Game wont even start anymore and neither will New Vegas

[Ballistika Games]

i thought New Vegas had issues cause it would freeze on start up on the loading screen, and here i am. this game wont even start. says it wont work right cause the version of the game i have isnt compatible with my operating system or some stupid crap. sends me to xbox store to download the right version or whatever and it fails. so now i just cant play any of my fallout games. nice f**king job microsoft, you gained bathesda and ruined their games by requiring broken downloads. absolutely flawless job. clearly this is corporations at their finest.

[Kvinden]

If New Vegas doesn't start it can't be because Games for windows is not installed.
As several others I had the "This version of this file is not compatible with the version of Windows you’re running" error after an OS update.
It is possible to fix it. It MAY work ( or not)
Try to right click on the fallout.exe in Steam directory
Select properties/compatibility
choose "run compatibility problems troubleshooter"
and then "try recommended settings" ( should be windows 8 but it depends of your system)
and finally "test the program".
Normally it works.

Otherwise restore the system to a point before the update. It should not break anything,
Or manually reverse the update.
It is probably not the only program that no longer works but you didn't notice the others yet.

If nothing of this works for you I have no idea, mayhap uninstall-reinstall the game will work but again may be not.

As youy say only jokers work at Microsoft and Windows is a very boring program so with each update they add some new bugs just to keep the users entertained. If it is not the reason it must be close

[Sayori]

Omg calm down, fallout 3 is so easy to fix, there's no need to be so angry

[Bandy]

since you own both games give this a try: https://thebestoftimes.github.io/intro.html

The Best of Times is a modding guide for A Tale of Two Wastelands that will carefully walk you through how to port Fallout 3 into Fallout New Vegas game engine and install all the mods you will need for a perfectly stable, smooth, and most importantly, enjoyable experience. Unlike other modding guides, it is built with customization in mind. Mods are subjective, so every mod listed in the guide is 100% optional....

[Bandy]

Originally posted by Pharnham:

It's a fourteen year old game...

Not to be pedantic, but your math kinda takes away from the rest of your pedantic post.

[StreamWhenGuy]

Sad.

[Bandy]

Originally posted by Pharnham:

Then another couple hours to download, clean, install and test the mods. Easy peasy.

You cleaned the ESM's? I'm not pretending to have uber knowledge here, but those who know A LOT more under the hood of FO3 and FONV say never to clean their ESMs, this isn't skyrim. Search on topic, you may be surprised.

[Bandy]

Originally posted by Pharnham:

A lot of people pretend to know a lot. They say a lot of things. ...

Never clean Fallout esm's came from the creators of Tale of Two Wastelands, and if you haven't heard of that effort then you don't know a lot as far as Fallout modding is concerned.

A lot of people bury their heads in the sand as well in the face of good advice. You're right, but I'm not pretending to have first hand knowledge here, so go ask Roy at their discord or dig yourself a little deeper.

[kdodds]

1, You can clean your ESMs, but not if you want to convert them to TTW.
2. Both GOG and Steam versions can be made to run. Scroll down to the getting it to run part, follow the video.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2369220979

[Weekend (Dead Meat)]

I just installed it with dxvk + windows live disabler and it worked like a charm on win 10. (at least for the 20 min play test)

[Bandy]

Originally posted by Pharnham:

Originally posted by Bandy:

Never clean Fallout esm's came from the creators of Tale of Two Wastelands

So what? I'm not running TTW and have no intention of ever running it. What I'm running is absolutely hassle free and smooth as silk with virtually no crashes at all. I hardly think it can be improved. If you don't want to clean your files, then don't.

It has nothing to do with you running TTW or not. I mention that massive mod effort in this 'conversation' because it takes a hell of a lot of knowledge under the hood of FO3/NV to accomplish that, so they more than likely know what the hell they are talking about when it comes to ESMs. But please, by all means bury your head in the sand and enjoy your "virtually no crashes" game install.

Originally posted by Pharnham:

Whether you do or don't, whether you agree or not, I'm not digging myself anywhere. Nothing compels me to kneel down and acknowledge my "superiors." If you feel you are required to do so, that's fine, go do it. But kindly refrain from imposing your values on me. It's both pointless and impolite.

OMG, the unvaccinated are surfacing! LMAO, makes perfect sense now.

[kdodds]

@Pharnham, there are certain users here it's better to just block. Personally, I don't clean my ESMs and notice a more stable game as a result. But, this game is so old and individual machines so vastly different that ymmv. What I will say is that I seem to remember some older, previously "core" mods will absolutely crash your game if you've cleaned your ESMs. As of now, though, no, I don't think there's anything critical to worry about.

