Something I completely forgot about is that for most of the list's life it did not include a ModOrganizer.ini, meaning the end user would have to go through instance creation when they first start MO2. This may have masked issues related to a mismatched Steam App ID for users who have the base game + all DLC purchased separately. To fix this, go to MO2's settings -> Workarounds, and change the Steam App ID to 22300. If you have the base game + all DLC instead of GOTY and resetting the INIs doesn't work, try this before doing a full downgrade of the game!
Read this guide here for steps to downgrade the game. If you use Steam, please let me know if this finally fixed the issue of the game not starting!
08/05/2025 update: Re-added the full INI reset and settings configuration guide since it seems that the updated INIs don't work.
07/05/2025 update: Update 1.2.3 is out! It should fix the issue of the game not starting since it doesn't include a borked falloutprefs.ini anymore. If it still doesn't work, do the following:
If the game doesn't start, open the profile folder for whatever profile you have active and replace falloutprefs.ini with the one available here.
Extra Info: For some reason the launcher in my install of FO3 will create a broken falloutprefs.ini that is just a copy of fallout.ini if it doesn't already exist. It apparently causes crashes for some people (only Steam users so far). I've found that clearing the contents of falloutprefs.ini and rerunning the launcher will create a proper, functional INI.
Just played for a couple of hours and all I can say is good job, man. This is a great list. I don't think I've played a smoother incarnation of Fallout 3 than this. I decompressed the BSA's and did the heap replacer too, though. I wonder how much of a difference the DXVK stuff makes as well. Everything is super smooth.
I've tried to come back to Fallout 3 a couple of times over the last 4 or 5 years and it has been damn near unplayable on a modern computer. So thanks again.
Hey, downloaded the modlist through Wabbajack, using the Steam version of the game. The installation ran smoothly, up until the Game Setting part of the guide. Like for many Steam users it seems, the game won't launch.
I activated the "Yet another Steam overlay fixer" mod, as requested in the guide ; I changed the launch pass for Fallout Launcher, as recommended, so it doesn't display the error message "FalloutLoader.exe not found" ; I changed the falloutprefs.ini using the one given in the author most recent post on this page (see above) AND updated the height and width of the screen resolution.
Despite all that, when I launch the game clicking on the "Run" button, ModOrganizer freezes and locks itself as usual, displaying its usual "lock" message, but only for a split second. The game seems to open during that same split second, then immediatly closes, and ModOrganizer unlocks itself. (I don't know if I'm clear enough, English isn't my mother tongue).
I don't know what to do. Does anyone know of a solution ?
Can you try fully resetting your INIs by clicking the folder icon at the top of MO2, selecting Open Profile folder, and deleting fallout.ini and falloutprefs.ini. Then press F5 in MO2 to have it copy over the INIs from your Documents\My Games\Fallout3 folder. Then follow the steps here to configure a couple settings that have been reset by this process. It seems that the updated INIs don't work, but this method should (hopefully) work since two people with the same issue had it resolved by doing it
Re-did a clean install, followed every steps but it still didn't work. I deleted the falloutprefs.ini and Fallout.ini then used F5 in Mod Organizer to recreate them, I made the required changes to the ini, but to no avail. I must have done something wrong, because I don't think the problem comes from my computer (I run New Vegas with the Viva New Vegas modlist just fine ; I run Oblivion with the A Painted world modlist as well), but I have no clue what ...
I don't know if it'll change anything but I released a new update with no changes except that I cleared out my Wabbajack patch cache before compiling it.
I just remembered last year they updated the launcher to "improve data file handling". Maybe you could try downgrading the launcher using DepotDownloader or the Steam console. App ID should be 22370, depot ID should be 22371.
Original 1.7.0.4 manifest: 4929549459338680299 1.7.0.3 manifest: 6752416544246981300
I found out that the modlist wasn't the problem after all : when I re-did a clean installation of the game, and tried to start it from Steam without mod, I managed to get to the Main Menu screen, but the game would systematically crash when launching a new game. I fixed the bug with this mod : "Intel HD graphics Bypass package" (https://www.nexusmods.com/fallout3/mods/17209), and can currently play the game vanilla. I wish, however, that I could install your modlist, for FO3's gameplay is seriously outdated. Considering that "Intel HD graphics Bypass package" solved the problem, have you any idea what I should do as additional step when downloading your modlist ?
