Fallout 3 is Suddenly One of The Best-Looking Games on Earth

Kotaku - Fallout 3 was released in 2008. In that time, all kinds of gorgeous video games have come and gone, including Bethesda's own Skyrim. But you wouldn't tell by looking at these screens. You'd think they were for Fallout 4, a thing I'm pretty sure doesn't even exist yet.

[NukaCola]

Looking forward to Fallout 4. I enjoy their games...even with all the issues. I love the new enhanced Skyrim screen recently too. So much light and color. Gorgeous.

I do wish since Bethesda owns idTech5 now, that FO4 would use that engine. It's so fluid and gorgeous.

[WeskerChildReborned]

Agreed, i spent hours on both Fallout 3 and NV and i wouldn't mind doing it again.

[Eyeco]

i've beaten Fallout 3 something like 3-4 times i think ive put in about 200 hours in that game, i love theme, characters, story and especially the music

[MidnytRain]

I think FO3 is way more fun and interesting than Skyrim. The fictitious history intertwined with real history, landmarks and unique sites, the karma system, ammo, the weapon variety, and stats. It was all just so much more deeper and engrossing. I haven't even finished Skyrim... I too am anxious for Fallout 4.

[brodychet]

completely agree. FO3 was my favorite Bethesda game.

[chazjamie]

all these pics did was remind me how much i loved fallout 3

[kamakaz3md]

fallout 3 and NV are my 2nd fav games, gta 4 always 1st... but i cant wait for 4 either...

[NegativeCreepWA]

I love Bethesda games, people always complain about the glitches, but really no other company has ever been able to make games like theirs with less glitches. I've put over 200 hrs into each of their games starting with Morrowind, thats over a 1,000 hrs. I don't know about you guys but I cant say that about any other developer.

[josephayal]

178 hours
and the best game ever made

[Nocturne147]

Really, 178 hours of playing ?

[Eiffel]

Only 178 hours? I clocked in around 300 something after I did everything. Of course I never fast traveled.

[Hellsvacancy]

I never liked fast traveling either

[gaffyh]

It's just stupid to walk to a place when you can fast travel to it, that's the whole point of fast travel!

[Eiffel]

Not exactly stupid. You miss quite a lot of random encounters when you fast travel location to location. Not to mention you miss finding new locations you may have passed before or wouldn't have found other wise.

[tommygunzII]

They should get rid of fast travel. In most cases you should only be able to fast travel from designated locations, from city to city like early Morrowind. Another thing from Morrowind that would be great is the cost of AP just to run. Something about running for miles seems a little off.

[jivah]

Really.only 300 I have close to 900.......without new Vegas

[bigtrucknd]

I have over 1 billion hours into Fallout 3.

[Nikhil]

Only 300? I clocked in 301.

[Trenta27]

Yeah, mine was 330 last time I checked.

[ThanatosDMC]

I clocked about 300+ too with FO3 but only spent 70+ hours on New Vegas till i stopped playing it.

I was a walking tank.

[acquanemesisX]

I pumped 300 hours into Fallout 3 in one playthrough, 100 on a second for achievements and now i've got 200 hours on my third playthrough with mods so far (I still play it!)

And I got a mod which disables fast travel and a mod which adds new creatures so I get plenty of interesting encounters ;)

[Dakidog]

Lol I only walked when got too heavy and refused to drop a thing! I became quite the alcoholic XD

Otherwise Fast travel it was...I had enough encounters every time I came out a damn subway! I used that perk of seeing all locations to find shit i may have missed.

[segamon]

i clocked that number in Dark Souls.

[Bob Dole]

Bob Dole has over 9000 hours in Fallout 3.

[Nikhil]

hardly the best game ever made

[ChrisW]

Too bad all of the screen shots are sun glare and/or shadowy low-res pics... I really wish people would post better pics to show off a mod!

[Organization XII]

'You can check out nice, hi-res versions of the images at the link below. Which you definitely should. Especially if give half a damn about desktop wallpaper."

[NastyLeftHook0]

what a great series fallout is.

[R_aVe_N]

It is a great series I do prefer Fallout 1 and 2 over both Fallout 3 and New Vegas, but still love the world it is created in.

[tommygunzII]

Fallout 1 is one of the best games you will play. I wish FO3 and NV were as hardcore as the first.
In FO3 people ask you nicely to put your gun away, in FO1 they will shoot your *** if you dont do it right away. You can borrow money from loan sharks too :)

[TheOneWhoKnocks]

definately one of my top 5 games this gen

[pumpactionpimp]

I enjoyed fallout 3 so much I just bought, new vegas in spite of the criticism's I have heard. But this makes me want to go back to fallout 3 again.

[R_aVe_N]

New Vegas imo was not any worse than Fallout 3 both where equally as buggy I think I actually had more problems with 3 than I did New Vegas mainly due to loosing game saves to curruption.

[DanielBryan]

Fallout 3 is my favourite Bethesda game.Don't know why but I couldn't get into New Vegas at all.The missions were kinda boring.

[Psychotica]

My wife and I both loved Fallout 3 but neither one of us like New Vegas. Something boring about it..

[jrbeerman11]

You should try to give it another chance, it really is a great game. The mission structure is quite good once you get into the game a little bit more. I loved the ones revolving around the different gangs. Especially the white glove society.

