Mass Effect 1 WIll Not Start

I'm affraid that I haven't been able to find anything about error code 53. However, I found a comment regarding "Application load error 5:0000065434". It says that you should run the launcher instead of the masseffect.exe file. Haven't had the problem and there were no respons so I have no clue if it's going to help.

You could always do a check to see if the game was correctly installed trough steam by following these instructions from Steam.

I tried running it from the launcher and I still get the same error.  I've already uninstalled and reinstalled it a few times to see if that would help, but it hasn't.  I've run the thing to verify cache files via Steam before but I did it again after reading your answer to see if it would help, but nope.

So far nothing seems to be able to make this game run.

Ditto, Steam version of Mass Effect, will work a bit then fail either from the Steam window or the EA launcher.

Did not occur before Nvidia's 310.90 driver. Reinstalled Mass Effect from scratch as I assumed the data might have a problem, but still fails. 

I assume EA will have more clout than I would in checking things out with NVidia.

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@Ghostwise7 wrote:

Did not occur before Nvidia's 310.90 driver. Reinstalled Mass Effect from scratch as I assumed the data might have a problem, but still fails. 

I assume EA will have more clout than I would in checking things out with NVidia.

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You are not in contact with any part of Bioware / EA that is corresponding or otherwise communicating with the hardware suppliers.  This is a forum that replaced the Social Site's Self-Help Gamer to Gamer forums.  While we have assistance from paid moderators here, they are not official support.  That is still only offered by the EA Help Center

What I want to know is if that driver broke the game, why in the world haven't you rolled back to a driver that actually worked? 

For what it's worth, I was using an older driver (280.something) when I initially purchased and downloaded ME.  The game didn't work then either.  I upgraded my driver to the latest nVidia drivers (310.90) in an attempt to try to see if that would help.  So I do not think that this is a problem solely with nVidia's drivers, or at least it is not a problem that is solely due to the 310.90 driver.

One thing that I have noticed is that many people who have posted on the Steam forums have mentioned that they are running a 64-bit version of Windows (as am I), and I am wondering whether there might be a specific problem with ME handling either a 64-bit OS or 64-bit drivers?

Microsoft rushed the 64 bit version of XP out the door in awful shape and didn't support it properly.  It gives many games and softwares a lot of problems. 

Not really, no.  I've found it to be a lot more stable than 32-bit XP.  Besides, it doesn't cause any problems with Mass Effect 2, that game runs perfectly fine.  Many other new high-end games (Skyrim, Dishonored, DA:O) run just fine as well.  Also, since Mass Effect explicitly states that it supports WIndows XP, one would assume that they did at least some QA on this...although granted, that's not always a safe assumption, even on AAA titles.

Finally got it to work.  I had to manually download the 1.02 update from the Bioware website.  I did not realize I had to do this for two reasons:

1.  My MassEffectConfig.exe told me that I was already using v1.02

2.  I was told that I only needed the 1.02 patch for people running Windows 7.

Oh yeah, and also because I had assumed (foolishly), that EA would have ensured that the version that I downloaded from Steam was up to date.  I had forgotten that EA is the sole publisher that does not fully support Steam for "business" reasons.

I give the game an A+ and the tech support and basic overall documentation a D-.

Oh yeah, the link to the update file on Bioware's website is here:

http://masseffect.bioware.com/me1/pc/updates/index.html

You never read anything I wrote saying such a thing.  The patch is useful for a lot of reasons and a lot of OSes.  I always call the patch to everyone's attention if they run any OS past Windows XP, although I think Vista might work without it.  The "standard" XP is the only version I felt certain worked, because I used Windows XP (32 bit) without patching three years ago.