Fallout 3 crashing on render.

[Severen]

I have a dell xps 400 not sure of the specs other than a 3.2 ghz processor and 1gb of ddr ram. I don't know the video card though and thats what im worrying about. But oblivion runs fine which is odd because they use the same engine, so i cant seem to find a reason for the crash. the save loads, then it seems it pauses and is about to render the game and then crashes. any ideas?

 

[krab1017]

fallout 3 loads on my computer but will not run past the start up menu. i called bethesda and they just gave me the same garbage they gave me about oblivion when I was having problems. they claim that fallout 3 needs a better graphics card. try asking around about getting a cheap graphics card. that's my only response, i'm sure someone may have a better answer. i'm in the process of trying to upgrade my graphics card now so i can play this stupid game lol

 

[McRanger89]

I had the same problem as Krab. You are going to have to upgrade your graphic card. I had a ATI Radeon X300 and could run Oblivion on the highest settings, with a few hitches in FPS. When I had Fallout 3, it wouldn't go past the menu. Did some research and I need a better graphics card.

I'd suggest looking around on ebay. Check your PC's stats, make sure you can handle the new card. That would be for both of ya.

 

[Freakykiwi]

Fallout 3 can be very fussy, there are known issues caused by audio codecs such as FFDSHOW and I've had issues dropping to dekstop from the menu if the ASUS Gamer OSD utility is installed. I can't see why an inadequate video card would cause this but then again wouldn't be surprised if it did.