It happens everytime that I power up the game, right after the birth scene the game freezes,
I downloaded the game from steam,
suggestions on how to fix it?

Open up the .ini file located in My Documents>My Games>Fallout 3. *Do not alter the one in the actual game directory labeled Fallout_Default_ini*
In the FALLOUT.ini find the line

bUseThreadedAI=0
change the 0 to a 1

then below it add the line

iNumHWThreads=2

I tried this and the problem persists as well (after birth). here's my system info if it helps. The game does the same thing when the enclave captures me at vault 87 in my previous game from several years ago.

Nvidia XFX MOBO
2 nvidia 7300 cards SLI
3 gigs of ram
XP - 32 bit
Pentium D

should be noted that I have done all driver updates and installed the most recent patch for the game.

I have just had the same problem after trying to install the 1.07 patch, downloaded latest games for windows live and tried the fix with the ini file and it worked.

The Gefore 7300 is now quite elderly, was not a game card when new (almost five years ago), was not good enough for Oblivion when new, and putting two of them together with SLI won't gain enough on the game's minimum to allow the game to run.

" * Direct X 9.0c compliant video card with 256MB RAM
(NVIDIA 6800 "GS" or better/ ATI X850 or better) "

Look up the benchmarks. Sorry to rain on your parade.

Thanks for the input, I realize the cards are dated but they used to run the game just fine, any recommendations on what economical cards i can get to run this game will still keeping my 3 monitor capability?