Crash every time. Suggestions?

[darthshatner]

Okay, first off:

Motherboard: ASUS A8NSli-Deluxe
Processor: Athlon 64 3200+
Memory: 2GB OCZ PC3200
Video card: EVGA 7800GT 256MB /w Forceware 163.69 (dated Sept. 18)
Sound card: Soundblaster X-Fi ExtremeMusic /w Vista driver 2.15.0002 (dated Oct. 9)
Running Vista Ultimate x64
Bought Bioshock through Steam

Dxdiag only says "DirectX 10" under version, but I downloaded it again today straight from Microsoft just to make sure.

I initially installed and played the game flawlessly for several days. I simply got home from work one day to find that the game crashes at launch every single time. I go to run it, I see the splash screen, and then I get an error message informing me that bioshock.exe has stopped working. The detail drop-down names steam.dll_unloaded as the fault module.

Here's a list of things I've tried to get the game running again:

Removed and reinstalled video and sound card drivers
Reinstalled Directx10
Enabled and disabled EAX in the Creative Audio Console
Removed and reinstalled the Visual C++ Redistributable
Installed the DirectX 9.0c Redistributable from MS and added -dx9 to the launch options
Set the game to run in XP SP2 compatibility mode with visual themes disabled

No dice. I'm at the end of my rope here. It's a damn shame that so many people are missing out on such an otherwise awesome game because it was rushed out the door without any real QA. :(

[Tech John]

Do you have any problem running any other games on steam?

[Vdub]

Do you have any problem running any other games on steam?

Now we are blaming STEAM for this bug filled piece of trash... now that's rich.
How about... this game needs a serious patch. The problems with this game were known by the developers before it hit the shelves. A patch should have been in the works months ago.

[Tech John]

Im not blaming steam at all. I was aking as it would assist in finding out exactly what is causing the problem.

You could also try to download and install the latest beta drivers for you graphics card from the link below.

http://www.nvidia.com/object/winxp64_163.75.html

[darthshatner]

Do you have any problem running any other games on steam?
Nope. For the time being, Bioshock is taking a backseat to the Orange Box.

I'll give the beta drivers a shot.

/sigh

[darthshatner]

Er... is there an edit function?

Forgot to mention that I've also deleted and redownloaded the entire game twice now, to no avail. Since it worked initially, I also figured that maybe my save games had become corrupt, so I moved them from their default folder to the desktop. No luck there either.

[darthshatner]

Just thought I'd provide a quick update with regard to how I finally got the game running on my system.

First off, I decided to reenable UAC, and instead of simply double-clicking the shortcut icon, I now have to right-click and select "Run as Administrator."

Secondly, I only ever got "Bioshock.exe has stopped working" as a result of Vista's DEP system. Rather than allowing Windows to control which programs DEP is enabled for, I opted to enable it for all programs and simply named bioshock.exe as an exception.

Since doing these two things, Bioshock hasn't crashed me on once. For those of you getting the "bioshock.exe has stopped working" crash in Vista, I highly recommend verifying whether or not DEP is the culprit, and if so, disabling it for Bioshock. Good luck!

[cersei]

Now we are blaming STEAM for this bug filled piece of trash... now that's rich.
How about... this game needs a serious patch. The problems with this game were known by the developers before it hit the shelves. A patch should have been in the works months ago.

BAM! And just like that we have it. Thats the beginning of the story and the end of the story. All this dancing and toot-footing and so called *ahem* 'workarounds' ... and asking for system specs and us poor bastards doing reformats and reinstalls of programs that work fine to begin with. Zzz pathetic at best. Clearly, this game was not released in working condition and yes, is still in sore need of a patch. Don't blame steam or ask for sys specs or recommend the bs with HDS. The game needs multiple patches. We know this. And all we can do is wait.
:rolleyes:

- one post n done. ain't comin back to read replies. never do -
( don't read private account messages from inbox either )

[Tech Dan]

Hello darth,

As it is referring to a steam dll try re-updating steam using the following method.

First close down steam so it is not running in the system tray.

Trace down the locaton of your original steam folder (default C:\program files\steam)

Move the "ClientRegistry.blob" file from this folder to you desktop or elsewhere from the original steam folder.

Please restart steam and it should perform alot of updates... this should hopefully solve the dll problem you have been receiving.

You can also try verifying the integrity of the game cache in steam by:

Right clicking on bioshock icon in "my games" select properties.
Click on the local files tab and select "verify integrity of game cache"

Please let me know if this helps.