If using the Intel HD graphics bypass worked, the Anniversary Patcher paired with one of the versions of DXVK included in the modlist should work. TES4/FO3/FNV used to crash on AMD GPUs and the recommended solution was to install DXVK so the game would use Vulkan in place of D3D9.
How it works:
Spoiler:
Show
The game selects driver packages by checking the GPU adapter ID for an ATI or Nvidia substring (Intel GPU check was added in FNV).
In the Adrenalin 24.1.1 drivers, AMD changed something and the ATI substring wasn't there anymore.
The game crashes because the game's fallback method is to do nothing if it can't identify your GPU.
Installing DXVK fixes it because the issue apparently only affected D3D9, not Vulkan.
Installing the Intel HD graphics bypass fixes it by tricking the game into thinking you have an Nvidia GPU.
I finished reinstalling the list, and out of curiosity ran Loot (via the "sort" option of Mod Manager). Here is what it said :
Warnings :
The folder and file with hashes ddd7f529741d6f6e and 84b8d587219efe4 in "C:/Games/Steam/steamapps/common/Fallout 3 goty\Data\Unofficial Fallout 3 Patch - Textures2.bsa" are present in another BSA.
The folder and file with hashes ddd7f529741d6f6e and d15c0f8d721bdfee in "C:/Games/Steam/steamapps/common/Fallout 3 goty\Data\Unofficial Fallout 3 Patch - Textures2.bsa" are present in another BSA.
FO3Edit v4.0.2e found 2 ITM record(s), 0 deleted reference(s) and 0 deleted navmesh(es). A guide to cleaning plugins using xEdit can be found here.
stats: 4.89s, lootcli 1.6.0, loot 0.23.0 Is it intentional, and is the modlist supposed to work despite those problems, or did the installation went wrong somewhere ?
It should be fine - Command Extender adds the BSA override function that allows them to overwrite assets in BSAs connected to plugins higher in the loadorder. For the second thing, the list uses RootBuilder to handle installing FOSE so it's probably not an issue that LOOT can't find it. And for the ITMs, it's nothing to worry about since I went through and patched and sorted everything using The Method. You should probably restore the loadorder backup since LOOT probably just scrambled the loadorder.
Well, it seem to be working just fine even though I ran Loot. The game launched, and I was able to start a new game. I was teleported directly at the exit of Vault 101 to create my character. I would like to thank you for the amount of time you put in your mod, and in helping me.
One last question, for the road :) Is there a mean to play the introduction, in Vault 101, with this list ?
You can disable the mods Fallout 3 Quick Start and Fugacity - Fallout 3 Quick Start Patch. Just added that info to the install guide, thanks for the reminder. I've been meaning to but I forgot.
I thought I managed to make the modlist work, but even though it did launch once, it never did again (and the last action I did before it did launch was using the "sort" button to use LOOT, which you said not to do). I thus did a completely fresh intall. This time, I tried to understand better what was happenning.
Here is the full sum-up : I bought Fallout 3 GOTY from Steam. As for many Steam users, thevanilla installation didn’t work : it would always CTD when launching a New game from the Main menu. This issue was solved by the Anniversary patcher included in the modlist (I can now launch the game through Steam, and start a New game from the Main menu, it no longer CTD). However,even after having done everything the guide asked for, I cannot launch the game from Mod Organizer. All of that leads me to believe the problem lies with MO and/or the modlist (contrary to what I initially thought : I thus doubt downgrading the game would help).
When trying to run the game via the « Fallout Launcher » executable, MO locks itself (as it usually does when launching a game), another window opens for a split second before closing. When trying to directly launch the game, running it via the « Fallout 3 » executable (which isn’t what is required by the guide, but I’m trying things), I get the same result, with two exceptions : when enabling either the DXVK or the DXVK – HDR plugins, a full-screen black window opens after MO locking itself, and an error message appears : « Failed to initialize renderer. Bad Adapter Number or Adapter not found ».
