Duck and Cover

Question: Have you installed the bastard?
Answer: Yes, I got that part working on my own, huge install.

Question: So what happens?
Answer: I try to run it and... Black screen, with normal windows cursor, NOTHING works. Alt-TAB: Nada. Alt-F4: Nada. Escape: Nada. Ctrl+Alt+Del: Nada. Enter: Nada. Frantic mouse-clickings: Nada. The only escape is just to reboot my entire damn computer.

Question: What have you tried?
Answer: Patching, compatability modes.

Any suggestions on what I might want to try?

I'm running windows XP with an 8800 GTX video card. All drivers should be up to date to the best of my knowledge, and it's the Windows version of FO.

The NMA troubleshoot is pretty good. Hope it helps.

http://www.nma-fallout.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=5061

I looked in there and didn't find my problem, only changes in there which might work and which I haven't tried would be some video card related ones. But if that was the problem, I should still be able to exit the program, just not be able to see anything right.

Have you tried disabling or reducing the hardware and sound acceleration? From what I know, there are a multitude of black screen issues with Fallout, so I can't say a specific fix.

Is there any way to do it only for that particular program, or do I need to do it for the entire computer whenever I want to play Fallout? Because from just a quick bit of reading, it reads like I need to reboot every time I change the settings? And having to reboot after every session of Fallout, and before, well, annoying as hell.

I've found that for some reason or another, Symantec security programs (firewalls, antivirus, etc.) can cause old games to run poorly. Often-times the first thing that I'll do when running an older game is turn that off for the duration of my playing. (If you're paranoid about it, you should shut off your internet connection too for security's sake.)

I've also found it useful to shut off everything else that may be running in your task-bar (lower right-hand corner) as those things can interfere as well. (Helps pull a little bit more processing speed out of the computer for newer games as well.)

Hope that helps.

I don't have any Symantic stuff running, thank God. ZoneAlarm for firewall and AVG for antivirus. So I doubt that's it, but thanks for the advice.

Which version of XP? What about the rest of your set up?

Try different drivers. With the older games the latest drivers aren't always the best.

Have you tried your copy on another pc, files might be corrupting during install. Fallout can be run on XP without the need for messing with disabling video cards or even using compatability modes, though the sound acceleration might need turning down.

I had some of this shit last time I tried to install Fallout, too. First time I tried it, I just got the random blackouts thing, which I put up with. Then suddenly it refused to play, so I deleted it and played other stuff. Then I installed it again, and it just plain refused to start. And now I'm trying to play the bastard for the third time around.

I suppose I may as well try a reinstall or some such, or try installing it on my other PC, which has a somewhat less high-tech setup.

I'd also prefer not to screw with my drivers if I can avoid it, I do also play recent things and don't want to keep uninstalling and reinstalling drivers just for different games.

My XP install is Home and with all the newest updates applied.