Fallout 3 - Update Broke My Game, Need Help Fixing

[MatSpikeYinsen]

Hi, I am just a gamer, I have no technical knowledge.  I've thought about maybe modding Fallout 3 someday, but I was nowhere near having any desire to do so; I just wanted to play the game as-is for probably another two solid years, not even installing the DLCs until after playing thousands of save files without them.  Well, this month's "improvement" to the German Low Violence version of the game, which I didn't know even existed, has made it so that the version of the game I had no longer functions for me at all.  The launcher opens and lets me turn DLCs on or off, but as soon as I click on "Play" and then pick "Yes" for the resulting popup, my computer just takes no further action.  Several people on Steam's useless forums said I should just run Fallout.exe directly; this does nothing.  Several other people said I should install a fix that I could get here, so here I am.

Please note that I am incapable of doing effectively ANYTHING beyond reading a Readme file, so please don't tell me to "go edit your config.ini" or anything of that nature; I'm just an End-User of Microsoft products, I don't know anything about how to make the magic computer spirits dance to any tune other than the one they come installed with by default.  Please just point me directly to a button I can push that will unf*** whatever Bethesda f***ed this month, so I can get back to playing what is basically my only recreational activity.

[JimboUK]

https://www.nexusmods.com/fallout3/mods/24913

This is probably the mod they're talking about, there's a linked video in the description that explains how to install it.  

[AaronOfMpls]

On 6/14/2024 at 5:35 PM, JimboUK said:

https://www.nexusmods.com/fallout3/mods/24913

This is probably the mod they're talking about, there's a linked video in the description that explains how to install it.  

Unfortunately, that says it doesn't support the German low-gore version.  (Definitely back up the game files if you try it anyway, @MatSpikeYinsen.)

And @MatSpikeYinsen, if you're looking for the Fallout 3 forums here, look in Game Communities at the top of any forum page (or in the ≡ menu on mobile).  Maybe someone there knows how to fix the problem. 

Though reading a bit, it looks like the recent update was only to the launcher.  The game itself should still work if you launch fallout3.exe directly (or use the FOSE launcher if you have FOSE installed).

[MatSpikeYinsen]

The FOSE launcher does nothing when I double-click on it.  The anniversary patcher did add a link which I can use to bypass the launcher and open the game directly, but this only allows me to look at my save files; if I try to actually play them, the game completes about half of the load screen and then crashes to desktop.  (My newer computer always crashed similarly when I tried to play; the old one worked fine prior to the update, but according to Steam there's no way of undoing an update to their software, so I assume I'm stuck with the new version now.)

[showler]

As I recall, using the Anniversary Patcher means that you can't use the FOSE launcher anymore.

If there was a recent update to your game you might need to re-run the Anniversary Patcher or see if there is an updated version of it.

[JimboUK]

The GOG version is still 1.7.0.3, I know buying it again isn't the greatest fix but sometimes it goes on sale for next to nothing. 

[showler]

Do you normally even use FOSE?  Your description in the first post makes it sound like you don't.

It might be worth doing a repair with Steam and see if that helps.  If you need to use FOSE you can always re-run the Anniversary Patcher afterwards.

[MatSpikeYinsen]

I don't know what a "repair with Steam" means, and I don't have a GOG account.  I only used FOSE because I was told it might fix things, which it didn't; I haven't touched it since and would happily remove it if it was causing problems.  I don't understand any of this stuff; I just want my game to play when I click on Play.

[JimboUK]

Try this, I know it says New Vegas but it works in FO3. 

https://www.nexusmods.com/newvegas/mods/53635

Put the nvac.dll in Fallout 3\Data\fose\plugins if there isn't a plugins folder create one. 

[MatSpikeYinsen]

On 6/18/2024 at 8:33 PM, JimboUK said:

Try this, I know it says New Vegas but it works in FO3. 

https://www.nexusmods.com/newvegas/mods/53635

Put the nvac.dll in Fallout 3\Data\fose\plugins if there isn't a plugins folder create one. 

I don't have a FOSE folder, do I need to create one?  I thought it just went in Steam's Common Steamapps Fallout 3 folder.
EDIT:  I don't have a Fallout 3/Data folder; the only subfolder in my Fallout 3 GOTY folder is called SRC, with Common and FOSE subfolders.
EDIT 2:  Okay, I reinstalled Fallout 3 (though to save download time I used the normal version, not GOTY, which may have complicated matters).  I copied the Plugins folder containing nvac.dll into every folder I could find that was called Data or Fose (including a second Fose folder inside the first Fose folder for some reason), and with those three or four copies of nvac in various hopefully-right places, I launched Fallout 3 from the FalloutBackup.exe program (the direct launcher is still borked and does nothing due to cloud saving).  I got the game to boot up to the main menu, picked Load, scrolled down to an old save file that was only the base game, and clicked load.  And, every one of the three times I tried this, at various points in the process of copying nvac to the various folders where it might conceivably go, each time the result was the same.  The load screen pops up, the progress "hand" on the "clock" makes it to the "0:20" position (aka "4 o'clock"), and then the program crashes to desktop.  The only way this is different from my previous efforts, before trying NVAC, is that previously it would get as far as 0:35 (7 o'clock) and THEN crash.  So I have to say that nvac.dll doesn't seem to be related to my problem.

Also, someone on Steam suggested that I should install "FOSE.silverlock.org", is there some reason why I should use that one instead of the one I got from here?  (I don't know if I trust this person, she seems to be one of those who assumes I must have some kind of NVIDIA quad-core processor with a lightning-fast AMD graphics card and other such next-generation tech, which makes any advice these people give me suspect.  Apparently being a digital vagrant who wants to play a 2008 game on 2018 hardware makes me some kind of weirdo.)

Edited June 21 by MatSpikeYinsen