Okay, I recently bought Fallout 3 GOTY Edition from eBay, in new condition new, and I was wonderring how smoothly it would run on my PC and what quality is recommended.

PC:
OS: Windows XP Professional SP3
System Manufacturer: INTEL
System Model: D915GAG
Processor: Intel® Pentium® 4 CPU 3.00GHz (2 CPU's)
Memory: 1014mb RAM
DirectX Version: DirectX 9.0c

Graphics:
Video Card: NVIDIA Geforce 8400GS
Bracket: High Profile
Approx. Total Memory: 256mb
Bus Interface: PCI Express x16
Full Microsoft DirectX 10 Shader Model 4.0 support


I am also using a CTR monitor with a maximum of 1280 x 1024 screen resolution and a minimum of 800 x 400. I do believe it can go on the smallest screen resolution for FO3, not entirely sure though (512 x 384 I think).

Fell free to ask me for any other specs.

Thanks,
Jaime.

not with less then a gig of memory.. thats for sure. I'll check back lter on my
answer.. cause at the moment i'm drunker then hell.

Not very good, that's a pretty weak card. And you're going to get alot of stuttering with only 256 video RAM. You should have at least 512 these days. You'll probably have to set things to low, maybe medium at best, to get any decent performance out of it.

Is there anyway to upgrade my video card without buying a new one?

yes that is a weak card, and the only way to upgrade it is to buy a new one, you can try to tweak a little (but i doubt if this will work) try to update all drivers, minimize the resolution and take the lowest possible settings, anyway if you install fallout 3 in your pc and tried to run it, it will indicate if you can run the game or not.

if you are contented with low res and low settings then no upgrade is required.

in my opinion, at least 8800gt will do, and also your ram count is low (er i think that is enough i see you are in win XP)

No, there's no removable parts you can simply replace. You'll have to get a whole new card. If you can manage to get the money together you're due for an upgrade anyway, that card is now several generations behind current technology. You should have at least something in the NVidia 400 line. Those are the first of the DirectX 11 cards while yours is only 10, which won't be used for games any more.

I thought dx 10 & 11 are incompatible with Win Xp. it only reconizes dx9.
also, as others have said.. 256 is not enough. 512mb minimum is what
you need. so... if your not going to vista or win7, then save yourself a few
bucks & get the best card you can for dx9 & winXp.. if its still avialable.

Yes that's true. But if he upgrades his OS in the future, he'll already have a video card that can deal with DirectX 11. There's no point in spending money on a technology that will soon be obsolete. A DirectX 11 card isn't going to cost all that much more than one that's only DirectX 9 capable, and it will be backwards compatible so he can still use it with his XP OS.

So everything else will run it decently, just not the video card?

it depends, if you will stick with your current OS (winXP) then just look for the best or economy card that has decent shaders so the game will run decently.

The thing is this, vista supports dx10 and win7 has dx11. its up to you if you want to upgrade the OS now and the gpu now, or the gpu now and the OS later.

It just depends on what OS you will preferably use from hereon.

I'm not that inclined with technology. I know a bit, just not more technical things. What is the GPU and how do I upgrade & I'm 14 so I can't afford a new OS easily, I prefer XP Proffesional though. XP Professional is a lot better than XP Home edition/normal XP.

I just searched for some more updated drivers on the nVidia site. There is a new driver to improve performance in Fallout 3 and other PC games.

That's not going to make any difference, your card is simply weak. A new driver is not going to improve your performance enough for it to do a good job with Fallout 3. As for your previous question, GPU is just another way of saying your video card, it stands for Graphics Processing Unit. And the only way to upgrade it is to get a new card. For Fallout 3 you should have at least an 8800 of some sort, the 8400 is just not very powerful. It's at the very bottom of that series and while it will run the game, it won't do it all that well. Especially with only 256 VRAM. As for your OS, eventually you won't have any choice about it, Microsoft is planning on stopping support for XP so you'll need to go with a newer OS at some point. It will be awhile yet so you don't have to worry about right now, but it will happen.

Would overclocking my Video Card help? I've heard the shaders go up a lot.

you heard wrong. you need a new card. also, the 1gb of ram isn't doing you any favors too. 2gb
will run the game smartly along with the new gpu.

As said before, I'm 14. I can't get the money easily and I'm not truly willing to spend my earned money on a video card. I bought the 8400 which was only $30. No, my parents won't do it.

gpu is the graphics processing unit, which is your video card, gpu is the heart of gaming, so your gaming details will primarily depend in your gpu, next are you cpu and ram.

When it comes to computer gear, you get what you pay for. If you're only willing to hand out a few dollars here and there, you're going to end up with a crappy system that can't run most things very well. You have to be prepared to spend a little money if you want a half decent gaming rig. It's either that or forget about playing computer games, there's no such thing as a half way solution. Next time you want to spend on something computer related, you should do a bit of research first before you end up wasting your money.

If I were to overclock my graphics card, what would help Fallout 3 run better (however slight it helps)? The Core Clock, Shader Clock or Memory Clock or all 3/combination of 2?

personally i think OCing that card also has its limits, you can full throttle that card but in my experience i doubt that it will make any difference, or if it does maybe marginal gain.

It's better than nothing. Any other ways I could improve performance(however small)? Not neccessarily the graphics but the gameplay in general.
Also, would texture mods change anything for my graphic standards?

I also wanted to know how much a lower screen resolution would affect FO3.

Quite a bit, you'll get alot better performance if you lower your resolution. You might be able to get some decent performance if you lowered it to 800 X 600 in fact. But it will look like crap setting it that low. As for textures, I don't believe anyone has made anything that reduces them, there's only ones that will increase your video card load. And regarding the overclocking, keep in mind that by doing that you run the risk of burning out your card. They weren't designed to be overclocked and doing so puts more strain on them. If you push it too far, you will most likely damage it. The improvement you'll get by OCing won't be that drastic either, especially with only the 256 VRAM. I don't think it will be worth the risk of ruining your video card completely myself.

due to the weak nature of that card it is usually impractical to stress it by OCing. and also what was stated it is important to know what limits your gpu has, or else if you stress it to its limits then it may affect the gpu physically. you may OC the gpu clocks but the thing is the shader count implements the raw graphics your game gives in. sadly you cannot change the shaders offered by the gpu, OC only gives you a marginal speed with a risk of overheating and stressing your card and in the long run may even damage it.

so my advice is if you want to stick with your card, run the most economical settings your game can do, personally speaking the lower setting the safer, check the resolution, graphic details as playable as possible.

Agreed. It's really not a good idea to be overclocking computer hardware, especially if you don't know what you're doing. Each component was designed for a specific performance environment and changing that can cause damage to the component. At best you will shorten it's life over the long run, at worst you can burn it out completely. And if you don't know what to watch out for as far as warning signs are concerned, then you're much more likely to ruin your card.