Help! Mass Effect won't start in Bootcamp.

[cripplerking]

With Steam's recent sales, I purchased and downloaded Mass Effect for $5. Unfortunately, it will not run. I've got a late 2008 Unibody Macbook, and I'm running Windows XP in Bootcamp.

When I try to run Mass Effect out of Steam, I get the message "This game is currently unavailable, please try again at another time". I've tried several things to fix this, including restarting and deleting the ClientRegistry.blob file.

When I try to run it the file "MassEffect.exe", I get the message "This application has failed to start because the application configuration is incorrect. Reinstalling the application may fix this problem". I'm hesitant to try reinstalling, since downloading the game took me 2 straight nights.

If I open the file "MassEffectLauncher", it brings up a little menu, with options like "Support" and "Documentation", all of which work except "Play"

Has anyone else had these problems? Is there anything I can do to fix this?

 

[Dragonforce]

Works for me (machine see Sig & Windows 7)

 

[Huntn]

In the Steam Client, when you pull up "your games" does it show the game as downloaded and ready to go?

Secondly, I wonder what kind of video card requirements Mass Effect has? I'm know I'm in the ask questions mode, but does your Macbook have the X3100 chipset? (I think the Profiler will show that.) Mass Effect may require "shaders2" a video card standard, but this is just a possibility. I don't believe MacBooks before the X3100 standard supported shaders2. If not done all ready, a look at Mass Effect min system requirements might be in order.

Thirdly you can go to Steam support, establish an account there and start a ticket about the problem.

 

[cripplerking]

Yes, it is completely downloaded and should be ready to go. I'm fairly certain it should be able to support the game graphically- even if that is the problem, I don't think Steam would be responding this way.

I think I'm going to try grabbing a copy from a friend and seeing if it will run out of Steam. I've searched about this thoroughly, and I'm not the only one to have this issue with Steam.

 

[Aegelward]

There is a chance it needs to ping the servers for authentication, at least for a first run.

And the servers are likely inundated, an alternate suggestion is to simply wait a couple of days.

 

[angelneo]

As far as I know, Mass Effect anti-piracy measure require it to ping the server at least once every 10 days. You can play it when you are not connected to the internet, but you have to be online at least once every 10 days when playing the game.

 

[davwin]

As the others have said - the DRM "phone home" is the most likely culprit. I have the disc based version of ME and it plays fine on my late 2008 MB so there is no technical restriction to playing it on yours, Steam probably just needs to re-authenticate to allow you to play. This is a common issue currently (unfortunately) as their servers were slammed over this past week because of the sales going on. Several threads about GTA4 having the same problems for instance - and both of those titles use the same forced 3rd party DRM required by the publisher :/

 

[Huntn]

I've run into this too where Steam takes forever to get you signed in. Very frustrating and another reason to hate DRM. I avoid Steam whenever possible.

 

[destron]

I actually have a question related to this.

I want to buy Mass Effect, but I first need to make sure if it will run on my version of Boot Camp. Now, I'll admit to being extremely unfamiliar with the Windows side of things, so please forgive the noobishness of this question, but would Windows XP Boot Camp being run on an iMac with OSX 10.5.8 be sufficient for Mass Effect?

I would download a demo, but none seems to be available. Thank you.

 

[edddeduck]

I actually have a question related to this.

I want to buy Mass Effect, but I first need to make sure if it will run on my version of Boot Camp. Now, I'll admit to being extremely unfamiliar with the Windows side of things, so please forgive the noobishness of this question, but would Windows XP Boot Camp being run on an iMac with OSX 10.5.8 be sufficient for Mass Effect?

I would download a demo, but none seems to be available. Thank you.

The model of iMac is important as not all iMacs are the same. The latest 27" for example has a nice ATI card which will run all games very well but some educational iMacs had GMA cards which cannot run any modern games.

You can find out what type of card you have by using the System Profiler application in your Applications/Utilities folder when in OS X.

Edwin

 

[Rodus]

^^Ditto what Edwin says. Even the Radeon X1600 in the '06 iMac will run Mass Effect at low settings so as long as you haven't got a GMA model then you should be good to go.