Mass Effect 2 Freezing

When I click on 'New Game' and then either 'Male' or 'Female' to start ME2 the Mass Accelerator graphic shows up and it freezes. Yep, cannot even get the game to load

After a few minutes I bring up the task manager and ME2 is 'not responding'. Happens after everything I try. I can change options, and have done several things, changed resolution played with graphic details, etc. Freezes every time.

I am running with a single core CPU, AMD Athlon 3500+ (2.2GHz). I know the min specs are Dual core, however so is Dragon Age and it runs flawlessly. Have 2GB ram, 256mb GF 6800GS which is supported. Win 7 Ultimate 32 bit.

ME1 runs flawlessly also, played through it twice with no lag or lockups at all.

Is anyone running this with a single core (just as a reference for me)? Can't afford a full upgrade at the moment, but was thinking of getting a new video card anyway.

Edit: Installed Me2 on my wifes Dell 15" Studio last night, holy $%^# it works. Can't believe it. It has a core 2 duo 2.0 Ghz, 3gb ram, ATI Radeon Mobile 3450. It gets past the screen that my PC freezes on and plays the intro movie well and takes me to the character creation screen. Had to quit then as it was late and had to work today.

I can now assume on my pc that it doesn't like either my single core cpu or my 3.5 yr old 6800GS, though my card is still faster than the lappy 3450.

Need to appropriate wife's lappy for the next month or so. May have to buy a (gulp) Valentines card for the first time in 10 years, hmm!

your computer barely if at all meets the minimum specifications.

EDIT: minimum specs are rough and often games can work on older PCs its just the minimum is the absolute minimum to play the game well or properly. i.e. Oblivions minimum GPU spec was an nvidia 5500 that does not mean the game will be particularly fun.( lol everything turned off)

EDIT Again: if dragon age works id imagine this could work although mass effect is a lot more resource hungry i think.
Did you Google the problem? or check forums.

Thanks for the reply. Yes I googled it and there seemed to be several posts about the game freezing (even on well specced machines), but no real solution.

I think it's not having a dual core the game may not like, as I said above it runs on my wife's dual core lappy, but her graphics is not as fast as mine, and the old 6800 has run anything thrown at it in the last few years.

Is the ME2 engine new or just an enhanced ME1 engine, cause ME1 runs flawlessly.

that's surprising because i don't think the 6800 is the minimum anymore, and hasn't been for a while, saying that i am often surprised to see a 6800 as a minimum for some games i.e. Crysis.

Also i have a dual core and ME lags when theres battle, also its my RAM too i think.

I am very surprised to see a 6800 show as a minimum i wouldn't have tried with anything less than a 7900 series

exactly the same problem here.

amd athlon 2.2gh single core
HD4650 1 gig graphics
2 gig DDR2

As above have run all games upto date on full settings
and have had very good frame rates.
(as an example was playing wow yesterday on HDTV on 19??X1080 resolution
and frame rate did not drop below 58 out of 60 (40 man PvP = lots of spell effects))

Sorry i cant offer any ideas

I regularly get graphics driver crash the first time I load the game up - it usually rights itself, although there is the occasional BSOD, and sometimes I need to reboot the machine. Got an 8600M GT myself.

Been having similar problems with a lot of recent PC titles, regardless of how resource intensive they are. My theory is that there's a new-ish piece of code in a developer library somewhere that's causing issues with older hardware. Right proper pain...