I'm considering buying Fallout 3 for the PC after putting many hours into it on the Xbox 360 version. Now, my knowledge of system requirements is rather limited, so I was wondering if any of you more tech-savvy folks would be able to tell me if I can run it on my computer.

Computer Specs

Processor: AMD Athlon™ II X4 630 Processor 2.80GHz

Operating System: Windows 7

Graphics Card: Nvidia GeForce 9100

DirectX: 11.0

859GB free space on Hard Disk

6.00GB (5.75 usable)

Fallout 3 Minimum System Requirements (Copied from Steam):

Operating system: Windows XP/Vista
Processor: 2.4 Ghz Intel Pentium 4 or equivalent processor
Memory: 1 GB (XP)/ 2 GB (Vista)
Hard disk space: 7 GB
Video: Direct X 9.0c compliant video card with 256MB RAM (NVIDIA 6800 or better/ATI X850 or better)
Sound: DirectX?: 9.0c

Supported Video Card Chipsets:

NVIDIA GeForce 200 series, Geforce 9800 series, Geforce 9600 series, Geforce 8800 series, Geforce 8600 series, Geforce 8500 series, Geforce 8400 series, Geforce 7900 series, Geforce 7800 series, Geforce 7600 series, Geforce 7300 series, GeForce 6800 series
ATI HD 4800 series, HD 4600 series, HD 3800 series, HD 3600 series, HD 3400 series, HD 2900 series, HD 2600 series, HD 2400 series, X1900 series, X1800 series, X1600 series, X1300 series, X850 series

I do not know what my video card is, but my computer is only several months old and is not a high end gaming PC, but not useless trash either. I'd greatly appreciate it if you could help me out with this. Sorry if this is the wrong section, but it didn't seem appropiate in the "Issues" section.

I run it on my computer that is much worse in almost every respect...So it should work fine

Don't expect to be able to run at max settings though, the 9100 isn't a very powerful card. My 8800GT can outperform that one and I can only get High graphics from it. You might be able to get medium settings out of it though. If you can, you should see about upgrading it. For one thing, it's only a Direct X 10 compatible card.

Well the graphic don't need to be eye-poppingly beautiful. So I'm fine with running them on medium. But if my graphics card is only DirectX 10 compatible, and I have DirectX 11 installed, does that mean it won't work and I will not be able to run the game? That probably sounds ridiculous but like I said, I'm not very tech-savvy.

I played FO3 on an Athlon single core 2.8 (I think) ghz. Nvidia 6800 AGP card. A little bit of lag in intense situations with medium settings.

If its an onboard chipset you will get ok performance on low settings.

You won't have any problems with this game as it only uses DirectX 9, but it might be an issue for new games coming out soon. Though for awhile at least developers will probably make their games DirectX 9 compatible as well, since there are still alot of Windows XP users out there. Eventually though you will need a DirectX 11 compatible card. I'm guessing Fallout New Vegas will have some DirectX 11 features, though that hasn't been confirmed, and I know that Civ 5 is definitely going to. But it will still run using DirectX 9, you just lose out on some the improved graphics.

PS: Oh wait, I may have misunderstood your question. DirectX is always backwards compatible, so even if your card is capable of running DirectX 10 functions, it will still be able to run DirectX 9 games as well. Just not DirectX 11 only games. And while DirectX 9 and 10/11 are separate installs, the game will have all the files you need in order to run it. It wouldn't hurt though to go to Microsoft's site and download their final version of DirectX 9, in case there are some files you might not have on the disc.

As long as you have a decent video/graphics card and Windows Vists/XP/7 then you're good to go. My new computer only needed the graphics card and I was able to play.

I don't know if this is a good basis for comparison or not, but my computer is able to run Microsoft Flight Simulator X on medium detail with almost no lag or slowdown and on high settings with minimal slowdown. It was released a couple years earlier than FO3, but the requirements are almost the same.