I've seen that it's a problem that apparently can be fixed (some say to use the "Fallout 3 Windows 7 and 8 Fix" mod : https://www.nexusmods.com/fallout3/mods/20371?tab=files), but it would require adding a "foreign" mod to the modlist, and I'm not willing to do that without seeking for aid here first. I'm sorry to take anymore of your time, I would understand if you're not willing to spend more of it on my problems.
What GPU do you have? If you get that error your GPU might not support Vulkan 1.3, but you could try one of the two older Async versions if you haven't already.
There should be two mods called DXVK 1.10.3 - Async and DXVK 1.10.1 - Async underneath DXVK - HDR in MO2. You might want to try the 1.10.1 - Async version since the FNV Performance Guide says this:
Intel GPUs from 6th Gen and newer can work provided you have newest drivers installed. On some iGPUs, DXVK is broken past the 1.10.1 version.
Your iGPU probably falls into the latter based on the error message you're seeing with DXVK 2.5.3 installed.
I can't get rid of the square compass indicators. I tried to set bCompassHeightIndicator = 0 in the stewie_tweaks.ini from Stewie Tweaks Essentials INI - WASD Menu keys but that didn't work. Any help?
Just to be sure. The indicator never seems to change when I have bCompassHeightIndicator = 1. It remains a rectangle despite my position. I haven't reinstalled Clean Vanilla HUD yet.
Also the main and pause menu keeps defaulting to this yellow colour even after I change it to Green. I tried to alter a bunch of things in the profile INIs on MO2 and nothings seems to work. Do you have any idea what it could be?
It seems that FO3 Stewie's Tweaks doesn't have quest height indicator, only NPC height indicators. It will be fixed in the next release of the modlist. As for the main and pause menu colours, it seems to be another feature of Stewie's Tweaks to preview what your HUD colour will look like. I tested in the vanilla game and the main and pause menu colours did not change.
Moriarty's saloon is completely dark when entering (regardless of what time it is), there are no lights at all. I noticed there's a note attached to the mod "Megaton Illuminated" inside MO2 that says:
barlights=0 bDarkenMoriatys=0
If it helps, I am using the default 'Waters of Life' profile. Do I need to delete/edit that note? Is it even related to my issue? Thank you again for your time and effort putting this Wabbajack pack together, I am having a blast!
Those are just notes on settings that I changed so I remember to reapply them whenever the mod gets updated. They're not really relevant anymore since the latest version's INI doesn't have the setting to disable the interior lighting change anymore.
Good to know, so why is the saloon like pitch dark? I went to the mod's page on here and saw screenshots of what it's supposed to look like. Even the regular vanilla lights are turned off in my game.
Edit: Here is a screenshot of what my game looks like in the saloon: https://i.postimg.cc/d1LcYZw0/Screenshot-2025-05-12-130610.png
Did some testing and at least for the really dark interiors (I noticed that sometimes it was so dark I couldn't see the door without turning my flashlight on), exiting and re-entering the saloon seems to fix it. For the lights not turning on in the evening, I'm not sure since they work on my end but try checking if it happens in a new save.
Please excuse my ignorance in advance lol. Is it okay for me to remove certain mods that I don't want after installing everything? Mainly content additions as well as the Unofficial Patch. I want to use this Wabbajack for almost exclusively "stability" mods. Outside of that there are a bunch of bugs the unofficial patch gets rid of that I actually prefer to have in game. And I don't care much for content being added besides "cut content". Thanks for all the work you've done for the Fallout community! This looks great :)
Should be fine, modularity is why I made 24 separate patches instead of 1 merged patch. A few mods will have UUF3P as a master, but I think you can just clean masters in xEdit for Delay DLC Plus Updated and Iron Sights Plus. Character Overhaul has a non UUF3P version that you can select in the installer, just make sure you disable the updated plugin I made. Goodies is the only mod that would require a bit of work in xEdit to strip out the UUF3P requirement. Of course, you can also just disable them.
