Fallout 3 and Win 7 64 Bit - Title Becomes Abandonware

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Article link: Fallout 3 and Win 7 64 Bit - Title Becomes Abandonware

 

Fallout 3 and Windows 7 64 Bit - Gigantic Memory Leak Issues - Bethesda "Fallout 3 is not supported under Windows 7"

Hello,

 

XXXXXX, we didn't realize you were playing through Steam. Yes, that would mean that you would have had to tweak running in compatibility mode a bit. Please let us know what happens.

As per your link from Microsoft, we definitely appreciate you bringing this to our attention. We were not entirely aware that Microsoft stated that our game is compatible with Windows 7 64 or 32 bit OS. Unfortunately, since Windows 7 was released after Fallout 3 was tested and released, it was never tested on the Windows 7 Platform. For that reason, we do not support the game. Please note that this does not mean it "won't work" on Windows 7. You may be able to find another 3rd party source that has done testing with the software. We apologize for this inconvenience.

 

Your customer number is 400346327

Please refer to case #:: 401504811 if you have any further questions.

 

If you need further assistance, you can also reach us online at http://support.bethsoft.com or our technical support staff at (410)-568-3685. Please include all previous replies when/if responding to this message.

 

Best Regards,

XXX X. at Bethesda Softworks Technical Support

Well if you haven't been living under a rock for the last year, you might have noticed that Microsoft updated from Windows Vista to Windows 7 with a rather interesting amount of alacrity that probably derived from Vista's mixed reviews and bad track record with users.

 

So regardless in a massive campaign to rebuild their consumer confidence not only was Win 7 released but it was also added as a free upgrade to people who'd held out on upgrading to Vista prior to the news of Win 7, so if you bought Vista you'd get Win 7 free when it released. As you can imagine a lot of people bought Vista at that point and while Vista SP2 wasn't all that bad I think most would agree Win 7 is much better.

 

Then we come to gaming and we seem to hit a bit of a brick wall in regards to Fallout 3. Just recently on October 19th, 2010, Bethesda Games and Obsidian Entertainment released Fallout: New Vegas, once again bringing back the Wasteland to the public in a new and fun story set in the old familiar west coast areas of the Fallout genre apocalypse. And this was largely good, other than the need for several quick patches to make the game work correctly once they got to patch 1.2.0.285 the game worked largely on all systems that met its system specifications and we went on with our lives.

 

Then there's those of us that fondly remembered that we really liked Fallout 3 as well so we reinstalled it because maybe we wanted to play it again or go try out the DLC's we sort of ignored because we were busy doing other things.

 

Well, sorry to dash your hopes but if you're on Win 7 64 Bit there's no amount of ini tweaking/compatibility mode running in the world that's going to save you from this.

 

This is a link to a Youtube video, the video for the game play is highly degraded because I'm screen capturing my entire screen to show the pervasive and astounding amounts of memory FO3 is chewing up as I attempt to make my way from Megaton to the Arlington National Library.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s0Q1l07AmKY

 

As you can see it goes from 750mb of memory on load to a whopping 1.5GB of memory on crash, all in 12 minutes and 40 seconds of play.

 

Now I'm running a fairly modest amount of mods. BoG and Breeze for body replacers. Tailor Maid cause who doesn't love that stuff. And then Book of Earache for a weapon replacer. The mod footprint isn't really that large, here is my current load order.

[X] Fallout3.esm

[X] Anchorage.esm

[X] ThePitt.esm

[X] BrokenSteel.esm

[X] PointLookout.esm

[X] Zeta.esm

[X] Lings.esm

[X] LingsDLC.esm

[X] CRAFT.esm

[X] CALIBR.esm

[X] xCALIBR.esm

[X] xCALIBRuniverse.esm

[ ] Mothership Crew.esm(This is awesome I just don't have it checked and won't til I do the Zeta DLC at the end)

