 4GB patch to use extra virtual memory, and as suggested by Gopher, the Stutter Remover along with Fallout Full Screen (Borderless Window.) This combination runs the game flawlessly with as I said, no crashes at all....so far. Having said that the Stutter Remover seems to make stuttering worse in some areas as some people have said, however as a trade off for stability, I can put up with some stutters.

I put up with a lot of instability with Skytim so this is nothing and the combination of tweaks I'm using here is preventing crashes, possibly when the worst of these stutters happen, so it's worth it. The Fallout Full Screen exe loads the 4GB loader, stutter Remover and NVSE with one click so that's also very convenient.

I'm going to post screenshots of my travels every so often. My character's name is Gideon Rass. His story hasn't been developed yet as he's only starting out comparatively speaking. We have reached Novac and have done a few World of Pain "dungeons."

I'm using the very excellent Niner companion as well as the Four Legged Friends mod, so I have four dogs and a drug addled waster following me. Co-incidentally, Niner loves dogs and has given me a Perk so wild dogs don't attack me. Must have been fate...

Gideon is the one with the hat...

Say cheese!

Ciggie break

Sandstorm....I have since disabled them as they never seem to let up. I could configure them with the mod options and might do that later, but for now..no sandstorms. Along with very dark nights visibility can be almost zero at times...

.

Hello buddy.

Fessels · September 11th, 2013

I have played the older Fallout games and they where fun alright, but i never played the latest Fallout so i have no idea as to how it is.

September 12th, 2013

Fessels wrote:I have played the older Fallout games and they where fun alright, but i never played the latest Fallout so i have no idea as to how it is.

Well some people compare it as Oblivion with guns...

, but that's pretty simplistic. I like the post apocalyptic style which is a lot more "gritty" and down to earth than the TES fantasy style. It's a nice for a change.

I know next to nothing about guns, which ammo is best (except for armour piercing and standard) and when to use them basically, but it's fun nonetheless.

September 25th, 2013

Gopher has just started his highly anticipated "new" New Vegas playthrough. He has played the game before and recorded a Let's Play, but that was a long time ago.

If anyone wants to watch the game Intro and character creation this Prelude video is the one to watch:

Otherwise here's the first gameplay video....one of many I hope for fans viewing pleasure. Don't worry I'm not going to be posting them here. This is just the first so people can follow the links.

September 27th, 2013

I added Robco Certified and am having a ball with it. I've created several default robots and still need the perks for higher level bots, but what I really like is the Lobotomites, creature bots and robots I can create from junk. Fantastic mod.

This is a small part of my Death Squad on the way to clear out a collapsed parking garage infested with Deathclaws courtesy of World of Pain. Using night vision obviously since it's practically pitch black in there. On the left is my created Lobotomite with the chainsaw I gave him (it), myself in the middle and Raul the Ghoul who I gave a Death mask and cloak.

FIDO...this is a robot dog companion that comes with Monster Wars, another great mod.

The long road.

Some of the members of my small army. I love roaming the wastes with them and no worries about them taking my XP because I get XP from whatever they kill. Plus, I always lead so I get my fair share.

The saloon in Goodsprings, the starting town.

Come visit the attraction Rocketeers....only now it's overrun with feral ghouls...

Current mod list: Much longer than the first one...

Unticked mods are merged in the Bashed Patch.

spoiler:

October 10th, 2013

Well as much as I love it, sadly I had to uninstall Monster Wars as it was killing my PC and bringing my fps to a slideshow especially around the Strip and Vegas surrounds which made things a tad difficult to say the least. In the general wasteland it was fine though but I can't just avoid a whole major section of the map. It's not the mod itself but a game engine problem...

From the exhaustive research I did via our good friend Google it seems that it's something to do with NPC emotions (animations) which is a cause of this issue and is much worse when combat starts particularly when there are a lot of NPC's. It can be toggled off via the console but needs to be done every time you start the game. I didn't know this before I uninstalled Monster Wars so I may give it another try, perhaps on the next playthrough.

"Console code"
ToggleEmotions

Here's some info on it for anyone interested:
Although supposedly this doesn't work anymore a number of people including myself seem to get some results from it. It's just a .dll so can just be deleted if necessary without ill effects.
Nvidia d3d9 Patch

NOTE..This is meant for NVIDIA CARDS ONLY. I have seen people post using it with ATI and then complain about graphic issues...

There's a thread on the Official forums which starts out warning people NOT to use it in the 1st post, however this was soon debunked. I certainly haven't had anything untoward happen except the desired effect of a smoother game around more than a few NPC's.
http://forums.bethsoft.com/topic/113344 ... d9dll-fix/

You really have to "love" the Gamebryo engine

and I bet we're stuck with it in whichever wonderful new incarnation we're expected to believe in for Fallout 4 and TES 6.

