Fallout 3: Game of the Year Edition Forum

I finally managed to get Fallout 3 GOTY over Steam working in Crossover 11.3.1, following "CX Games 9/10 Alternate How-to" Tips & Tricks, and installing .NET 2.0 and .NET 2.0 Service Packs 1 and 2 instead of .NET 3.0, as well as using the multi-core processor tip in "CXgames 9 How To: for before CXGames 9.1."

HOWEVER, once I upgraded to Crossover to Version 12, the game would crash (freeze) regularly, after no more than five minutes of play. Downgrading back to 11.3.1 fixed the problem.

You can have CX 11 and 12 installed side by side. Use the deb/rpm for one of them and the installer for the other one. Interesting results though. For me, this game crashes on Windows 7. Less frequently, even after trying to fix it by editing some .ini file options. Still unplayable and Bethesda refuse to fix it.

deb/rpm?

I assumed you were using linux :) Ask the support ninjas if two versions of CX can be installed and used side by side on Mac OS (if that is what you are using)

I foolishly deleted my deb for 11.3.1 when I upgraded to 12. Where can I get the older .deb?

Also, original poster, any chance you've got the exact process you used written down? I'm hoping for something more specific than "I did the tips on this page and then the tips on that page and some other stuff", ideally.

I'm almost to the point of buying a computer from Goodwill that has only two cores and then running the game there.

Jack.

I don't know what a deb is. Sounds like a linux thing; I'm on a Mac.

Here are the steps I followed to get Fallout 3 GOTY Steam working well. Note: I followed most of these steps blindly, and don't know what they do or if they're necessary. BUT Fallout did not install until I installed .NET Framework 2.0 (I did both Service Packs before I tried again, so don't know if they're needed), and it would not launch until I copied msasn1.dll over. Also, modifying Fallout_default.ini as described seemed to improve performance measurably on my Core 2 Duo.

1) Install .NET Framework 2.0 into a brand new bottle. You’ll find .NET Framework 2.0 in the “Runtime Support Components” section of Crossover Games’ Install Software menu.
2) Install .NET Framework 2.0 Service Pack 1 and then Service Pack 2 into the same bottle. They can be found in the "Service Packs and Upgrades" section.
3) Install Steam into that same bottle.
4) Download & install Fallout 3 via Steam.
5) Copy the msasn1.dll from a legitimate, legal copy of windows that you own into the bottle’s .../drive_c/windows/system32 directory
6) Go into Crossover’s Manage Bottles>Control Panel>winecfg>libraries menu, add “msasn1” as a new override, set it to “native, builtin”
7) In the same menu, add “xlive” and set it to “native”
8) Go to Run Command, select the Steam Bottle, type in “regedit”
9) inside regedit, browse to HKEY_CURRENT_USER/Software/Wine/Direct3D (if you don’t have Direct3D, add it as a new key)
10) inside Direct3D, add “useGLSL” as a new string value, and set it to “enabled”
11) Click the "Open C: Drive in Finder" button on the Advanced tab of the Manage Bottles window (found by choosing Manage Bottles...from the Configure menu), and open .../drive_c/Program Files/Steam/steamapps/common/Fallout 3 goty/Fallout_default.ini
12) Find bUseThreadedAI=0 and change it to bUseThreadedAI=1
13) Add iNumHWThreads=2 after bUseThreadedAI=1
14) Save the file, launch Steam, open Fallout 3. Set any options you like, such as enabling expansion packs or changing the screen resolution (I found that I could play quite comfortably at resolutions significantly higher than 800x600).
15) Though you can then start the game with the Fallout launcher, I find performance noticeably better if I instead start the game using .../drive_c/Program Files/Steam/steamapps/common/Fallout 3 goty/Fallout3.exe. This launches Fallout 3 without first launching Steam. Besides, when I launch through Steam, the Fallout launcher always wants to try to reinstall DirectX. This doesn't take long, but it's not instant.

In the Fallout 3 install process, the installer crashed or seemed to hang a couple of times during the .NET 3.0 install; I quit Crossover and tried again. Eventually it worked.

Fallout will still crash every once in a while using Crossover 11.3.1, but only once every couple of hours instead of once every couple of minutes under Crossover 12.

Hope this helps! I'm no expert, but I'll try to help with any difficulties that arise.