When Fallout 4 was announced on Jun 2nd, I was hoping that Bethesda would do much like when they announced Skyrim and the game would be coming later this year. Lucky for me (and everyone!), I was right. But even then, I figured it wouldn’t be announced at E3 that it was available then (but what a way to drop the mic at the end of the Bethesda presentation if they did that) and I needed to get my Fallout fix a little earlier. I remembered I still have my original disc when I bought the game.
Wow, remember when Microsoft was making the big “Games for Windows” push… but anyways, I’m lazy and bought Fallout 3: Game of the Year Edition on Steam which includes all the add-ons. I installed the game, hit play, and then… nothing.
Which is when it dawned on me – Fallout 3 was released back in 2008. Back when I was still on Windows XP (because, let’s face it, I was not a fan of Windows Vista). We’ve had Win7, 8, and 8.1 release since then so a game made for an old OS is bound to have a few issues. Luckily, I found a great post in the Steam Community by BenWah that helped me out: ULTIMATE Fallout 3 Setup Guide READ THIS!.
His post goes into a lot great detail but if you’re on Windows 8.1, these are the steps I took:
- First, I updated for Games for Windows.
- Then I installed the Unofficial Fallout 3 Patch by BenWah and Hairylegs.
While this got my game up and running, I noticed I’d get this weird issue where my game would randomly minimize and I couldn’t get it back without forcing the task to stop and reloading. Which is a pain. But again, modders to the rescue! I found Fake Fullscreen Mode Windowed – Alt Tab Fix by BUDA20 that works like a dream.
Now I’m back into Fallout 3 and will do a playthrough while I eagerly (OH SO EAGERLY) await Fallout 4. Or you could take the easy route like CiraCorellia and play it on a console… but seriously, #PCMasterRace. You can do so much more on the PC, even get a high res mod!
