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A good many laptops just don't have the graphics oomph to run Fallout3. Sorry :(

Get FO3Edit and Miax's great guide on using it -- the new Web-enized of the guide will have you detecting and resolving mod conflicts in no time. Combined with its Master Update mode feature, this will provide you with the most stable Fallout3 gaming experience. 1. Download mods -- enable with FOMM and adjust the load order. 2. Run FO3Edit (following the guide's instructions for conflict detection and resolution). 3. Run FO3Edit in Master Update Mode 4. Play Fallout3.

You can get the Web-enized version of Miax's great guide. FO3Edit's a must-have utility for both gamers and modders and Miax's great guide will show you how to use it to make your mod collection conflict-free (as well as showing how to update the MASTer list so that a mod that formerly pointed to HairPack.esm now points to LingsFinerThings - Coiffure.esm. Hope this helps and good luck! :)

Dim's things are replacers, so there is no .esp plug-in file or master (.esm) for FOMM to find. The content in the archive replaces textures and meshes. Remove clothing, if your character is "naked," then the textures and meshes were copied to the right place.

As both a gamer and modder, you really need to get FO3Edit by ElminsterAU and Miax's great guide on using it. You can find the Web-enized version of the guide here. The utility is a must-have to find and resolve conflicts, fix mods that have file structure issues, etc.

Cat: Also, with mods, it is possible that in some cases textures/meshes and other things will want to over-write existing textures/meshes (and other resources in sub folders of Data). It is decision time at that point. If something is "invisible" it's usually because the meshes aren't there to texture. If you have weird !'s, then it is usually the textures you are missing.

Maybe Bethesda could have had a hi/low res option. But it's not always achievable with project deadlines and resources. So they chose to go after the low res (like mentioned, to make the game viable for those with lower-end graphics). I think their experience with Oblivion showed them that the community would fill that void, so from a business standpoint, I can understand why the vanilla is so ... well, vanilla :D

As was mentioned, Fallout3 Nexus has a lot of high-quality, high-resolution texture replacers for those who have computer and graphics muscle in their PC. The default Fallout3 isn't bad, considering that the devs have to consider a range of acceptability in their customer base and target low- and high-end systems. Credit Bethesda for giving modders the GECK. Artists also have some great tools (and talent to use them), and Fallout3 is flexible enough in its design to accept this great work into the game. Having a high-end graphics card and a (fairly) robust PC, I use the available community retextures and the Wastelands become stunning (but no less deadly!).

Not to mention the inclination of certain Wasteland wanders to meddle and turn your holy relic bomb into a real mushroom cloud :D That's what you call Extreme Cleaning!

Just moving might not resolve all the cosmetic issues, as it is also dependent on the .esp files' load order, particularly ones that reference HairPack.esm as their master. In general, the process goes something like this: Set your load order in FOMM (after a while you get a feel for which mods might conflict). Start FO3Edit and run the conflict detection filter. Note which mods conflict and expand the tree view to see if it is something fixable by playing with load order. Quit FO3Edit, open FOMM and tinker some more. Rinse, lather, repeat until you are certain that load order alone won't solve certain conflicts. Start FO3Edit, run the conflict detection filter again. Create an automated Merge Patch. Save, exit, restart FO3Edit. Start stepping through to catch conflicts the automated method missed, or to fine-tune some conflict resolutions more to your liking. Once you are conflict-free (or have the conflicts resolved satisfactorily), run FO3Edit in Master Update Mode -- this resolves some Bethesda-related game issues, and provides even more in-game stability. Practice certainly gives you a feel for things after a while and the process becomes almost second-nature. Remember that any time you add a new mod or change the load order, you should again run FO3Edit, though in such cases, any new conflicts should be minimal and quickly corrected. Hope this helps. Get Miax's great guide to go along with ElminsterAU's awesome tool. And if you don't have it, get Fallout Mod Manager (FOMM) by Timeslip ... the two utilities are designed to work hand-in-hand in managing your mods and correcting conflicts.

If you've changed your LOD/FOV settings or installed some mod that loaded new textures for the night sky or changed those values, for starters. There are enhanced night sky texture mods on FO3 Nexus ... I use one myself. Hope this helped.

There are various Broken Steel fixes available on the Nexus. If you are using a custom race, you'll need CRBSOR (crappy acronym as the author acknowledges, but it lets you start Broken Steel with a custom race). There are other, more issue-specific mod fixes for Broken Steel as well. A search on FO3 Nexus like "Broken Steel" will get you started on finding the ones to solve your particular problem.

The rendering issue seems to be the biggest concern. The latest drivers are not always the best drivers, this is particularly true of nVidia -- though to be fair to nVidia, their latest cards/drivers don't seem to have this problem. Some factors that also might come into play: Vista's User Account Control (UAC) ... it's a bear with Fallout3, particularly when installed to the default Program Files\Bethesda\Fallout3 folder. You can avoid problems by installing to someplace like C:\Games\Fallout3, where UAC's stringent quirks are less rigorously enforced (this is a good practice for all game installs in Vista, actually). (see http://msdn.microsoft.com and search Windows Vista User Account Control for more info.) Codecs also might be an issue (in Fallout3, I don't think they would in GECK, but one never knows). Probably not in this particular case, but it's worth getting anyway to avoid future issues. So get the K-Lite codec utility. Really, all you want from K-Lite is its disabling of fddshow for Fallout3 (and Oblivion), which is known to cause all sorts of screen freezing and other funky behavior (particularly in Vista) for a good number of users. Oh, a final thought -- when you reinstalled Vista, did you reset the screen resolution defaults? Sometimes Vista isn't great about detecting the ultimate resolution, etc. Also check the refresh rate that Vista set, it may not be the optimal refresh rate for your graphics adapter and/or monitor.

