First things first, let's keep this civil. No trashing either platform, I want to see an intelligent discussion about Fallout 3, PC vs. console. And I'd prefer to hear from those who have played both for more than just 10 minutes.


I've played Fallout 3 extensively on X360, that was the first platform I played it on. I loved it on there lack of mods aside, it was great. I just recently picked up the GOTY on PC and I've been putting time in a bit of time on that..

So far, I find the visuals on console are better. Everything looks grittier on console compared to PC. PC has great lighting, superb draw distance but the textures just look to smooth and don't look as dirty. In this case, grittier is better I find it matches the atmosphere and environment of Fallout. Settings are on ultra high, so all visuals are at their maximum. PC does have a much smoother frame rate.

But the mechanics on PC were better overall, shooting, moving it all flows seamlessly on PC. Except I found lockpicking to be a little harder, the controller on 360 is better at making fine adjustments when looking for the "sweet spot". Using terminals was a little confusing at first. Unlike lockpicking it didn't show how to exit. I was hitting the E button for quite awhile thinking it would take me back just like it did when I picked a lock. But after re-loading 2 times, I found out you have to move the mouse pointer on the power button on the terminal screen itself. The lack of instruction is my only gripe there.

I also found the character models looked smaller on PC. But that might be because my TV is 40" vs. my monitor which is 20".

Oh and, I've yet to install the DLC. It takes forever for it to even read the disc. I heard that's normal, but when I did finish installing Windows said it didn't install correctly.

If you want lower quality textures, turn the texture quality down.

That's the main advantage of PC. Choice - you don't have to do things how a faceless company wants you to do them (and pay for the privilege).

I didn't find console quality to be lower. It actually looks more detailed.

Don't know how it looks on console, but there are plenty of texture mods to chose from. Not to mention a few thousand of other mods to make game far better than original.

It isn't, they're the same textures but on lower quality settings.

(I personally, never had problems with the installation of the DLC's from the disk, as it had the latest patch as well. I have had no problems running it as well.)

I've played on both. Unfortunately I started on the pc, so of course I'm biased towards the Pc.

Graphically the Pc is way better then the Xbox, but only to the trained eye. The Pc does have less of a grit feel. In fact it's mostly just a green. That's fine though considering we have mods to fix that. The quality of your monitor also plays a big part in pc gaming. I was using a junky Dell 22" that thought black was grey. I've upgraded recently and found the game oh so much more beautiful. Largely thanks to Ultra Realistic World Lighting, and the new monitor.

My xbox would be more special to me I suppose if I couldn't hook my pc to my Pc and play sitting on my couch. I even use the Xbox controller when I play sometimes.

My take on this is a little different. Personally, I have no desire to sit at a desk in front of a computer to play a game. I like to curl up on my couch and enjoy the convenience of a wireless controller.

Also...I like the idea that I don't have to worry about video cards, sound cards, and processors. I love computers, I'm familiar and comfortable with their operation, but I just can't be bothered to try and build myself a gaming PC. I like that the XBox just works. Usually.

I've played on all three and PC wins every time. My opinion is PC > 360 > PS3.

I can't speak on the comparison of the grittiness of PC textures versus 360 textures as I never stuck my face a foot away from my television when I played on 360. I mostly use a controller to play so I can throw out the precision of K&M argument there as it doesn't apply to me. PC has the best lighting, PS3 is the darkest (at least it is on the two lcd tvs I tried).

PC has all the mods you could ever want to change things you don't like and extend the game's lifespan. PS3 suffers from buggy DLC so that knocks them way down the list. Bottom line: FO3 is great fun on console but it excels on PC.

I can definitely see how the PC version would be stellar. Bethesda made their mark by making PC games, and it's what they're best at. Something has to be "lost in translation" when it's ported to a console.

I'm, unfortunately for the "dinosaurs", one of those gamers who wouldn't ever have got into the series if it weren't for the fact they put them onto the consoles. That's right, I'd have been rotting my brains away with Final Fantasy forever...

I wish I had a PC just so I could check out all of these rumored mods. . . .

I do have a Xbox 360 and a PS3 and a high def TV.

I'd say the PS3 version of both F03 and NV had (slightly) better visuals. F03 on XBox was very crash prone, compared to PS3 (I own it on both systems. Don't ask).

FNV on PS3 was very laggy with constant clipping (better now with the patches) :thumbsup: I doubt the Xbox version was any better.

I just don't have the money to put into a real gaming PC so I'll probably never get to experience any FO on one. . . .also since my xBox has just red-ringed again, I'd take the PS3 over all.

