- Table of Contents
Intro
Fallout 3 was never a stable game to begin with but Bethesda’s incompetence knows no bounds apparently. On October 12, 2021, they released an unnecessary update that no one asked for and broke 13-years worth of mods that already fixed the problems from the patch notes.
One of the results is that the game will crash when you attempt to start a new game and as usual but thankfully, the community found a way to work around it so here are the only fixes you will need.
High performance settings
Finnish Spirit came through with the first solution, which is to allow Fallout 3 to use high performance settings in Windows 10.
First, open the Windows Settings screen. You can do it by clicking Start and then typing “Settings” in the box and click it to open the app.
Next, click on System, which should be the top left icon there. By default, it should open on the Display tab but if it didn’t happen, click it on the list of options to the left. Scroll down until you see the “Graphics settings” option and click it.
After that, click Browse and navigate to your Fallout 3 installation folder.
The easiest way to find the right address is to open your Steam library, right click Fallout 3, choose Properties, then Installed Files and then browse. From the newly opened window, click on the address bar and copy it. Switch back to the settings window and paste the address. You will know you are in the right folder when you see “Fallout3” and “FalloutLauncherSteam” executable files.
Once you have the address open in the settings, choose “Fallout3” and click Add. Then click Browse again, choose “FalloutLauncherSteam” and click Add. Now you should see both of them under the “Browse” button.
Click “Fallout3”, then options and choose High Performance. Do the same for “FalloutLauncherSteam”.
After that, go to your Documents folder, open My Games and then Fallout 3. Delete Fallout, FalloutPrefs and RendererInfo files.
Launch the game and see if the issue is fixed. If not, installing the Intel HD bypass mod will do the trick.
Install Intel HD Graphics Bypass mod
Intel HD Bypass Package basically tricks the game into thinking you are running on an old Nvidia GPU. Simply go to the mod’s page on Nexus, click Files and choose Manual Download. When prompted, choose Slow Download and wait until you get the package.
Once it’s downloaded, extract it with WinRAR or 7zip. Copy “d3d9.dll” to your Fallout 3 installation folder. If you don’t know the location, check the paragraph in the grey box with black borders above.
After that, copy FALLOUT.INI and paste it in Documents -> My Games -> Fallout3.
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