Hey Guys ~
So I was directed to download the GOG version of Fallout 3 because it was supposed to work pretty well with Windows 10, but I am still plagued with the same problem where I have no game sound. The menu in the beginning has sound, but when I go to actually play the game, nothing. It's super frustrating and I don't know what other fixes to try.

I'm running the game in Windows XP SP 3 Compatibility mode as well if that helps narrow it down.

Let me know if you guys have any suggestions.

Thanks in advance.

Set the speaker settings in windows. Make sure the right speaker device is active in playback devices. If using surround set it to stereo. Under advanced set it to a 16 bit setting. 16bit 192 works.

Also do the multicore fix, it shouldn't need to be run in compatibility then. It activates the sound cache and that can also help.
www.nexusmods.com/fallout3/mods/21888/?

I'd add the directx final release from the pre-install also if you haven't done that on your win10 before.

Check the gog video for setup on the mod description.

thanks for the suggestions. Unfortunately it's still not working.

You should do a driver update then for the sound card and make sure it's not an issue with that. If you're not sure what you have for a sound card, do a search on google for driver booster by iobit, its a free driver update program and will detect and update your drivers for you.

I have onboard sound and have updated my drivers as well. I actually am wondering if this is related to another sound issue I have with Fallout Shelter and the Sims 4. Both worked fine before (as well as F3) and now nothing.
*Edit to say worked fine before the Windows 10 creator update back in May*

Try a full shutdown and reboot then in case you have changes waiting to be applied it may correct the issue if it was a quirk in the system also

I edited my original response. I've had sound issues with those games since the Windows 10 Creator's Update back in May.

a shutdown and restart works sometimes. But I would try the driver booster or check your mainboard driver site and install the manufacturers driver. The onboards can be finicky

I was thinking, you may actually just need to uninstall the driver and let win10 install it's driver. I did that on my wifes and it corrected itself after it reloaded, just she was having sound issues on a different game. For her I just uninstalled the driver that was installed and then restarted and it loaded the win10 driver in after all her sound worked fine.

ah so likely you had a windows issue. I was thinking that. Just do the sound card and it should be fine. I would goto the manufacturers site and grab that driver and put it on the desktop. But if it's an older driver win10 has issues with those and is what likely caused you grief in your upgrade. Drivers not being available and such. It won't effect any programs as long as you just do the sound card. I had to do the same with my network card, it stopped working so I had to uninstall the driver I had and let win10 load it's driver before it worked properly, was a big pain

yeah that's what I am thinking. So when I go to download the driver for my Asus board, it gives me so many options in the rar file and I have no idea what I am looking at. I also get this pop up every time I try and do something with my Playback devices : Windows host process (Rundll32). It's happened for quite awhile and honestly, I have no idea what drivers I am uninstalling and reinstalling.

You should goto youtube and look up how to fix rundll32 problem, it's that error thats the issue. You want the sfc fix method that works best

Oh and the sound card, you wanna just look in the control panel and programs, see if it has an installed driver there. if so uninstall it so windows can install the proper driver

The asus site you want the newest available driver thats listed, rar is just a zip format, winrar or 7zip opens those, goto filehippo.com and look them up. The asus driver is just in case win10 doesn't have a driver for it, then you load that otherwise its not needed. Don't worry to much about it. If win10 asks for a driver location it will pick the files from the extracted ones for you.

It's also on your disk that came with the mainboard, it will have all the drivers if win10 doesn't.

But you need to fix that rundll error.

One other thing, try that driver booster (just google it, it's made by iobit and is free) it will likely update quite a few drivers for you that could be causing the rundll32 issue in your system, it's updated 21 drivers on mine altogether, since I started using it.

it's not an actual rundll error, it just asks if I want to allow that app to make changes on my device, and the Windows Host Process (rundll32) is what I guess it's trying to run.

So here's the deal. Something is NOT playing nice with all of my hardware. I downloaded all the Realtek audio drivers for my Asus Maximum Hero VIII motherboard. Everything installed properly and I restarted. Suddenly, all the games were working!! I was so excited. THEN I remembered something.

I record videos and stream on Twitch and I use a Focusrite USB Audio Device. When I use the Realtek Audio, it does not work with my Focusrite and I have no idea why, and I think I know now why we uninstalled the Realtek. It must be conflicting with something.

This whole situation is super frustrating and all I wanted to do was play some old Fallout 3. But at this point, I guess until I can figure out what's happening with these two things, I won't be able to. :(

So disappointing.

Thanks so much for your suggestions. I really appreciate you sticking around and trying to help me get this to work.

Try a different usb for the Focusrite