NEW VERSION - ZAPCB v0.9.7 - Minor Upgrades

* MINOR BUT SIGNIFICANT - added a preemptive 15 second PCB timer condition that only goes off when you are not moving, not turning, and not in combat. This was simple enough, but cut in half the stuttering I had been seeing.

* Cleaned up some stability conditions related to crashes after a door related loads, seems to work better for me now at least.

* Tightened up some paranoia related safety lockouts on PCB logic, might help some people out.

*** If you use my mod please comment on ANY issues you may be having, I am actively supporting this mod, but can only fix things that I know about!

*** If this mod helps you please endorse it and spread the word so that other people who might benefit from it can find it easier.


ZAPCB v0.9 - MAJOR UPGRADES

This version added about dozens of special cases to PCB when it would help, or not be noticed, or to avoid doing so to avoid crashes and hangs. Introduced Zeta-Hang safety fix.


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Installation
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Just drop it in place and activate it.

But a word of advice first. If you are here you are one of the many people who are having stability issues with fallout3. Do not blindly install my mod as a first step, while I am trying to make it as smart and helpful as possible, there are other things that you can do to improve stability, make sure to do those as well. Look into Tweakguides, the unofficial patch here on Nexus, and the PC advice section on the Bethesda Fallout website.

So if ZAPCB helps you, I am glad to have helped, if not, you probably do not need it, and if you do not just deactivate it.


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Description
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This is a stability mod mainly for people using the hi-res texture packs. The clearest sign that this mod will help you is if you keep getting crashed while walking around outside. (If you are having memory leak type crashes it might still help you even if you are not going crazy on the hi-res.)

The original version ran PurgeCellBuffer every 25 seconds to keep memory usage from triggering a hang or crash. This worked pretty well. But it did cause stuttering.

This new version is still using a 30 second timer outside, but inside uses a 120 second timer. And it uses about 200 lines of logic to try and sneak the PCB call into places that you will not notice like menu screens and resets the default timer when it does so. This will decrease the stuttering from the original version, and maybe even decrease lag in combat. (It will PCB at the start of VATS, this helps me at least.)

I have also added multiple pre/post area load PCB triggers to decrease lag upon entering new areas and decrease the chances of crashes in those cases.

The most important update: IT WILL NO LONGER CAUSE ZETA TO HANG!

Please comment with any hangs you get while using this, particularly during Quests segments where you do not have control over your character like the Zeta opening so I can fix them. (The Zeta opening has unique properties, so there might not be any others, but I can fix any issues faster if you tell me.)

Several people have commented on the other Purge Cell Buffer mods, mine works differently than them, they will run PCB based on a cell change counter. Those might work better for you if your cell buffer issues are not as bad, ZAPCB is more aggressive, and might not be for you if do not need it.

***PLEASE COMMENT ON PERFORMANCE AND STABILITY ISSUES IF ANY!***

This version should be allot better, let me know if it stutters more for you or anything like that.

Also try this, it helped me:
Fallout Stutter Remover
http://www.fallout3nexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=8886

If you have not been there yet check out Tweakguides, just back up your fallout.ini before you touch it, you can cause yourself allot of pain that is hard to fix if you are not very careful:
http://www.tweakguides.com/Fallout3_1.html

I make no promises, but this helped radio choppiness SIGNIFICANTLY for me, fallout.ini changes:.

iAudioCacheSize=8192 - Set as high as is sane/stable
iMaxSizeForCachedSound=256 - leave low

The goal here is a large cache size, with few things in it, so that the radio mp3's stop thrashing. Oh, and leave "bMultiThreadAudio=0" as advertised that one will crash your game.


Next version will try to incorporate the cell change counter technique.


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COMMENTS
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The class of crash that this will help most with is memory leak crashes that occur while wandering around outside for extended periods (or sometimes very short periods... T_T). The issues that cause this for me and others might be rig/install/mod-set specific. If this doesn't sound like the issue you are having you may not need this fix.

The aggressiveness of 30 seconds while outside might be far more than you need, there can be some stuttering due to this, this new-current version goes to a large amount of effort to mitigate it.

It has been brought to my attention that sometimes, rarely, PCB can cause a crash. I suspect that this might happen when PCB is called as a crash is already happening, but I am mentioning that here in case it is an issue for you. (I have two monitors, and watch the memory usage while playing on the second screen, so having paid INTENSE attention to the problem I suspect that PCB itself is not the cause.)


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HISTORY
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I have been through no end of unpleasantness trying to eliminate all the different crash triggers so that I could play fallout 3 without any issues. Beat the game and modded it despite the fact it crashed allot. I am sure this is not a unique story.

But I happen to have a second monitor.

And when trying to fix my crash issues the only common one that I had left these days seemed like a memory leak, so I kept the old "Process Explorer" running in monitor 2, and watched it...

Whenever I was outside in the game and PrivateBytes/WorkingSet would get to around 780m+ fallout would hang or crash. So I started to type PCB (PurgeCellBuffer) into the console, and as long as I remembered to do so, my biggest crash trigger would no longer happen.

But who remembers to do that once the game immersion takes over...

So I wrote a little script to run PCB every 25 seconds, it really seems to help me, I hope that it might help some of you all too.

It will cause more loading/unloading than needed, and might cause some stuttering, but I find it to be no where near as bad as regular crashing.


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PCB Triggers
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Outside every 30 seconds.

Inside every 120 seconds.

Immediately after every inside-outside cell change (Major stability and performance gains)

Purge after area loads on fast travel.

Avoid triggering PCB on the Zeta opening like the plauge.

Purge every VATS, dialog, data-menu, pause, HUD - (with a 5 second timeout to keep things sane)

Purge every 5 lockpicks, hacks, and container menus.

All non-timer PCBs also reset the timer to decrease stuttering.