Fallout – Should Three-Dog already be dead when I go to see him

The easiest way to do this is to engage in a trick known as Reverse Pickpocketing. In short, what you need to do is plant a higher quality suit of armor on the individual wearing the gear you want (measured by defense rating). They'll then equip this armor, leaving you free to pickpocket the gear they're wearing. The Metal Armor and Helmet are a good choice for this, because of their high DR value, and relative low cost. Other options include any other Combat Armor variant other than the Security Uniform, or of course, any Power Armor.

An alternative is to make use of The Mesmetron to stun/hypnotize a guard and demand they hand over their stuff. This may end violently however.

Yes, yes, yes! Due to the addition of the Fallout New Vegas issue, I was able to Google that and find this .dll, which proved to be helpful in solving the issue.

Just download the d3d9.dll linked here: Alternate D3D9 Fix for ATI.

Thanks a ton to the author of this .dll. I can confirm that it fixed the problem with both Fallout games and hope it can solve the same problem for other gamers too.

Now I can jump into the Fallout world again.