Fallout 3 maxing CPU

[stb1swat]

Oh, I remember reading some stuff awhile ago.

One guy said his CPU was being maxed out, but a resolution change fixed that. (it was just a reply on a forum...but worth a try)

Another guy said his Sound Card was conflicting with the game and was causing his CPU to spike for awhile then finally just dock at 100%.

 

[Trotter]

Uninstalled, reinstalled the game and patch. It is still happening, but not as bad. I will play around with the graphics setting and see if that is doing it.

 

[wafflehammer]

uhmm graphics settings. Maybe the patch had some tweaks they didn't tell you about and it messed with your settings? But I'm sure you already have checked to see if they are higher than you had them...Just trying to throw it out there though :]

 

[stb1swat]

did you try the game BEFORE applying the patch? I thought that was the plan...to see if it was the patch causing the problem.

 

[Trotter]

I finally got around to uninstalling the game and reinstalling just it and not the patch. I am getting the same thing.

It can be one enemy, or several. It does not do it every time. It did it with a single molerat, but not a couple of mirelurks. I took out two raiders and was firing at a third just fine, but when he fired a missile at me, it went right back to a frame every ten seconds. Once I got into VATS and took off his head, everything was hunky-dory again.

Thus far it is only happening outside. I reset the graphics back to the defaults, as I had tweaked them before, but it doesn't help, either.

Any other theories? Like I said, it never did it at first. This is a fairly recent thing, started with the patch or around that time. I thought about uninstalling it using Revo uninstaller, scrubbing the registry and all, and not reusing my current saves. If I get froggy I will try that.

 

[stb1swat]

Wow...that's weird. Maybe test your ram. Maybe you have a bad stick.

Oh have you tried creating a new char? It could be something to do with your old saves.

 

[Trotter]

When I scrub the registry I will start over with a new character. I disabled the only mod I found any problems with, so I doubt it is doing it.

 

[Oreo]

Disable all mods, and run the game as Admin. Close other apps and run game in 800x600. Check whether the game is utilising all cores.

Try and install it on a seperate drive if you can, also be sure to go into User\AppData folders and remove (and backup, if you wish ?) the folder for FO3. The folder may also be located in your Documents.

Update your BIOS aswell if you can, if you do all of this and it doesn't work it must be the patch. I had a similar issue back when i was playing garrys mod, the game would run fine until a vehicle spawned and it lagged like i was playing it on a PS1 , after doing the stuff above it ran great.

Just be sure you do run in Admin.. the amount of problems running in Admin solves on vista is atronomically high, also have you got Windows 7 ? Try running it on that.

 

[C0RR0SIVE]

One thing... Is your heatsink dusty? rofl...

Friend has the same setup as you and he gets a few random slow downs like that, when I take a look at his computer oddly, the top of his heatsink is clogged up... Also, try another game to see if it gets random slow downs...

Also check the graphics card and see if it is possibly over heating... That is about the only thing I can come up with aside from updates and reinstalling it... Are there any new windows updates you have installed?