ME2 PC Characters, sound disappear in combat

[JZL5319]

See video, character and enemies disappear, sometimes just torsos, sometimes all of them. Slowdowns occur during some special effects like explosions, and the throw animation rarely shows. First clip is a new save with my preferred graphics settings, second is my imported game with default settings. Both separate installs, first with a clean boot.  Sound always goes out when this happens, and it only happens during combat. I've tried a myriad of solutions, run as admin, compatibility modes, turned off as many overlays as I can think of, used both Origin and Steam versions, even tried it on a virtual Windows 7 machine, all the same results. Only thing I've noticed is that the GPU Usage on MSI Afterburner drops to 0% when frames drop so low, but seems okay during normal disappearing. Any help is greatly appreciated.

[JZL5319 · Accepted solution]

PhysX wasn't issue either apparantly, but I finally found the answer to everything! Not sure if it was a combination of anything else but the Collector base issue led to a different thread about CPU cores, so the answer was setting the affinity to two cores in task manager. Not sure why that caused the other issues and it kind of sucks to have to do every time I open the program, and there's an occasional bottlenecking from the CPU side but overall works just fine. Thanks for sticking with me through all this, appreciate all the help!

[holger1405]

@JZL5319 

So you already tested the game in clean boot mode?

There are several "MSVCR80.dll" errors related to ME2 in your DxDiag.

• Make sure Origin or Steam are closed.
• Uninstall all "Microsoft Visual C++ 2005 Redistributable" versions from your Computer.
• Reboot.
• Go to your ">drive<:\Program Files (x86)\Origin Games\Mass Effect 2\__Installer\vc\vc2005\redist" folder.
• Run the "vcredist_x86.exe" as an Administrator. (Right click the "vcredist_x86.exe" > Run as an Administrator)
• Reboot.
• Go here and Download all VC++ 2005 versions from MS. (All three)
• Install them as described above.
• Reboot
• Test.

[JZL5319]

Have already tried clean boot, C++ reinstall made no changes. Just did fresh install of Windows 10 to make sure there wasn't anything I installed. Only thing I've installed is Origin and the base game only, no DLC or settings changed, issue still stands. Started a brand new play up into Omega after clean boot. New dxdiag attached.

[holger1405]

@JZL5319 

There is a memory leak warning in regards to ME2 in the DxDiag, but if it is also not working on a completely fresh Windows installation, it points to a hardware problem.

Is your BIOS up to date?

Did you installed the newest vendor drivers for your Motherboard?

Did you installed any tools from the Motherboard vendor or from Corsair?

You could try to disconnect any not absolutely necessary periphery hardware.

[JZL5319]

Okay, updated bios, installed all mobo drivers, reset bios settings, removed all peripherals except an old generic keyboard and mouse. Moved RAM to different slots, used only one instead of both sticks, and moved GPU to different slot and even removed GPU and used integrated graphics. Same issue occured every time. Nothing showed up on dxdiag involving the game after playing through the Lazarus station. My only guess left is something in bios settings but those are mostly beyond me. Mobo is an Asus Strix z370-f Gaming if that helps.

[holger1405]

@JZL5319 

This is a very strange error, especially if we consider all the troubleshooting you did. 

Did you checked your Hard-drive with chkdsk?

Did you tried "Setup defaults" for the Bios settings?

Is your GPU, CPU or something else overclocked?

[JZL5319]

Checked all drives with chkdsk, and have had default bios settings most of the time. Only issue is possibly CPU overclocking, because the Asus bios seems to have a million different CPU options. I've tried to disable everything I think goes with overclocking but I might have missed something.

New issue now, not sure if related: made it to the Collector ship and once I power it up as soon as the platforms land the game just freezes and crashes. Dxdiag has a ton of PhysXCore.dll crashes, tried installing the one in the ME2 folders but it didn't seem to help. And yes, I know this is a weird one, haha. Never had so much trouble with a game before.

[holger1405]

@JZL5319 

You could try the PhysX Legacy version from NVIDIA.

A complete clean reinstallation of the driver is also worth a shot.

Here is a guide for that.

[JZL5319 · Accepted solution]

PhysX wasn't issue either apparantly, but I finally found the answer to everything! Not sure if it was a combination of anything else but the Collector base issue led to a different thread about CPU cores, so the answer was setting the affinity to two cores in task manager. Not sure why that caused the other issues and it kind of sucks to have to do every time I open the program, and there's an occasional bottlenecking from the CPU side but overall works just fine. Thanks for sticking with me through all this, appreciate all the help!