EUR
en
This guide is aimed at people who want to get more out of their Fallout 3 experience. Either by turning it into a more stable and more enjoyable experience, and/or by discovering some of the awesome mods out there. This is no easy thing, so be prepared for some technical stuff along the road, but it is doable for anyone who is eager to learn.
Even though it is a classic, _Fallout 3_ does have its flaws: it is notoriously difficult to get it running (more or less) stable on Windows 7, 8 and 10. Since I've been looking at a lot of guides and posts on how to install _Fallout 3_ properly, and on how to fix and tweak it, I've decided to write a Steam guide of my own on it. The first major part of the guide will be on the installation, fixing & tweaking. Keep in mind that I only did all this on a Windows 7 pc - I am afraid I am not familiar with Windows 8 or Windows 10 yet.
I know there are lots of guides on this subject already available, so why write another one? Well, first of all: I have already done this for myself. I always keep track of any mods installed, used, played or rejected, so I have the basic notes already here. Secondly: I like to share my knowledge, and the things I find out, with fellow gamers. Also, I noted several of my Steam friends thought the idea of a new guide on _Fallout 3_ to be a good one, and they told me it definitely would be useful. And thirdly: several of the guides, or even of the tutorials and series dedicated to modding _Fallout 3_ out there, date from a couple of years ago.
This is true for the great series of tutorials on "Modding Fallout 3" by Gopher on his YouTube channel. What he tells and explains is excellent, but some of the mods he mentions have been reworked, repatched, or even removed since then. Especially the way the mods interact with other and need to be configured properly in order to work together, has undergone major revisions and improvements the past years. I will be referring to several of Gophers video's, so be sure to check out his YouTube channel.
Another really well done series of tutorials - and very much up-to-date - are the video's made by Xuul on his YouTube channel. These are excellent as well and I do recommend these highly since they are very much to-the-point and accessible for anyone with an average pc knowledge.
At the current version (updated december 2015), the guide has reached its final state. This means that I've discussed the majority of the mods I have been using myself. Now that _Fallout 4_ has appeared on the scene, almost all of the modding activity has turned towards that game, an new mods for _Fallout 3_ are few, which is not to say there aren't any. But I do want to keep the adventure of modding the Capital Wasteland alive, since it is a lot of fun to do, and I plan to play through the game a third and final time next year, using a different set-up (switching to Mod Organizer) and a completely different character build. With my current build however, I've pretty much done everything I wished to, and I won't be adding any new mods/content to my game or to this guide.
_Fallout 3_ is a classic game. Released for pc, Xbox360 & PlayStation 3 back in 2008 by Bethesda, it was the first Fallout game using a 3D engine. The GameBryo engine was developed by Bethesda for _The Elder Scrolls: Oblivion_ and has proven highly problematic since. While the engine is well up to the task of depicting a barren, war- and destruction-ridden Capital Wasteland, it also had (and still has) an awful lot of flaws and problems, mainly with regard to stability.
So, now in 2015, we are looking at a 7-year old game using a 10-year old engine. That seems pretty stupid, since there were some exceptionally fine open-world rpg's released since then. However, _Fallout 3_ is such an immersive game, that it still holds its own, mainly thanks to the amazing number of mods that were released for it. These mods manage to completely transform the game from a rather outdated looking and sometimes even repetitive game into a fantastic gaming experience. But it's not all bliss: this experience does not come by itself. Anyone wanting to get the "full", up-to-date _Fallout 3_-experience, has to be willing to invest time into learning how to fix, tweak and mod this game. And this is what this guide is all about.
Don't look or hope for an easy ride here. Tweaking and modding _Fallout 3_ is no easy, quick thing. It demands time, and some dedication to the job. There will be hiccups along the road, and some grinding of teeth. But I can assure you: the feeling of satisfaction once you have the game up and running, as stable as possible and with some dozens of mods installed, was unmatched for me in my long gaming career. Yes, I am proud that I have persevered and learned how to "tame" this game, and bend it to my liking. And it is this feeling that I gladly want to share with my awesome Steam Friends and with this great Steam Community.
This guide is aimed at people with a fairly good knowledge of their pc, the setup of their Steam games, and of how to make archives (using programs like WinRar of 7zip) and how to extract them to whatever location wanted. Knowledge such as this is essential for any real modding, so please go and find out about this if you need to – there are lots of excellent tutorials on YouTube for both WinRar and 7Zip.
