Fallout 3 running poorly

I have a 8600m gt oced 625/450mem. I boot the game up and it does this test for optimal settings and it puts me on high settings at 1280 - 800 res. I was real happy until i had to walk the baby to the dad. Average of 8 fps. Well after some testing i turned everything on low and ran it in 800 600 res and it ran smooth until i got the the birthday party. Seems like 20ish fps but i turned it off so i cant give exact number ( i turned fraps off because maybe it was the prob). What i am wondering is maybe the game is running in dx10, if so how do i turn it to dx9. If this game really runs this bad on all low in dx9 then this is one poorly optimized game.

 

Which drivers do you use?

 

I use 175.97 ( the one from dell.com) I dont think it is my driver i run bioshock all high with dx9 at 1400 900 res and i never dip below 30 fps.

 

Well ive played it a bit more and it gets better outside of the vault. I turned fraps on and i am getting 30-40 fps on all low 800 600 res. Either this game is trying to run in dx10 or it is a bugged game. I also crash every 15 or so minutes so i am starting to think this game is just really buggy. But if the game is actually running in dx10 can anybody tell me how to turn it to dx9. just seems weird i can run crysis on medium but i barley can run this game on all low ( and yes it looks like crap).

 

I know the B-day party was a bit laggy (dipped from 50fps to 25fps) . (same thing happend on my desktop HD 3650) but you should be able to run it on mid and on native at ~40 fps else where.

 

You should be running much faster than that.


Fallout 3 is a very well optimised game.


I have a card that is equivalent to the 8600GT and my game is always running above 30+ fps. Maybe you should try alt+tabbing out of the game if it's a memory issue with Vista.

 

Well i just restarted my laptop and now i am running medium settings with 1400 by 900 res 45+ fps. Not sure what the problem was but its running great now. Might even see how it runs on high settings.

 

yep, good to hear... you shoulda been doing much better than that, as it runs better than you were describing on my tablet with a ATI hd3200 IGP.

Glad ya got it working.

 

The problem may have been that your video driver glitched/crashed, and Vista reloaded the driver to keep your game from crashing.

When it does that, it reloads the driver with your factory clocks., so you lose your OC performance.

It happens to me sometimes, if you aren't in fullscreen it says "Display driver is not responding , but has recovered", or something similar.

You have to restart your comp before you can reapply the overclocks.

 

Small update, Ive been running the game on high now but i turned af and aa off and it only took a 10 fps drop from medium so now am running about 35-40 fps on high on my native res. played for about 2 and a half hours and my max temp was 83c. Love the game and it looks great on my 8600m gt with a slight overclock.

 

Hello guys!
I have Quaddro NVS 320, running stock drivers.
2 questions. Should I pick Bloom over HDR?
Can I get 1280 x 800 res? I only have 1280 x 960 in launcher. Can I manually tweak res in some cfg file?

 

Bloom should be a less hit on performance. HDR looks better, but its not notable in every place, id say go for Bloom in your case

 

Probably your driver. I also have an oc 8600 GT and I have no problem playing with 1400x900 res everything on full except AA and shadows turned to medium'ish.
I also have no problem with Dead Space with everything on full, except AA

Swank