Awesome, thanks for the quick reply! So just to be clear, I can straight up disable anything I don't want? Does that negate the need to actually tweak anything? It's not that intensive storage wise so I'm fine with just leaving all the mods there and disabling them instead of completely removing them.
Edit: Just for clarification, when I say "tweak anything" I mean using xEdit to clean masters etc.
hello! Sorry this is long and English isn't great! Ive tried installing 3 times now to no avail. I follow instructions to the T but I must must be screwing it around. I try and start the launcher and the mo2 says exe isnt to be found. I say okay and add my own exe like you say, all this does on trying to start is mo2 freezes for a second then nothing. When I try and launch game thru mo2 it freezes and locks up, opens window of game for not even a full second and then closes. Everything updated, decompressed files did the patcher and multiple fresh installs. Even with all mods in mo2 disabled nothing works. But when I just launch from steam It works!! ARGGGH!!
I'm not entirely sure since I own the GOG version of the game but according to the stickied post on the Anniversary patcher page, it might be caused by creating an MO2 instance before generating INI files. I think in this case it's Wabbajack installing my portable MO2 instance with everything already configured, which could cause the same issue. You could try copying over Fallout.ini and FalloutPrefs.ini from Documents\My Games\Fallout3 to the MO2 profile folder (click the folder icon at the top of MO2 and select Open Profile folder).
It's not an optimal solution since the INI files have a couple changes made to them. But fortunately they're not that important, they just make the HUD light green like in the screenshots and rebind the walk key to R-Shift. Anyways, I generated some fresh INI files and copied them over to the MO2 profile folders which hopefully will fix the issue in the next update.
So did the falloutprefs.ini from here not work? I just recently figured out that the launcher in my install of the game creates a broken falloutprefs.ini only if it doesn't already exist - it creates a proper one when I delete the contents of it and rerun the launcher.
Can you see if downgrading the game using DepotDownloader or the Steam console fixes it? I just remembered that back in June 2024 they updated the launcher.
Can you see if downgrading the game using DepotDownloader or the Steam console fixes it? I just remembered that back in June 2024 they updated the launcher.
Hey so I finished the main quest whenever the ending cutscene plays right after the picture of the lone wanderer and his father it crashes and doesn’t allow me to keep playing. please help
The only mod apart from UUF3P that makes changes to the ending slides is Fallout 3 Ending Restored, so I'm not really sure what the issue could be but I'll look into it when I can.
51 comments
to go through instance creation when they first start MO2. This may have masked issues related to a mismatched Steam App ID for users who have the base game + all DLC purchased separately. To fix this, go to MO2's settings -> Workarounds, and change the Steam App ID to 22300. If you have the base game + all DLC instead of GOTY and resetting the INIs doesn't work, try this before doing a full downgrade of the game!
Read this guide here for steps to downgrade the game. If you use Steam, please let me know if this finally fixed the issue of the game not starting!
07/05/2025 update: Update 1.2.3 is out! It should fix the issue of the game not starting since it doesn't include a borked falloutprefs.ini anymore. If it still doesn't work, do the following:
If the game doesn't start, open the profile folder for whatever profile you have active and replace falloutprefs.ini with the one available here.
Extra Info:
For some reason the launcher in my install of FO3 will create a broken falloutprefs.ini that is just a copy of fallout.ini if it doesn't already exist. It apparently causes crashes for some people (only Steam users so far). I've found that clearing the contents of falloutprefs.ini and rerunning the launcher will create a proper, functional INI.
I've tried to come back to Fallout 3 a couple of times over the last 4 or 5 years and it has been damn near unplayable on a modern computer. So thanks again.
The installation ran smoothly, up until the Game Setting part of the guide. Like for many Steam users it seems, the game won't launch.
I activated the "Yet another Steam overlay fixer" mod, as requested in the guide ;
I changed the launch pass for Fallout Launcher, as recommended, so it doesn't display the error message "FalloutLoader.exe not found" ;
I changed the falloutprefs.ini using the one given in the author most recent post on this page (see above) AND updated the height and width of the screen resolution.