I will refer regularly to the great series of tutorials on _Modding Fallout 3_ by Gopher on his YouTube channel. Please go and watch these as well, whenever I refer to them, or simply whenever you just feel like it. No one describes as detailed and yet perfectly understandable the ins and outs of Bethesda games like Gopher. However, since the tutorials for _Fallout 3_ were made back in 2012 or 2013, they are partly outdated. Moreover, the series is not as comprehensive as his famous _Skyrim Mod Sanctuary_, which together with the _Beginner's Guide to Modding Skyrim_ and _Skylight_ offers a near perfect and very extensive approach to modding Skyrim.
Another very useful series of great video's on the subject is the one by Xuul on his YouTube channel. These are very much to-the-point and very well updated. I will refer to these as well, and hope to be able to add the right links inside the guide in the near future.
Several of Gopher's guides are essential to anyone who wants to start modding _Fallout 3_. This is especially true of the tutorials on "Nexus Mod Manager", on "FOSE, or the Fallout Script Extender" and the two on "LOOT": the tool to manage your load order in Nexus Mod Manager. The tutorial on "Fallout 3 edit", a tool for mod makers as well for advanced users, is higly recommeded as well, but I can imagine some of the things covered there might seem a bit daunting to complete beginners. However, after getting used to modding and after having "played" with it for a while, this tutorial shouldn't pose any problems whatsoever.
Aim of this section
For this guide, I will only be using the "Game of the Year" edition of Fallout 3 on Steam. If one opens the page on the Steam store, a big box warns: "Fallout 3 is not optimized for Windows 7 or later". This box is there with a reason: this game has a reputation of being exceptionally difficult to run stable under Windows 7 & 8.
In this section of this guide, I will look into a good way to install and fix the game using Windows 7 64-bit (I do think it's more or less the same under Windows 8 64-bit) and Steam. I will do this in several well-defined steps, so that it is as easy to follow as possible.
Step 1: Prepare your pc
Make sure you don't have any version of Fallout 3 installed at the moment, and if so: uninstall it using a thorough uninstall program such as Advanced Uninstaller Pro. This to make sure there are no references present in your Windows registry to any previous version of Fallout 3.
Step 2: Installation
Install using the "install" button in your Steam library, just as usual.
The installation should use appx 9GB of harddrive space. The download itself should be 7.2 GB large.
Step 3: Locate the game folder
Locate the folder Steam has installed the game to. Depending on the drive you have installed Steam to, this would be something like d:\steam\steamapps\common\fallout3goty. I recommend adding a shortcut to this folder (ie the folder with files like the FalloutLauncher.exe in it) to your desktop, since this will make things easier later on.
Step 4: Run the Steam Launcher
Run the game to access the launcher once before doing anything else. This lets the game create its own folder in "my documents\my games\fallout3". There is a chance you can't even get the launcher working. This has to do with an older version of "Games for Windows Live" that is shipped with the Steam version. The easiest way to fix this is to update your GFWL using the dowload from this link:
Once in the launcher, you can as well set the options for graphics etc to your liking, there are several good guides on this topic available if needed. I especially recommend this extensive tweak guide:
After exiting the game, make sure you locate the "Fallout 3" folder in "My games", and add a shortcut to it on your desktop as well. This way the two main folders you'll have to access often, are easily within reach from the desktop.
You don't actually have to go in-game at this point, but it's a good idea to do so just to make sure everything works up till this point. However: chances are pretty great you won't be able to launch the game. This is due to a problem with the "Games For Windows Live" system & files the Steam version comes with, so the first step should be to disable this crappy system.
Step 5: Disable Games for Windows Live
Fallout 3 comes with the infamous Games for Windows Live system. Since this only makes the game instable or even unplayable, it is best to get rid of this as the first step in fixing the game. The easiest way to do this is by using the "Games for Windows Live Disabler" found on the Nexus website.
Since at this point you're maybe not familiar yet with the use of the Nexus Mod Manager, I suggest to download this "mod" manually. Do this by clicking on the "files" tab on the appropriate page of thesite, and then choose "download manually". This should download the small file to a location of your choice. Run the program, and remove GFWL. That gets rid of this first major problem.
Note: the two buttons at the bottom of the program are not essential. The "rebind the home key" button is only for those who play Fallout 3 with a controller and want to rebind the home button, and the "Move dlc's" button is useless, since the Steam GOTY edition already has moved the dlc's into the correct place.
Step 6: Fix the hyperkinetic mouse issue
Fallout 3 has an issue with its mouse input. First of all: it defaults to your controller if you have one plugged in, ignoring any input from the mouse. So either you can unplug the controller, or just navigate using the controller to "settings – controls" on the main screen and disable the controller. From then on, your mouse pointer will appear.
