Can a Dell Inspiron 531 run Fallout 3?

Answer 1

Check the tech specs on the box and then on your PC. Or you could ask your local best buy/circuit city to tell you. Im sure that if you got it in the last 2-3 years you should be able to run it, if not with full graphics, on a lower setting.

It is worthy to note that in most cases, it is hard to play newer games on laptops which feature integrated video hardware with memory sharing. Esp. Intel Graphics chips would be considered lousy for laptop gaming (although there are a few notable exceptions).

If everything else fails, try to run the game's demo and see if it works at all. While the demo doesn't provide any real measure of what the whole game will be like, it will most likely require the same hardware specs as the final product and is therefore a good benchmark.

The System Requirements to run Fallout 3™ are:

• Operating System: Windows Vista/XP
• Processor: single-core, Intel® Pentium™ 4 @ 2.4GH, or equivalent
• Memory: 1GB RAM / 2GB RAM if under Windows Vista
• Storage: 6GB free hard disk space (and additional space for saved games)
• Media: DVD-ROM drive, or a network connection if buying through STEAM
• Viedo Card: DirectX 9.0c - compatible graphics card with at least 256MB of video RAM; NVDIA GeForce 6800 or ATI x850 at the least

Remember that these requirements are the absolute minimumthat enables the game to start at all at its lowest settings, and that to play the game without any lagging may require (sometimes drastically) better hardware.

Also do note that updates for the game may increase (or decrease) these requirements, depending on the game*.

Recommended hardware configuration to play Fallout 3™ is:

• Operating System: Windows XP / Windows Vista
• Processor: dual-core, Intel® Core 2 Duo / AMD Athlon64 X2
• Memory: 2GB of RAM / 3GB for Windows Vista
• Video card: DirectX 9.0c - compatible video card with 512MB of onboard memory (nVidia 8800 series, ATi 3800 series, or better)

Playing the game on this hardware should result in smooth performance, all other things being equal.

* A noteworthy example would be "New World Order" (a crappy game) - an update to this title brought its memory consumption down by almost half, and while it is also noteworthy that they did that mainly by fixing memory leaks, it is not uncommon for other games as well.

Answer 2

Not in it's default configuration. The Inspiron 531's graphics controller, an NVIDIA 6150, is too weak for Fallout 3. You need to purchase a faster video card (probably at least an 8800 for best results). I believe a video card upgradeis available at purchase,if you are planning on buying one.