[Megaton]

Loved Fallout 3, loved New Vegas. I just recently started a new save in New Vegas, reaching over 140 hours.

[MySwordIsHeavenly]

I still can't get this stupid game running on my laptop. It's not very Windows 7 friendly. I've tried EVERY solution out there. I need help. :/

[markoghc]

Perhaps it's not friendly to your laptop's hardware. Fallout 3 and New Vegas were running on windows 7 just fine.

[MySwordIsHeavenly]

There's a disclaimer on Steam that Fallout 3 may not work on Windows 7. It happens to almost every Windows 7 user....

https://www.google.com/webh...

[Mainsqueeze]

I run this game on windows 7 perfectly and so do alot of other people i know so i doubt it happens to almost every windows 7 user lol prob less than 10%.

[rhcpfan]

Not Windows 7 friendly.... Wtf?

[iagainsti120]

maybe you have a shity laptop

[MySwordIsHeavenly]

Yeah. You're probably right.

http://www.ibuypower.com/St...

Troll somewhere else, ya jerk.

[Irishguy95]

What is wrong specifically? If I can help I will try

[MySwordIsHeavenly]

When I start a new game, it crashes. This is a very common problem with Windows 7 users trying to play Fallout 3, oddly enough. I just cant seem to get it working.

[Rubberlegs]

For me it was because of Steam. It would crash for me sometimes when starting it up but that's only when I'd launch it through Steam. I ended up using the its exe to launch the game and I never had anymore crashes.

[Irishguy95]

Try this?

http://www.youtube.com/watc...

[tommygunzII]

I had to activate FO3 with GFWL to get achievements. Maybe that is related to your problem. The web page doesnt work as well as the app.

Edit: I bought mine on Steam

[MySwordIsHeavenly]

Thank you for the response. I did activate it on GFWL, however. :)

[limewax]

google something along the lines of fallout 3 crash instantly. Somewhere there is a thread on steam that solves the issue, I can't remember where but I had the same problem about a year ago.

[mynameisEvil]

The problem is most likely your processor. Most problems arise because the game doesn't work to work is there's more than a single core. Deactivate the other three cores, restart computer, then see if it works.

PM me if it doesn't. Or even if it does.

[jrbeerman11]

youtube "Gopher". in his fallout 3 mod series he gives a solution to people who have multi core operating systems (which most are windows 7 now)

Theres an INI tweak, as well as a mod or patch allowing the game to use more ram as well.

he also gives tips to help other performance such as stutter removers or making the game look better.

Gopher is a great channel to subscribe to if you like to play bethesda games on pc.

[adorie]

this. old news, old fix. I am surprised more people on this site don't know how to fix the game. +1 for you though.

http://modsreloaded.com/fo3...

http://wiki.tesnexus.com/in...

http://www.tweakguides.com/...

[Megaton]

Ran fine on my Win 7 64-bit, but I've heard of people having trouble. I think I installed something beforehand to make it only use 2 of my 4 CPU cores, because I had heard there were issues with quads.

[acquanemesisX]

If you have a multicore processor then go to your
FALLOUT.INI file in your "My Games" folder find the
bUseThreadedAI=0

change it to:
bUseThreadedAI=1

Add under it:
iNumHWThreads=2

It should be:
bUseThreadedAI=1
iNumHWThreads=2

It should be working then. It worked on me.

[seanpitt23]

Imagine fallout 4 on next gen set in our time after an nuclear apocalypse.

[jrbeerman11]

I would like it, but all the fallouts have that retro tone to them, its part of its identity. Alot of hardcore fans would hate changing that.

funny how this game has a setting that feels like the past and the future at the same time.

[PirateThom]

It's because they never discovered the microchip in the Fallout world, so it's in the future, but technology is still based on valves and tubes. Quite jarring, but it works well in context.

[R_aVe_N]

That would move away from the identity of what Fallout is all about to begin with in my opinion. We have enough games that represent modern apocalypse. Fallout needs to stay at the way it is.

[acquanemesisX]

I like how Fallout got that 1950s style mixed with a bit of future techonology which makes it very unique. Changing that would cause controversy with the hardcore fans.

[Gorbenshore]

Amazing screenshots.

[Tetsujin]

Oh its a Kotaku article? Never mind I will not click on the link.

OT
Fallout 3 is one reason why I still hold "some" faith in FPS games; Borderlands being second.

[theWB27]

I still have yet to play this game...almost picked it up last week but decided against it. With no real reason why...

[Khronikos]

LOFL this game has had NMC textures for a couple years. Get real. These ENB tweaks are basically nothing for this game. Already supports forced SSAO from Nvidia panel. With High res textures game is ridiculous and New Vegas even better.

Maybe a bit better lighting big whoopity. No, this engine better not be Fallout 4. These articles are so much hype and no one cares. GTA4 is really the only big game that has benefited a lot from these tweaks and not everyone even likes them without having to manually tweak their own files for hours on end.

[Klonopin]

I never cared for RPG games until Fallout 3 came along.

[blackhammer]

I wish they wouldn't use the same engine as Skyrim for the next one. It lacks quite a few things that make an engine great. It's good, but not great.

Mods save the day, every time.

[T3MPL3TON]

This is actually pretty old news.

I'm not seeing why people are saying FO3 runs bad on Win7 it runs perfectly. In fact, I've had less crashes while using Win7 than I did with XP/Vista. If you're having issues it's your PC not the game.