However, it will be immediately obvious that your mouse will be way too fast in its reactions to be of any use. This is not controlled by the "mouse speed" setting: that is for the in-game mouse. The problem lies with the way the game addresses the mouse in 2d screens. There is an easy fix for this by editing the fallout.ini file, found in the "fallout 3" map under "my documents\my games".
Since this is our first edit (or tweak) to an .ini file, it is good to adopt a sound habit: always make a backup of any game-related file you're going to edit. In that case, if anything goes wrong, just put the original file back in the place it came from and let it overwrite the altered file. And a second habit: when making tweaks or applying fixes, do so one at a time and check after every tweak or fix. That way, you always know what could have caused any problems.
You have to add these four lines to the [controls]section of the .ini file:
fForegroundMouseAccelBase=0
fForegroundMouseAccelTop=0
fForegroundMouseBase=0
fForegroundMouseMult=0
Copy and paste them there, since they have to be exactly the same. Another good habit: in order to edit an .ini file, right-click on it and choose "edit" from the drop-down menu. That's the smoothest and easiest way.
Step 7: Fix the game crashing randomly, especially entering small interiors
Fallout 3 has a very nasty habit of randomly crashing. It can happen at any moment, at any place. While crashes to desktop are not that bad (provided you have a recent save), they do get very annoying, and are immersion-breaking.So whatever fix there is to at least minimize the number of crashes, is welcome.
These crashes are especially problematic when using a quad core processor. Fallout 3 was not designed for this sort of cpu – it only can handle up to 2 cores. There is a small tweak to the fallout.ini file that resolves a lot of these random crashes - not all of them, but still a lot.
Find the line
bUseThreadedAI=0
in the .ini file (you can use control+f in order to search) and replace it with
bUseThreadedAI=1
After that line, add this one:
iNumHWThreads=2
This will limit the game to 2 cores and prevent the engine bug from causing the game to crash or even freeze.
I recommend this video by Xuul where he explains this and yet another method (very useful for Intel HD Graphics) to fix the random crashes:
Intermediate Conclusion
When all this is done, you should have a properly working version of Fallout 3, but still on a basic, non-modded level. You could start a new game at this point, when not intending to mod it, but I firmly recommend adding at least the patches & tweaks to have a more stable and more fluid gaming experience.
Introduction
In this part I will concentrate on the essential patches & tweaks to apply, in order to get _Fallout 3_ run as stable as possible. Keep in mind that I tried all this out on my Windows 7 64-bit computer, so I don't know how well it goes with Windows 8 or 10. I assume it is very much comparable, since these are both relatively recent 64-bit operating systems.
As far as older operating systems are concerned, I pretty much assume that _Fallout 3_ has less problems running on those. Windows XP-users should be safe anyway, and I guess Windows Vista users as well, since the game was released back then with these operating systems in mind.
Step 1. Install Nexus Mod Manager
Since there are several excellent guides & videos just on this subject alone, I won't go into the process in detail here. The essential tutorial on installing & using Nexus Mod Manager (referred to as NMM) is the one by Gopher on his YouTube channel. But since this video is three years old, I will cover some things myself regarding the latest version of NMM.
The main steps are easy:
A word of explanation: .esm refers to "master" files, while .esp refers to "plugins". Master files are the essential game files or the main mod files, plugins are dependent on these and apply the fine-tuning, so to speak.
There is one major disadvantage to this: when launching the game through NMM, Steam won't keep track of the in-game hours, and the Steam overlay won't be available.
Step 2. Install the Updated Unofficial Fallout 3 Patch & activate it
This is utterly essential, and although it is downloaded & installed using the Nexus Mod Manager, it cannot be considered a mod proper. It really is an essential patch, literally fixing a myriad of problems and bugs left unsolved after Bethesda decided not to support the game any further. Although you can do this in the conventional way too, installing the patch through Nexus Mod Manager has the advantage of learning to use the NMM and of getting a feel for its ease of use. The method downloading and installing the Updated Unofficial Fallout 3 patch is essentially the method by which you will be installing over 90% of all mods, so it's as good a way to learn this practice as any other.
Open the Fallout 3 page in the Nexus site in your browser, and go to the page for the Updated Unofficial Fallout 3 patch by BenWah and HairyLegs. This is the correct link:
By default, NMM uses categories to organise the mods you download – I advise to keep these, since they are conveniently synched with the mod sections on the website. Once you feel confident enough, you can change the mods organiser's outlook or manually move the mods to different categories as you like.
Step 3. Disable v-sync, if you want to
I know, the Steam launcher has a neat tick box to check or uncheck v-sync (the graphics option which keeps your framerate synched with the refresh rate of your monitor). If you like to keep v-sync on (as it is by default), there is no problem and you can skip this step.
