Help: giving Fallout 3 a second chance, but technical assistance required

[Sixcess]

Okay, I'm on record as a hater of FO3. I don't like the intro and I find the character animations disconcertingly strange, and my FPS tuned instincts rebel against the pause button combat of VATS.

Regardless of that I've never quite been able to shake the feeling that I should enjoy it. I like the post apoc genre, I love sandboxes, and, viewed neutrally, I won't deny the game is well designed. So a few days ago I reinstalled it, toughed out the opening sequence and... to my slight surprise, I'm rather enjoying wandering around the capitol wasteland, shooting feral ghouls in sewers and... erm... fleeing super mutants.

Only problem is... I have 2 PCs. One of them runs Vista and can handle the game - just - but it does slow up when things get busy and it's started freezing up and crashing... a lot. The other should be able to run it a lot better (it can run Crysis on high settings) but it runs on Win7 and apparently FO3 doesn't like Win7 very much, because it crashes constantly.

So... 2 questions:

1. Is it possible to port my save game from one PC to the other? If I can switch from playing on the older pc to the newer I don't really want to lose my 7 hours of progess. I presume the files are in there somewhere but where?

edit: found and transferred the save files

2. Is there a known fix for the Win7 incompatibility?

Any other advice on how to play this game without it crashing every 10 minutes would also be apreciated.

I'm running the original release of the game, not the GOTY edition, if that matters, and though I tried googling for an answer, it's probably no surprise that "Fallout 3 crashes" comes up with an almost unsearchable pile of results...

 

[Judgement101]

1. Yes, external hard drive.
2. Did you run in compatibiliy mode?

 

[Valagetti]

Hey, at least your not trying to run it on OS.

 

[Sixcess]

Does your Windows 7 PC have a multi-core processor?

Single.

"Intel Core i5 CPU M460 @ 2.53GHz."

 

[Sixcess]

1. Yes, external hard drive.
2. Did you run in compatibiliy mode?

*blows dust off the external hard drive*

Compatibility for Vista presumably? I'll give it a try.

 

[Judgement101]

1. Yes, external hard drive.
2. Did you run in compatibiliy mode?

*blows dust off the external hard drive*

Compatibility for Vista presumably? I'll give it a try.

Vista should work, if not try Windows MEXP

 

[Sixcess]

Vista should work, if not try Windows MEXP

Yup, according to Windows the 'recommended setting' is XP service pack 2, so I'll try that one first.

 

[Epic Fail 1977]

Does your Windows 7 PC have a multi-core processor?

Single.

"Intel Core i5 CPU M460 @ 2.53GHz."

That's the problem. Fallout 3 was made for a multi-core processor.

Good news: There's a fix for it in the settings

Bad news: I don't know exactly where in the settings the fix is

Isn't the i5-460M a dual core?

Edit 1:
Yep, it is. A real one (not a single core with HT).

Edit 2:
OP, have you done all the obvious stuff like Windows Update, drivers update, etc?

 

[Sixcess]

Isn't the i5-460M a dual core?

Edit 1:
Yep, it is. A real one (not a single core with HT).

Oops, my mistake.

(I'll be getting my membership of the PC Master Race club revoked if I keep doing things like that...)

Edit 2:
OP, have you done all the obvious stuff like Windows Update, drivers update, etc?

Yes, though I'll likely take another pass at it just to ensure it hasn't missed anything.

 

[BoogieManFL]

Fallout 3 crashed really bad for me after I installed a lot of mods, even when I loaded them in the right order. I started toggling them on/off one at a time and eventually got it pretty stable. If you don't use many mods.. Well, then I guess it's something else.

If I recall there is an option for hardware/software sound. I think it defaulted to Hardware which is supposed to be best, but setting it to software can help. This has been a way to fix crashing in Morrowind and Oblivion. Maybe it was in the INI file.. Worth a short.

Ensure you have fresh installations of your video/sound/chipset drivers, and an up to date DirectX. Reinstall the game clean if you haven't. Ensure it's patched.

Go to www.tweakguides.com and check out the Fallout 3 guide on the left.

If you have more than 2GB of RAM, look for the Fallout 3 3GB Enabler.

Check into unofficial patches and the like from www.fallout3nexus.com


Good luck.

 

[Epic Fail 1977]

Isn't the i5-460M a dual core?

Edit 1:
Yep, it is. A real one (not a single core with HT).

Oops, my mistake.

(I'll be getting my membership of the PC Master Race club revoked if I keep doing things like that...)

LOL

Well I don't have FO3 or Windows 7 so I can't help further, but good luck.