Hi I just recently purchased Fallout 3 GOTY Edition on steam. Everything goes fine till after the game loads and just freezes. I put graphic settings the lowest they go, didn't really help. I also tried running the game in every compatibility, it just does the same thing. I was able to get to right before the G.O.A.T. but it just freezes within seconds. I have windows 7 Pro with 4 gigs ddr3 ram and a Geforce 330m gt with 512mb gddr3 with a core i5 at 2.93ghz and a Seagate 7200 ssd hybrid. I've tried a bunch but just can't figure it out. Any ideas?

You have a CPU with 4 threads, try the quadcore fix. It usually fixes the freezing.
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

Hell yeah man! thanks it runs perfect with no freezing. Thanks for the fix!

No problem, glad it worked, its generally what causes the freezing.

hi i need help same issue i followed the steps until the last my folder isn't labeled FALLOUT.ini there are ones labeled fallout and fallout prefs

The .ini file is the configuration setting file named FALLOUT ...yes...the one you just mentioned.

i tried that and when i try to save it says access denied
how do i get around that?

Hmm...perhaps the file is set to Read-Only? If so, right click on it and go to Properties...then uncheck the Read-Only box if it happens to be checked.

...and do you have administrative rights in your Windows user account?