However, if you want to disable it (which has some advantages, such as being able to get a framerate above the refresh rate (mostly 60) of your monitor, or smoother mouse movement in-game), there is a problem. Fallout keeps v-sync on, even when this box is unchecked. The only way to disable it properly, is by altering this line in the fallout.ini file (the file in the "documents\my games\fallout3" folder):
iPresentInterval=1
into
iPresentInterval=0
In addition, make sure v-sync is disabled in your graphics driver, either in the general 3d-settings, or in the specific settings for Fallout 3.
Personally, I tried out both options during my first playthrough of the game, and in the end I decided to stick with the default "v-sync on". It seems to provide smoother gameplay, with less of the "micro-stutters" the game has so often issues with (more on these later on). However, this probably is a personal matter of taste. The dreaded "screen tearing", which v-sync normally eliminates, kept creeping up from time to time though, no matter what I tried. Only restarting the game helped against that bug.
One thing to keep in mind though: if you decide to use the very popular mod (complete game overhaul) **Fallout Wanderers Edition**, it might be a good idea to keep v-sync on. This mod has issues whenever the framerate goes above 60 frames per second: it then tends to speed up the in-game time and player movement, which is very annoying indeed.
Step 4. Enable Fallout 3 to use more than 2GB of RAM
Believe it or not, Fallout 3 uses only 2GB of ram at the most. Since most computers nowadays have more ram, it's a shame that the game won't make use of that. By editing the .exe file of the game itself (which is surprisingly easy), you can make sure the game uses more than 2GB of ram memory.
You can do this by downloading the software **CFF-Explorer Suite** from a site like this:
Install it and right-click on your Fallout 3.exe. Choose "open with cff explorer" and go to the "File header" (under the "NT header"). Click where it says "click here" in the bottom right corner. You get a menu with the essential characteristics of the executable and you have to tick the box next to "App can handle more than 2 GB address space". Close and save the .exe file, and that's it! It may feel frightening to edite an .exe file, so make a back-up first, but there is not much to it.
NOTE: There is a small program called **Large Address Aware Enabler** available on the Nexus Site, which apparently does the same thing automatically. I have not used it myself, since I prefer to do tweaks like this manually using CFF, so I can't give any feedback on it. But I've read it's pretty ok.
NOTE 2: Xuul has a good tutorial on both enabling Large Address Awareness and installing FOSE:
Step 5. Install the **Fallout Script Extender (FOSE)**
The **Fallout Script Extender** (will be referring to it as **FOSE**) is an essential tool in order to set-up Fallout 3 for using the more advanced (and the most interesting) mods. It is not strictly needed in order to get to a still unmodded, but fixed and stable game. I do however include installation of this tool in this part of the guide, so that we have a game set up completely ready to start modding properly. In this way, when you want to install mods at any later point, your game and your NMM setup will be competely ready for it. As usual, there is an excellent video by Gopher on the installation process of FOSE on his YouTube channel:
FOSE has to be downloaded from this site:
Choose the "latest stable version", download the archive file to any place you want, and extract it using 7Zip or WinRar. Select the extracted files and simply copy them into your game folder (that is: the folder with the fallout3.exe file in it). Strictly speaking, you don't need to copy the folder "src" with the files, since this contains the open source used by fose's authors.
And that is it: you have installed the "Fallout Script Extender", which opens up a lot of modding possibilities. As for the "latest beta version" on the fose page: I haven't tried that out myself, I always choose the "latest stable version".
But how do you know you've done this correctly? Start up your game (through NMM!), and once in game open the console. The key for this usually is the "tilde" key, to the left of the "1" key (on the keyboard, not on the numpad). Type "GetFoseVersion" and you should see "FoseVersion1" as result. You then know all is ok, and from now on you don't need to worry anymore about this. Just don't forget to re-install fose whenever you re-install Fallout 3.
NOTE: There is apparently a problem with the German versions of the game with regard to FOSE. FOSE fails to recognise them a lot, even though they're supported. Removing the "ng" part from Fallout3ng.exe (and applying the 2gb fix again), Fallout3ng.exe.cfg and Fallout3ng.exe.cat fixes the problem.
Thanks to AbiKagerou for pointing this out and providing the fix!
Step 6. Apply **ArchiveInvalidation Invalidated**
If you have downloaded the "mod manager" version of the **Updated Unofficial Fallout 3 Patch**, you need to apply **ArchiveInvalidation Invalidated**.This is a small tool that can be found at the Nexus Page:. It automatically takes care of something rather technical which you otherwise would have to do manually. It's very easy: download the file manually from the Nexus site (use the recommended program version and download manually!), save it to any place you want, and run the executable. That's it, another step done (and you only have to do this once).
