Hello, I installed FO3 yesterday. The problem I'm having is inconsistencies with smooth gameplay. It runs great for a few mins, then has horrible lag for a few mins. It will return to running smoothly for a few mins, then back to lagging, etc... Its enough to make the game only playable in very short doses. I've tried changing the graphic setting to the very lowest settings. I've updated my version of Windows Vista, and updated my graphic drivers. I don't know what else to do, and REALLY want to play this game.

Intel Core 2.13 gz processor, 2GB ram, Nvidia Geforce 9500 GT graphics card. Windows Vista 32bit. I know my system is older, but the game should run fine on low / med settings.

PLEASE HELP!

Thanks!

First two things to try are to disable the Gamepad and the Gamepad Rumble in the Options (you can also do this in the ini file)

Also, did you do the Mutlicore Tweaks in the ini files per the install guide? It's pinned at the top of this section, but that mostly stops you from crashing. The gamepad and rumble are the biggest culprits for sporadic lag.

Also, try Windowed Mode as that give better performance for half the people. If you are doing better, there is a mod that removes the border when in Windowed Mode (Fake Fullscreen)

Keep in mind that no matter what you do, you'll always have a certain amount of lag and stuttering from time to time. It's because of it being an open world game and the way textures need to be loaded from your hard drive every so often. Only a certain amount of textures can be used at any one time, after that the game will need to swap them out for new ones. That said, make sure you have no background process running while you play. That processor is barely good enough as is, it might even be below the minimum requirements, and it will get bogged down if you have anything else running at the same time. Same thing with your RAM. Vista is a bit of a hog when it comes to RAM usage, so you don't have much to spare when you're running the game. You might want to consider buying more if you can, it should make a difference.

I was able to find the setting for the gamepad rumble (in the Falloutprefs.ini file by switching the 1 to a 0) but I was unable to find a setting for the gamepad itself. Changing the one setting had no effect. I also tried the windowed way, with no effect... Bummer, thanks guys for the help anyhoo, if anything else comes to mind I'm all ears.

I am concidering getting a ram upgrade, or even saving up for a new pc altogether.

Thanks again

That would be your best bet frankly. Your current system is pretty much obsolete. Including your OS. Vista was not a very good system to begin with, and the computing world is moving towards 64 bit. There are games coming out, like Galactic Civilizations 3, that will require it.

I'd say your processor is definitely a choke point. And the intermittent lagging your describing sounds like a back ground process running. Although high population area's in the game are most definitely causing some of it also.

See what a clean boot and not connecting to the internet will get you in a performance upgrade.

Look in the Gameplay and or controller options in game, and try searching both the INI and Prefs files for the word game or pad if it is not in options. I can remember exactly where it is, and it is different in New Vegas and in Fallout 3.

Also try the game under a strict clean boot:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/929135