PC Demo problems HERE!

[vrap]

There have been a million new threads of people posting their problems with the PC demo. If you have a technical issue with the demo, please post here and hopefully a dev will see it. Please don't spam the thread with useless posts, if you use it sensibly then the devs can take it seriously. If you have a wqorking solution to someone's problem, by all means post it.

Please don't get mad at me closing the other threads, it's just getting really messy with all the threads with differing and sometimes identical problems; I'll give a redirect link to this thread so everyone can come here.

[sajber]

Hi guys, I have a problem with the demo. I have missing textures in game.. they eather turn up single colored or very low rez. The demo also crashes when I choose "Quit to windows" or "Quit to main menu"

I have uppdated to the latest nvidia drivers. I have a Geforce 7800GT card..running on XP.

Anyhelp?

[X800XTuser]

Ok, I'm not going to complain about it anymore, but since your a moderater, I assume you can give me a strait up answer. (As I'm sure you've seen my spam).

Is Shader Model 2.0 supported? Because according to this article:
http://www.pcgameshardware.de/?article_id=602522

It is.

Thank you.

[mitor]

Hi, I have the same problems with untextured surfaces as the above poster (only with the new drivers though!).

My main problem though is during any loading section the game simply crashes with a black screen and constantly looping music. I can get past these in windowed mode only.


C2D 3.6GHz
8800GTS (bioshock beta drivers)
Onboard sound
32bit Vista


Game runs fine once you get into it and I can then put back into full screen mode.

[Devoluti0n]

Hi.

1st of all, sorry for my english, I'll try to be as clear as possible.

I've downloaded official demonstration release of the game.
But when I try to launch the game, after all the introduction annimation (NVIDIA, Unreal etc...) I've got a black screen and I can hear that there is an error but I can't see it.

I've tried to use the key print screen, to see the error, and here it is :
http://img143.imageshack.[...]343/bioshockjb0.jpg .
Translated it means something like :
"The address of the instruction "0x10b92a70" use the memory address "0x00000000".The memory can't be "read".
Clic ok to close the program.
Clic cancel to debug the program.(doesn't work)

If I understand correctly that message, it should mean that the game can't read the first ASM instruction.

Anyone knows from what this issue provide please ?
Thx in advance.

Ah, and, my drivers are all up to date.

[Epik]

Anyone not getting the video when you pick up the Incendiary Plasmid, I saw it in the 360 demo, is this just me?

[Maxor127]

Vista Business 32-bit
Core 2 Duo E6750
2x1GB Patriot Extreme DDR2 RAM
Nvidia 8800GTS 320MB w/ beta drivers
Gigabyte GA-P35C-DS3R Mobo
Onboard HD Audio

I can't get the demo to launch at all. Brand new computer. Latest drivers. Reinstalled demo and drivers. Basically spent all night trying to figure this out or find anyone who has a solution. Downloading the NVIDIA beta drivers, latest DirectX, and Microsoft Visual C++ didn't help. I get the BioShock splash screen and then I get a message saying "Bioshock.exe has stopped working." DX9 shortcut does the same thing.

[fish99]

Demo crashes here. This is with the 162.18 WHQL drivers and with the new 163.44 betas. Full system specs-

C2D E6750 (@ stock)
ABIT IP35-E mobo
2 GB Corsair DDR2
8800 GTS 320 mb (@ stock)
Corsair HX 520W PSU
Audigy 2 ZS
Win XP Pro SP2
1680*1050
Graphics settings on full

This is a fresh install of XP too, only about a month old. I also used Driver Cleaner Pro in safe mode after uninstalling the 162.18 drivers to make sure I had a proper driver install. Nothing is overclocked, system is 100% stable with everything else. I even played R6Vegas (same UE3 engine) all the way through with it last week without a single problem.

Just preying it's the demo and the problem is absent in the full game.

Btw I can finish the demo if I set 'High Detail Shaders' to off to get past the troublesome area. The crashes have been either during the sphere ride, just after it on the loading screen, or just after the loading screen before the sphere door opens. The game just freezes.

[sajber]

When you unzipped the setup did you make sure that the files was put in the right maps (the original map setting), becouse I made that misstake and had to unzip the whole thing again...so the files would be put in the right maps..

[harl3quin]

hi,Bioshock uses a modified version of the UNREAL ENGINE 3.0 so they can change preety much the entire system requirements for the final game.But i think they have made a good decision about SM 3.0 and not support any more 2.0.The game wouldn't look so good on 2.0 for you to have that feeling that they are trying to give us.The x800 users should think that a card so old is not meant to last forever,in this growing market of GPU's u should now that x800 won't last more then 1-2 years,the graphics cards are just keeping evolving too fast and to powerful.Even thought on the majority of the gamers they have 6600GT and a procesor of 2800+,why ? nobody knows

The games are evolving with splendid engines and gameplay but in order to keep playing them is to buy hardware mainstream or high-end to be in pace at least 2 years.This is the curse of PC GAMERS.

Remember this before being angry on devs

[timjbart]

Framerate drops to 3fps when loading new areas behind doors

I am having the same problem as a few people

When I approach a door, the game then obviously loads the new room before the door opens, but as it does this I get about a a couple of seconds pause before the door actually opens.

Whenever anything new is loading in (monsters,scripted scene, new room) I go down to about 3 fps the same way as you.

I will tonight update my nvidia card to the new drivers, but I am above the minimum spec so I think it should run smoothly, it doesn't feel like a graphics card issue, more like hard disk or CPU.

Can anyone shed any light on the framedrop while loading issue?

Thanks

AMD 64 3800+
2 Gig RAM
Nvidia 7900GS
SATAII hard disk
Win XP
On board nvidia audio

[Dud]

hi @ all :)

q6600
radeon2900XT (cat 7.8)
2gig ram

my problem:
it seems that i have no textures on the ground. The ground seems solid black. Everything else is looking fine like fire & water effects at the beginning scene :(

[Freddo]

Is Shader Model 2.0 supported? Because according to this article:
http://www.pcgameshardware.de/?article_id=602522

It is.
Sorry, but no. Shader Model 2.0 isn't supported.

Oh, and nothing in that article is about Bioshock. Sure, it's about the Unreal 3 engine, which Bioshock uses, but more specifically about Unreal Tournament 3. A game that doesn't have water effects like Bioshock, just to mention something. Different games, different requirements.

[Musedmark]

Intel Cored 2 Duo e6320
4gb Ram DDR2 pc5400
Nvidia 8800GTX (installed bioshock display drivers as per 'readme' instructions)
Sigmatel On-Board 7.1 sound
Dell XPS710 pc, but i believe the motherboard to be a dell variant of the Nvidia Nforce 590Sli
Windows Vista Ultimate (32-bit)

A few problems, but only really one nagging one;

Sound: I can get sound to work, but i only hear background noise (ie water, ambience etc) i hear no voices or sound effects. I have played the demo upto the start of the game proper when the lift opens and your asked to leave. I have a 5.1 speaker set up and have tried to run the game with all different audio options it presents me chosen, with each selection (and subsequent re-srtart) the best ive managed sound wise is just the back ground sounds as mentioned above (when i chose 5.1 and enabled EaX)

To the best of my knowledge, my sound drivers are up to date as of today.

My 2nd problem, tho not as stressfull lies with the texture tearing / flickering when strobe lighting is used. (when the evil woman dude jumps on the lift and starts to try and get in) the screen seems to tear. But the demo runs smooth (and may i add, looks frackin awesome) in other areas and after the lift opens. Im running with the settings the game was confifgured for when i installed it.

Sorry if my descriptions of these problems are not fantastic, but its worded as best i could.

[masterjaxom]

I must also inquire about the shader issue. If the team feels that backwards support would significantly hinder the game than so be it. That would be disappointing but a difinitive answear is a must. Will the game now or with a patch support shader 2 based cards? If a patch is coming when will it be here?

[Tomeron]

1 GB ram,
nVidia GeForce 7300 GS
3.40GHz...

My game crashes when I open it... I open it and it does the "Send error report" thing.. Please help :)

-Tomeron

[fish99]

In addition to my post about the demo crashing on my system I though I may as well list the things I tried to stop it crashing (which haven't worked).

Firstly tried the new beta nvidia drivers (after using driver cleaner pro). 2nd I tried running the demo on default settings. Next I tried setting everything in the nvidia control panel back to default. Then I uninstalled the demo and downloaded it again (this time from steam) and reinstalled it. I've also tried it in windowed mode.

None of this stopped it crashing. Only thing that has was turning High Detail Shaders off, but then it looks a lot worse.

[fish99]

My 2nd problem, tho not as stressfull lies with the texture tearing / flickering when strobe lighting is used. (when the evil woman dude jumps on the lift and starts to try and get in) the screen seems to tear. But the demo runs smooth (and may i add, looks frackin awesome) in other areas and after the lift opens. Im running with the settings the game was confifgured for when i installed it.

That's just plain old tearing and is always bad when there's strobe lighting or atmospheric effects like smoke. Only thing you can do about that is turn v-sync on.

[benito78]

Hi, first time I installed the demo, and played it, the game worked. Set the screen resolution to 1650x1080, and then restarted, and it no longer worked.

I went to install the new NVidia drivers, AMD dual core timing fix, direct-x and restarted the computer. Didn't bring it back again.

When I start the program, the splash screen comes up, the computer goes into full screen mode, pauses a bit and then returns to Windows. Bioshock is still on the taskbar.

If I click on the task, it will go full screen and then return. If I right-click and close it, I get a crash:

AppName: bioshock.exe AppVer: 1.0.0.0 ModName: bioshock.exe
ModVer: 1.0.0.0 Offset: 00012447

Rolled back all installation (using System Restore) to pre-Bioshock, reinstalled again, and it still doesn't work.

So 1

1) Any ideas?

2) How do I adjust the video settings if I can't start the game - so that the high-resolution that I set returns to normal?

Thanks,

Ben
AMD Dual Core
2 GB RAM
NVIDIA 7600GS

[BiJay]

BioShock Demo (Steam) won't start, same as Maxor127.

Vista 32bit (up-to-date)
Geforce 8800 GTS 320MB (tested both latest stable and beta drivers)
Core2Duo E6600
2GB DDR2 Ram

I also tested in window mode but everything I try it doesn't help.

[jimmy5150]

I have the issue where the game crashes to a black screen after the bioshock logo appears. the cutscene before that plays fine.

I am running a toshiba satellite x205 laptop with
core 2 duo 2 ghz
2 gb ram
512mb nvidia geforce 8700m GT

I was able to do the -dx9 command prompt fix to get the game to run, but i still see a lot of tearing and glitches with fog and lighting effects (this is regardless of vsync being on or off, as well as any of the other "bells and whistles"). I also can't get any of these modded bioshock specific drivers to work, will there be any support for these laptop-specific cards in a patch soon? All of my friends playing this on laptops are having trouble simply because they cannot get these drivers that are essential. thanks for your time.

[L80OUS]

Pleased to say everything runs great on my rig other than one problem.
Flashing/Strobe effects in game courses blocky/line break ups in the graphics with V-Sync disable. Enable this setting and everything is fine though it does hammer my frame rate quite a lot.

With V-Sync on I get between 30/60FPS mainly running at 60FPS the whole time but at the beginning it gets stuck @30 till you come out of the bubble. I can still feel the slow down though with V-Sync enabled.
I have just brought a new monitor is that partly to blame? its a Samsung SyncMaster 205BW. Dont the word "Syncmaster" mean anything?

Doubt I'll fine a fix, Should I run it and have prefect graphics or not and have prefect frames?

My Specs
Asus 8800GTX (stock)
C2D E6600@3.2
4GB OZC Gold 800MHZ 4-4-4-12
Vista 64 Premium

[neildittmar]

I've already linked to this in a few threads, but now that the game is officially released I figured I'd create a separate post for greater visibility.

Over the past couple of weeks, I've been putting together a common questions, problems, and solutions guide for BioShock. Although there is a lot of general "best practices" information included, many of the issues I've been reading about BioShock are common to PC games in general. In addition, I'll be updating the guide with more BioShock specific problems/resolutions as they begin to come in.

Topics that are covered now include:

Evaluating your system for BioShock (minimum and recommended specs)
Installation issues and errors
Performance problems such as hitching and skipping
Crash to desktop, black screen, and other system freezing problems
Poor performance and how to get the most out of your system
... and more

Hopefully this guide will help get some of you having difficulties running the game up and playing.

http://rapture.planets.gamespy.com/forum/index.php?topic=39.0

[BiJay]

2) How do I adjust the video settings if I can't start the game - so that the high-resolution that I set returns to normal?

Go to BioShock Demo\builds\release and open deafult.ini. Search for [WinDrv.WindowsClient]. There it shows:

WindowedViewportX=1024
WindowedViewportY=768
FullscreenViewportX=1024
FullscreenViewportY=768

You can change it if you want to.

[sajber]

Hi, first time I installed the demo, and played it, the game worked. Set the screen resolution to 1650x1080, and then restarted, and it no longer worked.

I went to install the new NVidia drivers, AMD dual core timing fix, direct-x and restarted the computer. Didn't bring it back again.

When I start the program, the splash screen comes up, the computer goes into full screen mode, pauses a bit and then returns to Windows. Bioshock is still on the taskbar.

If I click on the task, it will go full screen and then return. If I right-click and close it, I get a crash:

AppName: bioshock.exe AppVer: 1.0.0.0 ModName: bioshock.exe
ModVer: 1.0.0.0 Offset: 00012447

Rolled back all installation (using System Restore) to pre-Bioshock, reinstalled again, and it still doesn't work.

So 1

1) Any ideas?

2) How do I adjust the video settings if I can't start the game - so that the high-resolution that I set returns to normal?

Thanks,

Ben
AMD Dual Core
2 GB RAM
NVIDIA 7600GS



change this in the file Default.ini (2K Games\BioShock Demo\Builds\Release)

FullscreenViewportX=1650
FullscreenViewportY=1080

change it to something better like...1280x1024 or lower.

[framerate]

MacBook Pro using latest BootCamp driver
Vista Home Professional
2.4ghz Core 2 Duo
2gb RAM
GeForce 8600M GT (Laptop chip)
15gb disk space free

At the start of the demo there's a scene inside a plane and when the plane crashes, just after the Bioshock logo appears, the game crashes. I get the standard Vista application has crashed message, something like "Bioshock.exe has stopped working."

I've tried running in a window and I've tried turning all the detail options to low, but I always get the same result.

I'm running the game with administrator privileges.

From the Vista report:
Exception Code: c0000005
Exception Offset: 0048c4a4

[Tobe1701]

I can start and play the Demo (downloaded via Steam) in XP, but under Vista64 the screen goes black (before the menu, right after splash screen) and task manager is reporting a crash. Tried older and the new 163.44 drivers.

C2D 6850
Vista64 Ultimate
Audigy 2
Gainward 8800 GTS no/oc
4 GB RAM

[Satoru]

The game loads fine and I can see the main menu, but I don't have any mouse cursor. I have to randomly wave the mouse around hoping it will highlight what I need. Anyone else having the same issue?

Running a single core AMD 3200+ with an ATI X850XT PE

[Gabsau]

I have slow loading times (which are not normal for my system) and my computer locks up every time it tried to load the second half of the demo (where your submarine reaches rapture).

The first half of the demo (where the plane crashes) works like a charm. Not sure why the second half is broken.

