"Fallout 3 is a game that power house machines like playstations and xboxs cant run perfectly...
Point is if its not working for you its not the game designers fault, its yours for not having a machine that can handle an advanced game."
XBOX and PS3 are powerhouse machines ? Not ! ( I assume you meant to say 'XBOX's
can run )
The consoles get different versions of games, with reduced graphics requirements.
Well they used to, but these days the publishers, in their mad cash grab, will often port the game from console to PC without making changes that require more processing power, leaving a lot of PC gamers disappointed as they expect to get more eye candy than
console users.
Note it's the publishers who deserve most of the contempt. The developers are out there
just trying to do their art, and craft a good game.
So you are, as with the OP, trying to run the FO3 on a laptop or PC with Integrated Graphics.
Yet, even now that you seem to have accepted that your machine is not up to the task you still call it 'pot luck'. It's nothing to do with luck.
(of course I am still guessing as I've seen no specifications for your machine).
It does have something to do with the mfg of laptops who advertise their machine as a gaming laptop to the unwary. They use the term gaming very
loosely.
The Intel HD3000 and HD4000 are a reasonable Integrated option, and are capable of running many high end games at med settings, depending on the resolution, but earlier Intel HD was really only designed for video, and games that don't need much processing
power.
A laptop that can keep up with a gaming PC costs roughly twice the amount of
money for equivalent gaming power (on a 15-17" screen vs a 23-24" screen).
The main reasons for this are
- Heat dissipation in a laptop is almost nil , so the cpu and gpu has to be down-clocked to produce less heat
- The power supply is also smaller and produces far fewer amps that a PC psu . This also relates to heat produced, but also size and weight.
It is also important to note that the minimum specs listed for a PC game are very
minimum.
This translates to the game will run only at the lowest settings. Very few games list the
dedicated VRAM requirements, and just listing a couple of graphics card options does not tell the whole story, especially to the uninitiated.
Personally, after my first game or two on PC, I never bought a game that my machine could
not meet the 'recommended' specs for, because even that does not guarantee max settings in some games.
This leads to another issue with FO3. This game was developed before laptops became so
popular, and at a time when most people didn't bother trying to play games, except for
very simple ones, on their laptop. Hopefully game publishers will get more real with the
system requirements listed on the box and add which Integrated Graphics the game will run on.
Don't believe that PC gamers with machines powerful enough to run high end games are happy with the status quo either. There are many, many problems with the computer 'industry', some difficult to avoid like software problems ( if you've never tried to code
a program it's hard to imagine the number of things that can go wrong), but most revolve around the money men always wanting more, and more, and....
There are a lot of Carpetbaggers out there. But if you want to play high end PC games all
you can do is sigh deeply, or rant, or do one then the other, and move on.
.