[ ] TSC Air Support.esm

[X] LingsFinerThings.esm

[X] LingsPrettyThings.esp

[ ] TSC Air Support.esp

[X] DarNifiedUIF3.esp

[X] dD - Enhanced Blood Main.esp

[X] dD-No Screen Blood.esp

[X] Alternate Start - Roleplayers.esp

[X] Overhead3PCamera.esp

[X] Echo_UseBothGloves.esp

[X] BlackWolf Backpack.esp

[X] BlackWolf Backpack - Vendor Script Replenish.esp

[X] BlackWolf Backpack - Vanilla Big Guns Fix.esp

[X] BlackWolf Backpack - Anchorage Gauss Rifle Fix.esp

[X] BlackWolf Backpack - Zeta Drone Cannon Fix.esp

[X] BlackWolf Backpack - Blank's Container Patch.esp

[X] FPS Grenade Hotkey.esp

[X] FPS Grenade Hotkey - Zeta addon.esp

[X] MiniHideout.esp

[X] Tailor Maid.esp

[X] Tailor Maid Anchorage.esp

[X] Tailor Maid PITT.esp

[X] Tailor Maid Brokensteel.esp

[X] Tailor Maid ZETA.esp

[X] Tailor Maid Black Retex.esp

[X] Night Vision Sunglasses.esp

[X] Lookout Outfits.esp

[X] LingsFinerThings.esp

[X] LingsPrettyThings-BrokenSteel.esp

[X] xCALIBRuniverse_LingsBrokenSteel.esp

[X] xCALIBRuniverse_LingsPrettyThings.esp

[X] URWL.esp

[X] xCALIBRuniverse.esp

[X] FO3ModMerger.esp

As you can see I'm even running a merged patch to attempt to reduce conflicts and problems and it is all for nothing because the game with mods, or without mods refuses to do anything but chew through memory on Win 7 64 Bit til the game crashes. I've reproduced this memory leak on a fresh install running nothing but stock Fallout esm's and bsa's for the DLC.

 

Now the reason the game crashes is fairly simple if you're running a fairly competent system you've probably got something around what I have.

 

I am running the following hardware:

Intel Core 2 Duo Quad 2.4ghz

4GB Corsair DDR2 RAM

Geforce 470 GTX

 

Not top of the line but grossly in excess of the requirements for running Fallout 3, and in fact, Fallout 3 ran just great on my P4HT 3.2ghz Windows XP SP3 computer with 2GB of RAM and a Geforce 8600 GT card, so whats the majority difference here? The hardware that is currently in use all exceeds the recommended spec's. But the game eats memory like candy.

 

I've been going through the support process for this with Bethesda's tech support to find no real answers there other than the definitive statement that the game is not supported under Windows 7 because the game was released before Windows 7 was released.

 

I'm sure glad I bought that Fallout 3 preorder CE way back in the day, I'm sure glad I bought all that DLC and a Steam DDE edition of FO3 too because the disc for my CE had gotten lost. Only to find that a couple years later the title is now effectively "Abandonware" in Bethesda's eyes if god forbid someone upgraded their OS in the time intervening between 2008 and 2010.

 

Now I'm not unreasonable I don't expect Bethesda or Obsidian to make the original Fallout compatible with Windows 7 64 Bit by default(but sadly enough I do have the original Fallout installed and it works just FINE on Windows 7 64 Bit as long as I use Windows 95 Compatibility mode when running it) I mean lets face it that was ages ago....but Fallout 3 is all of around two years old, and they refuse to support it because Windows 7 was released after FO3 was?

 

This is ridiculous and if you just happen to Google "Fallout 3 freezes" you'll see there are hundreds of thousands of results of people asking literally everywhere how to fix this problem. There are a billion offers of potential "tweaks and fixes" the user can do themselves to make the game work but the simple facts are that any game that rampantly consumes enough memory to cause the OS to shut it down because the OS has memory priority and sets aside 1.3GB for itself, if an application hits 1.5GB or more, if you've got 4GB of memory, you're suddenly OUT OF MEMORY.

 

So whats the solution? Everyone upgrades to 16GB of memory to delay this memory monster from crashing their games on a game released in 2008 that needed at most 2GB to run....or....Bethesda gets enough negative feedback from its fan base to actually patch Fallout 3 up to FO:NV's compatibility standards?