TTW is certainly a massive project, and Roy and team definitely know what they're talking about. If (I don't believe they are) they are adamant and have an explanation as to why cleaning will destabilize the game, I have not seen it. I have, however, heard a lot of parrots squawking about the "should never clean" and - when they can even point to a source - the source is always some TTW installation guide/thread in the context of installing TTW.

Just my personal preference, and I know others share the same thoughts, but TTW isn't, for me, worth it. There's too much of FO3 lost in the translation as everything is ported to FONV engine and mechanics. And almost no FO3 mods will work. Not worth it. Just my 2¢.

[Bandy]

I have never pretended to have "knowledge under the hood" and if this means I am "parroting" the advice of others who do know the insides and out of Fo3/NV, then squawk, squawk, squawk, I'm a parrot. Block me, who cares, I won't, but it will not stop me from providing advice based on better knowledge-based opinions than yours.

[kdodds]

Originally posted by Pharnham:

Originally posted by Bandy:

Block me, who cares

Level zero, private profile, personal attacks. Sounds like a troll. Guess I'll block someone for the very first time ever. Ah....blessed silence.

And make sure to report trolling or inflammatory posts. It does usually (eventually) catch up to the trolls. There are a few that frequent the Fallout forums. Stick around long enough, I'm sure you find them, or they'll find you. ;)

[Kvinden]

Originally posted by Pharnham:

Originally posted by Bandy:

those who know A LOT more under the hood of FO3 and FONV say never to clean their ESMs,

A lot of people pretend to know a lot. They say a lot of things. All *my* files are cleaned anyway. The only expert I trust is me.

They are right. AN .esmmust not be modified by another .esm or by itself.
One should write an .esp to fix any problem with .esm

[Salamand3r-]

Cleaning vanilla ESMs, particularly the DLCs, is often asking for trouble, especially if you mod significantly.

If it works for you, great. But that's not generally (or even usually) the case. Even cleaning mods *can* be dicey - sometimes ITMs are there deliberately, for instance, in well made mods.

As I said - it may well work for you. Each install is different. But it isn't something good to recommend to neophytes, as the problems can be unpredictable, and cleaned ESMs can make troubleshooting extremely difficult if they end up needed help.

Originally posted by kdodds:

TTW is certainly a massive project, and Roy and team definitely know what they're talking about. If (I don't believe they are) they are adamant and have an explanation as to why cleaning will destabilize the game, I have not seen it. I have, however, heard a lot of parrots squawking about the "should never clean" and - when they can even point to a source - the source is always some TTW installation guide/thread in the context of installing TTW.

Roy has said it explicitly, quite a few times. As to specific details - can be hard to get from him sometimes. At this point, I don't blame the man for getting irritated at explaining the same thing for the 200th time in the 7 years since TTW started development.

The specific quote (in relation to FO3/NV) is (sorry no link, this is a quote of a quote of a quote from a discord conversation too old for me to pull up) -

If you clean the Fallout 3 and/or Fallout New Vegas and/or their DLC's you will break your game since you are removing things that are necessary things that fix things in other things and make things run properly.

However, if you want to ask him directly, hit up the TTW discord - he's extremely active there.

If it helps, I've also heard it specifically from quite a few other top-tier modders as well. The makers of xEdit itself - the tool you would generally use - have made some posts indicating that you shouldn't use it to clean vanilla ESMs. On top of that, all the way up until 2020, xEdit was incapable of reliably cleaning vanilla masters correctly in all cases (meaning they potentially always left some things not "cleaned") due to incorrect error handling (see xEdit bug report history)

There is also the "why" reasoning - cleaning the vanilla ESMs quite literally serves no purpose - to quote mator -

There is absolutely no reason to clean ITMs in Bethesda Master files because no plugin should ever be loaded between them.

There is no reason to clean UDRs in Bethesda Master Files because no plugin should be referencing a reference that's been deleted in a Bethesda Master File.

There is pretty much no reason to clean any other kind of error in Bethesda Master Files. If you wanted to fix other errors for a good reason (e.g. a URR or something) you're better off making a patch plugin.

All in all - if you know what you are doing and want to clean them at your own risk, more power to you. But it shouldn't be recommended to newer users, as there is broad consensus (even among formerly pro-cleaning modders like Arthmoor, who now is very adamant to NOT clean vanilla files) among modders that any potential benefit (which is debatable) is outweighed by potential problems.