Iv been having this issue everytime iv tried to play the game (even on a fresh windows 10 install). I own the retail release also but due to not having a CD/DVD reader I havent installed it with that copy (from what i remember it worked fine even with custom patches). I am now using the GOG release of Fallout 3 which has had this problem along side having the steam release installed and tried at one point (this was before formatted my windows install). is there anything I can do to fix this issue with the game launching? even though this version is ment to be fixed

Specs: GTX 1050 TI, I7 3770k, 16GB's of DDR3 RAM

For starters delete Fallout.INI in your documents\mygames\fallout3 folder and start the game.