 

Personally I believe the patch is the responsibility of Zenimax Media and Bethesda Software, to ensure the products they sold continue to work for a reasonable about of time, and I don't think a 2 year life span for Fallout 3 is a realistic time span seeing as I can load up Mass Effect, the original 2002 edition, right now, and play it, with absolutely no problems on the exact same machine and I don't even have to go through all the malarkey of tweaking ini files and running the executable in compatibility mode.

 

This isn't a fact that FO3 doesn't work under a Win 7 64 Bit environment...it does work, it runs smooth as a babys ass in that environment, other than the memory monster which is chewing through so much physical memory its blatantly obvious the program itself has a gigantic memory leak in the Win 7 64 Bit Environment and that is the cause of the crashes and freezes. Nothing more, nothing less. The CPU and OS take memory priority and FO3 shuts down because its using way too much.

 

I don't know about you, but I'm pretty hacked off about this and I think anyone else affected by it should be too.

 

I feel especially sorry for all the people that went back and bought the FO3 GOTY after getting FO:NV only to get screwed by this major flaw in running FO3 under Windows 7 64 Bit.

 

Like 64 Bit operating systems are all that "fringe" any more.

 

Step up Bethesda and support your products. You can't leave FO3 and all its DLCs in the dust and expect people to just accept this memory leak as an acceptable excuse for "non-support" of Windows 7 64 Bit. Windows 7 isn't the problem its the FO3 executable chewing through memory like candy. Especially when FO:NV on the exact same engine with some slight adjustments has allowed it to run just fine under the exact same environment.

 

Its the same engine for Christs sake. How hard is it to draw a straight line from B back to A and do what you did to B to A to ensure A is a viable game in the same environment?

[bben46]

I have been running FO3 on a Win7 x64 system since it came out with NONE of the problems you describe. I also do not run in any compatibility mode.

 

The memory leak you describe is a part of the Gambryo engine. It has been known since Oblivion and was even more pronounced in that game. The engine was improved between FO3 and NV. FO3 is a released game and would have to be redone to take advantage of the new changes. So, the developers would have to take programmers off of the next game - delaying that one, to spend time and money redesigning an older game to work with their newer version engine - for what? Are they going to release a 'New and improved' FO3? :whistling:

 

Also, a 32 bit system can only use 4Gig of memory max, and 2Gig was still a dream for most gamers in 2006. So allowing the game to use up to 2Gig was considered more than sufficient At that time. Even if you have the 16G you propose it won't do you any good as it can still only use that same 4 Gig max if you have a 32 bit system OR you are using a 32 bit compatibility mode. Also, the OS must have priority as if it doesn't, the computer doesn't work.

 

FO3 was designed and built using WinXp 32 bit single processor - as that is what the Gambryo engine is based on. You cannot design a 64 bit game using a 32 bit game engine running on a 32 bit OS. When they started the FO3 project that was the OS of choice. Vista had just been released so Win7 was not even a consideration. If you stop development to redesign for every new development as it comes along you end up taking forever to release a game. If you ever do.

 

You design a PC game to run on the widest possible range of hardware you can. Unfortunately, multi processor wasn't an option in 2006 when FO3 was begun, and you don't change game engines in mid development (unless the game is Duke Nukem :rolleyes: ) The largest base of PCs at that time ran XP 32 bit (and still do) The developers can't anticipate every change in PC hardware, so they work with what they know will work.

 

While a 32 bit game may work on a 64 bit system (we got lucky) a game designed for 64 bit will not be able to work on a 32 bit system. IMHO, The best we can hope for is some 64 bit code in the next game. Because many gamers will still be using a 32 bit OS 5 years from now. :thumbsup:

[VictoriaG]

Well that article kinda of sums up the problem I had with Fallout 3, I guess the only cure is to revert back to 32bit Vista.

[Kaashlikau]

Now I'm not unreasonable I don't expect Bethesda or Obsidian to make the original Fallout compatible with Windows 7 64 Bit by default(but sadly enough I do have the original Fallout installed and it works just FINE on Windows 7 64 Bit as long as I use Windows 95 Compatibility mode when running it)...