Oh Goooood, the red rings. Microsoft replaced not one, but two systems for us because of that problem. We signed up for fancy new internet service and part of the promo was a free Xbox (the sixy new slim one) and literally the day after it arrived, the old one red-ringed. Ugh. In between, it works fine. It rarely crashes on me, actually...

You have the GOTY (I think?) My Xbox FO3 was the release date version. . .and I do not have xbox live so, like an old man, I had to go to the store and buy the four DLC disks. . .I'm techno-inept :sadvaultboy:

I had played the vanilla exclusively until picking up GOTY on Boxing Day. I thought you could download patches for free with the "free" membership you could have? I think? ...maybe?

Anyways. I've just been lucky. Maybe my XBox likes me?

You can easily plug your PC into your TV and have exactly the same curling experience!

I'd really recommend building your own PC, even if it's not a gaming PC, though. Practically, you get higher quality parts for a fraction of the price and can tailor it to exactly your needs, you can fix anything that goes wrong yourself (But as you're buying high quality parts that'll be much rarer than, say, a console - where the chance of hardware failure is much higher), and you get to know what goes in and what does what a lot better. Personally I could never go to console gaming simply because of that - a console is just a box, I know what's, in theory, inside, but I know exactly what's in my PC, I know exactly where all my money went. Even ignoring the practical and ideological advantages of PC gaming (there are many and I could go on all day), building even an office-class PC is a great learning experience and very easy to do.

My husband and I did build a PC -- but we put Ubuntu on it. That is all I will say

For now the new XBox works well and looks great on the LG plasma, so...I'm cool

@Skirt: We will eventually convert you. Nobody is able to resist a good http://img832.imageshack.us/img832/5882/screenshot701.jpg.

We converted Llama, it's only a matter if time.

I did eventually go to the PC. But, it was after I'd played on the 360 for at least 1200 hours and had done absolutely everything I could possibly think of to do with my characters in the vanilla gameworld and the DLCs. I finally had to go to the PC because I didn't want to stop playing the game and I needed to go to mods. I've had two RROD's. The second one was a couple of weeks ago. Stupid things. :flamethrower:

Not necessarily fitting the topic of F3, but... This is what makes the IdTech5 awesome.
Nothing will need to be ported over. it just works well across the board.

For the record, I use to play almost exclusively, PC games. Aside from games that only released on consoles or released much later on PC.

I've been converted to console. I find it 100x easier to just buy a game and never have to worry about if my system meets the reqs., which means no more pricey upgrades

Also, I don't ever have to worry about if Windows will have an issue with it installing, or if my firewall or router doesn't like it. Or all the other software issues that sometimes arise. And the best bonus is that most DLC arrives on X360 first. Usually right as I'm starting to get sick of the game.

PC for mods, especially Fellout. Gets rid of that ridiculous green tint in the sky.

PC only becasue I do a lot of online gaming with mates from Uni since around 1996. Back then consoles weren't online and didn't meet our 'requirements'. We used to play on SNES back then (mariokart on SNES rocked!) but once we graduated the online PC gaming thing was expanding massively and very quickly.

If I were at Uni now we would have more options to choose from, free online console gaming, dodgy pay per month for online console gaming or PC online gaming. Who know's I may have gone to 'the dark side' if were a young geeza with a bit of cash today

I've played on both, PC first without mods, then PS3, then PC with mods. I have a fairly good computer. I'm able to play on between high and ultra with NMC's texture pack. The game looks great on all platforms, me thinks. It looks better on my PC of course because of mods.

Now this is where it gets tricky. Playing modded games on PC is such a huge frustration. I've been playing FO3 on PC for about a year now, modding that is. I've spent a LOT of time messing with settings, playing with .ini's and XML files, examining folder structure, troubleshooting etc. etc. I believe it's worth it, but you REALLY need to keep a calm head. Just remember that every problem you're having while modding, others have had. They'll help you if you make the effort yourself.

Bottom line - Because of FO3 and Oblivion, I've converted to PC gaming. I miss the exclusives of the 360 and PS3, but I really enjoy being able to tweak just about every game. (ENBSeries is great for this.) I'll still play PS3 and 360 exclusives because two of my brothers own consoles. I just couldn't imagine playing a game like FO3 without mods. I NEED Fellout, MMM, FWE(Or FOOK2, depending on how I feel that month) etc. etc. It just improves on the game so much making it nearly perfect, at least for me.

I had this problem as well, and it's pretty common. What I had to do was to reboot my computer, enter Windows in Safe Mode, and install it from there. After this, you can return to normal mode Windows and play it like any other game.

The fallout wiki should have more detailed instructions.