My specs:
WIN XP SP2
AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual 2.21ghz (4ghz combined)
1GB RAM
SLI configuration with two Geforce 7900GS graphic cards
250GB Hard Drive

Note: I have been playing on high graphics settings, and the introductory sequence worked perfectly. It was beautiful.

I have found a workaround for those in the same situation - if I play the game on medium settings the level 'Welcome to rapture' loads (albeit slowly). Then once the level has loaded boost your graphics settings to high again. It seems that my system doesn't like loading levels on high for some reason, yet my computer can handle it. puzzling to say the least. Hopefully a fix could be worked on shortly

[Dphunk]

I can load the game but when the into screen comes up it skips and the music replays, this only happens in the main menu and the haking mini game.
Is it just my computer?

AMD 2.4 ghz
2 gb ram
ati radeo x1650 pro 512 ram
windows xp media center sp2

thanks.

[bumrar]

What i can see looks amaxing but it seems that MOST of the floor is missing and a few others things 1 guys was completly black but things like the flames on the sea looked amazing while the sea and the land you need to walk on next to it are completly black also.

My system specs are
Vista Ultimate
AMD 5600+ X2
2 gig RAM
ATI 2900HD XT
X-fi soundcard


Any ideas guys?

[OTURSoldier]

I have FPS dropin to 5, i wont be getting the game now becasue teh demo runs sooo horrible on my computer, the new nvidia drivers didnt fix anything, ppl saying my graphics card is ****,

My rig:

AMD Athlon 64 X2 3800+
2GB DDR2 RAM
NVIDIA GeForce 7300 LE 256MB

it was running **** even on low settings wot should i do man!

i was told that geting a nvidia 7950gt or 7900gs would solve my problem, wot do u guys think?

[Haloboy!]

The demo loads up fine, but as soon as I get anywhere near (or if I'm very lucky inside) the pod before it descends into rapture itself, the demo freezes on me every single time. No matter which settings I play around with, and even in windowed mode. I shall be completely gutted if it happens in the full release too as it's due to arrive tomorrow.

System Specs:
Athlon FX55 2.6 Ghz (ClawHammer)
Gigabyte nForce 4 NF-CK804 PCI-E Mobo
2GB PC 3200 DDR (200mhz) Corsair RAM
Sapphire HD 2600 XT 256mb PCI-E x16 Video Card GDDR4 (800/2200)
Creative Soundblaster Audigy 2
Windows Vista Home Basic (Updated) Vista Rating 4.3
DX10 SM4.0
ATi Bioshock Hotfix Drivers

[BiJay]

OK, for those who can't load the game at all: Start the Bioshock.exe with "-dx9" in the command line. For me it works!

[Lighthouse]

Problem -> Bioshock shows its picture logo (assumed for loading) and then after a few seconds quits, with Vista showing "Bioshock.exe has stopped working."

Basically I don't get into the game at all - no menu screen, no introduction video, nothing.

This is a brand new PC:

e6750 core 2 duo
8800GTS 640MB
2GB ram
Gigabyte P35-S3
WD 500 GB
Vista Home Premium 32-bit

Monitor running at resolution 1680x1050

I have tried my old nvidia drivers, I have tried the new 163.44 drivers and its the same result. All other software drivers are up to date, Vista, onboard sound, the whole lot and yes including directx.

Pretty disappointed to be honest.

After the 360 vs PC demo release dates which was more than a tad annoying to us PC only users, now this. I cannot completely blame the developers for this one, as this is one of the problems with PC gaming, there is no set standard to write for, but its pretty crappy being on the "not working on my pc end".

I was one that ordered the Collector's Edition of the game, and by the looks of it, I am going to have a game that will not run on my machine, yet one which theoretically meets all said requirements.

I guess I am pretty tired of there being all sorts of problems related to PC gaming - be it operating system conflicts, graphics card drivers, sound card drivers, the whole lot. Even worse is when you have done everything in your power, tweaking, reinstalling, uninstalling drivers, searching the web for solutions, you come up empty handed.

Don't know who to blame to be honest - Nvidia? Microsoft? Irrational?
Probably no single party is to blame, but here I sit disappointed at the one game I have actually been the most hyped to get and one of the new games I have been dying to play, considering my old PC could not meet any newish game requirements - now even my new one cannot.

In all honesty, this looks like its going to be my last ever PC orientated towards gaming - funnily enough, at one stage I never thought I would say this.

I actually now envy all you console owners that are free from experiences such as mine.

[fish99]

Right, by switching from my Audigy 2 ZS to onboard (realtek) I was able to get into Rapture with all graphics settings on full. However it then crashed just after the flying sentry thing kills the first splicer, but with a regular 'this program has caused an exception' crashbox, rather than just locking up.

[Dphunk]

I have a problem with the main menu and the hacking mini game, where the game and music get choppy and i cant move well if at all. although the game runs great.
is it my computer?

AMD 2.4 ghz proccesor
windows xp media center sp2
ati radeon x1650 pro 512mb ram
2 gb ram
90gb of free hd space
sound blast x-fi soundcard

thanks

[bioshocklove]

Hi all.

I got a big problem with the pc demo.

I wont start :(

When I click on the exe it says: blabla Side-by-side Config incorrect or something like that :(

hard to translate ^^

plz help

[PureVanadium]

Hello !

"I´ve installed the demo version of BioShock but it doesn´t work.

Here is the error message :

"path to bioshock.exe

this application can´t be launched because the program´s configuration isn´t correct. Reinstalling this application may solve this issue."

I´ve reinstalled the game 5 times, but I always got this message.

Thanks for your help !"

[OneOfTwo]

Same crap as lighthouse says, the game won't start even after updating drivers and installing the GPU specific hotfixes(ATI in my case).
I'm a AMD 64X2, ATI X1900X, 2GB ram(on WinXPPro32bits) owner and I can't even get the demo to start.
I don't honestly give a damn about whose fault is, the hell that i'm going to pay for such a crap and for such a slow or non existent support.
Thanks god I downloaded the demo before actually buying the game itself.

[dimasok]

Here's what it shows me 3-seconds after running the game:
http://m1.freeshare.us/view/?169fs241240.jpg

I'm running WinXP, latest DX9, latest NVIDIA drivers.

PC is:
Athlon 64 3700+ (non dual-core)
1GB Ram
Geforce 7900GTX

Any help appreciated.

[Flash]

Hello same problem as lighthouse and OneOfTwo :

"Bioshock.exe has stopped working"

I see the logo "bioshock" and after few seconds, bam the message.

intel core 2 duo e6600
geforce 7950 gt (beta driver : 163.44)
2 gb ram
Xfi Xtreme audio
windows vista ultimate 32 bits.

[framerate]

I've got the BioShock demo to run on my MacBook Pro (Vista 32-bit)!

I installed the nVidia BioShock beta drivers from http://www.laptopvideo2go.com/ . I downloaded the 32-bit Vista drivers and the modified INF then followed the instructions on the site to install the drivers.

I now have ForceWare v163 and BioShock works perfectly. It's quite playable at 1440x900 with everything on high!

Awesome game too.

[dandragonrage]

I also get a crash right after the splash screen. I have VS2005 installed (developers developers developers etc.) and it tells me bioshock threw an unhandled win32 exception, asks me if I want to debug, but won't show me a callstack or anything if I hit yes.

Core 2 Duo E6600 @ 3.26GHz
Gigabyte GA-P35-DS3R
4GB RAM
Geforce 7900GT (tried 162.18 and 163.44)
Realtek HD Audio

The system is 100% stable, I'm positive it's not the problem. It's been stress tested quite hard.

[Haloboy!]

Just tried out the newly downloaded Steam based demo, it updated some C+ whatever it was settings so I had some hope that it may just run this time around.

I was wrong, even on low settings the game now decides to make my screen go completely black while my character is underwater and all I can hear is him repeatedly gulping for air in the background. At which point I'm left doing the same old old task manager dance to get back to my desktop with a "Bioshock has stopped responding" error message.

If my order now hadn't just gone through, I would have cancelled this game by now. Yes it got great reviews across the board, but the demo is a significant indication that the full release is simply not going to work as it should on my machine. And that makes it a complete waste of money as much as in the same way the demo has been nothing but a complete waste of time. I now honestly wish I'd never touched the damn demo, or the game itself for that matter as it's caused me nothing but stress and bitter furstration these last 2 days.

And to think I chose the PC version over the 360 version I could have owned instead, I guess I will never learn.

[OneOfTwo]

Just tried out the newly downloaded Steam based demo, it updated some C+ whatever it was settings so I had some hope that it may just run this time around.

I was wrong, even on low settings the game now decides to make my screen go completely black while my character is underwater and all I can hear is him repeatedly gulping for air in the background. At which point I'm left doing the same old old task manager dance to get back to my desktop with a "Bioshock has stopped responding" error message.

If my order now hadn't just gone through, I would have cancelled this game by now. Yes it got great reviews across the board, but the demo is a significant indication that the full release is simply not going to work as it should on my machine. And that makes it a complete waste of money as much as in the same way the demo has been nothing but a complete waste of time. I now honestly wish I'd never touched the damn demo, or the game itself for that matter as it's caused me nothing but stress and bitter furstration these last 2 days.

And to think I chose the PC version over the 360 version I could have owned instead, I guess I will never learn.

It is not use that must learn but the companies that rip us off day by day, we should simply not buy their buggy software and let em starve to death till they realize they can't bring such bugged software to us cause our money aren't bugged at all.

[fish99]

Right, by switching from my Audigy 2 ZS to onboard (realtek) I was able to get into Rapture with all graphics settings on full. However it then crashed just after the flying sentry thing kills the first splicer, but with a regular 'this program has caused an exception' crashbox, rather than just locking up.
Re the above, no, changing to onboard sound hasn't helped, it's just crashing with a exception box because I'm running it in windowed mode now. So it's nothing to do with sound. I've also twice had it drop to <1 fps when the sphere is coming up just after the load zone, and it stays at <1 fps despite switching full screen/windowed mode which should reinitialize the renderer and all surfaces.

Sorry 2K Aus but it looks like you've made one seriously buggy demo. Hopefully the full game doesn't have these problems, but I strongly suspect it will. See my earlier posts in the thread for detailed system specs. I have now tried everything to get it to work.

[Haloboy!]

What annoys me is that they make us wait an extra amount of time for the demo itself, then ask us to hold out till 7pm last night for the supposedly Bioshock friendly "performance enhancing" drivers and after all that I still end up with a demo that I can play barely 60 seconds of before it goes kaput on me.

It's hard to know who to blame exactly for something being this much of a **** up for many of us who had long been looking forward to it, I just know that if the full release acts in the same manner the demo has I may just take it outside and set fire to it. I'm sure that will aleviate at least some of the stress. :D

[top_mosker]

Here's what it shows me 3-seconds after running the game:
http://m1.freeshare.us/view/?169fs241240.jpg

I'm running WinXP, latest DX9, latest NVIDIA drivers.

PC is:
Athlon 64 3700+ (non dual-core)
1GB Ram
Geforce 7900GTX

Any help appreciated.

I have the same problem....
Are any questions being answered? It seems like a few people have this same problem....

In any case...

My PC:
P4 3.0Ghz
NVIDIA GeForce FX 5600
1.5 GB RAM

[sammael]

e6600@ 3ghz
4gb ram
640mb gts
Vista 64

The game hangs as soon as I start the demo. It's fine in the main menu and when I change graphics settings. Dont know WTF is wrong with it, im mighty pissed off though.

[Taldoren]

Re the above, no, changing to onboard sound hasn't helped, it's just crashing with a exception box because I'm running it in windowed mode now. So it's nothing to do with sound. I've also twice had it drop to <1 fps when the sphere is coming up just after the load zone, and it stays at <1 fps despite switching full screen/windowed mode which should reinitialize the renderer and all surfaces.

Sorry 2K Aus but it looks like you've made one seriously buggy demo. Hopefully the full game doesn't have these problems, but I strongly suspect it will. See my earlier posts in the thread for detailed system specs. I have now tried everything to get it to work.

Just some small things to try and help

Can you run Temp monitors while loading up and playing, Both for CPU and GPU (TAT for example for CPU)

Have you run your machine under a heavy load and run voltage monitoring tools to make sure your PSU is up to spec, 520 ( I think you listed on other post) is kinda low for 8800's ish

All drivers updated ? not just GPU, but your MB chipset drivers, Audio Drivers etc ?

First thoughs anyway

`Tal

[Chatchef]

During the Game Bioshock is freezing on different Points.
I have used the new nvidia beta drivers 163.44 and the last 162.22.
It's always the same.

My System:

Vista Ultimate 64bit
4GB Memory
Intel Dual Core 6700
Nvidia 8800GTS
Soundblaster Audigy ZS

What can i do?

[dandragonrage]

520 ( I think you listed on other post) is kinda low for 8800's ish

No, it's fine. Even a quality (meaning not Powmax) 400W will do an 8800 just fine.

[KamikaZe]

For what its worth:

V-sync doesn't work correctly under DX10 mode however switching to dx9 mode under vista and it works fine and smoothnes improves like 100% (15-20 fps at least)

When I turn v-sync on under dx10 I get tops 60FPS while in windows my refreshrate is set to 85 hz. Under DX9 mode the game goes nicely to 85FPS just like it should.

Seems like either a bug in DX10 or in the demo.

[KamikaZe]

No, it's fine. Even a quality (meaning not Powmax) 400W will do an 8800 just fine.

Yes this is true. I have a good brand as psu which is 450W and I have an 8800GTS running with it two harddisks, 4 gig of ram, Floppydisk and a Dvd burner and no probs at all

[bumrar]

no prob just due to the fact that dx10 has more detail and therefor requires more graphics processin gand so can get as many FPS

[eias]

Hi,

I've downloaded the demo today, but it won't run with my Windows Vista x64 machine. If I launch the demo, 'Bioshock' logo screen pops up, and then suddenly stops running with a Windows Error Report dialog thing...

Well, event viewer says that it looks like BioShock.exe crashes at 0x00be626b with an exception code 0xc0000005 (Access Violation).

My system configuration is somewhat like following :
Windows Vista Ultimate Korean 64bit edition
Intel Core2 Duo 6600 (2.4Ghz)
Ram 2GB
nVidia GeForce 8800 GTS (163.44 BioShock Version)

Hey, I know that you have a hard time. But I already purchased this game already at Steampowered.com! Can I play the game in this weekend? :D

[f3ynm]

I installed the Bioshock demo via Steam and everything went fine. I was able to play using my factory Nvidia drivers (G1S laptop). When I upgraded to the beta Nvidia drivers, however, I could not play the game... it didn't even start, as many other people have reported. I "rolled back" to my previous Nvidia drivers (v101.08) and the game is again working fine.

With the Beta drivers I experienced a great improvement in fps in other games (eg. Far Cry and F.E.A.R) but I still want to play the demo. Perhaps you could try some old drivers to check if the demo runs.

f3ynm

[Joku]

Could somebody help me? The demo ALWAYS crashes when I try to destroy the "rocks" blocking the way after I get the wrench, and don't start yelling "lol ur computer must suck then" 'cause the demo runs fine on my computer.

[Taldoren]

No, it's fine. Even a quality (meaning not Powmax) 400W will do an 8800 just fine.

Aye, depening on the brand, and if that specific PSU unit has decent stable rail output. Even good brands can get dodgy units. Just 400 is cutting it damm close with 8800's thou, and some 8800 draw more than others.

