I am running windows 7 64bit with an nvidia gtx 580. I can get the game to start and I can play it for a short amount of time. Then my whole system crashes. I just updated my MOBO bios and all of the system drivers that I can think of and it did not help. It turns out the game has a lot of problems with running on newer systems. I am running the game in compatibility mode for xp sp3. I have tried a few others to.
Any help would be cool.
This is the first time that I hear someone having issues with an UE3 game on a newer system. Mass Effect included. Did you apply the latest patch? Try deleting config folder from Documents>Bioware>Mass Effect. Also try clearing the shader cache with Mass Effect Configuration Utility (click configure when you start ME Launcher).
If that doesn't work try playing around with config files and edit some settings. You could try using settings that work with other UE3 games on your machine, but every game behaves differently so that could make things better or worse. There's a lot of interesting stuff there.
Ill try some of that out right now. Its funny tho I have looked up solutions on this and most people show a launcher when they start the game. I have never had the launcher come up. Someone said to replace some of the conf files with mass effect 2's so ill try that to.
There should be a launcher somewhere in the install directory.