Mass Effect (Steam) won't play

[Via]

I've uninstalled and downloaded it three times now, just to be sure.

I click on the icon and a box with "Play Mass Effect" comes up. I select it, click "ok", the cursor shows about 3-5 seconds of activity, a bit of HD spinning, and then nothing. The task manager shows nothing.

Every other Steam game I have currently downloaded plays fine.

Before I enter the Steam support cluster$%^ does anyone here have any ideas?

 

[dust]

Try compatibility mode XP service pack 3

 

[Via]

I'll try that. I've downloaded and played it many times before without any issues. Is there maybe something that got corrupted in the steam folder I need to delete?

 

[sandorski]

Try restarting Steam, if you haven't.

 

[Via]

Try restarting Steam, if you haven't.

Nope, didn't work. Same result.

I uninstalled the thing again and went to the Steam folder just to check, and there was a Mass Effect folder there some sort of steamid doc in it. I deleted that and am re-downloading, hoping maybe that'll do the trick.


edit - I also found a ME file in documents that had several things in it, including a config file. Deleted it as well.

 

[sandorski]

Nope, didn't work. Same result.

I uninstalled the thing again and went to the Steam folder just to check, and there was a Mass Effect folder there some sort of steamid doc in it. I deleted that and am re-downloading, hoping maybe that'll do the trick.

Twice over the years I had to delete a certain file to fix a Steam problem. I can't remember the name of it, but a Steam forum or even Google search should turn it up.... ahh, Try this

 

[Via]

I looked up various things and tried them, still no luck.

But this is getting weird - I finished the ME download and steam didn't even give me the option to install it, and it may not have the previous time either (I don't remember exactly). I click and nothing happens.

I downloaded another game just to check if steam was totally whack, but it installed normally.

Why won't it let me even install ME, let alone play it?

 

[sandorski]

Hmm, is that one of the games that had an Install limit on it maybe? I hope not, because that would suck.

Another possibility is that there's an OS incompatibility or missing video thingy(name escapes me) on your system.

 

[Nvidiaguy07]

go to Steam\steamapps\common\Mass Effect\Binaries and open masseffectconfig, then edit whatever needs to be changed . i think that fixed it for me.

 

[Via]

Try compatibility mode XP service pack 3

And dust ends up being right, again (You have been right about things in the past, haven't you? I can't remember)

I tried the service pack compatibility on the Mass Effect launcher in the regular folder. I didn't realize you had to go into the binaries folder and apply it there.

This has to be a new thing, because I've played ME several times on this very computer and never had to apply any sort of compatibility in the past.

Thanks to NVdiaguy for pointing me to that folder.

 

[dust]

I think I had the same issue, but I had it gone with some stupid fix, either by running compatibility mode for a previous Windows or running the exe as admin.

 

[2timer]

Bought the Mass Effect package deal on Steam, had the exact same issue. If Windows 7 is your OS , try running it as Admin. For some reason that fixed the problem for me!

 

[Seba]

Mass Effect on Steam

Under System Requirements:

* WINDOWS VISTA OR WINDOWS 7 USERS: Launching “Mass Effect” from Steam requires the setting “Run as Administrator”. If the User Account Control feature of Windows Vista is enabled, launching “Mass Effect” from Steam will result in failure. For users with User Account Control enabled, launch Steam using the “Run as Administrator” option or launch from the windows shortcut.

It does not say there, but I think that this (“Run as Administrator&#8221 only needs to be done once (probably it needs to write something in Windows Registry).