Just not wanting it to be ruled out.

`tal

[preto]

Dual core e6400
2 Go corsair
8800gtx pci
Asus pb5 deluxe
Hd audio in mb
Beta nvidia drivers 163.44

I had a problem when i launch the game: i choose the difficulty and nothing appen, i have a black screen with music...

[KamikaZe]

no prob just due to the fact that dx10 has more detail and therefor requires more graphics processin gand so can get as many FPS

No that's simply not it. Because the weird thing is is that it either runs at 30 fps or 60 fps nothing between it. This is a v-sync BUG in dx10 not the fact that DX10 is harder to render. Heck if I walk to a tile with nothing else visible I should get at least 85 fps even under dx10 but it does not so yeah that IS a bug.

[razor]

I have been having the same BIOSHOCK LOGO then crash.
Can run in Dx9 mode but not DX10

Demo downloaded from Steam
Vista X64
8800 Ultra

**** SOLVED IT ****

I downloaded a stand alone version instead of the steam version and it installed and ran DX10 without issue.

I THINK THE STEAM VERSION IS INCOMPLETE OR CORUPT - PLEASE PASS THIS INFO ON

[fish99]

Just some small things to try and help

Can you run Temp monitors while loading up and playing, Both for CPU and GPU (TAT for example for CPU)

Have you run your machine under a heavy load and run voltage monitoring tools to make sure your PSU is up to spec, 520 ( I think you listed on other post) is kinda low for 8800's ish

All drivers updated ? not just GPU, but your MB chipset drivers, Audio Drivers etc ?

First thoughs anyway

`Tal
I know people running 8800 cards on quality 380W PSUs, and plenty on <500W PSUs. 520W is more than enough for a 8800 GTS, especially with >40A on the 12V rail. Anyway, a good test of a PSU is whether the system gets through the Deep Freeze test in 3DMark06, and mine does time after time. I've also tested the CPU temps with two instances of SuperPI 32M running, one on each core. I've run it 3 times consecutively, so 90 mins of full load on each core, without problems, and temps never went over about 53 on either core. SuperPI tells you if there's a single calculation error.

I've also played R6Vegas all the way through on my system (same UE3 engine), lots of long (5hrs+) SupCom games on big maps with lots of players, hours of Fear and hours of Oblivion. I've also had Flight Sim X running for 3hrs+ several times and that stresses a PC like no other game. Plus I've run plenty of other games.

My system is 100% stable, with a fresh OS, no overclocking, all temps 100% ok (inc GPU), every driver is up to date and it is 100% virus/spyware/adware free. It's a fresh build from only about a month ago, and it hasn't crashed once with anything before Bioshock.

[Dew]

I have the same problem as other people. The demo loads the plane scene, then the Bioshock logo, then the game closes and I receive a Vista program error. I have updated everything I can update and tried different graphical options. Nothing works and I run it as Administrator and reinstalled many, many times.

Vista 32-bit OS
Intel Core 2 Duo 1.67
2 gig of RAM
GeForce 256 Meg 8600 M GS

[devsfan1830]

I enabled EAX in game but i had no positional sound. My back speakers just falt out didnt work and i had basic sound through my front and my subwoofer. Is this a glitch or a driver issue? And i DID restart like the game told me after i enabled the setting.

[Taldoren]

I know people running 8800 cards on quality 380W PSUs, and plenty on <500W PSUs. 520W is more than enough for a 8800 GTS, especially with >40A on the 12V rail. Anyway, a good test of a PSU is whether the system gets through the Deep Freeze test in 3DMark06, and mine does time after time. I've also tested the CPU temps with two instances of SuperPI 32M running, one on each core. I've run it 3 times consecutively, so 90 mins of full load on each core, without problems, and temps never went over about 53 on either core. SuperPI tells you if there's a single calculation error.

I've also played R6Vegas all the way through on my system (same UE3 engine), lots of long (5hrs+) SupCom games on big maps with lots of players, hours of Fear and hours of Oblivion. I've also had Flight Sim X running for 3hrs+ several times and that stresses a PC like no other game. Plus I've run plenty of other games.

My system is 100% stable, with a fresh OS, no overclocking, all temps 100% ok (inc GPU), every driver is up to date and it is 100% virus/spyware/adware free. It's a fresh build from only about a month ago, and it hasn't crashed once with anything before Bioshock.

Well, was mainly throwing out potention issues, based upon the other infor you given. Very interesting that you can get past the problem areas by lowering the shader details.

Have you tried changing any of the gloabal Nvidia options ?
And is there more infor regarding the execption error ? modual , memory address etc ?

Again, just throwing out ideas to try and help.

~Tal

[WoenK]

Game freezes up at light house right after plane crash (sometimes at the steps, sometimes after entering)

Vista Ultimate 64
P805D
2GB Ram
HD2600 512 MB
X-FI Music

Catalyst 7.8 installed, even patched with Bioshock hotfix

Weirdest thing is, plays fine with DX9 using game explorer and could not see any difference to DX10

[KamikaZe]

I've also played R6Vegas all the way through on my system (same UE3 engine), lots of long (5hrs+)


No RBV6 uses unreal engine 2.5 not the 3.0 as many people think

[xpyder]

There is a problem relating to reserved keys that you can't rebind and also with keys getting rebound to default in certain areas. see:

http://forums.2kgames.com/forums/showthread.php?t=4905&page=3

also, I need a mod/admin to move that thread to the Technical Support Forum please.

and a sticky would be nice if you feel it's warranted

[dandragonrage]

Why is everyone else that gets crashes getting a video first? I get no video :( Just straight to splash screen and crash.

[Ishie]

:D Hmm. I have downloaded the demo game, and when I try to go into it, the computer thinks for around 5 seconds and then nothing. When I looked in the task manager I saw the process disappearing after 5 seconds of using the CPU. could someone please help me? I want to try this game

[sammael]

I have the problem i mentioned earlier (can get it to work to the point of changing settings but when i try to load the demo itself the game hangs and i just get music)

I just discovered that if i quickly load the demo as soon as i log on to my pc after restart then the demo will load properly. Now i get to the point of going in the sub thing then the game will not load the second scene.
There must be some driver or software that loads with windows that is causing the game to hang, I tried disabling a few things in the tray such as antivirus, msn messenger, skype but so far no luck. Im thinking the problem might be some sort of driver conflict although I have a fairly standard setup on my pc the only thing that is remotely unusual is my wacom graphics tablet but if i disable that driver the game still wont run.

Hopefully this narrows down the possibilities a bit anyway, anyone with sound technical knowledge know what the problem could be with this in mind?

[Joku]

Could somebody help me? The demo ALWAYS crashes when I try to destroy the "rocks" blocking the way after I get the wrench, and don't start yelling "lol ur computer must suck then" 'cause the demo runs fine on my computer.

Seriously, could somebody help me with my problem? :[

[Tobe1701]

Can anyone run a Steam-downloaded Version under Vista (64)? The "fix" mentioned here to download the stand-alone version doesn't look very pleasing to me - I rather spare the 2 GB download time :(

[dandragonrage]

I also get a crash right after the splash screen. I have VS2005 installed (developers developers developers etc.) and it tells me bioshock threw an unhandled win32 exception, asks me if I want to debug, but won't show me a callstack or anything if I hit yes.

Core 2 Duo E6600 @ 3.26GHz
Gigabyte GA-P35-DS3R
4GB RAM
Geforce 7900GT (tried 162.18 and 163.44)
Realtek HD Audio

The system is 100% stable, I'm positive it's not the problem. It's been stress tested quite hard.


I see most people mentioning Vista, and I realized I forgot to mention that I use XP32. (Yes, I know, I only have 3.5GB of RAM available with XP32, no need to tell me)

[f3ynm]

Seriously, could somebody help me with my problem? :[

Have you tried reinstalling the demo?

[Haloboy!]

Game freezes up at light house right after plane crash (sometimes at the steps, sometimes after entering)


This is what I don't get though, it's not like you get to a certain section of the demo and it suddenly hard locks there every time. It's a different place each and every time I attempt to play through the demo. The last time (and the furthest it has now allowed me to play to) was when the screen drops down and the narration begins. It's crazy. :confused:

[Joku]

Have you tried reinstalling the demo?

I've done it a thousand times, I even tried to download it from other sites and from steam, and it still had the same problem. :/

[JFunkX15]

Does anyone else have this problem? At least the majority of you got to play the demo. I get to the title menu and I can select all my settings. But when I select the difficulty level I want the game basically freezes. The loading screen comes up but it is very dark and hard to see. When I alt+tab out task manager shows Bioshock as not responding. Anybody have any advice?

I'm running Vista Ultimate 32-bit edition
I've got a Asus P5N32-E Mobo
Dual 8800 GTX in SLI mode
3 GIG sticks of RAM
2 10,000 RPM WD Raptors

[Garr]

The main menu loads fine but when I select a difficulty setting the game freezes on the loading screen (the loading screen can be seen VERY faintly just as it is starting to fade in). After some experimentation I found that running the demo in windowed mode makes it all work just fine but when I switch back to full screen it crashes.

I am running:
Intel Core Duo2 2.6Ghz
Nvidia GeForce 8800 GTX
2GB RAM
Vista Home premium 32-bit
163.44 beta drivers

does anyone have any ideas how to fix this?

[JFunkX15]

I have the problem i mentioned earlier (can get it to work to the point of changing settings but when i try to load the demo itself the game hangs and i just get music)

I just discovered that if i quickly load the demo as soon as i log on to my pc after restart then the demo will load properly. Now i get to the point of going in the sub thing then the game will not load the second scene.
There must be some driver or software that loads with windows that is causing the game to hang, I tried disabling a few things in the tray such as antivirus, msn messenger, skype but so far no luck. Im thinking the problem might be some sort of driver conflict although I have a fairly standard setup on my pc the only thing that is remotely unusual is my wacom graphics tablet but if i disable that driver the game still wont run.

Hopefully this narrows down the possibilities a bit anyway, anyone with sound technical knowledge know what the problem could be with this in mind?
I've got the exact same problem... game hangs on the loading screen after I apply settings and select the difficulty. I'm gonna go try to run it immediately after startup.

[razor]

Can anyone run a Steam-downloaded Version under Vista (64)? The "fix" mentioned here to download the stand-alone version doesn't look very pleasing to me - I rather spare the 2 GB download time :(


Once the stand alone version is installed (using a second install directory to the steam one) i note 2 things. 1) the steam version now also works 2) the dx.dll files in the directory are not there on the proper version but are located in my windows/system32 folder instead.

My theory is that the Steam install does not run as administrator, when i installed the full download i ran it as administator.

You could try moving the dll file and see what happens.

[dodgysod]

using the volume control on a g15 keyboard brings map screen etc up, nothing major just a tad annoying. good job on the demo btw LOVE IT :D

[Ric]

There have been a million new threads of people posting their problems with the PC demo. If you have a technical issue with the demo, please post here and hopefully a dev will see it. Please don't spam the thread with useless posts, if you use it sensibly then the devs can take it seriously. If you have a wqorking solution to someone's problem, by all means post it.

Please don't get mad at me closing the other threads, it's just getting really messy with all the threads with differing and sometimes identical problems; I'll give a redirect link to this thread so everyone can come here.

Yes hundreds of threads, maybe be the end of the day it will be thousands. Any chance of at least on of them being answered?

[benito78]

Well, in my earlier post I mentioned the problem I was having:

1) Splash-screen appears
2) Goes full screen black
3) Returns to Windows with process still running, and killing it gives an error

Well, in my case it was the Folding@Home application which seems to use DirectX. Killing it and then running the demo and everything is great.

[benito78]

Well, in my earlier post I mentioned the problem I was having:

1) Splash-screen appears
2) Goes full screen black
3) Returns to Windows with process still running, and killing it gives an error

Well, in my case it was the Folding@Home application which seems to use DirectX. Killing it and then running the demo and everything is great.

[fish99]

Well, was mainly throwing out potention issues, based upon the other infor you given. Very interesting that you can get past the problem areas by lowering the shader details.

Have you tried changing any of the gloabal Nvidia options ?
And is there more infor regarding the execption error ? modual , memory address etc ?

Again, just throwing out ideas to try and help.

~Tal
Okeydokey, sorry if my reply sounded a bit terse, I do appreciate the help :)

I set everything in the nvidia control panel back to default but it didn't help. The error was just the 'send / don't send' box which I don't think has any error codes. I haven't verified that if you turn High Detail Shaders back up after you arrive in rapture, that it gets to the end of the demo fine, I was just repeating what someone else said. I will check that now though. However I can play the full demo all the way through with High Detail Shaders off.

[Robbie785]

i have a weird problem with the demo and i fear it will be a problem with the full version...

my pc: AMD 2.2ghz (3500+), 2.5 gigs of ram, 7800gt... definitely meets min req's.

i run the bioshock executable. mouse icon changes, then.... nothing. so i try again, this time i can see that it is running in task manager. it goes to like 99% cpu usages. then disappears. the entire bioshock.exe process goes away.

this was done in windows xp pro, 32-bit.

i tried this with both demo being played off steam, and just downloading the and installing myself. both same have results.

to continue the weirdness, i install the demo again, this time on my 2nd boot partition, vista ultimate 64bit. demo runs fine.

why wouldn't demo start up in xp, but it'll run on vista?

the annoying thing is, my sound drivers SUCK in vista, and so whenever the cpu is being used a lot (which is all the time in this game) the sound gets all choppy and screwed up. and it's not even fun to play then.

i have a bad feeling that this same thing might happen when i run the full game...

if there are any suggestions please post them, i'll check back tomorrow after i try running the full version.

right now, the only thing i can think of is that my nvidia drivers are different, when i tried to install the new drivers on my XP, something went wrong and i had to go back to my older drivers (162.18) instead of the newer ones (163.44)

when i say "something went wrong" with my updating the windows xp drivers, i mean i tried multiple times to update to the latest beta drivers and every time there were errors when i tried to access the nvidia control panel. however i tried to run the demo anyways, and the game still had the same problem.

however, in vista, the new drivers (163.44) installed just fine... but i don't see how this would affect the game launching... it's not like it's a graphical error or anything.

and people complain about vista sucking... right now XP is sucking, and sucking it hard!

http://robbie785.googlepages.com/DxDiag.txt

thats my winxp dxdiag report, if needed.

[Swift42]

The game loads fine and I can see the main menu, but I don't have any mouse cursor. I have to randomly wave the mouse around hoping it will highlight what I need. Anyone else having the same issue?
Running a single core AMD 3200+ with an ATI X850XT PE

I have exact the same problem - this makes the demo useless because I need to move the mouse around and around until I hit a menu entry by random.

Single core AMD 3200+, ATI X800Pro, WinXP
I updated my ATI with the latest drivers, but still no mouse pointer.

Any ideas?

[sammael]

I've got the exact same problem... game hangs on the loading screen after I apply settings and select the difficulty. I'm gonna go try to run it immediately after startup.

Also try windowed mode, works fine! although im sure there must be a performance hit. Anyhow windowed worked enough for me to finish the demo but I hope this problem is fixed with the full version.

[fish99]

I haven't verified that if you turn High Detail Shaders back up after you arrive in rapture, that it gets to the end of the demo fine, I was just repeating what someone else said. I will check that now though. However I can play the full demo all the way through with High Detail Shaders off.
Right, if I play through with High Detail Shaders off to after you break the rubble with the crowbar then crouch under the door, then put High Detail Shaders on, it still crashes. So it's not just certain parts of the demo, it's the whole demo is completely unstable with High Detail Shaders on.

