A small Wiki on how you can mod Fallout 3 on Xbox 360 (JTAG/RGH/BU) by Empyreal96, thanks to jordonleedell and shynessclinic from Xbox 360 Hub discord

Game Limitations and Information on Xbox

There is a lack of detailed information on the internet on how to mod Fallout 3/NV on a hacked Xbox 360, most guides are basic and only support small, basic mods, not many will see the point of modding this game on an Xbox but nevertheless there will be some people that will want to achieve this.

• Mods that require Fallout Script Extender will not work.

• Mods that use .esm files don't seem to work when Archive Invalidation is enabled and official DLC installed as Xbox content, without Invalidation textures and meshes from mods won't load.

• Mods that have audio files will need converting to .xma format, and plugins will need modifying with a tool like FO3Edit to change the paths to look for the xma files. FO3Edit on Nexus Mods

• Using this method may produce longer load times and fps drops depending on the type of mods

• Not all mods will work, whether it be due to limitations on available memory for the Xbox, GPU limitations or just some weird incompatibility.

• There is a fair bit of setup to get your game ready

• A modded Xbox 360, RGH, JTAG or BadUpdate/ABadAvatar. (I achieved this with BadAvatar)

• Fallout 3 for Xbox 360 installed to USB Storage, (DLC and Title Update 3 recommended).

• Fallout 3 PC (GOG or Steam is fine).

• Archive Invalidation BSA archive, make sure to download "manual version".

• BAE or another .bsa extrctor.

• Xbox Neighborhood/Open Neighborhood or FTP to Xbox.

• Le Fluffie, XLAST or another package creation tool.

• Le Fluffie, Horizon or a similar tool for extracting the DLC files

• Ordenador Texture Optimizer (This is for mods that have textures sized 1024x1024 and above)

• Patience.

  Step 1 - Preparation

There is some setup required as with the default version of Fallout 3, without these steps, you will be limited to mods that don't make use of textures, meshes etc.

Firstly we are going to create a new "installation" of the xbox version of Fallout, this is just to keep an always working and unmodified version.

• Copy the Fallout 3 game folder from the Xbox to your PC, We will call the PC folder Fallout 3 Modded in this guide.

• Once that is copied, we will delete the file Fallout 3 Modded\Data\Fallout - Textures.bsa, then we will copy ArchiveInvalidation!.bsa into the same folder.

• Now using the text editor of your choice, open Fallout 3 Modded\Fallout.ini. go to the [Archive] section, proceed to remove Fallout - Textures.bsa from SArchiveList= and SMasterTexturesArchiveFileName1=.

• Now we need to add ArchiveInvalidationInvalidated!.bsa to the beginning of SArchiveList= and change bInvalidateOlderFiles= to 1.

• Next we are going to extract the DLC files, first copy the Xbox content packages to an empty folder on your PC, and open the Package Manager of your choice.

• Go through all 5 DLC packages one by one, and extract the .esm and .bsa files into that folder. if done correctly you should have 5 esm files, and 10 bsa archives(?)

• Now we need to copy the newly extracted files to the "Fallout 3 Modded\Data" folder.

• Next we have to add entries into Fallout.ini for the dlc files, for quickness I will write it out below to copy:

[General]
STestFile10=
STestFile9=
STestFile8=
STestFile7=
STestFile6=Zeta.esm
STestFile5=PointLookout.esm
STestFile4=BrokenSteel.esm
STestFile3=ThePitt.esm
STestFile2=Anchorage.esm
STestFile1=Fallout3.esm

...
[Archive]
SArchiveList=ArchiveInvalidationInvalidated!.bsa, Fallout - Meshes.bsa, Fallout - Voices.bsa, Fallout - MenuVoices.bsa, Fallout - Sound.bsa, Fallout - Misc.bsa, Anchorage - Main.bsa, Anchorage - Sounds.bsa, ThePitt - Main.bsa, ThePitt - Sounds.bsa, BrokenSteel - Main.bsa, BrokenSteel - Sounds.bsa, PointLookout - Main.bsa, PointLookout - Sounds.bsa, Zeta - Main.bsa, Zeta - Sounds.bsa

• Now we need to launch BAE and open Fallout - Textures.bsa from the PC version, extract all files from the archive into Fallout 3 Modded\Data.

• Ensure the folder structure is:

  • Fallout 3 Modded
    • Data
      • textures

Your game is now set up ready for Modding, Feel free to copy the Fallout 3 Modded folder to your Xbox USB now

• Once you've downloaded the mod of your choice (make sure it doesn't require FOSE), extract it ready to use.

• If your mod has audio files, you'll need to convert them to .xma files for them to be recognised by the xbox.. Note: I won't provide links but you'll need to obtain xmaencode.exe from a pre-2010 Xbox 360 SDK.

• Audio files will need to be converted if they are in .mp3 format, convert to .wav.

• Once all your audio is in .wav format, you will need to then pass each file individually through xwmaencode.exe, ensuring the outputted .xma files are in the required audio folder used by the mod, for example My Mod\Data\Sounds\fx\ambient\MySoundForMod.xma

• Next, you have to open the mods .esp/.esm file in FO3Edit, to do this, temporarily copy the plugin to your PCs Fallout 3\Data folder and launch FO3Edit.

• A selection window will appear, select the plugin you are editing and load it, wait for the references to finish loading.

• Generally speaking anything in the "Sound" option in the list will contain the references in-game that use the audio files. select a reference and look for some text that say the original files name on the right pane, for example "M5_3DFire.wav" or "MyModSound.mp3".

• Once you've located the text, double click and replace the file extension with .xma. When all entries for each reference that has audio is changed, save the plugin and close FO3Edit.

• Now we can use the modified plugin file to create the content package as stated below.

• Open your package creation tool and make sure the details below match if it asks for it (for example XLAST has some fields not required in La Fluffie)

  • Game Name: Fallout 3
  • TitleID: 435207D5
  • Publisher ID: any 7 digit number.
  • Content Type: Marketplace/In-Game Content
  • Dashboard Icon: any 64x64 .png image
  • Activation Date: ensure its before 2005/your console date if your console isn't using current time and date

• Next we need to go ahead and add the .esp/.esm file for the mod of your choice, make sure its in the "root" of the package and not in any subfolders.

• Save the package with a name of your choice, preferably with no spaces or special characters.

• Now we need to copy it to either the USB or Xbox HDD in the path: Content\0000000000000000\435207D5\0000002\ (I recommend the same drive that you'll keep your game saves on)

• Next there is two options, one is for mods with loose files, and the other is for BSA packed files

  • Loose files Copy the textures, meshes and any other content folders to Fallout 3 Modded\Data, overwrite if needed.
  • BSA packed files (Although many mods will work with their provided archives, I recommend extracting the files) Extract them with BAE just like we did above for the Textures BSA file, but do it for the mods textures, meshes, sounds etc. then copy the extracted files to Fallout 3 Modded\Data.

Now the mod should be successfully installed to your game.

When loading up the game, ensure the new mod is showing in Downloads on the Main Menu