Ughhh... so frustrated...

Bought Fallout 3, played it on my old PC (now dead) with beta copy of windows 7, worked fine. Got new PC with i5, Windows 7 64 bit and ATI HD 5 series graphics and it just keeps crashing as I am trying to start a new game. I get born, then I get stuck! Sound keeps going but it will randomly just freeze at some point during the "born" scene. Tried installing the latest patches from Bethesda and ATI, no good. Done every fix, patch and file mod I can fined on the internet, still no joy. Tried running with Vista and XP privileges, nothing.

Not really sure what anyone can do to help, apart from maybe offering me a refund!?! Long gone are the days of buying a game and if your PC matched the specification on the side of the box, it would work!!

In the basis that -as you say- it worked fine on your old computer, how exactly would you argue that you deserve a refund?

Obviously the issue is with your new system.

Tried the Quad Core Fix?

Yes I have tried defining only 2 Cores. Still crashes.

The reason why I want a refund is because the game should work on any system without the user having to directly update file info . If there is a fault with the code a patch should be released and auto downloaded.

Got past the baby section now and I am 10, but still crashes randomly so cant get past being 10. Anyone else got any ideas?

The issue is Intel's Core i CPUs, and not just Windows 7. Windows 7 is, however, officially unsupported. And again, asking for a refund when it worked on your old system is kind of silly. I have a lot of old games that do not work properly with newer hardware and this isn't even the most recent one. The other is GTA4 which was released 'optimized' to be the best on future hardware only to fail when it came along. Its annoying that FO3 froze occasionally and sometimes CTD, but I still was able to log over 100 playing the game. I've given up on any sort of new technology ever 'just working' because nothing does these days. If I asked for a refund for all the things I bought that had issues, the only thing I would have left is my dog because she works as expected

Why do people just accept that something they have bought does not work? It is mad! You would not pay for a DVD that only plays bits of a film at a time or a new car that only works when it feels like it. Yet every forum I read is full of people who just accept that they have to go to extra ordinary lengths to make a game work that should, just work out of the box. Yes I know there are differences between DVDs, Cars and computer games but it is the principal. Its not like processors with more than one core are a new emerging technology, they have been around for ages. And the expansions they brought out were after win 7 had been launched, so there must have been some testing and patching done. Ughhhhhhh :banghead:

The long and short of it is that I am not a happy bunny and wont be buying any more Bethesda games again. There, my dummy has officially been spat out :meh:

Why wouldn't you accept that the game is incompatible? You have to understand that Bethesda started working on Fallout 3 in 2004; three years before Vista was released. Intel's first quad core processor also came out in 2007. So, with a release date already planned, and with all the work that was already put into the game, it would be simply illogical to redo the engine to be completely compatible with a brand-new, unstable operating system, and new technology that in fact had not been "out for ages". Additionally it would take too much time and resources to redo the game engine (in orderto make it compatible) after the game had been released. If they redid it for PC, they would have to do the same for the console versions, which is definitely not an option.

With all that being said, it is highly irrational and ignorant to hold a grudge against Bethesda and refuse to buy any of their future products, just because you had this one bad experience...

EDIT: For me, the game worked on my quad-core desktop running a 64bit version of Windows 7, but not my dual-core 64 bit Windows 7 laptop. The game seems to be picky about which computers it does and doesn't like.