[devsfan1830]

I enabled EAX in game but i had no positional sound. My back speakers just falt out didnt work and i had basic sound through my front and my subwoofer. Is this a glitch or a driver issue? And i DID restart like the game told me after i enabled the setting.

LOL nevermind. I missed the slider that u need to use to enable 5.1 surround. Plus i had my back speakers muted, so THAT might have been a problem. Demo runs flawlessly, great work guys.

[H3RO]

The main menu loads fine but when I select a difficulty setting the game freezes on the loading screen (the loading screen can be seen VERY faintly just as it is starting to fade in). After some experimentation I found that running the demo in windowed mode makes it all work just fine but when I switch back to full screen it crashes.

I am running:
Intel Core Duo2 2.6Ghz
Nvidia GeForce 8800 GTX
2GB RAM
Vista Home premium 32-bit
163.44 beta drivers

does anyone have any ideas how to fix this?

I have the same problem, even made a new topic about it just now. I fear for the full version of the game, I dont want to play in windowed mode.

Also, forcing the demo to run in DX9 mode works too for full screen but the performance is worse than in dx10 windowed (same res, same max settings).

[DeltaUser]

The game crashes on the second loading screen (when you enter rapture inside the submarine), only if the shaders are set to high quality. If I turn off the high quality shaders before loading and turn them back on afterwards then the game runs just fine.

In fullscreen mode I can only do a hard reset, because my videocard crashes.
In windowed mode, the game just crashes and I get the 'send bug report to microsoft' message.
Also, when I run dxdiag after a crash in windowed mode and I do a Direct3D test, I get corrupted images and a corrupted desktop after the test.

my specs:

Win XP Pro SP2 32-bits
Intel P4 3.0GHz HT
1GB RAM
GeForce 7800 GS AGPx8
ForceWare 162.18

The game runs good, even with all the settings on high (except for the shaders during loading).

[JFunkX15]

Also try windowed mode, works fine! although im sure there must be a performance hit. Anyhow windowed worked enough for me to finish the demo but I hope this problem is fixed with the full version.

Yeah, windowed also worked for me. Thanks for the advice.

[fish99]

Starting to get a picture here of why the demo was delayed :rolleyes: There's no way this has been robustly tested and found to work flawlessly on a wide variety of hardware. So many people getting hangs on such a variety of different configs. Just imagine the stick 2K are going to get if the full game has these problems.

[Ric]

Right, if I play through with High Detail Shaders off to after you break the rubble with the crowbar then crouch under the door, then put High Detail Shaders on, it still crashes. So it's not just certain parts of the demo, it's the whole demo is completely unstable with High Detail Shaders on.

I concur. Shader drivers are poop. Turned them off and all problems just vanished. The game looks like it was made in 60 now too! :eek:

[gmanxxx]

I have the "Bioshock.exe has stopped working" issue with the demo and now with the acutal game. I have updated all drivers and have tried all suggestions and nothing fixes it.

I hope the devs are reading theses forums and are working on solutions. This is the major flaw with PC's as they are today. It's unfortunate that PC users can not just pop the game in without worrying about drivers and such.

My Specs:
Windows Vista 32
C2D e6600 (2.4GHz)
2GB Ram
nVidia 8800 GTS 320MB
Creative X-Fi Gamer
2 WD Raptors
Gigabyte 965P-DS3 Mobo

Here is the error report for what it's worth:

Problem signature
Problem Event Name: APPCRASH
Application Name: Bioshock.exe
Application Version: 1.0.0.0
Application Timestamp: 46b7d7a9
Fault Module Name: Bioshock.exe
Fault Module Version: 1.0.0.0
Fault Module Timestamp: 46b7d7a9
Exception Code: c0000005
Exception Offset: 00be726b
OS Version: 6.0.6000.2.0.0.768.3
Locale ID: 1033
Additional Information 1: 1f40
Additional Information 2: 7de6ba5889eb7554c63752bae43954f5
Additional Information 3: f150
Additional Information 4: 05323a6fd5dd4224104e728397e4acdd

Extra information about the problem
Bucket ID: 494690131

[TheMafioso]

When i play in DX9 i got this texture bug:

http://img524.imageshack.us/img524/5553/bioshock200708211658521qj7.png

i use all options max and i got a nvidia 8800 with last beta drivers for bioshock...

The bug isn't always in same place

[syllogism]

Works fine windowed but crashes in full screen? Could be a refresh rate problem, try changing DesiredRefreshRate in default.ini.

[Robbie785]

original post:

http://forums.2kgames.com/forums/showpost.php?p=119056&postcount=89

i found that adding -dx9 to the shortcut target line fixed this

[fish99]

Just to clarify, the problem I'm having happens in both full screen and windowed mode.

Anyway, here's an update. Just removed my 8800 GTS and the nvidia drivers, put my old ATI X800 XT 256 mb back in, installed Cat 7.8s and now the demo works fine with High Detail Shaders on, played it all the way through. Of course it's too slow but that's irrelevant to this issue.

So it's looking like the XP DX9 High Detail Shaders crash problem could be Nvidia only. I should point out the crash happens both with 162.18 and 163.44 before someone suggests rolling back to previous WHQL drivers. Not buying this game until it's fixed.

Off to put my 8800 back in...

[gmanxxx]

@Robbie785-That is only a fix for XP right?

[fish99]

put my old ATI X800 XT 256 mb back in, installed Cat 7.8s and now the demo works fine with High Detail Shaders on, played it all the way through.
Sry, typo - X1800XT not X800.

[Joku]

Alright, I'm going to cry for help one more time.

The game works fine and smooth, all the way up until I get the wrench and try to destroy the rubble on the way. It instantly crashes when the wrench hits the "rubble". I've tried everything, I thought it was because I didn't have the new Nvidia drivers, but it still didn't work. I tried reinstalling, downloading it from other sites, anything possible!

I'll try to post specs tomorrow, if it'll be any help.

[Umbantu]

When I start the demo it installs "Microsoft Visual C++ 2005 SP1 Redistributable" after that is installed my system can no longer load full screen applications. I've had to use system restore and fix alot of registry entries to get my system the way it was before. Is there a way to play the demo without this automatically installing?

[Zoso Fan]

THE GAME CRASHES WHEN EVER I CHANGE RESOLUTION OR TRY TO ADD V SYNC.

NO AUDIO WITHOUT RUNNING IN XP MODE.

AUDIO CUTS OUT FOR SECONDS AT A TIME.

JAGGIES UP THE ASS (worse than the demo?)

COME ON! This shouldn't be a problem. :mad:

[OneOfTwo]

Oh comon, what kind of tech forum is this supposed to be if we get no answers form 2K Games?!
SIZE="7"]This is ridiculous.[[/SIZE]

[Tobe1701]

Once the stand alone version is installed (using a second install directory to the steam one) i note 2 things. 1) the steam version now also works 2) the dx.dll files in the directory are not there on the proper version but are located in my windows/system32 folder instead.

My theory is that the Steam install does not run as administrator, when i installed the full download i ran it as administator.

You could try moving the dll file and see what happens.

I copied the Folder to another partition. Then I copied d3dx9_33.dll and d3dx10_33.dll to my vista windows/system32. No effect. Deleted them in the game folder, no effect. Dunno. Well, I downloaded it with Steam in Windows XP so it could be that it copied some files somewhere that I am not aware off. But only devs can tell me which and where :(

[Haloboy!]

Turning off High Detailed Shaders made no difference whatsoever for me. The damn thing still crashed while on my way down to Rapture.

It's not just an Nvidia thing by any means, it' an ATi thing also.

This forum is rife with people stating the exact same problem, and still there's not so much as a murmer from 2k. Oh I forgot, most of us already pre-ordered the full game so I doubt they even care about demo issues.

[fish99]

Turning off High Detailed Shaders made no difference whatsoever for me. The damn thing still crashed while on my way down to Rapture.

It's not just an Nvidia thing by any means, it' an ATi thing also.
Okeydokey, must be a slightly different issue to mine.

[FireFalkon]

Demo randomly crashes with no reason
Geforce 6800 GT 256mb with Nvdia v162 drivers
P4 2.8ghz
1.5gb RAM
60gb HD
Onboard Soundcard
Generic DVD-RW Drive
Seventeam 450w PSU
This problem doesn't happen with v94 driver, and I can't install v163 beta, it says that my hardware is not compatible with the driver.
My video card is shown as "NVIDIA (Unknown)" at nvidia's control panel system information in v94.
Any clues on what is causing the problem?

[fish99]

Well, after trying the ATI card which worked fine, and putting the 8800 GTS back in and putting the new beta drivers back on, suddenly I'm able to get through the demo without it crashing with everything on full. That was in windowed mode, I'll try full screen shortly.

Maybe it was just a one off, or maybe the drivers don't always install right or something. I did get some weird issues I haven't seen before though - huge brown triangles on screen just after the BD/LS bit where the camera is.

[dandragonrage]

original post:

http://forums.2kgames.com/forums/showpost.php?p=119056&postcount=89

i found that adding -dx9 to the shortcut target line fixed this

Did not work for me and I use XP

[Warrior]

The game runs well for me with the graphics up med-high but it keeps crashing to desktop with a black windowed screen. Then I get a message saying "Send" or "Don't Send".

[WolfpupNX]

Just noting my problems. I'm on a pretty old machine to be playing this, but I was hoping to at least play it decently on the low-mid settings to get a feel for the game. (Upgrading soon, but awaiting X38.)

My rig:
P4 2.6 GHz (400 MHz Bus)
1 GB RAM
GeForce 6800 Ultra
Sound Blaster Audigy

I decided to download the Steam version of the demo because I figured Steam would probably give me the fastest download rate (and it did).

My first problem was during installation. The Microsoft Visual Studio 5.0 thingie (why is this needed?) failed to install properly and couldn't find the files it needed. After I cancelled out, tho', seemed to install the rest of everything fine.

I also installed the BETA nVidia drivers.

I was able to start the game and navigate the menu.

First time I tried to play, black screen (monitor goes to standby) and video card frozen. Had to hard reboot (or with luck I can use keyboard command sto get Windows to shut down and restart normally).

Upon reboot I was able to play. Made it to the part where you take a brief tour through Rapture and enter the "All Good Things" dock... (Looks pretty cool so far). Then a black screen, like a transition between levels...no sounds, errors, etc. And it just stays there. Period. Again, hafta do some sort of reboot.

Tried a few more times. Sometimes it would crash out completely or do the monitor in standby thing...other times I could play to the transition between levels mentioned above, but it would always hang there.

Tried going back to the last set of nVidia drivers (WHQL). This time was scariest of all...went to start the demo, got to the loading screen (before the first scene), and about the time the level would begin, the hard drive made a pretty loud sound and the computer did a hard reset. I was honestly pretty scared I had just fried my hard drive or corrupted Windows.

I deleted Steam and the demo and am downloading the standalone version to give it a shot with the nVidia betas again. I'm also going to give it a shot windowed since some seem to have success like that. But things are not looking good, and I'm pretty disappointed at the stability of this thing even if my PC's pretty old. It's been a LONG time since a game gave my machine a dangerous hard reset like that. I feel like I need to backup my recent important stuff before giving it another try.

[AwHOVhKK]

crashes on start up on a Dell D830 w/2gig dual core, 2 gig ram, Vista ultimate.

The Xbox360 demo also crashed during the opening cut scene.

Would luv to see the game, but oh-well. Wheres my GoW cd?

OS Name Microsoft® Windows Vista™ Ultimate
Version 6.0.6000 Build 6000
Other OS Description Not Available
OS Manufacturer Microsoft Corporation
System Name GOMEZ
System Manufacturer Dell Inc.
System Model Latitude D830
System Type X86-based PC
Processor Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Duo CPU T7300 @ 2.00GHz, 2001 Mhz, 2 Core(s), 2 Logical Processor(s)
BIOS Version/Date Dell Inc. A02, 6/7/2007
SMBIOS Version 2.4
Windows Directory C:\Windows
System Directory C:\Windows\system32
Boot Device \Device\HarddiskVolume3
Locale United States
Hardware Abstraction Layer Version = "6.0.6000.16407"
User Name gomez\admkn
Time Zone Eastern Daylight Time
Total Physical Memory 2,037.50 MB
Available Physical Memory 869.29 MB
Total Virtual Memory 4.19 GB
Available Virtual Memory 2.89 GB
Page File Space 2.28 GB
Page File C:\pagefile.sys


Name Mobile Intel(R) 965 Express Chipset Family
PNP Device ID PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_2A02&SUBSYS_01FE1028&REV_0C\3&2B8E0B4B&0&10
Adapter Type Mobile Intel(R) 965 Express Chipset Family, Intel Corporation compatible
Adapter Description Mobile Intel(R) 965 Express Chipset Family
Adapter RAM 448.00 MB (469,762,048 bytes)
Installed Drivers igdumd32.dll
Driver Version Not Available
INF File oem30.inf (iCRG0 section)
Color Planes Not Available
Color Table Entries 4294967296
Resolution 1680 x 1050 x 60 hertz
Bits/Pixel 32
Memory Address 0xFEA00000-0xFEAFFFFF
Memory Address 0xE0000000-0xEFFFFFFF
I/O Port 0x0000EFF8-0x0000EFFF
IRQ Channel IRQ 16
I/O Port 0x000003B0-0x000003BB
I/O Port 0x000003C0-0x000003DF
Memory Address 0xA0000-0xBFFFF
Driver c:\windows\system32\drivers\igdkmd32.sys (7.14.10.1253, 1.60 MB (1,674,240 bytes), 6/8/2007 9:41 AM)

Name Mobile Intel(R) 965 Express Chipset Family
PNP Device ID PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_2A03&SUBSYS_01FE1028&REV_0C\3&2B8E0B4B&0&11
Adapter Type Not Available, Intel Corporation compatible
Adapter Description Mobile Intel(R) 965 Express Chipset Family
Adapter RAM Not Available
Installed Drivers igdumd32.dll
Driver Version Not Available
INF File oem30.inf (iCRG1 section)
Color Planes Not Available
Color Table Entries Not Available
Resolution Not Available
Bits/Pixel Not Available
Memory Address 0xFEB00000-0xFEBFFFFF
Driver c:\windows\system32\drivers\igdkmd32.sys (7.14.10.1253, 1.60 MB (1,674,240 bytes), 6/8/2007 9:41 AM)

[fish99]

Well, after trying the ATI card which worked fine, and putting the 8800 GTS back in and putting the new beta drivers back on, suddenly I'm able to get through the demo without it crashing with everything on full. That was in windowed mode, I'll try full screen shortly.
Full screen crashed. I've got a last few things to try - I'm going to try to disable speedstepping on my E6750 and I'm going to try running the demo with CPU affinity set to one core.

[fish99]

Right, it's just crashed in windowed mode again, so nothing has changed, it still crashes randomly with High Detail Shaders on, and may well crash with them off if I tested it enough (only ran it once through like that).

Tried setting affinity to one core, didn't make a difference (interestingly it wasn't even using that one core fully). Also monitored CPU and GPU temps and they weren't being stressed at all, 43 degrees for CPU and 70 degrees for GPU (the warning temp in the nvidia drivers is 129 degrees before anyone says 70 is high).

