Don't lie. You're reading these reviews to build your hype for Fallout 4 for some reason. It's okay, I am too.

EDIT 11/10/2015: You know what day it is right? Like, why are you reading this?

EDIT 7/08/2017: The guide below has been edited to account for any issues with Fallout 3 and the Win10 Creator's Update. (Jump to the bottom of this post if you are only having issues with the game not really exiting when you try to exit to desktop and you're running Win 10 v. 1703 "Creator's Update")






P.S. Because I'm getting messages and comments from people saying "Can I play this on Win 7???" I'm just gonna list out the fixes required to make sure it runs just like it would on Vista (but better because you know, you're running 7 for a reason).

1. Crash/Freezing issue at random points in the game:

-Run the game at least once

-Go here ( C:\Users\[Username]\Documents\My Games\Fallout3\Fallout.ini )

-Press "Ctrl+F" type (without quotation marks) "bUseThreadedAI"

-Should read "bUseThreadedAI=0", change the 0 to 1 (if this line isn't there, add it anywhere in the
block of lines above the [Display] category of the file)

-(This next line shouldn't be in your file already but do a quick Ctrl+F to make sure, if it is change
it accordingly)

-Directly underneath "bUseThreadedAI=1", write "iNumHWThreads=2". If it's already there, just
change whatever value it is to "2".

Save & Exit



2. Radio Music Stuttering

Preface: Now even with this fix in place, I still find occasional bouts where either music will not
play from my Pip-Boy or the stuttering will return in a certain area for some odd reason.
This is just a general fix that will help alleviate stuttering for ~95% of your game time.

-Download MADFilter
( http://sourceforge.net/projects/maddxshow/files/MAD%20Filter/MADFilter%201.0.0.3/ )

-Extract "MADFilter.ax", "register.bat" and "unregister.bat" file to ( C:\Windows\SysWOW64 for
64-bit OS's or C:\Windows\system for 32-bit OS's)

-Once you've extracted the files to your directory, run the register.bat that is currently in your
SysWOW64 or system folder.

-Just to make sure you did the work correctly, download "InstalledCodec"
( http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/installedcodec.zip ), extract the zip and run the .exe once extracted

-Look for "MAD Transform Filter" and make sure it's installed. THEN, find "Fraunhofer IIS MPEG
Layer-3 Codec" in the utility. Right click it and select "Disable Selected Items"

Run the game and on your pip-boy radio, select Galaxy News radio and listen to see if the
stuttering is still there. If it is, then you should go back and check which directory you pasted
the MADFilter file into and check InstalledCodec to ensure the MAD filter is installed and enabled
and then make sure the Fraunhofer codec is DISABLED. If this didn't work, there is a conflict
within your codecs and you may have another MP3 Codec installed and working on top of your
MAD Filter. I'd check InstalledCodec and see what may be conflicting.

Credit to GoldenShadow for helping me fix this years ago
( http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?t=844931 )



3. Random Crashes and Freezing fix AFTER the Fallout.ini fix:

This little guy over at Nexus may have a fix for you. If you're still crashing and freezing and have
no clue why, try downloading his d3d9.dll file and insert it into your game's source directory.

Download link: ( http://www.nexusmods.com/fallout3/mods/18900/? )

(If you're in the same boat as myself and still have random crashes, freezes and all sorts of odd
mishaps in your game and you've done all of the fixes listed above, I'm afraid I have no other help
considering I've dug pretty far to find some other fixes and nothing has really helped. Best to just
Quicksave (F5 by default) as often as possible)


P.P.S. Edited for Win 8 & 8.1 compatibility fixes

(The following is provided thanks to the very generous blue_light1554)

1. Basically, if your computer has two cores, you have to follow French Girls' steps for only "1. Crash/Freezing issue at random points in the game:"

2. Save the modified notepad text and exit.

3. Then you put compatibility mode: Windows XP Service Pack 3
You do that for "Fallout 3 Launcher" and the application named "Fallout 3".
(...\Steam\Steamapps\Common\Fallout 3)

4. Then visit this website: http://www.xbox.com/en-US/live/pc/DownloadClient
This will make you download a missing client required to make Fallout 3 work.

5. When you've done all that, you right click on the Fallout 3 application and do "Run as Administrator"

6. It should work!

7. I'm not an expert so if you have questions or it didn't work for you, go see the website shown here: http://help.bethsoft.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/9977

Maybe you'll find something else useful.

EDIT 11/6/2013: I just upgrade from Win 7 to Win 10 and I can confirm Fallout 3 runs fine on the same exact system I did an entire playthrough on. Loaded it up and ran around a bit and it played just like it did on 7.




EDIT 7/08/2017: Alright so as you may have read above that you needed to come here for help with issues with playing the game with Win 10 version 1703. I'm assuming you're having issues like myself where the game may run fine but when you try to exit, you can't get back to your desktop. And if you encounter this issue with a single monitor, you find yourself SOL and needing to reboot your computer.

Well the unfortunate side of things is there isn't really a fix yet. HAVING SAID THAT, the potential fixes could depend on your system. Try the basic touches like running it in Admin and/or compatibility mode. This will help you narrow down the potential causes.

Another thing to note is that I am still using the GFWL client with my game. If you find you are using GFWL, try disabling it with the GFWL suppressor tool I linked to earlier in this post. GFWL is not native or optimized for Win 10 so it could be causing the hiccups. Literally nobody else on the internet seems to be having much luck with solving this issue because so few people have it but just try pretty much everything in this thread and the usual attempt at running the game in different modes.

Good luck, and if anyone finds any new fixes, please feel free to post in the comments and I will update this page accordingly!