Despite all that, when I launch the game clicking on the "Run" button, ModOrganizer freezes and locks itself as usual, displaying its usual "lock" message, but only for a split second. The game seems to open during that same split second, then immediatly closes, and ModOrganizer unlocks itself. (I don't know if I'm clear enough, English isn't my mother tongue).
I don't know what to do. Does anyone know of a solution ?
I must have done something wrong, because I don't think the problem comes from my computer (I run New Vegas with the Viva New Vegas modlist just fine ; I run Oblivion with the A Painted world modlist as well), but I have no clue what ...
Original 1.7.0.4 manifest:
49295494593386802991.7.0.3 manifest:
6752416544246981300I fixed the bug with this mod : "Intel HD graphics Bypass package" (https://www.nexusmods.com/fallout3/mods/17209), and can currently play the game vanilla. I wish, however, that I could install your modlist, for FO3's gameplay is seriously outdated.
Considering that "Intel HD graphics Bypass package" solved the problem, have you any idea what I should do as additional step when downloading your modlist ?
How it works:
Here is what it said :
Warnings :
General messages
Plugins
Unofficial Fallout 3 Patch.esm
- Error: Requires: Fallout Script Extender
Laurens_Bathroom_poetry_V1.espstats: 4.89s, lootcli 1.6.0, loot 0.23.0Is it intentional, and is the modlist supposed to work despite those problems, or did the installation went wrong somewhere ?
I would like to thank you for the amount of time you put in your mod, and in helping me.
One last question, for the road :) Is there a mean to play the introduction, in Vault 101, with this list ?
I thus did a completely fresh intall. This time, I tried to understand better what was happenning.
Here is the full sum-up :
I bought Fallout 3 GOTY from Steam. As for many Steam users, thevanilla installation didn’t work : it would always CTD when launching a New game from the Main menu. This issue was solved by the Anniversary patcher included in the modlist (I can now launch the game through Steam, and start a New game from the Main menu, it no longer CTD).
However,even after having done everything the guide asked for, I cannot launch the game from Mod Organizer. All of that leads me to believe the problem lies with MO and/or the modlist (contrary to what I initially thought : I thus doubt downgrading the game would help).
When trying to run the game via the « Fallout Launcher » executable, MO locks itself (as it usually does when launching a game), another window opens for a split second before closing.
When trying to directly launch the game, running it via the « Fallout 3 » executable (which isn’t what is required by the guide, but I’m trying things), I get the same result, with two exceptions : when enabling either the DXVK or the DXVK – HDR plugins, a full-screen black window opens after MO locking itself, and an error message appears : « Failed to initialize renderer. Bad Adapter Number or Adapter not found ».
I've seen that it's a problem that apparently can be fixed (some say to use the "Fallout 3 Windows 7 and 8 Fix" mod : https://www.nexusmods.com/fallout3/mods/20371?tab=files), but it would require adding a "foreign" mod to the modlist, and I'm not willing to do that without seeking for aid here first.
I'm sorry to take anymore of your time, I would understand if you're not willing to spend more of it on my problems.
I have no idea what Vulkan is, nor how to get Async versions.
UPDATE : It seems to be working with the "Waters of Life Classic" profile, only if I don't enable the "Yet another Steam Overlay" mod
Your iGPU probably falls into the latter based on the error message you're seeing with DXVK 2.5.3 installed.
barlights=0
bDarkenMoriatys=0
If it helps, I am using the default 'Waters of Life' profile.
Do I need to delete/edit that note? Is it even related to my issue? Thank you again for your time and effort putting this Wabbajack pack together, I am having a blast!
Edit: Here is a screenshot of what my game looks like in the saloon: https://i.postimg.cc/d1LcYZw0/Screenshot-2025-05-12-130610.png
Edit: Just for clarification, when I say "tweak anything" I mean using xEdit to clean masters etc.
Anyways, I generated some fresh INI files and copied them over to the MO2 profile folders which hopefully will fix the issue in the next update.