I'm official out of options and fed up of trying stuff. The game is buggy, end of. I can't buy it in this state, unless I find out the full game doesn't suffer this. Would be nice if 2K would say something, anything.

[ghOst.X.Scotty]

this drove me up the wall earlier today, someone mentioned starting the game from the command promt.

C:\program files\2k games\bioshock demo\ etc etc

with -DX9 at the end and it runs a treat.
I feel for u guys who have not got it working correctly I hope the Patch sorts the issues.

came across this, dont know if its real or not.
http://www.gameborder.com/patch/BioShock/

[Haloboy!]

I'm official out of options and fed up of trying stuff. The game is buggy, end of. I can't buy it in this state, unless I find out the full game doesn't suffer this. Would be nice if 2K would say something, anything.

I hear ya fish mate, after 2 whole days of trying and trying again plus the fact it took me 13 hours in total to get a working version of the demo in the first place I think it's time to just call it quits. Nothing I can now do will make the demo run as it should and most probably could because it has to be the demo that is at fault. Nothing more, nothing less.

I should have the full release by dinner tomorrow, and if anyone else does also all I can do is wish both them and myself a **** load of luck.

Thanks for all the precious help so far on the matter 2k, not.

[jeremiads]

I'm having the ridiculous crash right after the small BioShock splash comes up on the desktop on the demo, both the standalone and Steam version. I pre-ordered this stupid game so I can't wait to see how much of a paperweight my discs are going to be. The crash has the code of c0000005 if you check it in event viewer.

Specs:

Vista x86
C2D E6750
2GB RAM
Gigabyte DS3P w/ P35 Chipset
eVGA GeForce 8800 GTS 320MB

Let's get some answers for once.

[jeremiads]

I also made a crash dump. If you add -enabledump to the command line, it will create a dump file in My Documents\BioShock, so I think 2K should be taking these things and looking at them.

[fish99]

Right, just had a crash with High Detail Shaders off so I agree with Haloboy, it's just a broken demo (and full game too from what I read).

This crash - I let the camera see me just after the DB/LS bit, then electro zapped the flying sentry to stun it, and then hacked it so it was fighting for me, then I hacked the camera while it was looking the other way. Then the camera saw me, which I suppose should trigger it to launch another senrty, then the game froze with looping sound, and even though it was in windowed mode I couldn't close it down. Pressed alt-tab and ctrl-alt-del a few times before I got a blue screen with a load of text on it, and then the PC immidiately rebooted, which it hasn't done before.

Haven't seen anything this unstable for a long time. What happened to testing 2K?

[Maxor127]

I'm having the ridiculous crash right after the small BioShock splash comes up on the desktop on the demo, both the standalone and Steam version. I pre-ordered this stupid game so I can't wait to see how much of a paperweight my discs are going to be. The crash has the code of c0000005 if you check it in event viewer.

Specs:

Vista x86
C2D E6750
2GB RAM
Gigabyte DS3P w/ P35 Chipset
eVGA GeForce 8800 GTS 320MB

Let's get some answers for once.

You have almost the same system and problem as me. My only difference is Gigabyte PS3C-DS3R mobo. System isn't even a month old yet. I guess I won't be buying the game today or maybe at all unless this gets fixed soon.

[Fleet]

In the pc demo there arn't any videos when you pick plasmids up, can someone tell me if it's the same with the full game?

[Fleet]

And the mouse is screwy in menus on 1 sensitivity

[IrrationalRuss]

I'm having the ridiculous crash right after the small BioShock splash comes up on the desktop on the demo, both the standalone and Steam version. I pre-ordered this stupid game so I can't wait to see how much of a paperweight my discs are going to be. The crash has the code of c0000005 if you check it in event viewer.

Specs:

Vista x86
C2D E6750
2GB RAM
Gigabyte DS3P w/ P35 Chipset
eVGA GeForce 8800 GTS 320MB

Let's get some answers for once.

can you try re installing directX please. http://www.gamesforwindows.com/en-US...DirectX10.aspx

Thanks.

[fish99]

can you try re installing directX please. http://www.gamesforwindows.com/en-US...DirectX10.aspx

Thanks.
I know you weren't asking me, but I just tried this (with the redist that comes with the demo) and it still crashed, just where the loading screen is supposed to come up when you reach Rapture. My specs are similar to Maxor127 and jeremiads except I have XP. E6750, 8800 GTS 320 mb, Abit IP35-E, 2 GB DDR2 Corsair, XP Pro SP2, Audigy 2 Z etc.

Funny thing is - my 360 demo just crashed too, just froze solid, while I was doing a comparison with the PC demo. This was just after climbing through the plane that comes through the side of the tunnel.

[jeremiads]

can you try re installing directX please. http://www.gamesforwindows.com/en-US...DirectX10.aspx

Thanks.Yup. It updated some "optional components," but it didn't fix the error. I'm going to try to restart in case the DirectX install needed it, but it didn't ask.

[ricorodriguez]

Does anyone else experience out-of-sync audio? For example in the beginning where the splicer is attacking that innocent man you can hear the splicer's claws striking the man's torso before you hear it.

[jeremiads]

No dice after a restart, either.

IrrationalRuss - If you are an Irrational employee, I made a crash dump once in case someone wanted it to try to figure this bug out since a number of people I'm talking to are getting it.

[IrrationalRuss]

No dice after a restart, either.

IrrationalRuss - If you are an Irrational employee, I made a crash dump once in case someone wanted it to try to figure this bug out since a number of people I'm talking to are getting it.

if you have a program called alky installed, can you remove that.

Can you also try forcing the game into directx 9 mode. Create a shortcut to the game exe and right click ion the shortcut and go to properties. In the target path, after .exe can you add -dx9 and then hit ok and run the shortcut.

Thanks.

[jeremiads]

if you have a program called alky installed, can you remove that.

Can you also try forcing the game into directx 9 mode. Create a shortcut to the game exe and right click ion the shortcut and go to properties. In the target path, after .exe can you add -dx9 and then hit ok and run the shortcut.

Thanks.No Alky here. Don't even know what it is.

I had to add the shortcut to my Steam game options instead of an icon, but that didn't work as well. I know the command line options work through Steam since that's how I made the crash dump. I did -dx9 and it still crashes with the c0000005 error.

[dandragonrage]

Hey Russ, is there any place we can send our crash dumps to, like an email or such?

[gmanxxx]

A lot of people are getting the c0000005 error including myself. Seems we just need to wait for a patch. I have already given up on even trying to play it now since I have done all that is in my power to try and fix it.

Oh well, that's a PC game for you.

[ki0365]

hello everyone

two problems that i have with the demo

first is every time i start it my security virus thing blocks something called cmdlineinstaller.exe and it says it is a 99% risk! is bioshock trying to give me a virus????

also, upon playing i get the movie where he looks at photo on plane but as soon as the movie ends i go spiralling down a weird tube which is pretty much black with bubbles around the side and small black squares flying everywhere. the screen goes black for a second every few seconds.

eventually it says i can move with wasd. i look around with the mouse and all i can see is fire and a strange red light in the sky. when i look around in certain places the screen goes black until i look back at the fire. there are black squares on the screen which i think are where specks of water usually are on the camera. any idea what this is??????

thanks for all your help

[crunkjuice]

Problem -> Bioshock shows its picture logo (assumed for loading) and then after a few seconds quits, with Vista showing "Bioshock.exe has stopped working."

Basically I don't get into the game at all - no menu screen, no introduction video, nothing.

This is a brand new PC:

e6750 core 2 duo
8800GTS 640MB
2GB ram
Gigabyte P35-S3
WD 500 GB
Vista Home Premium 32-bit

Monitor running at resolution 1680x1050

I have tried my old nvidia drivers, I have tried the new 163.44 drivers and its the same result. All other software drivers are up to date, Vista, onboard sound, the whole lot and yes including directx.

Pretty disappointed to be honest.

After the 360 vs PC demo release dates which was more than a tad annoying to us PC only users, now this. I cannot completely blame the developers for this one, as this is one of the problems with PC gaming, there is no set standard to write for, but its pretty crappy being on the "not working on my pc end".

I was one that ordered the Collector's Edition of the game, and by the looks of it, I am going to have a game that will not run on my machine, yet one which theoretically meets all said requirements.

I guess I am pretty tired of there being all sorts of problems related to PC gaming - be it operating system conflicts, graphics card drivers, sound card drivers, the whole lot. Even worse is when you have done everything in your power, tweaking, reinstalling, uninstalling drivers, searching the web for solutions, you come up empty handed.

Don't know who to blame to be honest - Nvidia? Microsoft? Irrational?
Probably no single party is to blame, but here I sit disappointed at the one game I have actually been the most hyped to get and one of the new games I have been dying to play, considering my old PC could not meet any newish game requirements - now even my new one cannot.

In all honesty, this looks like its going to be my last ever PC orientated towards gaming - funnily enough, at one stage I never thought I would say this.

I actually now envy all you console owners that are free from experiences such as mine.

Yeah, bump this one, same exact thing happening to me. Downloaded via steam. Small bioshock logo comes up saying loading, then the program crashes and it brings up an error code. My system specs are as follows.

q6700
8800gtx
4gigs ram
2-150gig raptors in raid0
700w powersupply
asus p5n32e-sli plus
x-fi fatality
windows vista 64 bit


keep in mind everything is up to date, I also downloaded the nvidia beta drivers. I'm fairly certain this has something to do with vista, and not the game itself. Regardless, it would be nice to play it. The only positive thing I've discovered about growing old, is i just don't care anymore...lol, back to counterstrike until they fix this problem, ill be waiting for you bioshock.

[TGS]

Well i am running a kinda usual PC system CD6600 with 2GB RAM and a 8800GTS and i am able to start Bioshock without problems, even in Widescreen mode of 1.280 x 800.

All goes perfect, except i can't quick save with F8 and also i am not able to reload with F9. Additionally Bioshock crashes that hefty with an unknown exception, that my PC is going to reboot. The reboot occurs intermittently, not at any specific time line in the story - just weird.

I have tested already the Beta drivers, though i hate BETA drivers :( - the problems remain. Any help?

[schipy]

Hi,I just download the full game from Steam and i have trouble with saving the game.It says i don`t have enough space on hard drive.I have 44 GB. Any recommendation? Thx

[siegecow]

Installed bioshock no problems, i double click on the executable and get "this application has failed to start because the application configuration is inncorrect. Reinstalling the application may fix this problem"

I tried reinstalling, same error.

Xp professional 64x
2 gig ram
8600gts
AMD 64 X2 +6000

[Magosong]

Right now the problem I'm having is the game runs incredibly well for a few minutes...and then I suffer about 30 seconds of horrible slow down of the visuals. The sound will all continue fine, but the visuals will be incredibly laggy.

Windows XP
DirectX 9.0c, fully updated
AMD Atholon 64 X2 Dual Core Processor 3800+
1 gig ram
Nvidia GeForce 7600 GS with the beta drivers

There is no anti-virus/scanning stuff going on while I'm running the game. Just the game. It happens in both high and low visuals modes. I'd love to find a solution to this as it's really hampering the mood when every few minutes it's like I'm walking through marmalade.

[benc]

I have the random reboot error as well, however on the full retail version.

The game will randomly crash to the good old blue screen of death then reboot itself.

Amd Turion 64 dual core 1.6ghz
1gig ram
Nvidia GeForce 7600
Windows XP pro
DX9 fully updated

[luanswan2002]

The game ALWAYS crashes when it loads the second map (little bar thing flashes and then stops - then crash and I have to reboot). Come on, I really wanna play this game :<. I'm on XP Pro with every possible driver updated and a 7600 GT, AMD 64bit 3500+, 1 GB or memory. Sigh*

Graphics are fine and there aren't any glitches, just when it wants to load the second map it screws up. :mad: :confused:

[Daddy~Hunter]

Its probably been answered already but when i load the game it loads the logo then goes to a window then says "BioShock.exe stopped responding" or something like that, how do you fix this and can you provide an example.
Specs: Vista Home Premium
1024 MB Ram
nVidia 7900
Pentium 4 (3.0 GHz)

[jeremiads]

Its probably been answered already but when i load the game it loads the logo then goes to a window then says "BioShock.exe stopped responding" or something like that, how do you fix this and can you provide an example.
Specs: Vista Home Premium
1024 MB Ram
nVidia 7900
Pentium 4 (3.0 GHz)You and everybody else. We don't have an answer yet.

[cersei]

Windows Xp pro
2gbs ram
intel core 2 duo cpu
nvidia 7900GT 256ram

I tried both the newest official nvidia drivers as well as the forceware 163.44
I updated my direct x to the most current version as well as trying the jul 07 version
I updated my audio drivers
I have tried uninstalling and reinstalling both the full game and demo multiple times with these configs and the same exact happens with both:

If i try to click 'apply' after tweaking graphics options the game goes black, stutters and then crashes to the desktop.

Also trying to play the game, as soon as I'm out of the bathysphere and I meet the first splicer while on the radio with Atlas, the game does the same thing: stutters in black-screen and then crashes to the desktop without any explanation as to why or sometimes just apologizing saying it needs to close. Wondering how many others have noticed these huge probs in the menus and the opening sequence of the game.

[ricorodriguez]

Does anyone else experience out-of-sync audio? For example in the beginning where the splicer is attacking that innocent man you can hear the splicer's claws striking the man's torso before you hear it.

so i guess its just me :( ?

[lepton]

Intel Core 2 Duo w/ 2GB RAM
Nvidia 8600M GT w/ 256MB RAM
Windows Vista

Driver update not available for mobile GPUs from Nvidia

More info available upon request

[dandragonrage]

Intel Core 2 Duo w/ 2GB RAM
Nvidia 8600M GT w/ 256MB RAM
Windows Vista

Driver update not available for mobile GPUs from Nvidia

More info available upon request

Posted several times already, but www.laptopvideo2go.com

[thepatient]

Audio is heavily stuttering to the point of being unplayable, falling out-of-sync with the action on screen. Particularly prominent during set-pieces, such as the end of the 'sphere ride when first entering Rapture. It's especially odd as my frame rate is very smooth while this happens, never stuttering.

I've been watching these forums all day and I've not seen anyone report the same problem, so I had assumed it was on my end despite having zero difficulties with any other game/program I've run, and comfortably exceeding minimum spec in most cases.


So far, with little success, I've tried:

* Every available option in the game's audio section.

* Drastically lowering video settings.

* Reinstalling the game.

* Installing different sound drivers.

* Installing different video drivers.

* Installing the latest DirectX 9.0c.

* Checking for latest BIOS/drivers for motherboard (which I already had).

* Lowering 'Hardware acceleration' via Control Panel.

* Lowering the 'Sampling rate' and 'Bit-depth' via Control Panel.

* Lowering overclock on processor/memory/gfx card to default.

* Underclocking processor/memory/gfx card.

* Looking for IRQ conflicts.

* Looking for malicious software.

* Disabling all background programs.

If anyone has other suggestions I'll be happy to hear them. Anyone else with a similar experience?

XP Home
DFI NF4
Athlon 64 3800+
2 GB RAM
X1950 Pro
Soundblaster Audigy (an obvious culprit, but meets requirements and has never given trouble)

Sorry about all the words. :p

[Makaveli_86]

It seems that alot of people experiencing the crash when loading the second level share similar system setups. I for one also am getting a crash when entering the bathysphere and entering rapture. The load screen stalls and crashes to the desktop, with a msvcr80 error. My system specs are as listed below

A64 3800+X2
Geforce 7900 GS
1 GB ram
Windows XP SP2

So if the developers are actually monitoring these boards please give us an answer, as this problem is widespread across a wide spectrum of computer configs and stop leaving all the ppl who plan to or have already decided to purchase your product in the dark :rolleyes:

[shredhead]

Hey,

I registered to post this, so I hope I get a reply.

