So, you launch fallout 3 but you notice you are showing just as online on steam after the launcher and steam overlay doesn't work, you've come to the right place

How do i know if my Fallout 3 isn't launching properly?

Launch fallout 3 and load to the main menu, if you alt tab out and it looks like the image below then its not launching properly


Now if you wanted to count your hours but are lazy you could just click launch again and keep the launcher running in the background as demonstrated below with 2 instances of f3 running



So how do i get a single instance to clock hours again?

Alright so you're gonna want to right click on fallout 3 in your library and click "properties"
in the properties menu you will see a box for launch options, click in that box and paste the line below


"C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Fallout 3 goty\Fallout3.exe" %command%

now close the properties tab and launch the game, this will skip the fallout 3 launcher and just open the .exe for the game instead resulting in a single instance still tracking hours as shown below



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