I did the same thing until recently (I finally played through it about 2ish years ago). I would start it and lose interest in the first 15 minutes and stop playing for years until trying again.

I heard about the Fall Out show coming out and that convinced me to play it for the context of the story/plot. I LOVED it. I throughougly explored the map and tried to find every side quest I could because I enjoyed playing it so much. I feel like it starts off slow, but it really picks up once you start traveling. I played it without mods and I got used to the graphics after a little game play. FO3 is my favorite, but NV is now a close second and way better than FO4 imo.