Friend can't get Mass Effect, Bioshock, or UT3 working

[killbydemons]

He has had trouble running all 3 of those games on his new system; for a while it was just Bioshock and Mass Effect that weren't working, then he tried Unreal Tournament 3 and found out that didn't work either.

This is on his new system which he received recently...
Q9450 @ stock
P5Q Premium
8 gb (4x2gb) G.skill DDR2 1066
Sapphire HD4870
PC Power & Cooling Silencer 750 Quad
Vista 64 bit w SP1

On all 3 of those games they freeze at the splash-right after he launches them-and his 4th core (core3 in the task manager) maxes out. He has the newest 8.7 Catalyst drivers for his video card; also fixed the fan speed on that so he is getting decent temps now. We already got him the latest DirectX redistributable (June 2008). We tried running those games in compatibility mode for windows xp. Nothing has worked.

There is no reason his system should be doing this...other games do work, such as Crysis and Supreme Commander (and they run wonderfully too). What is wrong so that Bioshock, UT3, and Mass Effect aren't working?

 

[TridenT]

Idk, I haven't had any troubles with them and the new 8.7 drivers. I too have V64. Uninstall ATI drivers, do a driver clean with your favorite program, and then dl the newest ones from ATIs website... Install. It would be the only way this could be fixed. Also, try installing any new patches on the games. That might resolve some issues.

 

[shortylickens]

I was thinking it might be a DRM issue, something messing with your system.
Dont all of those games have Starforce Copy Protection?

 

[killbydemons]

idk...a combination of that and securom maybe. It is not a driver problem, not video drivers anyway.

Here is something interesting though which i forgot to mention. Bioshock worked fine before patching it to 1.1....after the patch is when it started acting up. But my friend won't play Bioshock before 1.1 bc he like Human inferno and all the new plasmids lol

edit: also i have all of those games and vista 64 bit as well, and they work fine on my system :/

 

[ja1484]

The common thread:

All 3 games are based on Unreal Engine 3.

Something in your friend's system hates the engine. Good luck troubleshooting.

 

[Renob]

All 3 games are based on Unreal Engine 3.

I thought BioShock was a very tweaked older engine?

 

[s44]

Easy fix.

UE3 games in Vista need to be run once as Administrator so the game can set certain registry keys.

Then quit & run as yourself.

 

[lxskllr]

Originally posted by: Renob

All 3 games are based on Unreal Engine 3.

I thought BioShock was a very tweaked older engine?

No it's UE3

 

[Kromis]

Originally posted by: Renob

All 3 games are based on Unreal Engine 3.

I thought BioShock was a very tweaked older engine?

You're thinking about SCA

 

[aka1nas]

Originally posted by: shortylickens
I was thinking it might be a DRM issue, something messing with your system.
Dont all of those games have Starforce Copy Protection?

Nope, they use SecureROM, and very different versions at that.

 

[The Keeper]

Originally posted by: s44
Easy fix.

UE3 games in Vista need to be run once as Administrator so the game can set certain registry keys.

Then quit & run as yourself.

This guy is probably right on the mark. That's what I had to do to get Mass Effect to work.

Find game executable or its shortcut and click it with the secondary mouse button and select run as administrator. Once the game has fully loaded and in the main menu, quit the game and then run it normally.

Strange though that this seems to only affect UE3 engine games.

 

[chizow]

Originally posted by: The Keeper

Originally posted by: s44
Easy fix.

UE3 games in Vista need to be run once as Administrator so the game can set certain registry keys.

Then quit & run as yourself.

This guy is probably right on the mark. That's what I had to do to get Mass Effect to work.

Find game executable or its shortcut and click it with the secondary mouse button and select run as administrator. Once the game has fully loaded and in the main menu, quit the game and then run it normally.

Strange though that this seems to only affect UE3 engine games.

Yep, another common fix is to disable UAC, run once, then re-enable UAC. Gears of War is another UE3.0 title that has this problem, but I always have to run it as admin.

 

[CP5670]

Originally posted by: aka1nas

Originally posted by: shortylickens
I was thinking it might be a DRM issue, something messing with your system.
Dont all of those games have Starforce Copy Protection?

Nope, they use SecureROM, and very different versions at that.

UT3 doesn't use anything apart from the CD key for online play. One of the few games these days which is like that.