Black screen on first menu of Mass Effect 1 on PC

[Zaerdra_7]

I can't get my Origin copy of Mass Effect to work on my PC. I bought the Mass Effect Trilogy through Origin about a week ago, and installed the games 4 days ago. When Mass Effect 1 was ready to play I started it and it worked fine for about an hour. It was late so I closed the game and went to bed. The next afternoon I tried to play the game again, and I couldn't get it to work. Each time I get to the first menu screen that says 'Press Any Key' after a split second the screen will go black, and my monitor no longer receives any video from the computer ( I can see it cycling through the other inputs trying to find a signal) although the sound does continue to play. At this point the system appears to be frozen and the only way to get back to windows it to press the reset button.

I have tried updating the drivers for my graphics card, tried every compatibility setting, running as administrator, uninstalling and reinstalling the game and Origin, using different drives for installation, trying to load after a clean reboot, shutting down all non essential programs, installing previous versions of direct x, running in windowed mode, and a myriad of suggestions found while searching the web for people with similar problems. All to no avail. I get the same black screen at the same time every time :'(

My system is an i3-2100 3.10 GHz with 4GB RAM and a Radeon HD 6770 running Windows 10 Pro

Please help me as I was really looking forward to playing this game again. I played through the series so much on the Xbox 360 and I miss it.

[holger1405 · Accepted solution]

@Zaerdra_7

OK, try this.

• Press the Windows key and "X" at the same time.
• Choose "PowerShell" (Adminisrator)" or "Command prompt (Administrator)" (Depends on the OS)
• Inside the "PowerShell" or "CMD" window, at the prompt, type or copy and paste "DISM.exe /Online /Cleanup-image /Restorehealth" (Without the quotes) > ENTER. 
• The validation process should start after a short while:
  
  
  After it reached 100%: (If you get a error message, please inform us)
• Press the Windows key and "X" at the same time.
• Choose "PowerShell" (Adminisrator)" or "Command prompt (Administrator)"
• Inside the "PowerShell" or "CMD" window, at the prompt, type or copy and paste "sfc /scannow" (Without the quotes) > ENTER. 
• Post the concluding message.

And then continue with this:

• Reboot.
• Go here and download the AMD tool for driver removal.
• Follow the instructions on the side.
• Install the newest driver for your GPU > Reboot > test.

[holger1405]

@Zaerdra_7

Try to repair the game. (in Origin > Game Library > right click ME1 > Repair)

If that don't works, create a DxDiag in text file format and post it with your next reply.

If you use Windows 7 also go to your Reliability monitor > Press the Windows key and "R" at the same time and copy and paste or type "perfmon /rel" (without the quotes) in the new Window > hit “ENTER” and look if it has entries for "MassEffect.exe".

If yes double click at the last entry for the game executable, copy the info to the clipboard, and save it to a text file.

 

You can attach the DxDiag text file you created (and the “Reliability monitor” text file as well) to your post in the “Reply” window with the “Choose File” button.

[Zaerdra_7]

Thank you for responding. I had already tried to repair the game with no luck, as well as trying fresh installs several times.

I have attached the DxDiag as you asked.

I am using Windows 10, not Windows 7, but I tried looking at the Reliability monitor anyway.

There were no entries for MassEffect.exe but there were a lot of entries for 'Windows was not properly shut down' which seemed to correspond to my attempts to run the game. Most of the time, but not always, they were preceded by a Hardware error. I have added a typical example of these errors although the parameters vary.

I'm no expert but this seems to suggest a fault with my graphics card or the drivers for it. I have tried updating my drivers through catalyst control centre downloaded from the AMD site, and when that didn't work I also tried updating the driver in Device Manager.

[holger1405 · Accepted solution]

@Zaerdra_7

OK, try this.

• Press the Windows key and "X" at the same time.
• Choose "PowerShell" (Adminisrator)" or "Command prompt (Administrator)" (Depends on the OS)
• Inside the "PowerShell" or "CMD" window, at the prompt, type or copy and paste "DISM.exe /Online /Cleanup-image /Restorehealth" (Without the quotes) > ENTER. 
• The validation process should start after a short while:
  
  
  After it reached 100%: (If you get a error message, please inform us)
• Press the Windows key and "X" at the same time.
• Choose "PowerShell" (Adminisrator)" or "Command prompt (Administrator)"
• Inside the "PowerShell" or "CMD" window, at the prompt, type or copy and paste "sfc /scannow" (Without the quotes) > ENTER. 
• Post the concluding message.

And then continue with this:

• Reboot.
• Go here and download the AMD tool for driver removal.
• Follow the instructions on the side.
• Install the newest driver for your GPU > Reboot > test.

[Zaerdra_7]

I followed the steps and got the following message when it completed;

Windows Resource Protection found corrupt files and successfully repaired them.
For online repairs, details are included in the CBS log file located at
windir\Logs\CBS\CBS.log. For example C:\Windows\Logs\CBS\CBS.log. For offline
repairs, details are included in the log file provided by the /OFFLOGFILE flag.

I tried the driver removal tool and then installed the latest drivers again. Unfortunately this did not fix the problem.

After trying all this I borrowed a disc version of the game from a friend.

I uninstalled the origin version and installed the disc version. The game worked first time.

I then ejected the disc and installed the origin version to the same directory as the disc version.

Now the game runs from Origin perfectly. Clearly there is something wrong with the Origin installation of the game.

But at least now it is working.

Thank you for all your help.

[holger1405]

@Zaerdra_7

---

Zaerdra_7 wrote:

Now the game runs from Origin perfectly. Clearly there is something wrong with the Origin installation of the game.

---

Well, the Origin version is working now.

So I would assume the fresh installation after correcting the errors made the difference.

Be that as it may, the important thing is that it is working now.

Have fun gaming!