Got a problem in your Fallout game? Post it right here, in this thread. First post is a problem which I solved. I can't tell you all how ecstatic this makes me.

FALLOUT 3 CRASH TO DESKTOP WHOA #1

So this is a bit of troubleshooting for those who might also have this same problem. It's about a very specific CTD I I kept having: crashes at Megaton's gate. Urgh. Maybe the solution below will also take care of all the random CTDs I keep having... usually they'll occur anywhere form a half-hour or later into playtime.

Go into the main Fallout 3 folder and right-click on FalloutLauncher. Maybe you'll need to left-click and then right-click. There should be a large panel which pops up. Select Properties, and then the Compatibility tab.

Select "Run This Compatibility Mode For" and then choose whichever operating system in the scroll-bar. I've got Windows 8. Click Apply, Click OK.

That is all. I've walked my character in and out of Megaton like seven times now.

Your random CTDs might be the multi core bug in Fallout 3. When the game was being made, multi core cpus were still being invented. So it was made for the old-fashioned single-core cpus. But by the time the game was released, multi core cpus were a thing, and the game often crashed on them. This might fix it.


Open up the fallout.ini file in: My Documents\My Games\Fallout3

Find the following lines, and change the values to these. If they don't exist, paste them in:
bUseThreadedAI=1
iNumHWThreads=2

This will limit the game to 2 cores and prevent the engine bug from causing the game to freeze.

If it still crashes, try setting it to iNumHWThreads=1

I had the multicore bug too and got it fixed, as well as the Windows LIVE thing. Thankfully, when I installed Fallout 3 on my backup computer I got it to work without hickups


Good you got it sorted, Renee. I've never had anything work by doing what you did so I'm glad to see it work for once

The only fix which helped me, when I was having lots of CTDs in FO3, was to place the New Vegas (yes, New Vegas!) anti crash file in the FO3 folder. CTDs ever since have become extremely rare. I've tried all other possible fixes, even some of those mentioned above, but none of them worked. It's good that we post different solutions / fixes here, because what may work for someone, may not work for someone else.

Rosa: Thank you. I also did check out the multi-core processor .ini fix, but my FALLOUT.ini file already has the appropriate lines added in. I think because I have that Unofficial patch (I forget its full name) this already made those changes.

mirocu: Yes the Games For Windows Live nonsense is what plagued me back in 2016 when I was trying to get Fallout 3 on my PC. That was extremely aggravating, and I don't think Steam (which is where I got F03) even mentioned having to deal with GFWL. In my opinion Steam should put a warning in BIG BOLD LETTERS right up front about this. It's only because I've become somewhat of a pro at PC crises that I did not immediately try to get my money back. Right Lopov?

Polov: Wow, that's very unusual. I already do have an anti-crash dll file installed, but not from New Vegas. Maybe now I will try removing this .dll file, because maybe my game is fine with the Compatibility fix stated in the OP.

It is very true that everyone's game seems to be different. Even with consoles, you'll have one group of people claiming their game is broken to unplayability, and an entirely different experience from another group.

Something else you can add to the list that causes unexplained CTDs is using Gysnc. I did not realize I had my Gsync turned on, and was having CTDs at random. Then once I realized it, I set the game to run on a fixed refresh rate, and that fixed it. It is the standard problem of Bethesda's games being made to only run at 60 fps. Going over that breaks the games.

Ha I don't know what Gsync is. I wonder if I have that activated. I don't think I do. I would remember that term since it's an obvious play in Vsync. My game is capped at 60, but I don't think I use Gsync.... I've got something else influencing framerates.

G-sync is a relatively new monitor technology. I wrote about it in the Gaming Technomancy topic somewhere around here. Here it is. It basically replaces V-Sync, by automatically changing your monitor's refresh rate to match whatever your video card is putting out at that very instant. So it goes up and down dynamically, and that dramatically reduces stuttering, which is typically caused by the video card being unable to keep up with the 60 fps that V-sync demands it run at.

But it also means that the video card can run as fast as it wants to as well, which can mean frame rates of up to 144. On most games that just means they look really good. But Bethesda's games have their internal timing locked into 60 fps. If you go over that, it breaks the games. I forgot that.

I just cannot seem to get this game to run with mods anymore. I played through the intro without mods just fine, but when I added the unofficial patch and Fallout3 redesigned, it crashes like every 15-20 minutes! I checked all of the things in this thread and added the New Vegas anti crash file Lopov mentioned, but it just will not cooperate! I’m at a loss as it’s never given me this much trouble before.

Is Fallout 3 Redesigned a mod? If so, I know you might not want to hear this, but maybe try disabling that and see how it goes.

I must say, Fallout 3 is my most unstable game, so you're definitely not alone. Skyrim is most stable.

Yeah it’s a mod that makes the faces in the game a bit prettier (imo).

Fallout4 is probably my most stable BGS game. It runs really well on my machine.

Hmm, well if it only affects faces, that can't be the culprit, but I'd still try disabling it. I could live without prettier faces for a short duration, I look at myself in the mirror every day after all. Yeah, I'd turn that off. Go in and out of Megaton's cells, back into the Wasteland, travel on foot for awhile, and so on. Go for a half hour, then an hour. If CTDs still occur, then it's something else, which is Ooouf, definitely not fun.

