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I've searched the web and found plenty of similar cases, but no given solution seems to work. I fairly recently purchased the Mass Effect trilogy because I wanted to revisit one of my favorite franchises. I originally played them all on the 360, but it would be nice to play though it again with the good old mouse and keyboard. Unfortunately, I'm running into problems before even starting my quest to rid the universe of Reapers. It seems that after a specific amount of time in the menu (usually about the time that I start changing graphics settings), the game freezes. Background music is still playing, but the screen is stuck and there is no response from input. Task manager opens but cannot be seen over the game. Only way out is to restart.

I know this game was primarily made for consoles, but it is very upsetting that after THIS long it's got such a huge issue playing on a PC. My specs are below and clearly I have the horsepower to run the game. I'm wondering if anyone else has had this problem and has possibly found a solution. Most people I've read about seem to have this issue after already getting into the game, pausing, and then having the game crash. My issue happens before I even get to start. Thanks in advance for any help. I would VERY MUCH like to play these games again on my PC.

It is an issue with the sound engine where it leaks memory until there's no more left for application space (4GiB, since ME1 is a 32bit app). It is a known problem with ME1 for years and the only way to deal with it is frequently save and restart the application. It is a kinda a buzz killer when you are trying to ironman it. Fortunately, it is fixed with ME2 and ME3.

That really sucks. I was looking forward to some Mako action but that doesn't even sound worth it.

ALiLPinkMonster wrote:

That really sucks. I was looking forward to some Mako action but that doesn't even sound worth it.

There is a fix for it. I posted one a few years ago and you either can search for it in the forums or Google it.

NVM I did the work for you:

So after searching the UT3 forums for like issues (ME and UT3 use the same engine) I stumbled across a post that stated the following:

1) in /program files/Mass Effect/Binaries locate the OpenAL32.dll and wrap_oal.dll files

2) Rename OpenAL32.dll to OpenAL32.bak

3) Rename wrap_oal.dll to OpenAL32.dll

4) Launch as Admin by using the MassEffect.exe

5) Enjoy

Thanks! I'll give it a try when I get home today.

Well that didn't work. Still froze in the same way.

ALiLPinkMonster wrote:

Well that didn't work. Still froze in the same way.

Did you re-register the renamed DLL?

I tried but I keep getting this error message:

"The module (blahblah) was loaded but the entry-point DllRegisterServer was not found."

Hmm, maybe an unregister then re-register?

I know nothing about the game, just thinking about Windows issues here.

The problem is Mass Effect 1 port uses an older version of OpenAL files as dependencies. The said files were meant to work with older audio platforms (Audigy and first X-Fi families). They are unstable with newer audio platforms. I suppose the only reliable way to avoid the crashes to run the game with audio disabled and use subtitles.

I had a problem like this with BioShock (OpenAL). The fix was to enable Stereo Mix in the audio driver, worth a shot.

Krogoth wrote:

The problem is Mass Effect 1 port uses an older version of OpenAL files as dependencies. The said files were meant to work with older audio platforms (Audigy and first X-Fi families). They are unstable with newer audio platforms. I suppose the only reliable way to avoid the crashes to run the game with audio disabled and use subtitles.

I've been following this thread, but haven't posted as I haven't seen this issue nor do I have a solution for the OP (and that makes me sad...), but I will say that I recently did a run, and I'm running an X-Fi for sound.

Now, issues with getting ME2 and ME3 to even pretend to load... that's been fun.

The fix that I posted I used when I was running Win7. I dint think about it till now that it might not work with Win 8/8.1. But your freezing issues are most definitely related to the sound drivers.

Okay guys I think I figured out the problem. My audio is run through a Zoom multi-effect pedal that doubles as a USB interface. I've got my two studio monitors running off of it. When I plug in my cheap headphones the game seems to work just fine (or as fine as it will possibly run for being a shoddy console port).

Knowing this there probably isn't a fix that will let me use my superb monitors, but I can play the game now so whatever. Thanks for attempting to help. Sorry I hadn't replied for so long, life got busy.