Fallout – How to improve animations and textures in Fallout 3 GOTY

This is just a few of the more well regarded graphical/texture mods to make Fallout 3 prettier. This is by no means comprehensive nor gospel, and I won't even try to vouch for how well all of these will work together without a whole bunch of load order tweaking. Several of them also have other prerequisites that I'm not bothering to link independently here. All will mention them on their respective download pages. Fallout 3 modding, much like the previous Bethesda games, is as much alchemy and art as it is a science of just downloading things and installing them in the right place.

• Fellout - is probably the single most important one, as it removes the cloudy green radioactive haze over everything in the Wasteland, and vastly improves the games lighting.
• Detailed Hi-Res Map - exactly what it says on the tin.
• DARNified UI - a UI overhaul optimized for hi-res computer monitors, since the default FO3 UI is clearly optimized more for a big screen TV. Goes great with the aforementioned map mod.
• Hi-Res Weapons
• Terrain Pack
• Enhanced Weather, Rain and Snow
• Re-Animated - bunch of animation enhancements

And my personal single most essential Fallout Mod, isn't graphical, but will keep you from going insane from hearing about how Bingo Bango Bongo Doesn't Want To Leave The Jungle for the millionth time...

• GNR - More Where That Came From - adds 100 new Public Domain tracks that are thematically consistent and awesome to Galaxy News Radio.

Credit where due: Links lovingly and liberally scraped from this amazing SomethingAwful thread on FO3 modding, which contains lots of tips on getting set up with mods and mod tools in general.