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I got a new computer an HP with 3GB memory, 500GB harddrive a dual-core pentium processor E2220 and a Geforce 7100 graphics card. I bought Mass Effect for it but everytime I try to play the game I get a message saying Mass Effect has stopped working I got the game from GameStop.

Anyone have any suggestions how to get it to work?

Edit: Operating system is Windows Vista.

Are all your drivers up to date? Do you have the Vista updates?

Can you give us a more detailed description of the error massage? Where does it show? Did you check the Mass Effect support page first?

You are running it on a 7100 card?!

For starters, that card at best barely runs the game. Have you updated the game at all?

7100 does not meet minimum requirements for Mass Effect.

Minimum requirements for Mass effect are
NVIDIA GeForce 6 series(6800GT or better)

Which your 7100 as an extreme budget card are far below. Heck I can find the things for 3$ in bulk online. Your going to have to pony up 50$ for an actual video card. You could pick up an 8600 from Newegg for 40$ or or a 9800 for just 80$, and once you hit 120$ you get into the seriously good video cards. 200$ will buy the best price per dollar on the market atm.

All the error message says is stopped working no details. Updated game as well.

Ahhh thanks Bean I was thinking the number better the card. I can probably swing $120 or $200 what would be recommended fr an HP s3712f PC? Damn Lamestop telling me I was good to go. I also think they gyped me on the disks I only got one and heard there is two for this game...

Is the memory 3GB and 500GB Hardrive okay? How about the dual-core E2220 Pentium?

Everything is up todate at least, updating was the first thing I did when got this rig. At least it can run my Command and Conquer games with no trouble.

The only thing that's lacking is your video card. Think of this as a car with a nice economical 4 cylinder engine with decent torque and four flat tires. Yes you can drive down the block and back again, but not exactly quickly.

Your Motherboard is a : Irvine-GL6E nForce 630i per HP's support which means good news you do have a PCI-Express x16 card slot.
So we can use PCI express cards for it.

Considering the price performance ratio I'd say a Nvidia 9800 GTX or a AMD ATI-4850 would be about the right price-performance ratio. You could upgrade the processor as well but considering we are about to get a new stepping in three months. Best to upgrade the processor now and find the fastest Intel chip your MB will support.

Thanks I've made a note to get a GTX 9800 ASAP. I'll start looking into better chips as well.

Invictus ChiKen wrote:Ahhh thanks Bean I was thinking the number better the card. I can probably swing $120 or $200 what would be recommended fr an HP s3712f PC?

Not much. Unfortunately that is one of those Mini-ITX computer's that that are so in vogue right now for some reason. Anyway, what that means for you is you are severely limited in what graphics cards you can put in it. Only a low-profile card less then 7'' long will physically fit in the case, and the power supply is so anemic (180W) that you'll almost certainly have to replace it before adding any decent video card, which would need to be a 1U server-class power supply.

Link and link.

Hell I did not even think of the power supply.
However I've cracked open a few of the HP Mini's before and I can fit a EVGA 9600 GT Nvidia card into most of them with no modification required.

So I'll have to second what Dominus said and suggest cracking open the case and checking to see how much space you have to work with. Most 9800 GTX's are kinda big.

Invictus ChiKen wrote:Thanks I've made a note to get a GTX 9800 ASAP. I'll start looking into better chips as well.

I would avoid any card that uses the G96/G92 chips because of a number of problems that plagued the series which NVidia isn't quite admitting openly. While many didn't have problems, some did.

Anyhow, most low end cards don't have enough juice to run any of the new games. You need a medium range card. And often, the low end of the current generation, is at best a small upgrade over the previous generation.