Mass Effect (Steam version - first game) "has stopped responding" on launch

[Ahielia]

For a while now Mass Effect (1) has been crashing very frequently when I try to launch it.
So far I've tried many different ways of starting it:
Right clicking Steam on the taskbar (Win7) and choosing the pinned ME.
Choosing it from the library.
Creating a shortcut from the library to the desktop and using that.
Used the launcher in steamapps/common/mass effect.
Used the .exe in the binaries folder above^.
Used the 2 last ones as administrator.
Used them as administrator while Steam was also started as an administrator.

Don't exactly get an error message, just the standard "Mass Effect has stopped responding" window a couple of seconds after the splash screen appears.

Of course I have tried verifying the game cache, but to no avail.

At first the game would crash in 1 in 10 tries, but now it's more like 1 in 20 it's actually starting. Which sucks for many different reasons, but it takes 5ish minutes just to get past the crashing, if I ever get past it. Like now. I want to play Mass Effect, but I can't, since it keeps crashing.

If anyone got some tips besides downloading the entire game again, I'm all ears. It's 10GB, so I'd rather not.

Should also be noted that I have upgraded my graphics card from 560Ti to 680, with the latest drivers (301.42), but this thing happened with the Ti too.
Total recorded play time on Steam is 93 hours, this issue started happening around the 50 hour mark, if I remember correctly. And yes, it just started happening, didn't do any changes.

[Fadingz]

Here are some wild guesses to fix it.

1. Try running in window mode
2. Clear the virtual pages, cache, and etc. with CCleaner or alike.
3. Are you loading from a save? Perhaps something is wrong with the save.

[Ahielia]

Here are some wild guesses to fix it.

1. Try running in window mode
2. Clear the virtual pages, cache, and etc. with CCleaner or alike.
3. Are you loading from a save? Perhaps something is wrong with the save.

Wild guesses indeed :p
Swapping to window mode with the launcher did nothing, and I regularly do nr2.
As for 3, I don't know how you came up with that, as this is before the game actually starts (it crashes when I'm trying to start it), so I can't actually load saves.

[Yeloazndevil]

it could actually check the saves when it loads, it can't hurt to remove your saves to see if it solves anything. Does any other games you have on steam crash?

[SCHUMI_4EVER]

Mass Effect has a settings thing/reader/config outside of the game. Try running that and setting some options in there and then saving. Perhaps some value it set in there somehow don't pertain to your new card.

I suppose this isn't a common problem with the Steam version? (IE the steam forum for the game isn't full of such threads or a sticky addressing the problem of some sort)

Can't really help more than that as I have the retail version which has worked perfectly.

[jonc2006]

I suppose this isn't a common problem with the Steam version? (IE the steam forum for the game isn't full of such threads or a sticky addressing the problem of some sort)

not sure on that but ive played through the game 4 or 5 times and its never crashed on me once.

[KrossX]

Didn't the configuration thingy have some diagnostic tools and options like clear cache and stuff? Might help.

[Ahielia]

it could actually check the saves when it loads, it can't hurt to remove your saves to see if it solves anything.
Tried it, same thing.

Does any other games you have on steam crash?
No.

Mass Effect has a settings thing/reader/config outside of the game. Try running that and setting some options in there and then saving. Perhaps some value it set in there somehow don't pertain to your new card.
Used that, and didn't work any better. This thing did happen with my old card as well.

I suppose this isn't a common problem with the Steam version? (IE the steam forum for the game isn't full of such threads or a sticky addressing the problem of some sort)
There has been reports, yes. I've only seen people running Vista/7 having this problem, but it's not particularly common.

not sure on that but ive played through the game 4 or 5 times and its never crashed on me once.
Didn't crash on me either, until loads of hours later.

-----------------------------------

This morning I've started getting "General Protection Fault" errors when starting the game - with referenced to directx files. Which is weird, since I haven't done any changes. Tried reinstalling/update directx, but I still get it.
Other times the splash screen can stay very long with no error message.

Haven't been able to start it in a day now.

[SCHUMI_4EVER]

Perhaps try a clean install of your GPU drivers. Use the custom install option and pick clean install.

[Ahielia]

Yeah, doing that now. If it doesn't work, I'll just bite the bullet and reinstall it.

E: Meh, didn't work.
Will set it to download when I go to bed in 12ish hours then.

[Ahielia]

Downloaded it while I jammed a bit on Rock Band, took surprisingly little time, 3-4 MB/s is sort of fast.

However, I'm getting the same General Protection ****ing Fault.
http://forums.ngemu.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=218022&stc=1&d=1340236668
Can anyone make sense of this?

The way I see it, it's complaining that it can't find the DirectX files, but I no next to nothing about that business.

Or if anyone actually knows what it specifically complains about, please share.

Even so, both before and after I downloaded it again, I've run several DirectX installers.
The one that's in the game's directory (every time a game is run for the first time on Steam, you finalise the install business - that thing)
The web installer from Microsoft.
The offline installer from Microsoft.

The web installer said I had the same or a newer version of it installed, so it exited without doing anything.
The other 2 copied some files and stuff, then said the install was complete.

I am seriously at a lost here, what the **** am I supposed to do now?
Suppose I could do the not-so-legal thing...
Like download it from a different source. I've already paid for it, and it doesn't work.

[Fadingz]

Here are a couple more tries:
-Make sure your virtual pages is enabled.
-Turn on DEP for all programs except for specified ones, and don't specify anything
-Turn off all background processes

[Ahielia]

Tried disabling and enabling the virtual memory.
DEP was turned on, but I swapped to the specified option.
All non-essential stuff shut down.

Nada.

[Yeloazndevil]

going through old threads about this problem it seems to be driver issues.


Checking the driver information, and as stated previously in this thread, it seems that GeForce drivers from 182.6 to 19xx are not experiencing GPF errors. These drivers are several years old, however. The most current GeForce driver is 296.1. I'm currently downloading this driver to replace my 266.71 driver. If it seems to fix the problem


this was posted 3 months ago


The 270.61 nVidia driver has solved my crashing problems! I have played the game for a good 5 hours straight with no crashing of any kind.


2 months ago

These GPF are a common problem since I have 1,720,000 results from google

you can always go this route like this guy

solved. got an ea rep to give me an origin download, installed, run through a couple of hours and no problems at all.

[Ahielia]

Then the issue must persist through a ****load of revisions, as I've had this issue on 300.83, 301.1, 301.24, 301.42 and now finally the 304.48 beta drivers.
And yes, I did have this issue when I used the 29x drivers for my 560 Ti.

Going to try reroll back to one of the earlier Kepler drivers, they crashed a lot less at the time.

solved. got an ea rep to give me an origin download, installed, run through a couple of hours and no problems at all.
Yeah, not going to happen.
-------------------------
E:
Installed the 300.83, and the game started 2 out of 4 times I tried!
At least that's a big improvement, as it hasn't started in a day prior, in some 50 tries.
And the 2 times it didn't start, it threw a GPF error as well.

[SCHUMI_4EVER]

If it wasn't happening to others then I'd say it's some sort of HDD issue.

By the way when you redownloaded the game, did you just delete the folder and make it download again? or did you uninstall and then reinstall?

[Ahielia]

Uninstall and reinstall.

Been wanting to relocate the Steam folder to my 2TB drive, since my 1TB drive (where Steam is currently) is getting too crowded.