Bioshock has been one of the best games we've seen in years and probably the best game of 2007. It's inevitable that such a complex title will run with no problems, especially on such a variety of PCs. The market is saturated with millions of possible combinations of systems and it has made a lot of people unhappy. We have looked on the official forums for problems and possible solutions and this is what we've got. These are not official fixes but this is as good as it gets (thanks everyone for contributing).
Problem: The Atlas radio audio or generally all speech is quiet.
Possible Solution: Check your wave audio level from the sound mixer. If you experience reduced volume voiceovers during
game play while the master volume is turned up, go into the Windows Volume/Playback Controls and set the Wave volume to max. This can be found in the Start/Programs/Accessories/Entertainment/Volume Control.
Problem: BioshockAutoPatcher keeps timing out.
Possible Solution: 1) Pick an IP port from here. 2) Open Internet Explorer (even if you use Firefox etc) and insert that IP and port into proxy setting. 3) Make sure http://www.2kgames.com loads (patcher will probably connect if you can get this) 4) Download a file through Internet Explorer or something to make sure the proxy server has a decent speed. 5) Start the installer for Bioshock and when it gets to the patcher pray that the server isn't blocked.
Problem: Bioshock.exe - This application has failed to start because the application configuration is incorrect. Reinstalling the application may fix this problem.
Problem: Game runs with graphical corruption or poor performance on Vista with a DirectX 10 Card.
Possible Workaround: Update Driver with ATI Hot Fix or Run in DirectX 9 Mode.
Playing in BioShock in DirectX 9 Mode: On Windows Vista you can right click on the icon in the Games explorer and choose Play-Dirext9. On Windows XP, and probably Vista as well, create a shortcut and add -dx9 after the exe name.
Problem: Game will crash at random points throughout the game with a Blue Screen of Death referencing the Nvidia Driver (nv4_dll).
Possible Workaround: Disable High Detail Shaders in the Graphics Options.
Possible Workaround: Re-Install the latest DirectX 10. Install the latest NVIDIA Drivers.
Problem Game will not load passed the BioShock Logo and possible solution to audio stuttering
Possible Solution: Edit your default.ini. Put a semi-colon in front of AudioDevice=FMODAudio.FMODAudioSubsystem, and add the following line right after it:
AudioDevice=D3DDrv.D3DAudioDevice
After edits, that part of the config file should look like this:
Problem Instant crash when running Bioshock.exe on windows XP AFTER the game working fine for some time (so you have saved games etc)
Possible Solution/Workaround: Manually delete (or move) the WHOLE "Bioshock" folder in "My Documents" on Windows XP (this is your saved games folder etc). Now run Bioshock.exe. The game should run. You will lose your progress, but you can play again from the start.
Problem AVG Reports Bioshock.exe is a Obvustat.JXR virus infected file and stops the game from working.
Possible/Workaround Solution: Disable the Resident Shield feature of AVG, you will still need to restore the bioshock.exe from the virus vault as in Possible Solution #2 as well, if Bioshock.exe has already been picked up as a virus.
Possible Solution/Workaround: This problem appears to be caused by a false positive reported by AVG, the reported solution involves uninstalling your AVG virus scanner and using another.
Restore the bioshock.exe from the AVG virus Vault as follows: ￭ Go to the AVG control panel ￭ Select the Virus Vault ￭ Click the open button. ￭ Right click on the file you want copy back (bioshock,exe) ￭ Select restore file. Uninstall the AVG Virus Checker and replace it with the equivalent free Avast virus scanner.
If you cannot restore the bioshock.exe from the virus vault, uninstall AVG, install Avast, and then reinstall Bioshock. This has been reported as not using up one of your activations.
Problem: The game is stuttering and/or playing to fast/slow on a Dual Core system. (This includes AMD systems patched with AMD Dual Core driver)
Possible Solution: It has been discovered that Windows XP can have reduced performance with any dual-core based system. A MS hotfix was released to remove this error.
Problem My dvd-drive does not recognize or read the BioShock disc.
Possible Solution: The game is released on a Dual Layer DVD, a format supported on all DVD drives is made after 2002. There have been sparse reports of people having problems with Dual Layer DVDs with some DVD drive models. Typically, this results in the DVD makers releasing firmware which fixes the issue. Firmware is a small piece of software that resides on a chip in the drive itself telling it how to open certain types of disc and how they run. Old and new drives can have problems with certain types of disc/DRM combinations, so always check for a firmware update if you get this kind of issue.
To update the drive consult your disc drive makers website, and look for instructions and files to perform the update for that specific model. However, caution is advised when doing this, as performing this task incorrectly can cause a drive to become inoperable.
Possible Solution: Disable all emulation software.
- click on the start menu - click on run - type in the following MSCONFIG - click on the startup tab - deselect all the tick boxes - click on apply and then close - restart your computer - when your computer starts up again, please ignore any messages from msconfig (do not close these) - try and do the install for the game again
To return to the original startup sequence follow below instructions - click start menu - click run - type in the following MSCONFIG - click on normal startup - click on apply and then close - restart your computer
If the firmware/emulation solution has not worked for yourself and you are unable to use another DVD drive to install the game, then we can only suggest using a USB DVD drive to install the product.
Problem: Several people have reported problems launching games on systems with Vista and 4GB of ram or with graphics cards with large amounts of memory.
What seems to be the cause is an oddity in the way Vista virtualises video memory for directX9 games, meaning that almost twice the virtual address space is taken up by video memory than is needed. If this takes the address space over 2gb the game will crash or simply fail to launch - no matter what OS you are on, if the game itself is a 32bit application.
Solution: MS have released a hotfix to resolve this issue, Nvidia is also advising using this hotfix.
Originally by Nvidia: "This hotfix resolves abnormal application behavior such as crashes and extremely low frame rates when running some 3D applications at very high graphics settings. This issue is not limited to, but has been most commonly noticed on high-end graphics cards and the following applications: Battlefield 2, Battlefield 2142, Civilization IV, Company of Heroes, Half-Life 2, Lord of the Rings: The Battle for Middle Earth II, Supreme Commander, and Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Vegas."
For the problem "Instant crash when running Bioshock.exe on windows XP AFTER the game working fine for some time (so you have saved games etc)"
I found a solution that allowed me to keep my saved games.
- Rename the "Bioshock" folder in my documents to "Bioshock1"
- Run Bioshock.exe, start a new game.
- The game should work now.
- Pause and minimize Bioshock, and rename the folder in my documents from "Bioshock1" back to "Bioshock"
- Resume your Bioshock game.
- Go to the main menu, and load you most recent game.
