Mass Effect crashes on launch

[Prometheus_Lux]

I got an annoying problem: When I'm trying to launch Mass Effect, immediately after the Steam message saying "preparing to launch Mass Effect..." disappears, I get the windows message "Mass Effect has stopped working", with the options to ither "check online for a solution and close the program", or simply "close the program".
I'm using windows 7, and tried both re-downloading Mass Effect and re-installing Steam. All other Steam games work perfectly.
Any idea what to do?

[Nekomancer]

What are your system specs?

[Prometheus_Lux]

Quad core 2.5GHz (intel Q8300)
2GB DDR3 1333MHz RAM
GeForce GTS250
And got about 100GB free space...the system isn't the problem, I ran it easily on a much weaker pc.

[Mau1wurf1977]

Turn off UAC and uninstall the game, then reinstall it.

[Prometheus_Lux]

Wow it works, and didn't even need a reinstall, thanks :)

[matthew11790]

I can't seem to get mass effect to run on my computer. I downloaded it off steam and I have the same problem twice where it will say preparing to launch, the mouse will show that it's loading and then it will just stop. Anyone else have something similar to this happen to them or know whats going on?

[DTKT]

I can't seem to get mass effect to run on my computer. I downloaded it off steam and I have the same problem twice where it will say preparing to launch, the mouse will show that it's loading and then it will just stop. Anyone else have something similar to this happen to them or know whats going on?

Did you try turning UAC off or running as an adminstrator?

[matthew11790]

How do I run it as admin? or turn the UAC off?

[DTKT]

How do I run it as admin? or turn the UAC off?

That's how I would do it, create a desktop shortcut by right clicking on Mass Effect in your game list. From your desktop, right click on the shortcut and select "Run as administrator".

Click "Allow" at the security prompt and it might work.

To be honest, I wouldnt recommend turining off UAC, Windows will constantly tell you that something is wrong with your computer.

[matthew11790]

thanks for the tip, I'll give it a try

[matthew11790]

nothing, same thing won't even start up

[matthew11790]

Guess I'll just have to call steam or bioware tomorrow and see if I can get them to give me any answers

[ScorpSt]

nothing, same thing won't even start up

Did you restart Steam after setting it to run as administrator?

[masterjokin]

its a listed problem i think. on mine it crashes at the config utility. they nuked everyone on dlc, figures they would do the same half-assed type job for the pc. they have been quoted as saying they borked the port even.

you can try running the exe in the binary folder, in compatability mode, vista sp1, and runing as admin as well. you can make your own shortcut, thought you will need to restart the game, if it lets you in, to get the high level textures to load... here have a look, at a link i found that seems to help others...seems to have worked here. (http://www.giantbomb.com/mass-effect/61-16909/mass-effect-configuration-utility-crash-pc/35-384663/?page=last)

[masterjokin]

you will get the same advice on the bioware forum, there even less chatty there then on steam forums though.

[BarbequedIguana]

Mine wouldn't start until I ran Steam from the start menu using the r-click "run as administrator" then the same for ME2 from the desktop icon.

[idburns]

Turning UAC all the way down and rebooting my computer solved it for me.

[party_turtle]

I had this problem after reinstalling windows, going from Mass Effect working fine to the message you are getting. To solve it for me, I...

1. Disabled UAC (make sure you restart your comp for it to take effect)
2. Installed the latest version of the .net framework
3. Installed all of the latest windows updates, including silverlight
4. Allowed Mass Effect through my firewall

Of course it wont be all of these yet after that it all worked fine.
Hope this helps :)