Play time counter and launcher crash fix

Sometimes Steam does not track play time for Fallout 3, instead it tracks time spent in the game launcher. Another common problem is crash right after pressing "Play" in the launcher.

This solution fixes play time counter issue ONLY!

• Right click "Fallout 3" in your Steam library.
  
• Choose "Manage".
  
• Choose "Browse local files".
  
• In the folder that was opened at the previous step note two files: "Fallout3.exe" and "Fallout3Launcher.exe".
  
• Rename "Fallout3Launcher.exe" into "Fallout3Launch.exe" (this is just an example of a new name, any name that is not "Fallout3.exe" or "Fallout3Launcher.exe" will do).
  
• Make a copy of "Fallout3.exe".
  
• Rename the copy of "Fallout3.exe" into "Fallout3Launcher.exe".

That's it. Now Steam will be launching the game itself while skipping the launcher, so time will be tracked correctly. If you need to access the launcher, you will have to do that manually using "Fallout3Launch.exe" in the folder that was used to rename ".exe" files.

Alternatively, the issue may also be fixed by making sure that the game launcher and the game itself are using high performance processor. This solution was tested on the Windows laptop that has integrated graphics and high performance NVIDIA processor, so the following steps will reflect that:

• Open NVIDIA Control Panel.
  
• Navigate to Manage 3D Settings.
  
• Select Program Settings.
  
• Add or select Fallout3.exe in "Select a program to customize" section.
  
• Choose high performance processor in "Select the preferred graphics processor for this program" section. If there is no way to select preferred graphics processor in NVIDIA Control Panel, try doing it via Windows Display Setting instead like that: Settings > System > Display > Graphics.
  
• Repeat previous two steps for Fallout3Launcher.exe: add or select Fallout3Launcher.exe in "Select a program to customize" section and choose high performance processor in "Select the preferred graphics processor for this program" section.
  
• Apply changes.
  
• Make sure that high performance processor is selected as "Graphics Adapter" in Options section of the Launcher. If you cannot achieve that, try selecting "Global parameters" back in "Manage 3D Settings" section of NVIDIA Control Panel and choose high performance processor as a global parameter.

Now Steam will be tracking time spent in both, the launcher and the game. The possible launcher crash should be fixed by that solution as well.

Windows 11 update: once I moved to Windows 11 this solution stopped fixing the time counter issue, but it still fixes the crash. If you know how to solve this, I would appreciate it if you could let me know!

Feel free to contact me by any means if you have further questions, I will be happy to help!