"Did you had ME installed over Origin before? If yes, did you uninstalled the Origin copy before you installed with Steam?" No.
"If you move the save games out of the "...Documents\BioWare\Mass Effect" folder, is the game starting normally?" Yes. So long as there's a "Save" folder present, the game runs normally.
- Richard
Try to run Origin and if that doesn't help, the game as Administrator. (Right click the Origin shortcut on the desktop > Run as an Administrator.)
If that don't helps preform a clean boot, disable your virus scanner (Do it in offline mode if you have concerns.) and test the Game in clean boot mode.
@holger1405 Thanks for the advice.
I ended up getting so annoyed at ME, that I uninstalled before I received your reply.
I've reinstalled it via Steam and manually added it to my Origin launcher using its CD key. This also deleted all my save games.
The game now seems to be running properly, if I disable UAC and Windows' anti-virus utility, have Origin running, and start the game by running masseffectlauncher.exe as an administrator – not by starting it via Steam.
UPDATE: I posted too soon. I just tried to play Mass Effect, and it froze while loading my last save game. Same issue as before.
I did try your suggestions, including a clean boot, but the problem remains.
- Richard
@richard_cosgrove; Don't play through Steam. Try direct from Origin.
@ThandalNLyman Tried installing ME via Origin and still had the same problem.
@holger1405 Thanks for the advice again, but I think I hit on the solution.
I got sick of messing about with ME, and installed ME2 to see if that worked.
ME2 wouldn't save games. I did some googling and found that adjusting Windows 10's Data Execution Prevention setting sometimes fixed this.
I set DEP to "Turn on DEP for essential Windows programs" and ME2 began saving games and ME loading saved games without issues.
There is a whitelist option for DEP, but Windows 10 won't allow ME2 to be added to the list.
- Richard
Additional to @ThandalNLyman, please create a DxDiag in text file format and post it with your next reply. You can do that with the "Choose file" button at the bottom right corner of the reply window.
richard_cosgrove wrote:
This also deleted all my save games.
This is strange.
The game still loads normally if you don't have a safe in the folder?
Run "chkdsk" on your the drive the "Documents" folders are on:
