The .dll fix posted earlier did not work for players who have Optimus "enhanced" machines. You have to trick the game into using your more powerful video card. Here is how you do it.

(If you already have the .dll file where it needs to be, skip to step 3)

Step 1:
Download this .dll http://www.newvegasnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=34778

Step 2:
Place the .dll in your "\Documents\My Games\FalloutNV" folder and then copy the file, then paste it into your "\Steam\steamapps\common\fallout new vegas" folder.

Step 3:
Open your NVIDIA Control Panel and select Fallout - New Vegas from the first dropdown menu.

Step 4:
Select "Integrated graphics" from the second dropdown menu and click "Apply" in the lower right corner of the window. Close the NVIDIA Control Panel.

Step 5:
Launch Fallout: New Vegas and click Options in the launcher. Set the detail to Low and use the lowest screen resolution possible.

Step 6:
Now click Play, load up a save, walk to the nearest human NPC, and start a conversation. If you DO NOT notice a drop in FPS during the conversation, continue on to step 7. If you DO notice a drop in FPS during the conversation then you have followed steps 1 and 2 incorrectly.

Step 7:
Quit the game to desktop. Now open the launcher again and click Options. Your graphics adapter should now be listed as the NVIDIA GeForce 7900 GS. Set the detail to your desired level, readjust your Aspect Ratio and Resolution, and exit the Options pop-up. Minimize the launcher but do not exit it.

Step 8:
Open up your NVIDIA Control Panel again. Now select the High-performance NVIDIA processor from the second dropdown menu and click "Apply" in the bottom right corner. Close the NVIDIA Control Panel.

Step 9:
Restore the Fallout: New Vegas launcher and click Play.


The game will run correctly without NPC framerate slowdown if you follow these steps!

Good luck!

Edit: If this works (or doesn't) for you, please tell me!

Confirming that this worked for me - M11x R2 w/optimus.

However, when I exited the game after testing the new settings, and tried to relaunch - the launcher re-detected my settings, and ditched the 7900GS. Any way to prevent this from occurring?

Glad it worked! But no, as of now I don't know how to keep it from reverting back. You'll have to do steps 3 through 9 whenever you want to play. :sadvaultboy:


But it is better than not playing at all, I suppose.

COnfirmed it works for my too, cant play on ultra but i can play smoothly on high settings, KUDOS to ya and good job man

Doesn't work for me. but I am getting the insane lag while moving not from npcs, i can move straight just holding W with about 50-90 fps on ultra the second i start turning the mouse looking around it only jumps down to about 20fps but the like edges of the screen twitch and shake/tremble what ever you wanna call it all i know is it hurts my eyes and makes the game imposable to play

sry it doesnt work for ya man, what specs do you have maybe we can still help

I will try this as soon as I get home... I really hope that it works, as the game is hard to play at present....

I have the M11x R2
i5, 8 GB RAM

will report on my results. reeeeaaaaalllly hope this gets patched soon, as doing 3-9 over and over again would be pretty annoying.

I don't think I'm even a Optimus user anyways my specs are AMD 6000+ duel core, 1gb GF 260 GTX, 8GB Ram, vista 64bit

The Nvidia Optimus drivers were updated in June I think. The update addressed the Optimus detection system not correctly recognizing, and switching to, the dedicated Nvidia GPU. Maybe try simply updating the Nvidia Optimus drivers first before using that dll. That dll will force your integrated graphics to perform above their ability which can cause damage and instability.

I updated to the latest drivers (which were released just last week) to no avail. This method is the only fix as of now.

@ AtomicSabotage:

Just wanted to say thanks for the fix... though I have yet to verify it at home- at least you are trying.
I've been proselytizing your post here and there... so I certainly hope it does work...

Antoher forum I think you might be interested in:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/alienware-m11x/526760-new-vegas.html

It's a forum for M11x users, and there is now a New Vegas thread. That DLL fix seems to have worked for abunch of people... but I am pretty sure they are all R1 (i.e. non-Optimus) folks. But I asked for clarification... we'll see.

Yep, no problem. I was really determined to get the game running well and I tried EVERYTHING possible. Hopefully Obsidian/Bethesda release a patch for this soon, though. I hate going through all this crap every time I want to start the game up.

For AtomicSabotage and others...

Given that we have more or less the same rigs and you have this up and running, I can actually ask these questions reasonably.

What settings are you using post-fix? High? Ultra? What are your AA and AIF settings?
Any setting-specific tweaks you recommend for better performance?

it does svck that we has to take xtra step every time we play, but good job again on figuring this out, i have been enjoying my game now

my rig isn't that impressive, i3 u 330 1.2ghz, win 7 64 bit, 4 gigs of ram, nvidia 310m. but i can run the game comfortably on high settings after this fix atomic hooked us up with

I have an ASUS laptop running an i5 M 450 (2.66Ghz), GeForce 335m 1GB, with 4 GB RAM. I can run the game now on high settings (no AA) and rarely drop below 40 FPS, even in a big combat situation.

Want to re-iterate that this does in fact work, but I don't want Obsidian/Bethesda to be left off the hook, yet. The main issue remains a problem.

Good work around, however.

Hi everyone,

I too can confirm that AtomicSabotage's fix does work for me. Kind of annoying to cycle through each time, but better than not playing.
Can't do Ultra settings though... and still drop to under 20 FPS at some points outside on Highish settings. My rig should be able to do better.

M11x R2 w/ Optimus
i5, 4GB RAM

And agree with previous poster. This is a temporary fix. Reeeaaalllly hope they patch this soon. Given the ridiculous # of people using the dll fix or some variant thereof (like us) you would think they would.

To all those who made it to work. Can you guys enable AA? Because I can't with this fix -_-

And Bethesda/Obsidian/nVidia or whatever should make a PROPER fix for this.