However, if you have downloaded the "newb" version of the Unofficial Patch and downloaded it manually, you can skip this step since that version of the patch takes care of it for you.
Step 7. Get Fallout 3 to run in "Windowed Mode" while using FOSE and the NMM & launching it through Steam
This is the final step towards creating a still unmodded, yet stable version of Fallout 3. Why would one want to run a game like Fallout 3 in Windowed mode? Well, simply because that apparently reduces not only the number of crashes, it even improves performance, and by quite a margin - some claim a performance boost of 60%. I do notice a performance boost but not by that much (maybe 5-10 fps). More importantly: windowed mode makes the game feel much smoother for me and it definitely helps in reducing the stutters.
Installing this "mod" – in reality yet another essential tweak, not a true mod – is simple. Setting it up so that in the end you are able to run Fallout 3 in a maximized window from within Steam, using FOSE and loading all the mods from the Nexus Mod Manager, sounds probably like wizardry, and this needs some fine tweaking indeed. So I guess this is for advanced users ;-).
a. Back-up all your .exe files in your Fallout 3 home directory
Yes! Whenever you alter something in an .exe or .ini file, make a back-up. Sound modding practice!
b. Set up your display and game setting. Open the "Steam launcher" of Fallout 3, easily done by clicking on _Fallout 3_ in Steam's game's library. It is important to get all of your settings right at this point, since by the end of this step, you'll not be using the Steam launcher anymore. Most important: set the correct resolution Fallout 3 should run at (for most people this will be the native resolution of their monitor, probably 1920 x 1080 pixels). And even more important: tick the "windowed mode" checkbox. Have a good look at all the other settings too. Some of them will be accessible in-game, but others aren't. As already mentioned, I consider this one the best guides on tweaking Fallout 3's settings:
For those using nVidia graphics cards, there is always the option of using the nVidia GeForce Experience to access all the settings, just from inside that program. Very easy and I recommend it highly. It still gives access to all settings, even after the Steam launcher has been renamed.
c. Run FOSE through Steam: delete FalloutLauncher.exe (this is why you should have set-up everything correctly in the launcher by now); rename fose_loader.exe to falloutlauncher.exe (this tricks Steam to believe it just launches Fallout 3, while in reality it runs Fallout 3 through the Fallout Script Extender); try to launch Fallout 3 from inside Steam and check if FOSE is working correctly by typing "GetFoseVersion" into the console and getting "FoseVersion1" as a result.
d. Run the game in a borderless fullscreen window while in windowed mode. In order to do so: download the "MaximizedWindow" mod (in reality just one executable) from the Nexus site:
Download it manually.
I know it's a very early one, and there have been several others doing the same thing since, but this one works great for me together with FOSE and Steam. Extract the file to anywhere on your hard drive – just remember where. Inside the Fallout 3 game folder is perfect. One extracted, right-click on the "MaximizedWindow.exe", and choose "create shortcut" from the menu. I suggest placing this shortcut on your desktop for ease of use.
Rename the shortcut to whatever you want, right-click on it, select "properties". In the "shortcut" tab, under "target", you have to add three parameters, as in this example: "10 1920 1080", without the parenthesis. These parameters refer to: number of seconds delay between clicking the shortcut and actually having to launch the game, horizontal number of pixels & vertical number of pixels (aka the screen resolution, as set in the Fallout Launcher in the previous step).
The final target the shortcut refers to should look something like this:
d:\steam\steamapps\common\Fallout 3 goty\MaximizedWindow.exe" 10 1920 1080
but then with your own correct path to the MaximizedWindow.exe, your own delay for launching in seconds and your own resolution. What I've showed in this step, is actually to insert a delay so that you have time to run Fallout 3 through Steam.
e. Get to run all this together: double click the MaximizedWindow shortcut you edited in the previous step; before 10 seconds (the delay set), navigate to Steam and launch Fallout 3 from there as you normally do; after a couple of seconds, the windowed view will change to a nice but false full-screen game; check "GetFoseVersion" if you want to be absolutely sure about Fallout 3 running through FOSE; enjoy a decent number of extra fps, and most important: a lot of extra, hard-won stability!!
Congratulations if you stayed with me during this last, and fairly complex, process. I know it's quite a hassle, but I found it completely worthwhile.
I do guess there are lots of other methods to achieve the same goals, some of them probably a lot easier, and I'd love to know more about those so feel free to comment!
Intermediate Conclusion
At this point, you've set up Fallout 3 as good as possible, and you have a good and
Bookmark
Daniel Féau processes personal data in order to optimise communication with our sales leads, our future clients and our established clients.
This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.