I bought this game legitimately, played it on a low-end system for over a month just fine. Bought an ASUS CG5275, wouldn't play it on that one. Took it back because i didn't entirely trust the brand and bought a Dell. ITS DOING THE SAME THING! You install the game, click on "new" and then "yes" and WHAM! It goes to a black screen and says Fallout 3 has stopped working. I scoured the internet for two days and there are a million possible fixes to this problem, none of which work. The thing is, mine is not an isolated issue. Bethesda, there are so many of your customers out there that have legitametly purchased a product from you that they can't use! Should i have to scour the internet, trying to tweak my entire system to try to get it to work, or should you release a patch that will fix the problem with a simple download?

It would help if we knew your specs, please post a dxdiag.

edit: However, something close to ninety percent of New Game crash threads involve the user trying to run the game on inadequete hardware, ie: An Intel Chipset. In fact, three threads on the first page are users who didn't check the requirements before buying.

Take note, if that new Dell of yours has an Intel Chipset, you won't be running the game anytime soon. An Intel Chipset lacks the capabilities needed to run the game AND Bethesda -in fact, any games company- will never spend time and resources going back to an already released game and handicapping it to run on hardware below the minimum.

Usually a sign of insufficient hardware. Post a Dxdiag.

XP: Go to Start->run, type "dxdiag" and hit enter. Click the Save All Information button near the bottom right. This will save a Dxdiag.txt in C:\ by default. Then open the dxdiag.txt and copy/paste the information into your post.

VISTA/Windows 7: Go to Start->Search, type "dxdiag" and hit enter, click the Save All Information button near the bottom right. This will save a Dxdiag.txt in C:\ by default. Then open the dxdiag.txt and copy/paste the information into your post.

Googled it and found it has a GTX260 and either an i5 or i3 processor.couldnt find a full list of specs though.

An Asus video card? Do you have Asus's GamerOSD or Smartdoctor installed? Better uninstall those because the game can have serious issues with those overclocking tools.

Well loyal customers, here you go. After sending my specs to "tech support", this is the answer i get. I will never buy another product from bethesda:


Our products were developed and released before Windows 7. We cannot guarantee the operation or functionality of the product in a new operating system. We have no information on if updates are planned for the product to include Windows 7 support. Windows 7 does have compatibility modes available for older programs, but there is no guarantee that will work for all products.

Please refer Windows 7 Help on how to run a program in compatibility mode.

Your customer number is 400391027
Please refer to case #:: 400963618 if you have any further questions.

If you need further assistance, you can also reach us online at http://support.gamesas.com or our technical support staff at (410)-568-3685. Please include all previous replies when/if responding to this message.

Best Regards,
Cesar R. at Bethesda Softworks Technical Support

A lot of people here have Fallout 3 running perfectly on Windows 7. But as the response says, Fallout 3 was developed before Win7 was released so some issues should be expected.

However I repeat. please post a dxdiag.

Follow the instructions in Starforce9's post.


Without it, we can't help diagnose a problem, nor do we know if you even meet the requirements to play the game regardless of you Windows version.

New Dell here running Windows 7. Was finally able to get the game to load after tracking down a windows live patch but can not get beyond the point when I hit, "new game". I have tried running compatability mode for both XP service Pack 2 and Vista and it still crashes. I would love to hear from someone who is running windoiws 7 and has the game up and running.

@Blizzard36
and
@cupofjoe63
Please make new threads and post your dxdiag there, helping out several people in the same thread gets really confusing for everyone.

To put things bluntly, no, something will not be done. Bethesda does not give a flying [censored] about its customers or their compatibility issues, period. The onus for fixing bugs always falls on the community and the hardware companies like AMD and NVIDIA.

1. Bethesda is done with Fallout 3, period-the-end. As soon as the original release + 1-2 "patches" were released, they shifted focus solely to DLC production. Once that was complete they moved on to other games.

2. How the heck does Fallout 3 get to be "Games for Windows" branded when Bethesda refuses to support Windows 7 users? I wonder what Microsoft would have to say about that.

The game works fine on Windows 7. The hardware is more important then the software.

should they also give tech support to users trying to run the game on win98? (no need to answer)
game was developed during the XP/Vista era, so i would imagine you'd get tech support for that.
like others have said.. it boils down to

1. users of the game (setting the game to graphics to ultra when it should be set to medium etc.)
2. hardware (they don't read the packaging to see if there system meets the minimum requirments)

even if it does barely meet the min. stds... why would they expect the game to run near perfect?
anyways thats my nickle.

I split out the post from the poster who actually did post his dxdiag in the hope that someone can review it for him. Beyond that, i am closing the thread as the OP has not come back to actually provide details so that he could possibly get some help for his issue.