Not an issue, just a suggestion for the next step

[adolfintel]

First of all, congratulations on fixing this problem. I tried fixing this game a few years ago but I was only able to determine that the game was not using 3DNow at all and that the problem was some incorrect calculation. I loved your article, very well written, great fix.

The next logical step now would be... Mass Effect 2: determining what causes the crashes on Illium (when you walk under Liara's office and at the end of Kasumi's loyalty mission). The first one I think is just memory corruption caused by some incorrect handling of pointers, as it can be worked around by switching between fullscreen and borderless; the second one I haven't got a clue, but it might be somethng inside the bink playback code in the game, since it crashes when a bik file is supposed to play.

Again, congratulations on this massive achievement ❤️

[mirh]

Silent doesn't really care much for the games...
And besides, I believe those crashes are fairly "normal" matter/oversights (like when you turn some texture group size limits too high or low), not the rocket science he usually bang his head against.

[adolfintel]

@mirh I see your point. Those crashes are almost 100% reproducible on all modern hardware though, especially the one under liara's office which is also mentioned on PCGW.

[mirh]

I'm sure of it, but I don't really think that's a bug to be fixed in the executable.
It's probably something in the 3D models or game scripts, that should be handles in ME2Recalibrated.. or whatever other mod actually fixing the game.

[riverar]

Can you provide saves that repro this quickly?

[adolfintel]

Here's a save on Illium under Liara's office: Cleaner_13_Vanguard_271216.zip
Go through the door in front of you, if you're in fullscreen, the game crashes before you can make it to the end of the corridor. This bug was introduced when The Lair of the Shadow Broker was released in 2010.

Here's another save at the end of Kasumi's loyalty mission:
Jane_32_Soldato_221110.zip
This is a very old save but it can be used to trigger the bug, at least on my machine. You'll have to defeat the boss and reach the shuttle, when you do, the game crashes on some machines. I wasn't able to figure out exactly why, and it doesn't happen on specific hardware, some machines are just "cursed" and do it. If you launch the game with -nomoviestartup it won't crash so it must have something to do with bink. The crash is caused by a null pointer inside MassEffect2.exe. It might be trying to play a nonexistent file.

To use the saves, extract the 2 folders into My Documents\BioWare\Mass Effect 2\Save
Copy the entire folder, not just the .pcsav file inside it.

[mirh]

It might be trying to play a nonexistent file.

If that's the case, then it should be pretty easy to spot files not found with procmon.
Do you have a modded game (like for example with shorter videos?)?. I remember older versions of such mods were bugged with DLCs.

[adolfintel]

I'm not using mods at all, just the game, fully patched and with all the DLC installed. You can replicate the problem on the origin version.
When I tried to investigate this issue 4 years ago, I used a tool similar to strace to intercept system calls (I don't remember the exact name of the tool) and there were a lot of file not found errors, even during normal gameplay: missing packages, missing cutscenes, missing loading screens. I imagine they're leftovers from early versions of the game because the game plays normally.

[Mgamerz]

From what I can tell this only happens to users in full screen mode.

The engine will look in multiple locations to find files, it not finding them at the first location is normal.

[riverar]

@adolfintel Do you have a workaround for the "Unable to authorize the listed DLC"? I used an option in Mass Effect 1 to bypass this, does one exist for Mass Effect 2?

[adolfintel]

@adolfintel Do you have a workaround for the "Unable to authorize the listed DLC"? I used an option in Mass Effect 1 to bypass this, does one exist for Mass Effect 2?

I have it but I don't know if it's a good idea to post it here since it's technically a crack. Do you need it?

[riverar]

@adolfintel No worries, got the DLC unlocker!

[riverar]

@adolfintel Can't reproduce the crashes sadly. :(

[adolfintel]

That's good to know. What resolution are you playing at? Did you try fullscreen and borderless modes?
The issue has been known for years and I've always been able to replicate it: https://www.pcgamingwiki.com/wiki/Mass_Effect_2#Game_freeze_on_Illium

[riverar]

Still can't reproduce this, any other ideas? Tried windowed, fullscreen windowed, fullscreen, various resolutions. I'm using the latest Steam version of the executable, with ME2 DLC Unlocker.exe applied to make life easier. (This makes the file version 1.2.1604.0.)

SHA-256 of MassEffect2.exe: C78DB175B4296E403561AEC336BAA02E32E3677C3A374A795FD39C0FD4A85090

Example of one tested configuration

[riverar]

Some questions:

• Do you have any gamepad or other input devices plugged in? Joysticks? Controllers?
• Any mods installed? Trainers in use? NOCDs?
• What's the full name of the default/primary audio device? (i.e. where do you hear game audio from?)
• What version of binkw32.dll do you have in the Binaries folder?