Ultimate Vanilla (really) Fallout New Vegas Experience

Fallout: New Vegas is the most significant game in the Fallout series. It's universally regarded as the best Fallout game and one of the greatest games in history, period.

There's this notion, this stigma, this creed, this norm, this directive, that you can't play Fallout New Vegas in 2013, 2023, 2028, without installing mods. And that's partially false. I've played multiple playthroughs and many hours just installing the game from Steam and hitting play. However, it's a game that can be very unstable. I don't think it falls into the unplayable category, but it can certainly test the patience of those with short fuses.

Also, how can you tell its the best game ever if you need to install 1000+ mods, get a grip buddy.

So, I bring you a very short list of modifications that don't alter the base game in any way and truly provide solutions to the most severe performance issues. Without sacrificing the real and authentic experience of the original game.

Now, we get to install the mods. Well, didn't I say that you don't need mods to appreciate the game? Well, that is partially false again. There is only one mod that can be truly universally regarded as a must in the next section, but in this section, we only have performance fixes. That's it—no pesky bug fixes that change any intended bugs (I know...).

You will need a Nexusmods.com account, and for every instance, we will perform a manual download and manual install. That's because this guide is intended solely for fixing performance and assumes you won't install any more mods. If you plan to install many other mods, then seek another guide or use your preferred mod manager (you're on your own on that...).

Additionally, the concept of this mod guide is that if you ever uninstall the game and reinstall it, you will be able to continue your save without needing to redownload any mods or encountering compatibility issues.


A resource that expands the scripting possibilities of the game and is necessary for another fix that we'll install.

Download the mod, then copy everything inside the zip file into the root of your game installation folder.

Patches the New Vegas executable, allowing it to utilize up to 4 GB of RAM, and automatically runs the script extender we just installed.

Download the mod, copy everything inside the zip file into the root of your game installation folder, and then run FNVpatch.exe.

A mod that solves stuttering issues and removes FPS limitations from the engine.

Download the mod, then copy everything inside the zip file into the DATA folder of your game installation folder.

A configuration preset for New Vegas Tick Fix that defines basic settings to unleash the potential of Tick Fix. Download the Viva Default Preset version.

Download the mod, then copy everything inside the zip file into the DATA folder of your game installation folder.


That's it, really. That's all you need to play the game. New Vegas may still crash sometimes, yes... just save regularly (as you always should on any game), make multiple saves (as you always should on any game). Also, the game doesn't like it very much when you Alt+Tab, so it may crash though not really often with our fixes, but when you do that (shame on you, just don't stop playing), so save before you do it.

Lastly, it will not be very common for it to crash with our fixes, so if it happens, don't whine. I'm sure your 14th-gen Intel and your 4080 will open it up in less time than it would take you to say "damn, this game just crashed on me".

A short story: after the development and release of New Vegas ended, project director Joshua Sawyer created a personal modification for the game: the JSawyer mod. It aims to make the game harder and more challenging, including changes that were originally not implemented due to the short development time or because they didn't want to alienate the more action-oriented players of Fallout 3.


Download the mod, then copy everything inside the zip file into the DATA folder of your game installation folder.

Additionally, we need to replace the load order file, which tells the game in which order to load any mods.

Navigate to %LOCALAPPDATA%\FalloutNV (Simply press Win+R, paste this, and hit RUN).

Open the plugins.txt file with your text editor and replace everything in it with the content below.

# This file is used by Fallout NV to keep track of your downloaded content.
# Please do not modify this file.
FalloutNV.esm
DeadMoney.esm
HonestHearts.esm
OldWorldBlues.esm
LonesomeRoad.esm
GunRunnersArsenal.esm
ClassicPack.esm
MercenaryPack.esm
TribalPack.esm
CaravanPack.esm
jsawyer.esp

I know it says to not modify this file but trust me... we need to.

And there you go... now you can play the director's cut.

If you play with a mouse, you will encounter jankiness due to the game using a mouse acceleration setting. Follow the instructions below to disable this:

Go to %USERPROFILE%\Documents\My Games\FalloutNV\ (Again Win+R is your friend)

Open the file Fallout.ini with your text editor.

Find the section: [Controls]

Add these lines at the end of it:

fForegroundMouseAccelBase=0
fForegroundMouseAccelTop=0
fForegroundMouseBase=0
fForegroundMouseMult=0

And that's it, that's all you need (really) to play the game. Now go and enjoy. You're enough, you deserve New Vegas.

Credits to:

Joshua Sawyer
Chris Avellone
And all the good people that worked on Fallout: New Vegas.

The modders:
xNVSE Team
RoyBatterian
iranrmrf
carxt

Qolore for his Viva New Vegas guide.

And Chief Hanlon because you were right you old bastard