"Failed to initialize the physics system"

[EzkiiTheBestiee]

Well this message pops up everytime i try to laucnh the game. It tells me i need the newest version of PhysX, even though i already have the newest version. I even tried to install the PhysX engine that comes with the game folder, but that didn't change anything. Can anyone help. I'm running windows 8.1, 64 bit

[Space Coward]

Ha, "newest..." pretty sure this game has the same PhysX legacy driver that Mirror's Edge, ME1, and Dragon Age used.
http://www.nvidia.com/object/physx-9.12.1031-legacy-driver.html

Install that legacy driver and you should be good to go. This was the Aegia PhysX driver, before Nvidia bought out the company and started putting PhysX in their graphics cards. Don't worry about overwrites, you can install that driver and it won't collide with anything. I even have an AMD card and my computer's fine with it being there.

I personally hated Mass Effect 2, but hey, maybe you'll have better luck with it.

[MorshuHimself]

Originally posted by Comradicale:

Install that legacy driver and you should be good to go.

This doesn't seem to work for me. I install the drivers, and I get the same error message as before. This is extremely odd, as I played this game on an older computer a few years ago and didn't have this problem. Additionally, I also recently finished playing mass effect 1 on my current computer, so that's even weirder to me.

EDIT:
Disregard this comment, I found a better solution which involved deleting nvidia physX from my computer and installing the ones found in the redist files of ME2

[Dustifier]

Originally posted by Space Coward:

Ha, "newest..." pretty sure this game has the same PhysX legacy driver that Mirror's Edge, ME1, and Dragon Age used.
http://www.nvidia.com/object/physx-9.12.1031-legacy-driver.html

Install that legacy driver and you should be good to go. This was the Aegia PhysX driver, before Nvidia bought out the company and started putting PhysX in their graphics cards. Don't worry about overwrites, you can install that driver and it won't collide with anything. I even have an AMD card and my computer's fine with it being there.

I personally hated Mass Effect 2, but hey, maybe you'll have better luck with it.

Thanks man worked for me, i have no idea why this happened, i played it for the first time with an i5 4790k and a 980ti and i had no problems and now i have an i7 9700k and a 1080ti, so i was a bit puzzled. Im just wondering will this thing affect other games? My nvidia physx file changed name to legacy. There are other newer games i own that use nvidia physx and this is an older build no?

[Space Coward]

Originally posted by Dustifier:

Originally posted by Space Coward:

Ha, "newest..." pretty sure this game has the same PhysX legacy driver that Mirror's Edge, ME1, and Dragon Age used.
http://www.nvidia.com/object/physx-9.12.1031-legacy-driver.html

Install that legacy driver and you should be good to go. This was the Aegia PhysX driver, before Nvidia bought out the company and started putting PhysX in their graphics cards. Don't worry about overwrites, you can install that driver and it won't collide with anything. I even have an AMD card and my computer's fine with it being there.

I personally hated Mass Effect 2, but hey, maybe you'll have better luck with it.

Thanks man worked for me, i have no idea why this happened, i played it for the first time with an i5 4790k and a 980ti and i had no problems and now i have an i7 9700k and a 1080ti, so i was a bit puzzled. Im just wondering will this thing affect other games? My nvidia physx file changed name to legacy. There are other newer games i own that use nvidia physx and this is an older build no?

The only games affected are games that use the Legacy driver. Mirror's Edge, Dragon Age: Origins, and similar titles used earlier versions of PhysX. There are a lot of games from this time that would similarly run into problems without this driver being present, whether you use the in-game PhysX enhancements or not.

TL;DR: For any newer games, you won't see any change. Nothing to worry about. :)

[Smoky]

Uninstall physx, reboot PC, download the latest physx and install it.

[Smoky]

Originally posted by Space Coward:

Ha, "newest..." pretty sure this game has the same PhysX legacy driver that Mirror's Edge, ME1, and Dragon Age used.
http://www.nvidia.com/object/physx-9.12.1031-legacy-driver.html

Install that legacy driver and you should be good to go. This was the Aegia PhysX driver, before Nvidia bought out the company and started putting PhysX in their graphics cards. Don't worry about overwrites, you can install that driver and it won't collide with anything. I even have an AMD card and my computer's fine with it being there.

I personally hated Mass Effect 2, but hey, maybe you'll have better luck with it.

Mass effect 2 does not require legacy physx.

[Darth Vayne]

Originally posted by Smoky:

Uninstall physx, reboot PC, download the latest physx and install it.

Thank you, this worked for me!

[Reskal]

This worked for me not, what worked for me was: i read somewhere, that in the steam install is a physX-exe, you just have to start and it installs the physX the game wants, after i did that, it ran at once without any problems.

"A:\Steam\steamapps\common\Mass Effect 2\redist" is my path, then doubleclick "PhysX_9.09.0814_SystemSoftware.exe" to install it.

[Leonrivia]

Originally posted by Smoky:

Uninstall physx, reboot PC, download the latest physx and install it.

tysm! after uninstalling, restarting then installing physx again & again the only version that worked for me was PhysX_9.09.0814!

[ryanp610]

Originally posted by Reskal:

This worked for me not, what worked for me was: i read somewhere, that in the steam install is a physX-exe, you just have to start and it installs the physX the game wants, after i did that, it ran at once without any problems.

"A:\Steam\steamapps\common\Mass Effect 2\redist" is my path, then doubleclick "PhysX_9.09.0814_SystemSoftware.exe" to install it.

This worked for me! Thank you, I was wondering how to fix it.

[d3ni3r]

If you have problems with Latest Physx, install the Physx from your installed "MassEffect" folder and not lose time to experiment finding the correct one.

I installed game via EA Play, so for me it was located at :

"D:\Games\EA Games\Mass Effect 2\__Installer\physx\redist"
"PhysX-9.12.0613-SystemSoftware.exe"