Is there a way to cap BioShock's framerate at 30?

Thank you.

[Tazo]

The demo runs fun but hen when i press any keyboard button it crashes, WE NEED A PATCH SOON!!!

[Foolster41]

NVIDIA GeForce 6150 LE
Windows XP SP 2
AMD Athlon(tm) 64 X2 Dual Core Processor 3800+
2.00 Ghz 960 MB of Ram

The program runs fine until I actually start the game. it gets part way though the loading screen then I get a black screen and it freezes. I've tried setting it for "low" at the lowest resolution. I havn't gotten the patch yet (It seems to only work for some people). One time I did actually get past the cutscene to the part where I'm swimmking on the surface of the wreck, then it froze.

Help would be appreciated since I'm really interested in this game. I'm not sure how my computer stacks up to the requirements, though it played the FEAR and Quake 4 demos fine.

Thanks!

[Sibry]

Yeah, bump this one, same exact thing happening to me. Downloaded via steam. Small bioshock logo comes up saying loading, then the program crashes and it brings up an error code. My system specs are as follows.

q6700
8800gtx
4gigs ram
2-150gig raptors in raid0
700w powersupply
asus p5n32e-sli plus
x-fi fatality
windows vista 64 bit


keep in mind everything is up to date, I also downloaded the nvidia beta drivers. I'm fairly certain this has something to do with vista, and not the game itself. Regardless, it would be nice to play it. The only positive thing I've discovered about growing old, is i just don't care anymore...lol, back to counterstrike until they fix this problem, ill be waiting for you bioshock.

Yep this is also happening to me. Tried everything to fix it. It appears this problem is just with those who have Vista. Hope a fix comes out for it soon as people with this problem can't even start up the game :(

[Foolster41]

So, I'm getting the 32 bit patch from the site listed and the install program tells me it hasn't passed microsoft's logo testing.
:(

Their kidding, right?

[SirPoonga]

I have menu sound but no gameplay sound. I had to install the forceware 163.44 drivers and latest dx10 sdk to get the demo working.

Asus P5K motherboard
E6600 CPU
2gig memory
On board sound
8800gts 320meg

[Maxor127]

So, I'm getting the 32 bit patch from the site listed and the install program tells me it hasn't passed microsoft's logo testing.
:(

Their kidding, right?

I wouldn't trust any strange patches from sites I don't know anything about. If there was a patch, it would be posted on 2K Games and pretty much every game site.

[Cheesecake]

When i start the demo theres no cursor so it takes about 5 minutes to click on demo.When the game starts the beginning movie runs fine after the bioshock logo the game turns in to a black screen and all i can see is fire.
I downloaded the patch and installed it. It didn't help at all.

[jeremiads]

When i start the demo theres no cursor so it takes about 5 minutes to click on demo.When the game starts the beginning movie runs fine after the bioshock logo the game turns in to a black screen and all i can see is fire.
I downloaded the patch and installed it. It didn't help at all.Sounds like your video card isn't up to playing the game.

[DirtyDeeds]

The Demo has worked floorlessly for me, i'll list spec & drivers if that's of any help to you chaps.

Demo downloaded from Fileplanet

Intel Core 2 Duo 6600
BFG 8800 GTS 640mg
Xi-Fi Fatality
Corsair Twinx XMS2, DDR2 PC-6400 2 x 1 gig

I've tried XP & Vista (both DX 9 & 10)
Video driver - XP 162.18 Vista 162.22

Gaame runs smooth no slow down, so sorry never felt the need to monitor FPS, all settings on high & used V-sync with no issues.

Good luck chaps

[sekazi]

When i start the demo theres no cursor so it takes about 5 minutes to click on demo.When the game starts the beginning movie runs fine after the bioshock logo the game turns in to a black screen and all i can see is fire.
I downloaded the patch and installed it. It didn't help at all.

I have the same issue. Right before the fire scene I see square I assume ashes or rain falling. I dont get why if the beginning plays fine the rest does not. I have messed with the settings and still not luck. The patch as you said also didnt work for me.

My system

Gigabyte GA-8IPE1000 Pro
Intel Pentium 4 2.6GHz HT
1 GB RAM
ATI Radeon 9600XT
Creative Sound Blaster Audigy 2 ZS

[jeremiads]

I have the same issue. Right before the fire scene I see square I assume ashes or rain falling. I dont get why if the beginning plays fine the rest does not. I have messed with the settings and still not luck. The patch as you said also didnt work for me.

My system

Gigabyte GA-8IPE1000 Pro
Intel Pentium 4 2.6GHz HT
1 GB RAM
ATI Radeon 9600XT
Creative Sound Blaster Audigy 2 ZSYour video card isn't compatible with the game.

[SirPoonga]

A new note. I have two sound devices, on board and usb headsets. Game sound is not working with either, even after updating sound drivers. Also add that I have vista64

[Joebear123]

alright I made a topic, but this should really belong here

to put it short, I run the game fine but some of the shadowed areas are pitch black (the area where you first meet a splicer and it gets chased of by a security turret is nearly all pitch black, the only parts that area black are like any part of a way 1 or 2 feet away from a light source). now i've played the xbox 360 demo,and my friend has played the demo (using the same type of card) and I know its not supposed to be like that.

specs

intel core 2 duo 2.2ghz
1 gig ddr2 ram
nvidia 6200.

yes I know my card should be running this game but everyone I asked that had this card says it runs fine with no graphical glitches (its jsut slow)

thank you for your time

[Intile]

Game would start, all the introductory videos, skip the videos, then the screen turns black, send me to desktop with the send/dont send report error in bioshock.exe. Help would rock.

[WolfpupNX]

Heh. So I posted about my problems before. So I uninstalled the demo and Steam and my nVidia drivers and decided to try to install the standalone Demo instead, again with the BETA drivers they recommend. So downloaded that, and it installed much better for me than the Steam version (much nicer installer), so I was hopeful.

Now I'm experiencing entirely different (but possibly related) problems from before!

I can play the opening part up until through the tour of Rapture. When it gets to the second loading screen (this is where it hung before, only I'd get a black screen and unresponsive computer. NOW, I actually get the loading screen, which is an improvement. But playing fullscreen it exits with a crash ("encountered a problem and needs to close"). Playing in a window, get this - I can hear the audio and "do stuff" in game, but the video stays stuck on the loading screen. *sighs* (Though I will say after the crash I was lazy and didn't reboot - perhaps I should try that. I also will try the DX9 option even though 10 shouldn't be an issue for me as I'm in XP on a 6800).

The crappy part is, the first part of the demo plays pretty darn well on my aging machine. These crashes are frustrating (but at least not as dangerous as the random reboot and total hang problem I was experiencing before).

[Muk]

Symptom: In game audio doesn't work, but audio during movies and menus does.
All graphics look fine and game is stable.

System: Vista 32 bit, Realtek High Definition Audio (built in), MSI p6n motherboard 650i, 8800gtx, 2gb ram, e6420

[Weaponsmith]

Help me I have a problem with my Deathadder mouse.

Here are my system specs
Intel C2D e6400 @ 2.13 ghz
XFX Geforce 8800 GTS 640mb
2gb ram

Basically whenever I move my mouse the game will stutter. For example, at the menu screen I mantain a steady 75 fps but upon moving my mouse the framerate plummets to single-digit levels :( .

I have the latest firmware and drivers for my graphics card and mouse already. Does anybody know what to do??

[Lazv]

Its probably been answered already but when i load the game it loads the logo then goes to a window then says "BioShock.exe stopped responding" or something like that, how do you fix this and can you provide an example.
Specs: Vista Home Premium
1024 MB Ram
nVidia 7900
Pentium 4 (3.0 GHz)

I have the same problem.

My config: Vista business 64bit
4go RAM
8800 GTS 640mo (163.44)
c2d e6600

[WolfpupNX]

Another update. Tried the "-DX9" command line option, another reboot, and low detail (shaders and such off) in windowed mode. Still no joy - first part runs very well until I get to the second load screen, and then that's all she wrote. I've come to the conclusion that this problem is probably simply unfixable by me and requires a patch.

[Foolster41]

So, when I got the drivers from the laptop site listed here the 32 bit one gave me an error saying I don't have XP 32 bit. The 64 version I got past that point, but quit at the logo cert warning.

I found the same drivers on fileplanet, and neither the 32 nor the 64 bit version work. Both claim I do not have the respective operating system. Doesn't it have to be one or the other? (I know I'm not using vista)

[Dowkons]

when i try to install the demo it gets about 3 quarters of the way there, then asks me to insert disk with data3.cab and there no file in the Bioshock demo folder please help

[ElChe]

Specs:
AMD Athlon 64 3500+
2GB ram
ASUS 8800GTS

The game runs fantastically in 1680x1050 and all maxed out.

However I experience some texture bugs from time to time. This is very noticable in the opening sequence under the water. When my avatar looks up and swims towards the surface, the surface is green and the objects falling down under the water that have the surface as their background causes tearing in the green surface texture.
Other things that are related are the sky´s clouds that are pretty blocky and the smoke from the flames.
There seem to be a weird texture bug going on. On man surfaces its very nice, and others not.

The GPU/CPU is not overheating (I checked this first since it seems to be a heating problem).

Running latest nvidia drivers and dx9c

Hope someone can help me out!

[Dowkons]

going on from my last post it actually says and i quote "Please insert disk0 that contains data3.cab" but there is no data3.cab please help it took 11 hours to download

[yourmom20]

In the contents folder of the bioshock demo, there is a man giving a girl oral sex...

[WolfpupNX]

Alright, so some progress, but still frustrated.

I had read if you crash a lot at the beginning of level 2, you should put msvcr80.dll in there and also windows/system32. Well, that appears to have alleviated the crash at that point!

However, in windowed mode the game became unplayable when the level loaded (think slow as molasses and mouse movement is too slow to do anything, including use the menus...moved like...1 frame every 10 seconds).

Tried in fullscreen mode again and that time it worked better and I was actually able to play a little and get some items, etc., but then my monitor randomly went dead, which means the video card signal went dead even though I was still hearing audio, etc. Had to do a hard reboot (it didn't automatically at least, but I couldn't get back to Windows no matter what I did).

Good grief. Not polished is an understatement. These may all be related, but this is the buggiest thing I've seen in a loooong time.

[Quantium]

I'm sure this has been allready posted, but i dont know what to search for, so.. here goes:

On XP, demo works good.. but when i try using vista, i get past the intro movie of the demo, and then the screen goes black, and the computer works really hard, but nothing happends.. anyone know what this problem might be? i have downloaded both the newest driver, and the newest verson of the demo.. here's my specs


Intel Core 2 duo E6600 @2.8ghz
XFX 8800GTX
4gig corsair 800mhz ram
XFX nforce 680i

thanks in advance

[Dowkons]

come on 2K at least try to help some of our problems please

[breen]

I can't install the demo because I get this message:
http://users.pandora.be/breen/ftp/prob.jpg

translation: Cannot gain access to the given device, path or file. You possibly don't have access for the item.

Which is strange, because I'm the admin on this computer. I also closed my anti-virus software but it keeps giving me this problem.

Anybody knows a solution?

[Haloboy!]

How the hell this game received overwhelming reviews when the majority of us cannot even play the damn thing without one severe problem or other is completely beyond me.

Expecting my full copy to drop through the letterbox anytime now - I'm less than excited about it too given all the trouble I've had with the demo. I should be excited though, I'm just not. And that saddens me greatly.

[Joolz34]

Hi, I managed to fix this error on my machine, I posted the solution over at my blog http://badwolfsblog.blogspot.com but the short version is to run windows update if you havent already.

This applies to Vista btw.

Hope this helps.

[BigDaddy-CF-]

I didn't look all the way through this thread but to breen and other users like him who are getting the cannot access the device, path, or file error. This is how I solved mine. My problem was that AVG anti-virus was stopping the install. You need to go into the AVG control center, double click the resident shield component, a new window pops up, uncheck turn on AVG resident shield protection. You should now be able to install just fine. Now for my issue I saw at least 2 others with it and that is that Now that I have it installed I can get it up and running but I see no mouse cursor.

Pentium 4 @ 3.2Ghz
2 Gig Ram
1.5 Terrabyte of HDD space
Windows XP SP2 with all the latest updates
Logitech G5 mouse running on Setpoing 3.30.165
I'll let you know if I manage to solve this.

[Lighthouse]

On your blog you mentioned you installed .Net updates ...

Could you elaborate on this? Vista to my knowledge comes with v3, did you download the separate v1 and v2 .Net applications and install those as well in Vista?

[breen]

thank you bigdaddy you solved my prob!

[soju]

bioshock demo basically killed my computer (video card specifically the drivers, maybe?). played fine all the way until the part where he gets trapped and the advertisement begins. black screen after advertisement. then get:

nv4_mini.sys page_fault_in_nonpaged_area blue screen of death
thought my video card might have fried but i have no idea
went into safe mode, disabled video card. reflashed bios. drivercleaner video drivers. reinstalled known, very stable drivers. re-enable video card, and same error: nv4_mini.sys
either bioshock is so good it fried my video card or it's so bad that it corrupted windows into lots of "serious error"s. i'm leaning towards the latter, since i'm using my laptop at this moment to write this with the video card off.

laptops probably not supported but I can run through orgimmar at high settings at 30+fps, i know, and i did, run bioshock at all low 30+fps

inspiron 9300 1.7ghz
1.5gb ram
nvidia geforce go 6800 84.25
win xp sp2

[Joolz34]

Hi, sorry I should have clarified a bit more, I also installed the V2 .NET updates .

Hope this helps

[craigyb]

good job i tried the demo, cant get through the second loading screen without it either crashes to desktop or hanging and having my pc restart itself...hope this gets sorted

athlon x2 4400
2gb ram
7800GT Nvidia
XP

[PeterAce]

No sound when in gameplay!

Intro videos, game menu and demo intro sound is fine.

As soon As I'm in the water (gameplay) no sound!

Specs :

Intel E6600 Core2 Duo 2.40 GHz
MSI P965NEO-F S775
2GB DDR2 6400 Corsair TwinX
BFG Geforce 8800 GTX 768MB (PCI-Express)
Enermax Noisetaker 475W Power Supply (AX-VE(G) SFMA)
19" LG FLATRON L1960TQ LCD
37" LG 37LE2R HDTV LCD
160 GB 7200 RPM Western Digital 8MB Cache (SATA-II)
250 GB 7200 RPM Western Digital 16MB Cache (SATA-II)
160 GB 7200 RPM Western Digital 8MB Cache (SATA-II)
SAMSUNG DL DVD-RW x18 (SATA)
Realtek AL883 Sound card (onboard HD Audio)
Mission M71i Speakers (Denon PMA-355UK Amplifier)
Microsoft Wheel Mouse Optical Elite Black(USB)
Microsoft Windows Vista Ultimate x86 (all windows updates + the recent vista performance and compatibility hotfixes).

I just updated the Sound card drivers : Realtek R173 (14 Aug 2007). Still no in gameplay sound.

Graphics : Nvidia 163.44 Beta International.