I don't get it really as I used Monster Mod and a ton of other mods adding NPC's and random encounters last time I played the game which admittedly was a couple of years ago. I had Windows XP then and the game was as stable as a rock....mostly. Now I have Win7 and the game is as unstable as a paper bag in a windstorm, unless I use a handful of extra apps, like Fake Fullscreen and several other tweaks as described by Gopher in his video linked above.

I did read somewhere that playing in WinXP Compatibility mode helps, but so far haven't resorted to that and fingers crossed, I haven't had a crash in over 101+ hours and I've barely touched the main quest. I'm currently playing through the Honest Hearts DLC which I'm liking so far, then it's back to the wasteland for awhile.

More screenshots coming soon...

October 17th, 2013

My biggest problem with this game now, (and it's not the actual game,)

is that I have to use headphones, due to close neighbours. The thing there is I'm going to send myself deaf with all the gunshots, loud explosions and other sounds even though I have the sound turned down to compensate.

Otherwise I would be playing this for the foreseeable future...or until Obsidian make their rumoured New Vegas 2. It's only a rumour thus far and I've read that Bethesda said they can't do it until after Fallout 4 is released. From my point of view that's largely because of the popularity of New Vegas as a real Fallout game. That's my opinion and believe it would be shared by many who want good writing, proper factions, real choices and a number of other things that just make it a better game.

Many people who criticize NV don't know or realize that they were given a very short time frame by Bethesda to get the game out and had to use a very buggy engine among other things. If Fallout 4 is cut down like Skyrim is, and I do enjoy that game despite it's many faults, I for one won't be happy. Of course all that depends on whether I can upgrade my PC in time and I'm also going to "try" to resist the urge to buy it on release day as I do with their other games and wait a few months for user reviews, but I know what will happen...

Anyway, my mod list is growing and I'll have to stop soon, but I've combed the lists at Nexus and unless new mods are released that catch my interest and are compatible with everything else, this is basically how it will stay, except for a couple I'll remove next time.

spoiler:

Some screenshots. Not the best I know, but I have to focus more on staying alive than taking pics unlike in Skyrim, so I tend to forget good action shots in the heat of things. I can use the same console commands of course, it's just remembering to do it at the time.

Self explanatory...but of course I ignored it and didn't notice the carefully set traps...or a few anyway. After being crippled once or twice one tends to be paranoid.

A Mothership. This is from Monster Wars before I had to uninstall it. The aliens and their crew are already dead. Note all my followers..

.

The Psychic. This is what kids look like in NV.

Another shot of my character Gideon Rass.

I just finished the DLC Honest Hearts which I enjoyed but I doubt I'll do it again. I just found most of the characters to be really annoying and some too "preachy." If anyone has played it they'll know what I mean but I won't elaborate so as not to insult anyone.

Rescuing a bighorn calf to return it to it's mother. I'm offering it food so it follows me.

This is where I was experimenting with Dynavision. I quite like that effect but it takes some getting used to after the brighter colours.

Hang on guys while I consult the Survivors Guide. Now we are back in the Mojave we still have a ton of places to explore and things to do. Choices...

Fessels · October 17th, 2013

LoL yeah all the different ways you can get killed in Fallout games are more lethal, but it looks good.

A DoF effect does require some time to get used to if you have not used something like that before, but it can have great effects in game.

October 17th, 2013

Fessels wrote:LoL yeah all the different ways you can get killed in Fallout games are more lethal, but it looks good. A DoF effect does require some time to get used to if you have not used something like that before, but it can have great effects in game.

The NV version of Dynavision includes all the cinematic options like in The Imaginator for Skyrim (and a few more) in one mod, as well as DOF which I set to medium as I found the full default too heavy. Now I've gotten used to it though I might change it although sometimes the motion blur is pretty obvious even when just turning around. It does make everything look really nice.

The cinematic settings are mainly for setting up fancy screenshots really. There's no way you could play with them on except maybe for a couple of them. The weather mod I use, Nevada Skies, also has some themes but they are also not for normal gameplay, or at least not for me. Nice for experimenting with though.

October 25th, 2013

Unfortunately, I have to reinstall the game which I'll probably do over the weekend. I'm only posting this in case someone else has the problem but sadly I have no solution except to reinstall and hope for the best. I may or may not lose 112 hours of progress but as long as the game works, I guess I can survive it.

The weirdest thing happened. I had a Runtime Error (R6025)- Pure Virtual Function Call to be precise, as the game started to load. It got as far as the second Intro screen and boom, crash. Whatever caused it hasn't happened again and the game will run and I can play....BUT...

