Fallout 3 goty will not start up

[KeeShlab]

I bought and downloaded/installed the game today. The launcher screen came up and it determined that I should be playing on ultra graphics. I say this just to make it known that this isn't a compatibility issue with my computers specs as it can play about anything. I click "Play" and it closes the launcher screen and then does absolutely nothing. It wont load the game and because of this I can't continue the UUP because it says that I have to start the game for certain files to appear. I even tried switching to the lowest graphics just for the hell of it and still nothing. Any ideas?

[rczak68]

did you disable windows live ?

[KeeShlab]

I went and uninstalled it just now but it still wont launch the game. Any other ideas? I am confused as to why I always seem to have so much trouble with this sort of stuff.

[Purr4me]

I went and uninstalled it just now but it still wont launch the game. Any other ideas? I am confused as to why I always seem to have so much trouble with this sort of stuff.

 

I say this just to make it known that this isn't a compatibility issue with my computers specs as it can play about anything.

This indicates you installed the game in C:\program Files And Folders(x86)

If this is correct? then no, your not going to run This game on that system there.

your rig, the PC may be capable of many things, but It is new, this game is very old and does not like new systems, It is Highly important we know what the specs are.

 

second, Graphics for this game are at the extreme end of important s as far as fallout 3 is concerned, No, it just plain will not co-Operate with certain screen resolution's period.

 

now, care to start over?

[KeeShlab]

I just changed the compatibility settings for windows xp service pack 3 and it runs fine now. Should have realized from the start that this game would need to have that done like most older games do.

[Purr4me]

Good the see, have fun now.

 

kitty

[cmaesing]

R E S O L V E D !!!!!

Had the same issue, and thought I'd share my experience to help others who might be facing something similar.

I recently bought a new gaming laptop, Intel Core i7 2.5 GHz, 8 GB RAM, W7 SP1 64, GTX 970M. Since I had Fallout 3 installed on my previous laptop (of fairly low quality), I was hoping to use that installation with all mods and save games. Since the game was installed on an external hd, I simply attached it to my new laptop and tried to run Fallout 3 as I always did.

Unfortunately all I ran into were the standard Fallout 3 GOTY crash and instability issues as discussed throughout the entire net:

a.) Fallout 3 not starting up under W7 64 at all, or

b.) screen freeze during the intro scene ('baby scene' ... a few moments after you choose the gender of your character), or

c.) crash to desktop upon saving a game while in game.

I think I spent minimum 24h of installing, copying, pasting folders, deleting, renaming, patching, uninstalling, then re-installing minimum 2x ... plus countless of hours in various forums discussing my issues.

Here is what I did (and what I deliberately skipped), and what finally got my game running:

====================

1. Freshly installed GOTY (UK DVD version) with all DLCs on my laptop's hd. On purpose I neither used the 'Program Files' nor the 'Program Files (x86)' directory for this.

2. Installed the unofficial patch 1.8.

3. Did NOT install a single mod.

4. Did NOT disable 'Games for Windows Live' (as I like to keep my achievements).

5. Adjusted the file properties of both the Fallout3.exe and the FalloutLauncher.exe to run under a.) XP SP 3 compatibility mode, b.) as admin, and c.) with 'disable desktop composition'.

6. Adjusted the file '...\My Games\Fallout3\FALLOUT.ini' as per countless recommended forum posts across the entire net. Example page: http://steamcommunity.com//sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=149946772 (see under #4 there).

7. Added the file 'd3d9.dll' to the Fallout 3 installation folder (the folder where e.g. the Fallout3.exe file is located). And launched the FalloutLauncher.exe thereafter. The launcher recommended medium high settings - I left it at that (knowing I'd, once the game is stable, be able to play with the graphics settings). For me, the 1st dll file of the 2 offered here did the trick: http://www.nexusmods.com/newvegas/m...ds.com/newvegas/ajax/modfiles/?id=34778&pUp=1

8. Ensured that the game screen resolution matches my desktop's (1920:1080).

9. Set the affinity (in the task manager, once Fallout 3 was running) of the Fallout3.exe to only a single CPU. I chose CPU 0. But my guess is that you could choose any of your CPUs here. I am not an expert, but it seems this has to be adjusted every time Fallout 3 runs. And it might actually be (and I'll make sure to test this) that this measure is not even required after all ...

10. When in game in Fallout 3, I disabled all 3 autosave options (via 'settings', then on to 'gameplay').

The combination of all these did NOT yet get me beyond the intro screen freeze (baby scene).

====================

However, what DID finally help was this last step:

11. Per suggestion in one YouTube video, I increased the attribute 'actor fade' in the options menu. It was at the lowest (possibly automatically set through the FalloutLauncher.exe), i.e. leftmost level. I increased it to the middle, just to be safe restared the game - et voilà: All running nice and smooth!

And that last and 11th step finally got me beyond the screen freeze - and into the actual game! No crashes so far, keeping fingers crossed. I am not an IT expert, so am unable to say whether it is #11 alone, or a combination of only a few of the aforementioned measures ... or possibly all of them that helped.