Datafiles missing

[SweFerk]

Hi everyone.

Just reinstalled my game for the third time. The data folders just won't show up. Any ideas? All I get is music, shaders and video.

Running windows 7 and Fallout3 goty.

Games for windows is not installed.

And the game runs perfectly.

 

Help is appreciated.

Ferk

[bben46]

What data files don't show?

First guess, you installed to the default location (program files) which are protected by the UAC. UAC does not like mods as it sees them as changes to the program which it is designed to not allow. Instead of installing to the (protected) data folder, Windows acts like it installed, but actually puts the files in a dummy location where they will not work.

 

Best solution - Reinstall (again!) this time do not accept the default. Put it in C:\Games\Fallout3 and you will not be bothered by UAC again.

 

Note if you use steam, you will have to reinstall the steam client outside of the program files also. I have it in C:\Games\Steam and the steam version of Fallout 3 will then install there.

[SweFerk]

Tried it, Not working.. I get the esps and esms folders music shaders and video. textures, meshes and whatever they are called are missing.

Any other ideas?

 

Thanks for tryin

Ferk

[Fonger]

textures, meshes and whatever they are called are missing.

Any other ideas?

 

Thanks for tryin

Ferk

game does not create these folders

 

they come from mods.

[SweFerk]

Oh. Em. Now I feel stupid. But I can remember seeing them before. Or maybe not I guess. Well I thank you for your help. Dude, now I'm really confused.

 

Confusedly (<- is that even a word?)

Ferk

[bben46]

Many of those folders are automatically created by the unzipping program used to install the mod the first time they are needed by a mod. They will not appear until they are created, either by the unzipping program or manually by you. Once the folder has been created, the mods will use it and the game will recognize it.

 

The reason they are not there is the vanilla game places all of those resources into the bsa files where they are never touched by the mods.

[JMcFly]

I'm running Win7 and installed the base Fallout 3 DVD to c:\games\fallout 3\, then I installed the two DLC discs and the 1.7 patch. Now I can't find any of the DLC .esm files, they're not in c:\games\fallout 3\data (a 282mb fallout3.esm is there) and they're not in the normal appdata path everyone says to check; C:\Users\John\AppData\Local\Fallout3\DLCList.txt lists only fallout3.esm. FOMM is going nuts because I'm trying to use Broken Steel patches but it can't see the expansion's esm file. Win7's search for 'pitt', 'anchorage', 'broken' and '*.esm' turn up nothing.

 

Any ideas?

[bben46]

I have Win7 x64 and have FO3 installed to the same path C:\Games\Fallout3. All DLCs have installed with no problems - so it's not the Win7. The 282MB fallout3.esm is right (282.004 KB)

 

Here is the list of the files in a vanilla data folder. Before adding any DLCs or mods.

 

Music (folder)

Shaders (folder)

Video (folder)

Credits.txt - probably not needed

Fallout-MenuVoices.bsa

Fallout-Meshes.bsa

Fallout-Misc.bsa

Fallout-sound.bsa

Fallout-Textures.bsa

Fallout-Voices.bsa

Fallout3.esm

[JMcFly]

Looks like I just needed to RTFM. I didn't realize installing the patch on each CD was a separate action from installing the DLC itself...