Is that the only mod you've got? Like I said in my story thread, I recently had a CTD every time my character walked from Fort Independence to the Wasteland (inside to outside, in other words). I tracked the culprit down to Mart's Mutant Mod. Bummer, but I'll live.

I’m also running the unofficial patch and a slower item degradation mod.

I don't think that the UOP is the issue, so I'd try disabling that Redesigned Mod. I've never used the Slower Item Degradation Mod either, so I can't be of much help here. Are you running the GOTY version?



From my experience in New Vegas, even a tiniest mod, that doesn't seem to affect anything major, can be a cause of CTDs. There was some bag/pouch mod that I was using and because the mod author didn't remove some unused scripts or whatever, it was causing crashes, whenever you came near Novac.

Yes. From GOG.

I had the GOG version as well and I've been using UOP since forever and didn't notice that it'd cause CTDs. In my case problems were other mods and some unsolved conflicts between them, I guess. But as I said, the NV Anti-crash file made the game work like a charm again.

I agree... it can't be UOP. I use that as well.

I dunno. I do not use the Unofficial Patches because in my experience they caused as many bugs as the removed. But everyone's mileage varies on that.

^ See, that was my experience with Skryim. There were three main unofficial patches for awhile, then all the sudden the new patch came out, and it was an all-in-one patch, rather than 3 parts. I forget its name. But everyone started using it, so I did too. And it really crushed my game for awhile! Going in and out of cells in Windhelm was absolutely brutal, whereas before the patch, my Skyrim was mostly flawless. Even after I removed the patch, I had to go back to an earlier save, because that patch got baked into my save and it was still messing stuff up. Grr...

I hate to ask this one, but what about hardware? What sort of video card have you got Khajiit? Dedicated, or integrated? Sorry, that's rather intrusive. Weaker cards / hardware can be a source of crashes, though.

Lol, I don’t think it’s my hardware, as my machine runs way more modern games with only an occasional hiccup.

But just in case:
GPU: EVGA GeForce GTX 970 4gb
CPU: Intel i7 4790k
Memory: 16gb
OS: Win10

It might be Windows 10. It does not always play nice with older applications.

I have seen suggestions that you play it in Compatability mode for Windows XP, run it in Windowed mode, and run it as an administrator.

That’s what I’m thinking. I “upgraded” to that back in January because Win7 stopped being supported, so the last time I played F3 was when I was still running Win7.

Khajiit, the Fallout 3 Windows 10 Fix is on the front page of the Nexus, maybe it will help.

Edit: It probably won't. It seems to fix a problem in the Steam version of the game. But from the comments, it looks like the Gog version does not have the issue at all. And I think you said you had the Gog version.

Yep I’m on GOG. I’ll try running it in compatibility mode for winXP and see if that helps.

Good luck.

Ok so did a clean reinstall of F3 and it’s doing fine. Played through the intro and got outside to the first series of blasted buildings in Springvale and saved. Later tonight I’ll add back some mods and see how it goes.

You haven't truly experienced Fallout, until you've installed and reinstalled it a few times prior to playing.

... You haven't experienced Fallout yet, until you've had to figure out what Games For Windows Live is, and you'll need to disable it just to start your game. Maybe GOG disables this automatically when you buy Fallout 3. Steam does not.

OH! Khajiit, have you installed Archive Invalidation yet? Here is a link. Without that utility funny things can happen to some mod-added textures.

Ok well I guess I was doing something wrong before. I added back all of the mods I had earlier and a couple more and was able to play for a good couple hours today before having to stop to get ready for work. No crashes at all.

Awesome, good to hear. Now post some pictures!

That's me. Stuff like that that hinders me to even start the game just irks me. Thankfully, there was indeed a fix.

You can probably get New Vegas on GoG these days though? No Steam?

No. At this point in my life I am not interested in playing other games. I stick to some casual Fallout 3 (since this is a Fallout thread).

*Shrugs*

Hey, I tried.

I just ran into a brick wall with the Gog version of Fallout 3. I am in the basement of Smith Casey's Garage. When I click on the door to Vault 112 the game crashes. I have spent the last few hours trying to find a workaround. I already tried removing all my mods, no luck. I tried going back to my save from the tutorial exit, and going straight to the garage and trying the door, no luck.

I tried using the console to simply skip the quests tied up with the vault. I can use the console to get into Tranquility Lane. But when I finish that, the game crashes again. Because when you complete it you go back to Vault 112.

So I tried skipping Tranquility Lane as well, and using the console to advance the quests. That works ok. Until Dad.

I think I have narrowed it down to Dad who is causing the CTD. Dad is in Vault 112 and the game crashes. He is also in Tranquility Lane, but as a Dog, so different actor. Game works. When I use the player.placeatme to spawn him, the game crashes.

I am not sure what about Dad crashes the game. There are multiple versions of him, which makes things confusing. Most of them are for different stages of the Tutorial. Only one seems to be for when you are an adult and finally discover him outside the Vault. That is the version I (and the game) are trying to spawn.