Actually, there is a new version of the Guide, it's been Web-enized ... Revised and edited text, dynamic images that you can position over FO3Edit while you work are only a few of the new features. FO3Edit is not that hard to learn, and once you get the hang of a few things, resolving mod conflicts is a breeze. A caveat about the automated Merge Patch function -- it's a great start but it's only the first step. Get the guide and get familiar with it, because in the end you'll end up with a conflict-free and stable collection of mods and a better Fallout3 gaming experience. Mod authors need to get this tool and Miax's guide (in either its Word form or Web-enized form) and use it. In my collection of 150+ mods, about half have minor issues that were easily fixed if the author had used FO3Edit to clean them up before putting them up on Fallout3 Nexus. Hope this helps :)

For a substantial fee in caps, I know this certain femme fatale who would gladly turn Megaton into atomized particles. ... Then gladly collect Burke's reward and blow his brains out just for a few laughs :D

Fallout3 (like Oblivion) uses SecuROM's security. It drives certain DVD drives nuts! I had massive problems with an HP DVD-RW drive. A Toshiba USB drive, however, had no problems. Also, Vista itself (its User Account Control -- UAC) conflicts with the SecuROM disk encryption that Bethesda uses (still! -- You'd think they would've learned from Oblivion and the DLCs for it!) unless disabled (but only during the install!), and I suspect that might be a possibility in Windows 7. So ultimately Vista/Windows 7 + badly-behaved hardware/firmware + SuckuROM = crappy install experiences.

It is a bit more involved (just a wee bit). Mainly it is starting your load order in Fallout Mod Manager (Timeslip) and playing with the load order, then testing for conflicts in FO3Edit. But yes, in short, the last-loaded mod "wins" conflicts. So if HairPack.esm loads after LingsFinerThings.esm or LingsFinerThings - Coiffure.esm, then it would be the conflict winner. Secondly, various plug-ins (.esp files) point to various .esm (master) files. So for those mods that use HairPack.esm as their master, you have to edit their MASTer reference to point to LingsFinerThings - Coiffure instead. All in all, it's about 5 minutes of work in FO3Edit. After which, HairPack.esm can be safely deleted. You can do the same with LingsFinerThings.esm, but there are some FormID issues to resolve (Coiffure is the "compatible" one). Miax's great guide on FO3Edit has been Web-enized to work in your browser. Either that version or his original Word version will have you running conflict-free in short order.

Even a "little" conflict can be fatal. The automated merge patch procedure provides a great start ... but it isn't the be-all and end-all. It provides a good start to the mod conflict resolution process. The best combination is to use Fallout Mod Manager (FOMM, by Timeslip) in conjunction with FO3Edit. Switching load orders and running the conflict filter is not very time-consuming. After some practice, it is almost second-nature as you acquire a feel for how different mods impact others. You can get the latest version of Miax's great FO3Edit guide at Web-enized by csb ... :whistling: okay, so I'm tooting my own horn a bit ... but really, Miax's work, whether in Web format or his original Word document format is what matters -- it's a must-have for any serious FO3 gamer or modder.

Very much like a divorce in many regards :D ... except the 5-10 year part (thank God!).

There are some great mods that disable the annoying in-game messages about the DLCs.

It is highly suspected that Fallout3 has a built in getRandomCrash(int Random()) function ... :D But to get a conflict-free gaming experience you need two things. Fallout Mod Manager (FOMM) by Timeslip and FO3Edit by ElministerAU. And, of course you need Miax's great guiide on using the later. Wait ... you have THREE things to fear from the ... (oops, sorry a Monty Python lapse :D ) ... Anyway, Miax's guide to using FO3Edit is invaluable in finding and resolving mod conflicts. You can get the Web-enized version. :) Read, use and enjoy Fallout3!

It is easy with NPCs and lots of mods to have cosmetic things get over-written. Get FO3Edit and Miax's great guide on using it here ... Once you get a handle on FO3Edit, get Ling's Finer Things - Coiffure., you can replace HairPack.esm as a master (the guide will tell you how). It adds a ton more options than HairPack, and uses the same FormIDs (thus no conflicts). Also get Ling's Pretty Things -- a great overhaul of the vanilla NPCs in the game. With FO3Edit and those things in place, you are ready to create your first merge patch -- where YOU get to decide which NPC gets which mod's "tweaks". Hope this helps.

Even with FO3Edit's automated merge patch, you really need to go through afterward and expand everything. You'll find conflicts, trust me. The majority of them will be the non-fatal kind, but it only takes one, right? :D I always save to new slots. Had bad experiences back with Oblivion when over-writing saves over previous slots. There are also mods that bloat your saves and eventually they become unusable. Now there's a worthy thread: Mods that bloat save games. :D Anyway, good luck with the re-re-re-install and with your new character. Btw, the Web-enized version of Miax's Guide is now up.

No MSZ for me yet either. I did my first complete run-through of the MQ and some side quests. I know I missed a ton of stuff. Not to mention that I got the other DLCs recently and just installed them. So ... back to a new game and character! :D The merged patch plug-ins never stop ... there's always some new great mod that comes along, and of course, that means another run through FO3Edit.

Bethesda has Quality Control? :ermm: Now, see ... that would be NEWS!