If run the demo using the Windows XP SP2 'compatibility tab' then I get sound corrrectly in the game.

This is the only game/demo to have this problem!

But I want to use DX10 as that's what I purchased Vista Ultimate and a 8800 GTX for!

[BigDaddy-CF-]

NP Breen. As for why my mouse wasn't showing up in game I guess I need to learn how to read! This game only supports Shader Model 3 or greater compliant hardware, and up that means no go for the x700 in my desktop. Luckily my laptop has a 7950 GTX now if I can just get nvidia or dell to provide driver support again I guess I'll be good. For those of you who don't know if your video card supports Shader Model 3 or not here this might help
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_dynamic_range_rendering/
near the bottom of the page it has a table which lists what shader model various cards support

[uk_john]

Right, first off, if you have the Free AVG, it will give a false positive on setup.exe and therefore when you double click on setup you will get this message:

'Windows cannot access the specified device, path or file. You may not have the appropriate permissions'

To solve this, launch the AVG Control Center from the taskbar, click VIEW then COMPONENTS and then RESIDENT SHIELD, in the window that opens, untick TURN ON RESIDENT SHIELD ACTIVATION, apply and close the launcher.

You will now be able to accesss setup.exe to install the demo.

Secondly, I have a 1.5gb 6200 256mb 2.4ghz system, so a little below the minimum. I can play it 640x480 with high textures, etc, and I can play it 800x600 with medium textures. It looks okayish and plays fine not great, but it is a bit sad when it goes into a movie showing the game in all it 4ghz, 4gb, top of the line video card wonderous! :( If you have my setup or less, I wouldn't advise buying the game, as while you could play it, it will look more like Call of Cthulhu (watch a game movie/video review on Gamespot to see what I mean!) than Half Life 2, and I would say it's not worth the price. If you have an onboard anything (sound or graphics) don't go anywhere near this game!

Because of the system demands of PC games, I think we are going to see more and more games like this that get great PC reviews and PC awards, but only sell well on console because fewer and fewer gamers can afford to upgrade every year to keep up with these AAA games. After all, a PC that can run Half Life 2 and Oblivion and Supreme Commander (as much as any PC can when the maps get big!) and Command and Conquer 3 and Company of Heroes , etc should still be a machine that can run Bioshock and Mass Effect, etc. To the extent that they cannot, then PC games companies are movies too fast and need to slow down. This game could have used the Source Engine and therefore would have looked just as good and would have run fine on average PC's. It could have used the Far Cry engine and ran on most of today's PC's. And who would have said a Far Cry or Half Life 2 looking Bioshock would have sucked graphically? It think most gamers, even hardcore ones, would have said 'looks good'!

[uk_john]

Oh, and just to say, the bringing back to life pods really make the core combat in the game down a tad. To know you cannot die really takes some of the tension away, and in any event, if you 'die' near a pod, then the enemies are still outside and cannot see you until you open the pod door, then they come straight after you and you die again anyway! This means, in the demo at least, you can get 'stuck'. With the ability to save, the full game won't have this problem as much, I presume, but certainly with the demo, it brings it down a little for me.

[Slarty]

I've downloaded everything needed but when I extract the zipped file the only 2 setup files are a config and another one I can't remember (not exe though). Please help?!?

[Joku]

Alright, I'm going to cry for help one more time.

The game works fine and smooth, all the way up until I get the wrench and try to destroy the rubble on the way. It instantly crashes when the wrench hits the "rubble". I've tried everything, I thought it was because I didn't have the new Nvidia drivers, but it still didn't work. I tried reinstalling, downloading it from other sites, anything possible!

I'll try to post specs tomorrow, if it'll be any help.

I posted this yesterday and nobody even noticed me. :(

[jeremiads]

Still getting the c0000005 error regardless of every fix I've tried. This is one of the worst PC launches I've ever seen.

[fish99]

I posted this yesterday and nobody even noticed me. :(
We all noticed, just we don't have an answer. Lots of people are getting crashes. Many people can't even get to the wrench bit. If you mean 2K then they don't seem to have noticed the whole thread (unless IrrationalRuss was a 2K employee?). We're all just going to have to wait for a patch by the looks of it.

[fish99]

Still getting the c0000005 error regardless of every fix I've tried. This is one of the worst PC launches I've ever seen.
Can I just ask where are you seeing this error code? I tried running the game with -enabledump, and it's creating a dump file when it crashes some of the time, but I don't see any error codes anywhere.

[jeremiads]

Can I just ask where are you seeing this error code? I tried running the game with -enabledump, and it's creating a dump file when it crashes some of the time, but I don't see any error codes anywhere.Go to start -> run, and type eventvwr.msc and hit enter. Open up the application log, and you can find application errors that are from BioShock.

[fish99]

Go to start -> run, and type eventvwr.msc and hit enter. Open up the application log, and you can find application errors that are from BioShock.
Cheers, although I'm still not seeing an actual error code as such, nothing that looks similar to c000005. I'm getting this sort of thing-

Event Type: Error
Event Source: Application Hang
Event Category: (101)
Event ID: 1002
Date: 21/08/2007
Time: 01:32:40
User: N/A
Computer: SBDEV-9A2A1060E
Description:
Hanging application Bioshock.exe, version 1.0.0.0, hang module hungapp, version 0.0.0.0, hang address 0x00000000.

For more information, see Help and Support Center at http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/events.asp.
Data:
0000: 41 70 70 6c 69 63 61 74 Applicat
0008: 69 6f 6e 20 48 61 6e 67 ion Hang
0010: 20 20 42 69 6f 73 68 6f Biosho
0018: 63 6b 2e 65 78 65 20 31 ck.exe 1
0020: 2e 30 2e 30 2e 30 20 69 .0.0.0 i
0028: 6e 20 68 75 6e 67 61 70 n hungap
0030: 70 20 30 2e 30 2e 30 2e p 0.0.0.
0038: 30 20 61 74 20 6f 66 66 0 at off
0040: 73 65 74 20 30 30 30 30 set 0000
0048: 30 30 30 30 0000

[fish99]

Or this-

Event Type: Error
Event Source: Application Error
Event Category: None
Event ID: 1000
Date: 21/08/2007
Time: 17:53:33
User: N/A
Computer: SBDEV-9A2A1060E
Description:
Faulting application bioshock.exe, version 1.0.0.0, faulting module msvcr80.dll, version 8.0.50727.762, fault address 0x0001507a.

For more information, see Help and Support Center at http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/events.asp.
Data:
0000: 41 70 70 6c 69 63 61 74 Applicat
0008: 69 6f 6e 20 46 61 69 6c ion Fail
0010: 75 72 65 20 20 62 69 6f ure bio
0018: 73 68 6f 63 6b 2e 65 78 shock.ex
0020: 65 20 31 2e 30 2e 30 2e e 1.0.0.
0028: 30 20 69 6e 20 6d 73 76 0 in msv
0030: 63 72 38 30 2e 64 6c 6c cr80.dll
0038: 20 38 2e 30 2e 35 30 37 8.0.507
0040: 32 37 2e 37 36 32 20 61 27.762 a
0048: 74 20 6f 66 66 73 65 74 t offset
0050: 20 30 30 30 31 35 30 37 0001507
0058: 61 0d 0a a..

[Ohoni]

Mine crashes right after the bathesphere sequence ends (well, technically right as it finishes the loading screens after that).

It either reboots the computer, or crashes to desktop (if I'm lucky), or crashes to desktop and crashes the video card (so that everything's 4-bit and huge), forcing a manual reboot.

I have an
Athlon 64 X2 4200+
Biostar TForce 550 (nForce 550)
1-GB (2x512-MB) PC2-4200
GeForce 7900 GS 256MB - PCI Express
Dual monitors
Windows XP 32-bit

I first had the July Nividia stable drivers from their site, and it played fine until I got to that point, then it crashed. Then I get the beta drivers the installer links to, and the graphics seemed less pretty, and stuttered every few seconds, and still crashed. It did this in both windowed and full screen modes.

Note that otherwise my computer is rock solid stable, and it runs other high-needs games (such as Overlord) without an ounce of compliant.

I'm hugely disapointed, as I've been looking forward to this game for a long time.

[boomerang]

Why is demo not working for me?

I'm running windows 2003 DE SP2

PC specs:

P5B-E Plus
E6300 @ 3150
Nvidia 7900GS
2GB OCZ DDR2 900

Game installs normally but when I try to run it nothing happens. I tried with DAP [data execution prevention] on and off and it's same. Anyone can help me please? Is that fixed in final version at least?

Thanks!

[boomerang]

Server is turned into a workstation, all other games work fine.

[GearType2]

sorry if this has been mentioned before, but I'm not reading 21 pages of people's bugs.

Anyways, here's the issue, and how I personally fixed it. Will this fix yours? I dunno, probably not.

Problem:
At the end of the bethysphere sequence the game loads the new area. Once loading is completed while drawing the new screen the game crashes. Crash in this sense is one of two things. The first being a standard hang, sound loop, error box(this program has stopped responding...) crash. The second being a video crash, blue screen, nv.dll error and all.

I have a 7800 GT with the latest beta drivers(Aug 20th).

I used fraps, and nvtemp to log temps and FPS in game and I with max settings I usually get 30+ fps and my cpu gets to 65C(cheap fans, but still managable).

I turned off everything and the game worked without error. After the load screen, I could turn everything back on to full and played with no problems... until it crashed mid game that is. After some checking I discovered that by turning off advanced shader support that the game ran without fail, even finished the demo(amazing demo by the way).

That being said, I don't know what could possibly be wrong with how spec maps are loaded, but that seems to be the problem, or at least my stab at the issue. Maybe the beta drivers are a tad faulty still?

Oh well, I wish the dev team a good vacation, they'll be working hard when they get back again :), but at least their game is fun when it works.

[fish99]

Do you mean High Detail Shaders? If so, while it does make the game more stable, it still crashes eventually with it off, plus it looks quite a lot worse.

[Ohoni]

Quick update:

You can see my innitial post above, but I tried something suggested in another thread, namely downloading an alternate version of msvcr80.dll and placing it in my game directory. It kinda worked for me.

I got past the bathysphere scene for the first time. Unfortunately, while I could play it for another five minutes or so (although it was pretty stuttery), once I got to a scene in a bathroom, the music continued to play but the rest of the game froze rock solid. I play in windowed mode on a dual screen system, and I could alt-tab to other programs while it hung, but when I tried to use ctrl-alt-delete to close the program my primary montior went black, soon followed by my secondary monitor, then my fan's exhaust started to get hot so I manually rebooted. Something is seriously buggy with this thing.

[Haloboy!]

After some checking I discovered that by turning off advanced shader support that the game ran without fail, even finished the demo(amazing demo by the way).


Nope it still hangs like a dead dog regardless of high shaders being turned on or off, as Fish already stated. No drop in shaders, textures, sound, resolution, grandmothers draws can make this thing playable beyond certain points. Not one.

[fish99]

I have made a small amount of progress by disabling things in startup. Go to start->run, type msconfig, then to the startup tab. The things I disabled were-

Reader_sl (adobe reader)
NMBgMonitor (something to do with Nero)
NeroCheck (nero update)
dumprep 0 -k (MS error report report tool, the thing that says send/don't send)
MCW (monitor calibration wizard)
jusched (Java update)
nTuneCmd (nvidia tuning software)
iTouch (logitech keyboard software)

With these off I got the demo to run all the way through in windowed mode with High Detail Shaders on for the first time. It did still nearly go wrong. When the bathosphere is coming up and the guy is about to be killed, it froze for a few second before continuing with delayed audio (which lasted 10s or so).

However in full screen it still crashes at that same spot. And of course there's no reason why any game should have a problem with any of that stuff, and indeed none of my other games do. Thought I'd post anyway though.

[mesabassman]

Hi all,

I am thinking seriously about purchasing this game. However, it is running very poorly on my system. If anyone can give me any advice as to how to speed it up I would appreciate it. I have turned everything down except resolution and it still stutters especially in the scene with the waterfall..... It stutters so bad I cannot play the game and refuse to buy it unless I can get better performance out of it. I will try to run it with win xp when I get home this afternoon.

My Specs:

ASUS P5B-Deluxe
4GB 800Mhz Corsair RAM
Intel 6600 2.4Ghz Core 2 Duo
BFG Nvidia 8800GTS OC 640MB
Dell 24" Wide Screen Monitor
1920X1200 Resolution
Vista Ultimate 32Bit/XP MCE 2005

I can't see for the life of me why this game is running so poorly.... Vista and Game drive are both WD Raptors and I can run every other game at max settings. Also, I am using the latest Nvidia Drivers. Thanks for any help any of you can provide! :)

[mesabassman]

Hi all,

I am thinking seriously about purchasing this game. However, it is running very poorly on my system. If anyone can give me any advice as to how to speed it up I would appreciate it. I have turned everything down except resolution and it still stutters especially in the scene with the waterfall..... It stutters so bad I cannot play the game and refuse to buy it unless I can get better performance out of it. I will try to run it with win xp when I get home this afternoon.

My Specs:

ASUS P5B-Deluxe
4GB 800Mhz Corsair RAM
Intel 6600 2.4Ghz Core 2 Duo
BFG Nvidia 8800GTS OC 640MB
Dell 24" Wide Screen Monitor
1920X1200 Resolution
Vista Ultimate 32Bit/XP MCE 2005

I can't see for the life of me why this game is running so poorly.... Vista and Game drive are both WD Raptors and I can run every other game at max settings. Also, I am using the latest Nvidia Drivers. Thanks for any help any of you can provide! :)

edit: sorry for the double post as I don't see an edit button....

My sound card is a Creative X-Fi Fatality Gamer

[colormage1]

First, sorry to be such a ignorant person, but how do I get all of those specs?

I have a NVIDIA GeForce FX 5700LE, and that is all I know (with the BETA driver).

During the opening credits I crash always crash between the NVIDIA screen and the 2K Australia logo. I do, however sometimes get a glimpse of what I think the final menu for Bioshock to be, but I only, sometimes get a glimpse.

Thanks.

-Steven

[Tobe1701]

Go to start -> run, and type eventvwr.msc and hit enter. Open up the application log, and you can find application errors that are from BioShock.
I get the same errorcode. Can you post your hardware/software again?

[Eck]

Though I haven't taken the time to browse through the hundres of posts about the demo problems, I haven't seen anyone describing my exact problem (though I'm sure I'm not the only one with this specific problem).

The intro video plays fine (where the guy is on the plane). After that, it goes black and I still hear the sound.

The textures are very messed up when the character is swimming (at least that's what it sounds like). Then when the gameplay starts, all I can see is fire and a ripple effect of the water.

Have a look:

http://people.brad-x.com/~eck/bioshock.jpg

Things I've tried:
1. Updating to the ATI hotfix drivers.
2. Updating DX9
3. Adding -dx9 to the shortcut

Any other suggestions?

[Eck]

And I forgot to mention -- I don't have a mouse cursor in any of the menus.

[Eck]

And there's no edit button?

Specs:

P4 3.0GHz
4GB DDR 3200
Asus P4P800
ATI x850 XT
SB Audigy 2 ZS

All Windows Updates, etc.

[spacechimp]

i have the SAME ISSUE as ECK.

I thought I'd download the BIOSHOCK patch from ATI and install that...
since i'm running an 9600pro.
after installing the patch, Bioschock CRASHES during the game loading.