Classic James. Always causing trouble!

Seriously though, that’s really frickin’ weird! I wonder if my copy has that issue? I might have to go there and see sometime.

You did the right thing and turned all those mods off. So next thing I would try is going on UESP. See if others have encountered this horrible glitch.

Another option is to see if GoG has its own Fallout forums, and if others have seen this as well.

Other people have had this over the years. No one has offered up a solution.

I tried an experiment just now. I started a new game from scratch, COC'ed to Smith Casey's Garage, and I was able to enter Vault 112 with no CTD.

When I tried going back before to an earlier save, it was to one at the tutorial exit. I think that save was made on my original version of Fallout 3 (the one I bought on cd back in the day). I am now playing on the Gog version with the same saves. So maybe there is an incompatibility between saves from the original version and the Gog version? I have had no problem opening other saves from the original version and playing them. But I never tried doing the Main Quest with them either. I don't think so however, as some of the other people who wrote about this same issue online had it years before the Gog version of the game came out.

So now I have to decide if I really want to do the MQ, or start completely over with these new saves.

Ugggh that’s really annoying. That’s the kind of thing that would probably lead to me abandoning the game altogether, lol. Hope you figure it out though!

I dug up one of Hecate's old saves from about 5 years ago, and she was able to get into Vault 112 with no trouble. So I don't think this is an original vs. Gog version issue. It must be just some glitch in January's original game. I was also able to spawn Dad in her game with no trouble as well.

Having Daddy Issues really is annoying...

That's so weird. Why would the GrandOldGames version be any different from the disc or even Steam? I can see maybe there's some differences in the way the game loads from desktop, or the way it installs. But this is something which Beth wrote and it should be the same in all versions?

See, now I am glad I got my disc drive swapped instead of trying the GOG version of Oblivion. Anyway at this point I would also be asking that same question: do I want to start over from scratch? For me, this leads to a second question. "How much do I love this game?"

Back when I was newer to PC gaming (2015 or so) I had some problems in Oblivion which required me to go to a much earlier save. Like, hundreds of saves in the past. I thought it over for awhile and then decided to just go for it. Because that's how much I love OB. And I think others with ginormous games (Decrepit, Acadian, etc.) have had to go back to earlier game saves.

I appreciate this thread. Renee helped me with modding my FO3 game on my first go, and it made it pretty dang easy.

I don't think there is any issue with the Gog version of the game after all. As I said, I went back to one of Hecate's saves from years before I bought the Gog version, and she could get into Vault 112 and spawn Daddy just fine. It is just something in my original saves for January.

So as many of you know, I was having issues with the GOG version of Fallout3. This morning while having my morning coffee, I reinstalled it, took Subbies advice and ran it in compatibility mode. It still gave me an error message, but then it launched just fine (with some noticeable awkwardness with the controller, but not unplayable). I’ll try adding a few mods later.

What did the error message say?

Something about not being able to run Fallout3 on that version of windows and to check if there is another version of Fallout3 available from the distributor that would work (my version was/is up to date). Running it in compatibility mode seems to work though.

Shoot, I've never seen that message, not that I remember anyway. I remember getting Fallout 3 on PC 5 years ago, and the entire game wouldn't even start (something like this) until I did a bunch of research, and then I learned about the Games for Windows Live nonsense. I think I had to disable GFWL somehow. It was a big, frustrating mess which made no sense at the time. I got my game on Steam though, not GoG.

It sounds like you did not have this problem though, this GFWL stuff. And compatibility mode seems to work for you. Hopefully this is a non-issue, then.

What controller issues do you have?

Only issue I've ever had is I cannot use my keyboard while also using the controller. So in other words, the tilde key does nothing, and neither does PrintScreen. Which means I can't use the console, nor can I take screenshots.

My fix: I made an Xpadder layout just to take screenshots and use the console. Every time I need to take pictures, I go into the Settings menu > Controls (I think) and then I disable the controller, meaning, the Xpadder layout is now in effect. The game thinks I'm using pure mouse + keys, in other words. I can actually play the game through Xpadder, but the main prob is I lose that variable walking / running movement.

So I basically switch back and forth, mostly for screenshots. It's annoying, but hey.

I wonder if this is your problem Khajiit? It looks like an old .ini file was to blame with this person's issue, and deleting it solved the issue. Other people are chiming in that the NV No Crash Fix solved it for them, and another that it was save files from a previous version of the game.

Hmmm, I’ll look into that. Much appreciated!


The issue was that when using the third person vanity mode by holding down the change POV button, the camera rotation was slow and janky. Very minor, but still, I’d rather it worked right.

I ought to just leave well enough alone, but deleting the .ini files in the my games folder didn’t stop the error message, but the game seems to launch ok.

For your information, the error message reads as follows:

Fallout3
Bethesda

This app can’t run because it causes security or performance issues on Windows. A new version may be available. Check with your software provider for an updated version that runs on this version of Windows.

But it does run. I played through the entire intro just yesterday morning.