FO1 and 2 Graphics Glitch : Fallout Series Discussion

» Sun Aug 15, 2010 2:24 am

So my friend lent me the Fallout Collection for PC. FO1, 2, and Tactics, all on one disk.

I installed all three, and then tried to play them. Tactics works fine. But FO1 and 2 both have a weird glitch. All the colors are wonky. Everything is blue, green, purple, and other weird pixelated colors. Its impossible to see anything through all the rainbow splotches of color that cover the screen. I've seen it before in old games, but I don't know how to fix it... I'm on Vista, if that's important.

Anybody know how to fix it? Or should I just stick to Tactics? I don't know anything about Tactics, and I haven't heard much either. I'm not in a rush to play it if its not going to be any good... :shrug:

» Sat Aug 14, 2010 7:41 pm

From another thread:

They should really pin a thread dealing with this problem - there's a new one of someone asking this exact question every few days.

the last one that I know of is here

But in short try these things first:
1. set the compatibility mode of the game to 'Windows 95' (right click - options - compatibility tab)
2. set the game colors to 265 (same place)

And that should do it.
If it keeps happening press Alt+Tab twice (to switch to your desktop and back into the game - may need more times if you have other programs running)

» Sat Aug 14, 2010 6:48 pm

And that will only affect Fallout? It won't affect any of my other games or programs? :huh:

» Sun Aug 15, 2010 1:18 am

Yeah, it'll only affect Fallout.

» Sun Aug 15, 2010 8:25 am

This isn't as sure-fire as the other two prime methods, but I've also found that simply playing in windowed mode (as opposed to full-screen) tends to help me out a lot with some of these older games.

» Sun Aug 15, 2010 1:02 am

This isn't as sure-fire as the other two prime methods, but I've also found that simply playing in windowed mode (as opposed to full-screen) tends to help me out a lot with some of these older games.

Fallout doesn't have windowed mode though... But you can do it with some kind of wrapper.

The Killaps Patch adds a custom Ddraw.dll that Fallout 1 & 2 will use to enable Dx9 modes. It can fix the black screen, and other anomalies, but at terrible cost... The movies won't play properly and exhibit that corrupt pelleted pink & blue mess.

I wonder what GOG did to their FO release... It doesn't have any problems for me
(on a Geforce 7600GT).

» Sun Aug 15, 2010 5:45 am

Another possible fix...run it under Win95/98

» Sun Aug 15, 2010 7:26 am

Another possible fix...run it under Win95/98

Funny that, but Fallout does something weird. When I tried to run it in a VM with Win98, it was a total slideshow ~yet Homeworld (a 3D Space RTS) ran just fine in the same VM.

It'd definitely have to be real Win98 (or DOS if you have the original CD with the DOS executable).

» Sat Aug 14, 2010 11:19 pm

Fallout doesn't have windowed mode though... But you can do it with some kind of wrapper.

Oh yeah, I forgot about that...

I run a lot of those older games in DOSBox these days - I find that tends to help me out with a lot of the graphics glitches and whatnot. And also lets you play in windowed mode.

» Sat Aug 14, 2010 11:39 pm

I bought that compilation as well.

I have Vista.

I run the Fallout High-Def version, and I haven't had any problems (comes on the disk as an optional install)

For Fallout 2, the first time I ran it, the colors were weird, but I alt-tabbed to check something, and when I came back, the colors were fixed.

Since then, there haven't been any problems.

NOTE: I tried running Fallout 2 in compatibility mode and it just brought up an error message saying I was trying to run the game in compatibility mode, and it wouldn't work.