It won't run in anything but the default resolution which is 800x600. I've verified my files on Steam twice, deleted ini's and generated new ones, set the desired display in the ini's manually although it was already there, reinstalled Visual C and DirectX and probably a few things I can't remember. Tried loading without NVSE, without the Fake Fullscreen mod, and it doesn't change.

Since I can't play like that with everything so large and the text squashed together in places I have to bite the bullet and start from scratch. Thinking of how long it took me to get my mods and tools sorted out for this game after having not played it for a couple of years is giving me the heebie jeebies, but it shouldn't be as tedious this time. I was desperately hoping not to have to reinstall which is why I persevered with trying to get it to work otherwise.

My other games still run properly, thank goodness, so despite verifying the files and Steam downloading a couple of files, something got badly damaged beyond simple repair.

It's got me puzzled. Never seen anything like this in all my years of gaming.

October 27th, 2013

Well, after many, many hours I'm back in business with New Vegas after a fresh install. A lot of those hours went into actually installing mods and setting up load order, Bashed Patch and that good stuff, but a lot more has gone into getting the game stable and that takes several tweaks, and little apps as mentioned in the OP.

However, now I'm also using the New Vegas version of ENBoost which works wonders.

My current load order which unless something monumental comes out will stay like this except for any mod updates. I do have a couple of mods I want to install but not until I get to a certain place and stage.

spoiler:

Only a couple of screenshots. I haven't left Goodsprings yet or done their shootout quest.

This is Molly Daro. Alone and thinking of revenge. Benny, your time is coming.

Teddy...little do you know it but you're going to come alive in the near future....as Rusty the Bear my heroic companion.

Many who have played the game (modded) will recognize this face...

November 1st, 2013

It never seems to amaze me the things modder's can do with these games. Now we have True Leaning, the perfect mod for stealth players. Lean around corners, see what's ahead before they see you and you can even shoot while in the leaning position just like in any fps game or games like Dishonored.

Now, I haven't tried it as yet, but I am going to, but I watched Gopher's latest NV Mod Sanctuary where he demonstrates it.

Another great mod for players like me who have a lot of followers, or even only one or two. JIP Companions Command and Control. Manage your companions remotely and from a distance in real time, replaces the vanilla companion wheel, and also has a few extra commands that can be given....one which I find most useful is to put a follower into "true passive mode" where they will only attack after you do and not break sneaking. It takes a little getting used to at first but in a short while it becomes second nature.

Fully configurable with the MCM so you can move the icons around to suit, change their size and more.

Gopher's video demonstrating both of these mods:

Fessels · November 1st, 2013

The first one with Molly Daro looks really good in my opinion, and LoL on the Teddy bear..."Ahww Boss look a Teddy bear with a clock...wait wh.."

True Leaning indeed looks like a great mod for a game like Fallout NV.

November 1st, 2013

Fessels wrote:The first one with Molly Daro looks really good in my opinion, and LoL on the Teddy bear..."Ahww Boss look a Teddy bear with a clock...wait wh.."

If you think that teddy bear is cute just wait until I add in a companion teddy bear. He's not very sweet though...

. His name is Rusty and just for the laugh you should watch the video on the mod page. The second video at around 1:30. It's made by Ironman5000 who also mods for Skyrim.

Thanks...yes, I really like how she turned out. Probably starting tomorrow I'm going to be posting Molly's adventures in New Vegas with all kinds of screenshots. It's going to be ongoing and for my own amusement, but also someone might like to read it. I always intend to do something like it for these games (Skyrim and NV) to give my characters a bit more life and I used to do it in Oblivion to a small degree.

True Leaning indeed looks like a great mod for a game like Fallout NV.

I would love something like it in Skyrim especially for sneaking characters. It's annoying enough that you can't really hide that well or jump on things to get a height advantage like a real sneaking game does.

November 19th, 2013

Gopher's video on performance for New Vegas with links. Follow this and you should have a crash free game. It's from 2012 but still applies. Previous to this I crashed every time I entered and exited a building and entering new exterior cells, which is a common theme for many players, and that's on a vanilla game before even thinking of mods.

Another performance enhancer and memory management tool is ENBoost for NV which I find to be invaluable with my mod load.
CTD and Memory Patch ENBoost

The only thing I've noticed is sometimes after I've been playing for an hour or two, and only sometimes, when loading to a new area the game "appears" to be not responding, but if I wait for up to a minute it resumes loading and continues as normal. I assume this is an infinite loading screen or anti-crash feature so a minute loading on rare occasions is nothing to me.