I took your advice, good to know about this UAC stuff in the future! I installed into C:\Games instead of C:\Program Files and run the installer as an admin. Unfortunately, it didn't solve my problem. I still get the error, and the "run in 256 colors" box is still taunting me with its uncheckability :) I'm pretty sure that my problem would be solved by unchecking that option :(

Did you try running game using the executable (going to fallout folder and running the exe file your shortcut points to). You could also check if exe has compatibility modes on it and if you can remove them from there instead.

Installing outside program files solves most installation and setting problems as UAC is designed to protect files in program files and often prevents programs from saving or modifying files inside them. Unfortunately this more often than not also prevents (older) installers from installing some files thus screwing the installed application. Same for setting files that end up in program files (most old games have setting files in games directory so installing them to program files could prevent them from making changes to settings).

I tried all that and a few other things, but nothing helped. I just wish I knew how to have the game run with the "run in 256 colors" option unchecked, it would very likely solve all my problems...

Can you set it on other shortcuts/games or does the bug only affect Fallout 2? What kind of system do you have?

EDIT: SOLUTION FOUND! See below.

Hi, I seem to encounter the same issue as Poltergeist.

I'm playing on the MSI Netbook U135:
CPU Intel Atom N450
Graphics chipset Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 3150
1GB ram
Win 7 Starter Edition

Fallout 2 used to run fine, even with the high resolution patch.
I did a clean reinstall before applying restoration project 2.1.2b (the latest), and I experience the same "Fallout appears to be running in compatibility mode" error.
I tried the checking/unchecking all compatibility options method, but as for Poltergeist, the "run in 256 colors option" is uncheckable.

I tried setting F2 in WIN 95 compatiility mode, and got an error message "This program requires Windows 95 with DirectX 3.0a or later or Windows NT version 4.0 with Service Pack 3 or greater."
I even set my desktop to native 640*480, 16-bit colors, to no effect.

Any advice on this issue would be much, much appreciated.


SOLUTION FOUND!! AT THE BOTTOM OF THE FALLOUT.EXE DIALOG BOX, CLICK ON "MODIFY SETTINGS FOR ALL USERS" ("modifer les paramètres pour tous les utilisateurs", in my french Windows, I don't know exactly how it will look like on an english system). THERE A NEW DIALOG BOX APPEARS WHERE YOU CAN UNCHECK "RUN IN 256 COLORS". After that, the game runs no problem. Hurrah!

Thanks a lot, this solved my problem too. Additionally, I had to take this advice http://www.interplay.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=12&t=889&sid=51c3e6bcadb0053ea533e4cffcf0e249 because I was experiencing trippy colours. There is a typo though, you have to set it to 4, not to -4.

Interesting, I had also those "trippy colors", especially during the movies (in-game it was ok), but installing the resolution patch and setting in-game colors to 32-bit solved it.
P.S The resolution patch can be found on its own, but it is also included in the F2 Restoration Project, which I am using now.

Much the same here. I installed Fallout 2 and the Fallout 2 Restoration Project mod, and was having problems with the "Fallout appears to be running in compatibility mode" error message. I'm running Windows 7, and the solution was to uncheck the "Run in 255 colors" checkbox. Sooooo glad the fix was that simple. :)

Fallout1 had a nice 'Ultimate Install' rar which was a bunch of stuff together as well as a nice recent post from BrotherNone, in the interest of making this one less confusing, this is all you need, in this order:

killap's patch
Restoration Project

Both of these are giant game improvements and probably all you need, and they're all Windows Installers to boot -- the highres/engine patch is installed with Restoration.

When you first boot up FO2 (after unchecking 'run in 256 colors'), go to Options and 'SCRN' button, notice there are 2 tabs, make sure the 2 match up resolutions and then restart the game.

Note that few resolutions are listed, if you press the up/down arrows by the actual resolution textboxes in either tab you can get many more resolutions than are displayed. In FO1 I had nothing in the list, in this one I only have 3. In both though I used an unlisted resolution with 16 bit color and it works fine.

I do not recommend matching your monitor resolution, I have a 1600 x 900 display and play the game at 1000x600 and it looks way better than it does at full res.

EDIT: I had MegaMod but it made my savegames garbage literally half the time and all the quests etc were different it was just too much, don't recommend it unless you like doing the Temple of Trials a few dozen times when your save fries and/or know what you're doing.

I had decided to give this game another go and just did a fresh install followed by both Killap's patch and the Restoration Project. I unchecked the "Run in 256 Colors" box and gave the game a good ol boot up and then........ nothing. No intro video, no menu, no sound, no errors, etc., just a blank screen. I have to kill the app in the task manager to get back to the desktop. Any idea what my problem could be? Running Windows 7 64 if that helps.

Edit: Nevermind, got it working. I had disabled Direct Draw Hardware Acceleration in order to get Planescape: Torment to work without stuttering. Turns out Fallout 2 does not approve of this decision. I turned it back on but still had the funky colors throughout Fallout. Got my resolution settings correct (matched the two, Hi-Res and Sfall, at 8 bit colors/full-screen), restarted the game, and...... Hooray! Victory! Hope that helps anyone else that may run across the same issues. I get to change the Direct Draw settings depending on which game I wish to play but life could be worse I do suppose.

There seem to be two major Fallout mod packs, the Restoration pack and the MIB88 MegaMod pack. They both sound really cool, but I'm guessing they're not compatible with each other at all, right?

No they are not compatible.

Yea, after installing the unofficial patch, I got the compatability mode message, after going through the fix for it, fallout 2 simply wont start at all, my mouse will switch to the little "working" hourglass for a split second but that's it.
And after I re-activate compatability mode I don't even get the compatability error message either.
I'm running on vista

New version of the high resolution patch:
http://www.nma-fallout.com/forum/dload.php?action=file&file_id=1340
Apparently its a huge overhaul, haven't tried it yet.

Haha. Anyways the patches won't upset balance. For your first playthrough just use Killap's patch which fixes bugs:
http://www.nma-fallout.com/forum/dload.php?action=file&file_id=704
sFall, which upgrades the old game engine:
http://sourceforge.net/projects/sfall/
And the high resolution patch I mentioned above. After that I would recommend using the restoration patch to restore some content that was cut out of the game, then of course theres lots of custom mods on NMA and ModDB for you to check out.