Just bought Mass Effect

[VashHT]

So I decided to buy ME now that it's only 20$ on Steam. I was pretty excited about it but after downloading ti then installing the updates the game will not work at all. Here is what I am running it on:

Vista x64
Phenom 2 940
4Gb ram
4870 X2 (catalyst 8.12)

Basically all that happens is when I launch the game it instantly crashes, an error message comes up saying 'Mass effect has stopped working" then it closes. I have tried running it as an admin but that did not help at all.I started downloading the whole thing again this morning but I wanted to see if anyone else has had or heard of this problem.

 

[rivan]

Without having any direct experience with it, I've heard about incompatibilities with dual-gpu setups. Is there a single-gpu mode/setting you can try?

 

[error8]

Maybe there is something wrong with your system. Try uninstalling and reinstalling your videocard's drivers. I remember that a long time ago, when I was installing Toca Race driver 3, on XP, I ran into the same problem as you. It got fixed after a fresh XP reinstall, since everything else failed.

 

[VashHT]

Originally posted by: error8
Maybe there is something wrong with your system. Try uninstalling and reinstalling your videocard's drivers. I remember that a long time ago, when I was installing Toca Race driver 3, on XP, I ran into the same problem as you. It got fixed after a fresh XP reinstall, since everything else failed.

Hmm I don't think it is because I resintalled Vista completely last week because I got a new motherboard and processor. So far all of my other games have been running fine as well, but I guess there could be a problem that only shows in a few games. Even then I'm still not sure its the video drivers, because the game crashes before anything loads, no splashscreen or anything.

 

[Jdioutkast]

do u have any other games that run on the unreal engine? try them out and see if they work.

 

[9mak9]

I just bought it off of steam last week and it works fine.

If you look on the info about Mass Effect on Steam is says for Vista users you have to run it as 'Run as Admin'. I didn't do it that way and it worked fine, but you should try to run the game that way and see if it helps.

 

[alcoholbob]

A lot of steam games don't play well with Vista. When Bioshock first came out every other Vista user couldn't even launch the game until an update came out 2 days later. The boxed copy was just fine.

 

[VashHT]

I've tried running it as an admin and that didn't help at all. I went home at lunch and tried a few things, I updated DX9 (I just reinstalled Vista and I don't think ME included the latest run-time for it) tried disabling crossfire and tried redownloading the entire game. After all of this I still get the same crash, maybe I'll check out the steam forums for ME and see if anything is on there. If that doesn't work maybe I can get them to refund me so I can buy the boxed version lol.

 

[s44]

It used to be that you had to run it as admin the very first time (not thereafter), but the patch should have fixed that. What's your audio setup? Now that the Nvidia driver issue is fixed, the soundcard is probably the most common problem.

 

[VashHT]

I have a HT Omega Claro soundcard. I have the onboard audio disabled via the BIOS and my drivers appear to be working fine (music plays fine, other games sound works fine) but maybe there is some other settings I can tweak for it.

 

[Cuular]

Are you using Vista SP1? I had the same problem with ME until I installed SP1.

 

[ConstipatedVigilante]

Mass Effect wouldn't run for me until I reinstalled windows (I also did a full reformat). If you haven't cleaned up your system in awhile, I'd try it.

 

[s44]

I'm guessing it's the soundcard. Try going back to onboard and see if it works...

 

[SViper]

I had the exact same problem you are having. What you need to do is disable UAC. I did that and it works like a charm now.

Edit: Stupid resolution I know. I browsed the Mass Effect forums a bit and found that this is the resolution on Vista.

 

[tigersty1e]

Do you have internet connection?

The first time you fire up the game, the game connects to the servers to "authenticate"....

DRM

 

[s44]

It's on Steam.