I am playing Fallout 3 GOTY edition for pc.
It crashes about 5 seconds after loading.
ive tried the .ini patch, the patch on the site, downloaded several things, driver update, uninstall, everything. I also went through every single file on the disk and selected compatibility mode, Vista Service Pack 3
I am only using the first disk (tried second but it crashed too)
Here are my specs-
Dell Inspiron N7110
Intel Core i7-2630QM CPU @ 2GHz
8.00 GB of RAM
650 GB hard drive
Windows 7 Home Premium Service Pack 1
64-Bit operating system


After i click new game it crashes and says "Fallout has stopped working."

If you do not have a proper AMD or nVIDIA graphics card, designed to play games on, you can forget about Fallout 3.

Minimum System Requirements:

* Windows XP/Vista
* 1GB System RAM (XP)/ 2GB System RAM (Vista)
* 2.4 Ghz Intel Pentium 4 or equivalent processor
* Direct X 9.0c compliant video card with 256MB RAM
(NVIDIA 6800 "GS" or better/ ATI X850 or better)
{Added my note here, the X800 Pro & up also, and
avoid the Geforce 6800 SE, and 6800 XT}
* 4.6 GBs of free hard drive space

how do i see what graphics card i have? the guy at best buy said it was good for games because it has "dedicated graphics"?

Left click start, all programs, accessories, system tools, system information, components, display. This will show that you have an onboard HP graphics chip which probably will not run Fallout3. I think the guy at Best Buy gave you poor information (imagine that). However, if you read through the forums under trouble shooting, you may find a solution to your problem.

it says..... Intel HD Graphics Family?

The reason your game is crashing and you get a message that fallout 3 has stopped working is that the onboard graphics chip is not up to the task of running the graphics in fallout 3. I'm sorry, but unless someone can come up with a solution, you won't be able to run Fallout3 on your laptop.

so a brand new computer isnt good enough to run an older game that i ran on an old vista?

well my old laptop that the screen broke on had an AMD graphics card. is that better then the one in my new laptop? and if so, could i switch them out? im not sure how to do that and i dont want to mess up my laptop but if it has a better card i could take it out.

Newness is totally meaningless. Component choices are what count. But unless you have an older laptop, one that cost a ton, you can't easily access its internals. Trying to do so just destroys either the chassis or mainboard, and can ruin both. But when there was no real separate circuit board for graphics, the place a card belongs literally disappears during final assembly, when the main parts are welded together.

Cheap PCs have low prices because they do not have high quality parts. When they do have discrete graphics cards included, those are often hardly any better than the onboard chipset video. Gaming video graphics are not that large of an additional cost, but must be specified for each laptop order, unlike a desktop, which can be easily upgraded later.

There are a variety of system inventory type programs, if the usual Windows tools defeat you, and GPUz isn't enough of a help. One of them is "Everest Home", and you can get a free version from Major Geeks.

So is there any way at all I can get Fallout to run? even if on the lowest settings possible?

The above remains accurate, with the addition to the word "run" of the word "correctly". We do not want to encourage anyone to run the game more poorly than the way that Bethesda designed it to run. If you are satisfied with really ugly graphics and relatively slow animations, various work-arounds almost surely do exist. We just don't see the value to the community of our wasting any time looking for them for you.

Okay I have the same issue, I'm not trying to run the game on a laptop, I'm trying to run it on a custom built desktop, other games like Rage, All Half Life 2 Mods and the Episodes, Bioshock 2, Crysis 2 etc run fine, the only problem games I have at the moment a Fallout 3 and New Vegas and those two titles for some strange reason only after upgrading my old 17 inch CRT monitor for a brand spankin new 27 inch LED monitor (now that's prolly just a coincidence)

I've since replaced my 2 SLI linked 512Mb Nvidia cards set up for a 1Gb Nvidia GTX550Ti card solution and then went to the extreme of trying deleting the Fallout.ini file in hopes that would fix it, nada, no joy
I've also updated my video drivers to version 267.85

current rig consists of the following:

1Gb Nvidia GTX550Ti graphics card
3.0 Ghz intel P4 Dual core 6Mb L2 cache cpu
2 Sata Hdds 1 500 Gb sata 2, 1 2Tb Sata 2
8Gb DDR2 800Mhz ram in dual mode format
Gigabyte Mainboard GA EP35-DS3P Supporting SLI/Xfire cards
Windows 7 Ultimate 64 bit
DirectX 11

The only other thing I can think of is the updated Nvidia drivers, makes RAGE run better but maybe making invalid command function calls in Fallout 3 and New Vegas? and if so, is there a patch for those two games to fix this?

Or perhaps those two games don't like the widescreen format? but even trying to run them in a standard 4:3 format, they still crash

any thoughts would be gratefully appreciated

If your game is installed in the default location in your program files, you will have a problem running the game due to interference from the UAC.
Uninstall the game and re-install it in a location outside of your program files. When the game starts to install, you come to a screen where it asks if you want a default install or custom install. Choose the custom install and type in the path to where you wish the game to install. I have my game installed directly on the hard drive and the path is C:\Bethesda Softworks\Fallout 3. You just have to point the install program to a location on your hard drive for the installation.
The program will create the folder Bethesda Softworks.