WEEEEEEEEEE, what fun

[crazeemonkey]

Hey gang:

Hate to be another complainer, but Bioshock just won't work on my system.

Everything runs very smoothly and fast until I get to the first load screens after the bathosphere enters Rapture. Then it crashes to the desktop everytime.

I think I've tried everything:

- Newest Nvidia beta drivers, check (deleted old ones)
- Newest MS DirectX drivers, check
- Tried lowest graphics settings, check (in fact, this makes the plane crash scene slower and choppier!)
- Tried running it in a window (won't for some reason), check
- Shut off all other apps, e.g. virus scans, check
- Uninstalled and reinstalled Bioshock
- Cried like a girl, double check.

This sucks. I know I don't have a high-end system. But my rig (AMD Athlon 3700+ San Diego, EVGA 7600GT, 1 gig OCZ Premier RAM) can run Oblivion very smooth and fast on my 19" 1280x1024 native resolution L90D+ monitor.

Any help (like a patch!) or suggestions would be much appreciated.

Thanks.:(

[rebb]

All of a sudden, the Demo won't display Menu Text any more - so its impossible to navigate the Menus. After some trial and error, starting the game was possible, only to discover that Ryan's Speech was missing completely.

All that worked just fine before that one Crash i had in the Demo...

[fish99]

And there's no edit button?

Specs:

P4 3.0GHz
4GB DDR 3200
Asus P4P800
ATI x850 XT
SB Audigy 2 ZS

All Windows Updates, etc.
I've highlighted the problem. Bioshock doesn't support pixel shader 2 cards, only pixel shader 3 and above.

[fish99]

since i'm running an 9600pro.
Also not pixel shader 3.

[uk_john]

Colormage - quickly reading through the thread would have shown you my specs and my message saying if you have lower specs than me don't bother. I have a 6600 you have a 5700LE. Your card will not run this game or the demo. I am sorry.

Eck, the screen is supposed to go black while the plane is crashing, while you only hear speech.

I haven't updated my drivers as I wanted to try the demo first, and I know the new drivers have been causing problems. Everybody needs to try the game and then if they have problems install beta drivers, if you just blindly followed what 2K or the games media were telling you well - shame on you!

I would say make sure you read what the minimum specs are - colormage, and make sure you go to YouTube and see what the demo is supposed to look like during the first 5 minutes or so - Eck.

Notice during the plane crash sounds (black screen) a woman says' Team A, Team A'. Wonder what that means! :)

[Eck]

According to http://pc.qj.net/Not-a-shocker-BioShock-requirements-are-hefty/pg/49/aid/97105

Minimum System Requirements:

CPU: Pentium 4 2.4GHz Single Core processor
System RAM: 1GB
Video Card: Direct X 9.0c compliant video card with 128MB RAM (NVIDIA 6600 or better/ATI X1300 or better, excluding ATI X1550).
Sound Card: 100% direct X 9.0c compatible sound card
Hard disc space: 8GB free space

I think my card's better than an X1300. I was unaware it was 3.0 only. This sucks.

[fish99]

Hi all,

I am thinking seriously about purchasing this game. However, it is running very poorly on my system. If anyone can give me any advice as to how to speed it up I would appreciate it. I have turned everything down except resolution and it still stutters especially in the scene with the waterfall..... It stutters so bad I cannot play the game and refuse to buy it unless I can get better performance out of it. I will try to run it with win xp when I get home this afternoon.

My Specs:

ASUS P5B-Deluxe
4GB 800Mhz Corsair RAM
Intel 6600 2.4Ghz Core 2 Duo
BFG Nvidia 8800GTS OC 640MB
Dell 24" Wide Screen Monitor
1920X1200 Resolution
Vista Ultimate 32Bit/XP MCE 2005

I can't see for the life of me why this game is running so poorly.... Vista and Game drive are both WD Raptors and I can run every other game at max settings. Also, I am using the latest Nvidia Drivers. Thanks for any help any of you can provide! :)
TBH you really need a GTX to run that res in Bioshock and even that might struggle a bit still. My GTS can only just handle 1680*1050. You should definitely try DX9 and/or XP though since that should run better. You'll probably find that running your 2407 out of it's native res isn't as bad as you thought it would be, could try dropping down a res or two. I've run quite a few games below native res on my 2007WFP and it doesn't look too bad at all.

[BigDaddy-CF-]

this is why one huge thread of errors is a bad idea no one bothers to read through when it gets this long. On page 22 alone
"This Game requires a card that support Shader Model 3"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_dynamic_range_rendering
down near the bottom shows what cards support what shader model, if yours doesn't support shader model 3 or above this game won't work for you PERIOD.
You will have to get a new video card ColorMage1, Eck, spacechimp, if you have updated your directX and you have the latest beta driver like this post from HARDOCP says and your still having VIDEO related problems
http://www.hardocp.com/news.html?news=Mjc2MjIsLCxoZW50aHVzaWFzdCwsLDE=
then the first thing you should do is make sure that your card supports shader model 3 using the link above or by doing some research about your video card. If your not sure what video card you have you need to get to device manager and look under display adapters.

[fish99]

I think my card's better than an X1300. I was unaware it was 3.0 only. This sucks.
Yep, they should have made it a lot clearer it didn't support ps2 cards.

[uk_john]

All this 'doesn't support shader 3.0' just shows how PC publishers are too far ahead of PC gamers, and that means budget game sales are due to continue to increase as a percentage of PC game sales, as people buy games like Bioshock 12-18 months after initial release when their hardware has caught up. I know I cannot afford to upgrade until next Summer, so Bioshock has lost me because of it's demands. You should have used the Half Life 2 or Far Cry engines, they're still plenty good enough engines, and would have meant many many more gamers being able to play Bioshock and therefore many many more sales and much more income from the PC version for 2K too!

[uk_john]

Yep, they should have made it a lot clearer it didn't support ps2 cards.

The only hope with all the hype is that someone brings out a utility/mod that allows 2.0 shaders instead of just 3.0. It has happened before.....

...Oblivion needed 2.0 shaders, for example, but a utility called OLDBlivion.exe was released that allowed 1.0 shaders with various options you could turn on or off to tweak it. You couldn't have shadows, and bloom didn't work while using it, but it allowed people like me with a FX5600 card at the time to be able to play Oblivion at a decent FPS and decent graphics.

Its possible, I suppose, that something like that could happen with Bioshock, if it sells well enough.

[spacechimp]

ODD cuz the AIT Bioshock patch had the 9600 in the list of cards.

.....Radeon™ 9800 series
Radeon™ 9700 series
Radeon™ 9650 series
Radeon™ 9600 series
Radeon™ 9550 series
Radeon™ 9500 series

[Joebear123]

All this 'doesn't support shader 3.0' just shows how PC publishers are too far ahead of PC gamers, and that means budget game sales are due to continue to increase as a percentage of PC game sales, as people buy games like Bioshock 12-18 months after initial release when their hardware has caught up. I know I cannot afford to upgrade until next Summer, so Bioshock has lost me because of it's demands. You should have used the Half Life 2 or Far Cry engines, they're still plenty good enough engines, and would have meant many many more gamers being able to play Bioshock and therefore many many more sales and much more income from the PC version for 2K too!

too far ahead? come on shader model 3.0 cards were released over 3 years ago, shader model 4 cards were released not too long ago.

[mrpeabody]

ODD cuz the AIT Bioshock patch had the 9600 in the list of cards.

.....Radeon™ 9800 series
Radeon™ 9700 series
Radeon™ 9650 series
Radeon™ 9600 series
Radeon™ 9550 series
Radeon™ 9500 series

That is the list of cards the driver supports, not the list of cards the game supports. The system requirements for the game are here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bioshock#Development .

[bigjako]

I saw this issue mentioned in another thread but nothing in this one (which I believe is supposed to be the 'official' one that the 2K developers are paying attention to).

I went through all the installation issues, types by Serial # in about 5 times before it worked, installed the new nVidia drivers, and successfully got the game to load.

My rig is Intel Core2Duo 6420, 2GB RAM, nVidia 8600GT, Vista 32-bit, Logitech G3 wireless mouse, Logitech DiNovo Edge Bluetooth keyboard.

So I load up the game properly, but the mouse is just not working. It's somehwat functional, but the clicking isn't synced up with the pointer. In other words, if the pointer is over top of "New Game", the New Game button is not highlighted and clicking it does nothing. If I move the mouse down to the bottom of the screen, then i notice that the New Game button is highlighted and I can click the mouse and it works. The keyboard also works (I hit Escape and it functions normally).

So even though the mouse technically works, in that the game records the pointer movement and accepts clicks, it is essentially non-functional in that I can't click on any buttons.

I haven't even gotten into the game because it would be pointless to do so without a functioning mouse. I did click New Game as per the workaround above and started watching the movie, but when I swam up to break the surface of the water, the game crashed to desktop.

I've seen mention of a tonne of other problems in this thread, but no mention of this mouse issue. Just want to make sure Tech is aware of it so that it can be included in the upcoming patch, which I'm sure is just hours away, right 2K? Has there been any mention of the patch ETA?

[uk_john]

too far ahead? come on shader model 3.0 cards were released over 3 years ago, shader model 4 cards were released not too long ago.

So how come all over the web 'your card doesn't have 3.0 shader capability' is being quoted all over the place to people's problems?

And I have a 6200 and that does have 3.0 shader compatibility but that's not enough obviously!

PC games sales are down 50% in 5 years, over half of all PC game sales are now budget label releases and last year saw the fewest number of PC game releases.

...Something's going on!

[Hudsonrulez]

Though I haven't taken the time to browse through the hundres of posts about the demo problems, I haven't seen anyone describing my exact problem (though I'm sure I'm not the only one with this specific problem).

The intro video plays fine (where the guy is on the plane). After that, it goes black and I still hear the sound.

The textures are very messed up when the character is swimming (at least that's what it sounds like). Then when the gameplay starts, all I can see is fire and a ripple effect of the water.

Have a look:

http://people.brad-x.com/~eck/bioshock.jpg

Things I've tried:
1. Updating to the ATI hotfix drivers.
2. Updating DX9
3. Adding -dx9 to the shortcut

Any other suggestions?

eck I have the exact same problem. my specs are

amd athlon 2.4ghz
1 gig of ram
ati all in wonder 2006 edition

hopefully ati will come out with a shader fix. 2k really dropped the ball on ati users. every 2k game I play has a messed textures.

I'd also like to make a statement to 2k is not be an exclusive nvidia developer. ati makes great graphics cards and has wonderful tech support. unlike nvidia which buys out companies and cough 3dfx and doesnt support their graphics cards.

so please 2k fix this bug because its a big one particularly for ati users. I've been scrooling this page and have yet to find any answers from any 2k staff.

[jeremiads]

If you have the same problems as Eck, then you don't have a video card that can run the game. End of story.

Also, still no fix in sight for the immediate c0000005 crash. Awesome.

[fish99]

ODD cuz the AIT Bioshock patch had the 9600 in the list of cards.
I don't know for a fact that the minimum requirements are a ps3.0 card, I'm just repeating what I read. Can someone confirm this?

[uk_john]

I don't know for a fact that the minimum requirements are a ps3.0 card, I'm just repeating what I read. Can someone confirm this?

All you ever know for certain is that anyone without the recommended system requirements and above get no service or info at all, hence all the confused PC gamers on this thread and many many others across the web at the moment with this demo/game!

Is it any wonder more and more gamers are moving to console? Is that what PC game publishers are trying to do? Release products in this state and not support them so we all go over to console and then they can fire all their PC programmers and make more profit just releasing for consoles?!

Just a thought!

[siegecow]

Installed bioshock no problems, i double click on the executable and get "this application has failed to start because the application configuration is inncorrect. Reinstalling the application may fix this problem"

I tried reinstalling, same error.

Xp professional 64x
2 gig ram
8600gts
AMD 64 X2 +6000

bumpbumpbump

[Manchu Warrior]

Exact same issue with the black screen an mouse not appearing.

ATI 800 XL....

Is it the card or the game?

[jeremiads]

Exact same issue with the black screen an mouse not appearing.

ATI 800 XL....

Is it the card or the game?Your card isn't good enough for the game.

[uk_john]

bumpbumpbump

Got AVG anti-virus? See my earlier message about turning Resident Shield off during setup.

[Bonecase]

After disabling avg antivirus redownloading the demo zip from 3 different sources I still get the same error when I try to run the setup.exe.
"Windows cannot access the specified device, path, or file. You may not have the appropriate permissions to access the item."
I have tried running it with administrator login but still the same.
I am running winxp professional,amd2 64 3800 x2, asus mobo. I used winrar to extract the file.
I also tried to use windows compressed folders to extract the files from the zip but it always says error cannot find setup.exe file.
I can only assume that theres something wrong with the setup.exe file in the zip.
Please fix this issue as I am really exited about this game but if I cant get the demo to run I wont be spending my hard earned cash on the full game 4sure.

Many thanks Bonecase

[ZippyDSMlee]

3700
2GB ramm
7600 512MB card

I do not udnerstand why its crashing so much,I can run it on medium but it too crashes after 20 min it,its quite annoying,this thing is fickle as Dark messiah 0-o


So it tends to crash out to a 8bit desktop, or locks up while loading I can run the game on medium tex/details but it crashes out after 20 min...

[schipy]

I installed the game and working good,but i can`t save because it says ``i have not enough space on hard drive.That`s not possible i have about 40 GB.Anyone knows what to do in this situation? Thanks

[fish99]

After disabling avg antivirus redownloading the demo zip from 3 different sources I still get the same error when I try to run the setup.exe.
Could try getting the demo through steam if you haven't already.

[Ric]

All you ever know for certain is that anyone without the recommended system requirements and above get no service or info at all, hence all the confused PC gamers on this thread and many many others across the web at the moment with this demo/game!

Is it any wonder more and more gamers are moving to console? Is that what PC game publishers are trying to do? Release products in this state and not support them so we all go over to console and then they can fire all their PC programmers and make more profit just releasing for consoles?!

Just a thought!

Aye, it wouldn't surprise me if they were up to that. System Shock 1 & 2 were PC games: clearly. I'm not sure we can say that about BioShock. Add to that that the UE3.0 engine has so many issues with it that it is already being sued and, ... well. It definately seems as though a games afoot at the higher echelons of the industry -- if you can call one or two publishers and industry - more like a monopoly.

[ZippyDSMlee]

Aye, it wouldn't surprise me if they were up to that. System Shock 1 & 2 were PC games: clearly. I'm not sure we can say that about BioShock. Add to that that the UE3.0 engine has so many issues with it that it is already being sued and, ... well. It definately seems as though a games afoot at the higher echelons of the industry -- if you can call one or two publishers and industry - more like a monopoly.

Bioshock is not a PC game,it is a console game thus a mainstream title for teh masses not for PC gamers whoa re labeled as geeks and pirates >>


Its not the U3.0 engine tho,and its crashy so far.


The game industry is more neo hollywood with the old 3-5 studio monopoly...

[jeremiads]

I fixed my c0000005 error.

Thanks to this thread:

http://forums.2kgames.com/forums/showthread.php?t=6356

Now, I don't get sound once the real game starts, after the plane video. Did the people who ported this damn game test this **** at all? This is ridiculous.

I'm going to try updating my sound drivers, but this crap is... ugh.

[siegecow]

Got AVG anti-virus? See my earlier message about turning Resident Shield off during setup.

I do, but i disabled it, reinstalled, same problem.