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Anonymous's avatar
Anonymous
13 years ago

Mass Effect 1 WIll Not Start

I recently purchased Mass Effect 1 on Steam.  I have Mass Effect 2 installed and running perfectly, and I enjoy it a lot, and I wanted to play through Mass Effect 1 to get the backstory before I continued in ME2.  Let me repeat that Mass Effect 2 runs perfectly fine.

I purchased, downloaded, and installed the game through Steam.  When I run the game through Steam, I get "Mass Effect failed to start (error code 53).  When I attempt to run the executable manually (N:\Program Files\Steam\Steamapps\common\Mass Effect\binaries\MassEffect.exe) I get: "Application load error 5:0000065434"

I have tried setting the executable to run in compatibility mode for Windows XP.  I have tried running the executable as administrator (and running Steam as administrator) even though I am already running windows as an administrator.  I have tried checking the box "Allow non-admins to run this program".  I have tried updating my nVidia drivers to the newest set.  None of this has been successful.

Oddly enough, I can run the MassEffectConfg.exe file.  Here's the wierd thing, though:  I can run the config utility and change settings on it, but after I save the settings, if I run the config utility again, they have been set back to their default.  I do not know whether this piece of information is useful.

Mass Effect:

MassEffect.exe v1.02

MassEffectLauncher.exe v1.01

MassEffectConfig.exe v1.02

(all according to the Mass Effect Configuration Utility)

My system:

AMD Athlon64 X2 3800+ (DUal Core 2.0 Ghz)

Windows XP x64 Professional Edition (5.2 build 3790)

6 GB RAM

ASUS nVidia 460GTX 700Mhz 768MB GPU

nVidia driver version 310.90 (as listed by nVidia control panel), nv4_dsp.dll is 6.14.0013.1090 (according to dxdiag)

DirectX 9.0c 4.09.0000.0904 (d3d9.dll is 5.03.3790.3959 according to dxdiag, but multiple Microsoft.DIrectX.Direct3DX.dll files are listed in dxdiag, the highest version number being 9.12.0589.0000)

Sound is nVidia High Definition Audio (ie the GPU processes sound and sends it via DVI/HDMI along with video) nvhda64.sys 1.03.0018.0000

I really enjoy Mass Effect 2.  I want to be able to play Mass Effect 1.  At some point I may purchase Mass Effect 3, however I can guarantee that I will not be purchasing ME3 if this situation is not resolved, as I see no reason to spend money on a game that may not run.  Many people have posted the same problem in Steam's forums, and many people have mentioned the same problem here as well.

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  • Anonymous's avatar
    Anonymous
    12 years ago

    I had the exact same problem as this man. The game would crash as soon as I try to run it, and when I went to the direct exe file, it would give me the same error. I followed the same path as him to fix the problem. Now the error doesn't appear, but it still crashes when I click on "play".

  • Anonymous's avatar
    Anonymous
    12 years ago

    same issue. running windows 7 64bit. got the game through origin. fully updated. have reinstalled twice. Still does nothing but stares at me blankly as i try to boot it. This makes 3/3 games I've purchased with origin that would not work without me personally finding a way to jury rig the folders. wahoo. This time there isn't even an error message telling me which of the folders to fix for EA though...any advice?

  • Anonymous's avatar
    Anonymous
    11 years ago

    Hello,

    After doing some computer upgrades I seem to be having the same issue. I'm getting the error code 53 and it's displaying the following:

    Problem signature:
      Problem Event Name:    APPCRASH
      Application Name:    MassEffect.exe
      Application Version:    1.2.20608.0
      Application Timestamp:    4a55ff66
      Fault Module Name:    MassEffect.exe
      Fault Module Version:    1.2.20608.0
      Fault Module Timestamp:    4a55ff66
      Exception Code:    c0000005
      Exception Offset:    008b784d
      OS Version:    6.1.7601.2.1.0.256.48
      Locale ID:    1033
      Additional Information 1:    0e99
      Additional Information 2:    0e9901819966b8ee29afe09e61cc8826
      Additional Information 3:    f3b8
      Additional Information 4:    f3b80781c29e5227c466095aa7be8231

    I have updated with both of the patches found here - http://masseffect.bioware.com/me1/pc/updates/index.html - and still it crashes immediately after opening. Any assistance you could provide would be appreciated.

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