Store Page
BioShock
All Discussions Screenshots Broadcasts Videos News Guides Reviews

BioShock

Store Page
BioShock > Guides > Captain McPants's Guides
Not enough ratings
Crash and Sound Issues
By Captain McPants
This guide serves to help those whose Steam copy of Bioshock 1 suffers from the following issues:
- Crash on Startup. Splash-screen displays, screen flashes indicating a full-screen application is running, and immediately crashes back to Windows with an error message/dialogue box.
- Crash in main menu or intro video scene. That is, the game is stable after startup for a few seconds and may even allow you to change the settings (such as resolution) and to start a new game. If it has not already crashed it certainly will during the intro video where your character is smoking a cigarette.
- No sound during game-play (controllable part of the game) and no confirmation sounds in the main menu despite there being ambient sound.

This guide will only help you duplicate the exact same bug fixes I used. This is not a troubleshooting guide.
   
Award
Favorite
Favorited
Unfavorite
Created by
Captain McPants
Offline
Category: Modding or Configuration
Posted
Updated
2 Apr, 2016 @ 10:55am
3 Apr, 2016 @ 4:24am
318 Unique Visitors
2 Current Favorites
Guide Index
Overview
Crash on Startup 
New Game Crash 
No Sound 
Comments
Crash on Startup
This site is badass:


http://pcgamingwiki.com/wiki/BioShock#Crash_on_startup
It's likely to fix any PC game issue. As per their instructions you need to update OpenAL by downloading this (http://community.pcgamingwiki.com/files/file/10-openal/) and installing it.

This was incredibly fast and simple and resolved my Crash On Startup issue.
New Game Crash
The game might crash in the main menu any second now. Hell, even if it's fine, you sure can't start a new game or get past the intro video of the protagonist sitting safely in the airplane. This crash will manifest as a frozen screen and your Operating System's mouse being visible at the centre of your screen in a rectangular space roughly the size of a quarter of your resolution. If Ctrl+Shift+Esc or Ctrl+Alt+Del don't make Task Manager appear, you can try slowly moving your Windows cursor around said visibility box and Left Mouse Click until something happens. This is due to the game crash dialogue box appearing behind the game and being accessible despite the frozen game image. You are trying to hit the "Okay, I get it already" button.

The actual FIX:

You need to Force DirectX 9 (http://pcgamingwiki.com/wiki/BioShock#Video_settings_not_saving) by launching the game with the -dx9 parameter. You can set launch parameters in Steam like this (http://pcgamingwiki.com/wiki/Glossary:Command_line_arguments#Steam):
1. Open the Library, then Right Click on Bioshock and select Properties.
2. Open Set Launch Options.
3. Write the "-dx9" argument in the text field, then click OK.

Now you should be able to control the game (starting with swimming to safety) without any crashes.
No Sound
The main menu doesn't have any twinkly confirmation sounds and in-game you can hear buggerall.
This sound fix is not found on the pcgamingwiki page linked in the first section of this guide.

Go to your operating system (Microsoft Windows 7)'s Control Panel and find "Sound", or if you're viewing it in category mode "Hardware and Sound" and then "Sound".

In the window that pops up, go to the Recording tab, right click a clear space and make sure that 'Show Disabled Devices' is ticked in the pop-up menu. Once done, a device called 'Stereo Mix' should appear in the devices list. Right-click on 'Stereo Mix' and select 'Enable'. Hit okay.

That should be it.
To quote The Hitchiker's Guide:
Trillian sat hunched over a clump of instruments reading off figures. Her voice was carried round the Tannoy system of the whole ship. "We have normality, I repeat we have normality." She turned her microphone off - then turned it back on, with a slight smile and continued: "Anything you still can't cope with is therefore your own problem."