Fallout 3 from Bethesda Softworks

[Rahl Windsong]

I picked up the game the other day at Walmart and I have to say that Bethesda did a wonderful job on the 3rd installment of this RPG series. You will need a pretty good system to run it but this game just seems to hit all the right buttons and I am very pleased with it.

check out the details here: Fallout: Welcome to the Official Site

[Highlander II]

Yeah - I have it too, but the processor on my PC is a smidge too outdated to run F3. I'm bummed, b/c I wanted to play.

Suppose I can wait for the used ones to show up at the game shop for XBox... unless it's only made for the 360, in which case, it may be a couple years before I get to play.

[biodroid]

I got the Xbox version and looks sweet on a 42" plasma. I have only done the intro of the game and I must say it has character and atmosphere and promises to be a big world with good plots. The graphics are excellent for such a large world. Normally they tone down the graphics for large worlds to fit everything in but it doesn't look like that here.

[Cayal]

Originally Posted by Highlander II

Yeah - I have it too, but the processor on my PC is a smidge too outdated to run F3. I'm bummed, b/c I wanted to play.

Suppose I can wait for the used ones to show up at the game shop for XBox... unless it's only made for the 360, in which case, it may be a couple years before I get to play.

It's on PS3, 360 and PC.

[kyektulu]

I sooo am going to buy this game, I have become a big fan of Bethesda since Oblivion... problem is, where do I find time to play all these rpg's? :O

[kyektulu]

Ratings out of 10 anyone?

[Highlander II]

Originally Posted by Cayal

It's on PS3, 360 and PC.

Yeah - but the freakin' specs for it to play on PC are not very accommodating. And I don't have the $$ to drop on a 360 or a PS3 and then ANOTHER copy of the game.

[Urlik]

what are your specs?

you might be able to run it in 800x600 with the display options set to low for everything.
when I first got it up and running it automatically set my display up like that and it looked pretty good (although I have now set it at 1024x768 and increased the draw distance so I don't suddenly have enemies appearing right in front of me.

and a little tip
go to the fallout 3 folder and create a shortcut for the fallout 3.exe file and put that on your desktop.
the shortcut that the install places on your desktop is for the launcher and bypassing that cuts the load time and gets rid of a few of the glitches/bugs/crashes

[Highlander II]

Might have to try that shortcut bit.

My screen resolution is 1280x1024, I don't think I have F3 set-up to run that way, but I'll have to check. I did tell it to run everything on 'low' and it didn't run.

I'll try running it through the .exe file instead of the launcher and see if that works better. Thnx! =)

And I checked my processor - it's 2.93, but i don't know if it's dual core or not, I assume so, given that the machine's only 4 yrs old and they're on quad-core now.

[Somni]

I don't know if it helps but mine is a 3 ghz P4, don't know about the core bit, 2 gig of RAM and a X1650xt card and it runs fine at whatever the computer default options are. Draw distance is not massive, but further than anyone can shoot me from so it does not matter,

[Highlander II]

using the .exe file didn't work either - it still gives me the 'F3 has performed an illegal operation and must be shut down' error - which is highly annoying...

[Urlik]

have you tried the patch yet?

[Highlander II]

Originally Posted by Urlik

have you tried the patch yet?

Yup. Twice.

Right now, I'm gonna see if I can try installing it on another machine w/ a better processor to see if that's really the issue. If it still won't work, imma return it and get a new one.

[Rahl Windsong]

Well I thought I would revive this topic because the other day Bethesda released a new DLC for Fallout3, namely Operation Anchorage Alaska. The DLC itself is not to bad once you get it installed that is...the real pain is the fact that it is being distributed by Mircosoft's Games For Windows Live service (GFWL)

GFWL is such a pain in the ass that only Microsoft programers could have possibly coded such an abomination.

You have to have an account at GFWL, which is free to get so thats not a big deal. Then once you have the account you have to go to the GFWL website and purchase MS points to buy the DLC. The DLC costs 800 MS points however the points are available in 500 and 1000 point bundles so you have to over pay for the DLC by 200 MS points. I guess thats where Microsoft gets their portion of the profits....

Then once you have the DLC installed you find out that you must be logged into GFWL while playing Fallout3 or the content is not available to be played.

The day I decided to get the new DLC it was early AM and it took most of that day, not to mention the loss of a lot of hair from the constant pulling of it and gnashing of teeth and cursing MS, to get a 352MB file and see it installed.

Now I have 200 MS points at GFWL that I will never use and I am also pretty sure there is likely some catch that if you don't use them in a certain amount of time you loose them. Not only that but if you check the Bethesda forums for Fallout3 you will see that my experience was much less painful then most of Bethesda's customers, in fact many of their long time fans are saying they will never purchase anything from them again as long as they continue to use GFWL.

The DLC is fun to play if and when you get it working and I have heard about copying the files from the directories that GFWL installs them in, to your Fallout3/data folder that the DLC will work without GFWL. I have yet to check that out though....