How to Get Fallout 3 to Work on Windows 10?

Fallout 3 is an open role-playing game released in 2008. A creation of Bethesda, the role-playing game can be played on multiple platforms. It’s a successful game of both its time and genre and has gained immense popularity since its release. More than a decade after its release in 2008, Fallout 3 is still a favorite among gamers. Owing to its huge success, a special edition of the game, known as Game of the Year, was released. To date, gamers still love the game, and it has graced many computer screens running various versions of the Windows operating system.

Although considered timeless, it’s also true that Fallout 3’s designers had old, clunky computers in mind as the platform to run the game. The game has compatibility problems with most of today’s operating systems and computers. However, people have found ways of running and playing Fallout 3 to work on Windows 10, the greatest and latest Windows operating system.

Although you can now install and launch Windows 10, you’ll likely experience several problems with the latest edition of Windows 10. One notable problem is that the game crashes immediately after you click on New when you want to start a new game. This happens right before playing the introduction scene.

Being a popular game, it can’t be taken lightly that Fallout 3 won’t work on the latest Windows computers. That’s why many ways and methods have been discovered and developed to enable the game to run on Windows 10. If you have encountered any problems playing and running Fallout 3 to work on the latest version of Windows 10, below are some of the solutions that you can opt for as you seek to resolve the problem.

First Solution: Running Fallout 3 as an Administrator

You will, in most cases, fix Fallout 3 problems when you have administrative privileges as you run the game. It’s pretty simple to run the game as an admin on Windows 10. Below are the steps you’ll follow as you launch and run Fallout 3 as an administrator.

1. Browse to the Fallout 3 folder in the Steam folder
2. Right-click on Fallout 3.exe
3. Choose Properties
4. Go to the Compatibility tab
5. Check the “Run this program as an admin” checkbox 
6. Click on Apply, and then on OK
7. Launch the game and see if your issues have been resolved

Second Solution: Running the Game in Compatibility Mode

The most common problems that Windows 10 users face as they try to run Fallout 3 on their machines have to do with compatibility. The main reason the game isn’t officially compatible with Windows 10, 8.1, and 8 is that it was released in 2008. These problems can cause the crashing of the game or the game to fail to run altogether. The good news is that you can solve compatibility problems by running the game in compatibility mode. To do so, you’ll go through the following steps.

1. Browse to the Fallout 3 folder in the Steam folder
2. Right-click on Fallout3.exe
3. Open Properties
4. Select Compatibility tab
5. Enable the game to play in compatibility mode
6. Open the dropdown menu and click on Windows operating system you’re running on your machine
7. Click on Apply, then on OK
8. You can now try to launch and run the game

Third Solution: Downloading and Installing Fallout 3 for Windows Live application

Fallout 3 will often require you to install the Games for Windows Live app on your Windows 10 machine for it to run successfully on it. The good news is that it’s quite simple to download and install the application on your computer. You’ll simply need to follow the following steps.

1. Download the application’s installer
2. Double-click on the installer to launch it
3. Follow the instructions on the screen and use the installation wizard
4. Once it’s been successful, and installed on your machine, launch it.
5. Games for Windows Live automatically download all the files you may need to run the game on your computer
6. After you have installed it, try launching the game and see whether you experience any problems.

Fourth Solution: Editing the Falloutprefs.ini file

You can also fix problems to do with launching and playing Fallout 3 on your Windows 10 computer by simply editing the game’s configuration file Falloutprefs.ini. You’ll simply follow the following steps.

1. Browse to the Fallout 3 folder
2. Locate the Falloutprefs.ini file in the folder
3. Open the Falloutprefs.ini file and open it in Notepad in a new instance
4. Locate bUseThreadedAI=0 in the contents of the FalloutPrefs.ini file and replace the 0 with a 1
5. Within the file, type iNumHWThreads=2 in a new line
6. Save the changes
7. You may now run and launch the game.

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