Failed to Initialize PhysX Hardware Acceleration
This morning, when trying to launch ME3, I would get the following error:
"Failed to Initialize PhysX Hardware Acceleration
Using hardware accelerated PhysX has been requested, but the driverse were out of date.
Please download the latest drivers from
http://www.nvidia.com/object/physx_system_software.html
FATAL ERROR - EXITING"
At first I was a little confused on this as I have both an AMD CPU and GPU (Phenom II x4 910 and HD6870) and shouldn't even have PhysX installed but doing a little research into the issue, it seems that, because ME3 is an unreal engine game and the unreal engine requires PhysX for some of their visual effects, it is required regardless of what brand card you have.
I also found out that others have been having this problem too, however none of their solutions seem to work.
First attempt: Repair install ME3. No change.
Second attempt: Find the PhysX installer in the ME3 folder, reinstall, and try again. Doing this had no change.
Thrid attempt: Download installer and try that. The drivers linked were the 9.12.0213 drivers. No change either.
Fourth attempt: Restart your computer. No difference here either.
Fifth attempt: Using an alternate link to the drivers, I downloaded the 9.12.1031 drivers and tried those. This time, I get another error while installing. "There is a problem with this Windows Installer package. A script required for this install to complete could not be run. Contact your support personnel or package vendor." Re-downloading the installer yeilded the same result.
Sixth attempt: Re-install AMD drivers and Catalyst up to 9.002-120928m-149042C-ATI and 12.10 respectively (2D driver of 8.01.01.1266, Direct3D version 9.14.10.0926, OpenGL version 6.14.10.11931 and VISION version 2012.0928.1532.26058). No change.
Seventh attempt: I've seen reports that ME2 had a similar problem, so I decided to launch ME2 to see how well that went (My ME2 copy is digital from steam. My ME3 copy is a physical edition that is now tied to my Origin account). ME2, interestingly, went through PhysX setup and launched just fine. Trying ME3 directly afterwards resulted in the same error as before.
Edit: Eighth attempt: Find the PhysX drivers on the disk (disk 2) and install them (9.11.1107). Unfortunately, because it's within a .zip on the disk and is only openable by the installer, and seeing as how this is just the exact same thing as attempt #2, this had no results.
Right then. That's what I've tried with none of those working. I'm going to check the disk for Nvidia drivers and, if that doesn't work, completely uninstall ME3 and reinstall to see if that works.
Uninstalling and then reinstalling ME3 fixed the issue.
After playing a couple playthroughs on ME3 I went back and installed ME2 on my newer comp and played through. After finishing ME2 I started up ME3 again (to import my character) which gave me this error about the PhysX drivers being outdated.
The logical conclusion is that somehow when you install ME2, an older PhysX Driver is installed which overwrites whatever PhysX Driver you currently have installed - I can't confirm but it makes sense when you think about it.
You don't actually have to reinstall ME3 completely - which can take forever if your internet sucks - mainly, because of the update portion.
The fastest fix is to browse on local drive to the following folder and run the PhysX installer there (This is where it was located for me)...
C :/ Program Files (x86) / Origin Games / Mass Effect 3 / _ (underscore) installer / physx / Redist / PhysX-9.11.1107-SystemSoftware (exe)
Takes about a minute and after the install, the error will not appear again the next time you run ME3.
Hoping this might help others in the future.
-ChriS