 

By the original Fallout, I assume you mean Fallout 3 rather than Fallout 1. Does it still have the memory leak under compatability mode? Does it run fine (i.e. no slowdown, etc)? If so, then I see no problem. There are innumerable older games I play that require either DosBox or compatability mode or some such tweak to make them playable under Windows 7 64bit. Sure, it's a shame that there isn't a simple patch that Bethesda could have released to make it work in the 64bit environment, but like bben46 said, they can't (and shouldn't) pull programmers off other projects (like TES V!) to work on it.

 

Also, having worked for an abandonware site in the past, I'm aware of the misconceptions about it and the apparently fuzzy legalities surrounding it. Even if Fallout 3 is no longer supported, it doesn't make it abandonware. Abandonware is software that has lost its copyright, or that has been discontinued and not supported. Fallout 3 is very much still available and very much has a copyright. Also, Bethesda's phrase 'We do not support the game' taken out of context might suggest that support has stopped, but I think within the context of the email, it's referring to it not being supported under Windows 7. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I would assume it is still supported under the OS it was designed for, otherwise they wouldn't have emailed you back and given you a case number.

[shiholude]

I want to give you a thumbs up, simply for using the term "malarkey" in your post!

 

I am running my FO3 game under Win7-64b, and while I cannot attest to the massive increase in memory leakage that you mention, I can say that it is not as smoothe as my WinXP box. My overall current system ranks at the generalized points of 7.5, except for my SSD drives, which score a 7.9.

 

Here is my box stats:

GIGABYTE GA-X58A-UD3R LGA 1366 Intel X58

Intel Core i7-930 2.8GHz LGA 1366 Quad-Core

CORSAIR XMS3 12GB (6 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1333 (PC3 10666)

GeForce GTS 250 1GB 256-bit GDDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16, SLI mode (x2)

Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Titanium Fatal1ty Professional

Intel SSDSA2 80G Hard Drive (x3)

Windows 7 Professional 64-bit

 

Essentially my system is a killer box, and it plays FO3 much worse than Dragon Age, GTA, and even old games like MoHonor and DeltaForce. As you said, it's not a Win7 issue, its a game engine issue. Unfortunately, as Ben points out, it would be nothing short of foolish for them to revisit and "repair" FO3 for a limited set of people.

 

We were on the leading edge for getting Win7, and as such we will suffer for that choice in these cases. We are lucky, in that a majority of games are somewhat supported via the "compatability modes" available much better than XP and Vista did, but I don't see being able to play FO3 to it's full potential on our systems.

 

-Shiholude

[November101]

By the original Fallout, I assume you mean Fallout 3 rather than Fallout 1. Does it still have the memory leak under compatability mode? Does it run fine (i.e. no slowdown, etc)? If so, then I see no problem.

 

I can see a pretty big problem. It's related to how I'm pretty sure that the 'original' Fallout that he's running in Windows 95 Compatibility mode is not going to the one that came out in 2008... And if I can get the original Fallout to run in capability mode, then there is absolutely no excuse for the issues I'm having with FO3 in Windows 7. I can't even get the damn expansion packs to even install, and it's sad that Fallout 3 performs better on my Xbox 360 than it does on my PC.

 

Yes, I have more than enough power under the hood to run FO3, so imagine my shock when it scanned my system and decided I needed to run in the lowest quality possible. Hilariously, I know have things like invisible enemies, draw-distances that remind me of games that came out years before FO3, massive slow down, and Windows 7 politely punting me out of my game because Fallout 3 gobbled up all my memory.

 

I'm a multi-platform gamer, and after the slipshod version of New Vegas I received for my 360 combined with getting the finger from Bethesda because I upgraded my OS, my patience with the company is wearing just slightly then just now.

Edited December 14, 2010 by November101

[Kaashlikau]

I can see a pretty big problem. It's related to how I'm pretty sure that the 'original' Fallout that he's running in Windows 95 Compatibility mode is not going to the one that came out in 2008...

 

My mistake, I misread the sentence. However, some programs prefer Windows 95 compatibility mode to more current Windows compatibility modes despite the program being released relatively recently. With the FO modding community as strong as it is, I'm sure an unofficial patch or fix will surface soon. I know it's "Bethesda's responsibility," etc, but be glad there is so much community support.