I tried disabling AV, Malwarebytes reinstalling, all of that long ago.

As it turns out, the program seems to have a problem with the fact that my Windows User ID has my first name in it spelled with an extended ASCII character (the é in José). The reason I say this is that it starts up fine when I make a new User ID without said characters and run it from there. How boneheaded is that? That's the second game in two months with this behavior, the other being Burnout Paradise Remastered. Apparently even in these cosmopolitan times, some devs think we users all have names like John Smith and Bob Williams and Tom McWhiteguy. Or the people that create the libraries the devs depend on do...

as mentioned at the steam forums, not using special characters in anything system related is common sense.

Maybe, but it's still kind of BS in this day and age. Plus, 99% of my software never has a problem with it, so...

yes, but why risk even 1% if you don't have to? basically what I'm saying here is if something is known to have issues, no matter how rare they are, it's better to avoid them completely.

Speaking from experience, just let this go ;)

Saw this on the Steam forums from yesterday (below)... oddly enough, though there's no mention about the problem with running it from Program Files (x86) in the changelog, I launched the Steam version from the default Steam install location (Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common) and the game runs with zero issues... don't get hung up before the menus... it just works

Also noticed there was another update before the two below (1.1.5) from September 13 and still no mention of a bug when running it inside Program Files (x86), yet it works, while the GOG version doesn't

That's three updates the game has gotten on Steam and none for GOG yet

=======================================

Hello Hackers,

A new update for System Shock: Enhanced Edition is available now which includes the following fixes and improvements:

Version 1.1.7 (2018-09-25):
Fixed audio bug when XMIDI sequence not found.
Fixed enhanced/classic controller switch bug.
Fixed camera static causing random crashes.

Version 1.1.6 (2018-09-14 - Not previously posted):
Fixed -no-social paramater on Steam
Fixed configuration file kexengine.cfg not being detected on APPDATA folder
Reversed mod priority order list (load order now happens bottom to top)

Thank you for your patience while we deal with these issues. Please let us know of any issues you encounter in the forums!

Salt the fries!

-Daniel,
Nightdive Studios.

=======================================

Game just got updated and now it runs perfect from the default Galaxy install location, Program Files (x86)

Is it possible to play the game with the original 4:3 aspect ratio (with black borders on the side)? I'm not too keen on the stretched userinterface.

When I select a 4:3 resolution (like 800x600) it still strechtes the image to fit the screen. Any help would be much appreciated!

Thanks!

I believe you got your reply on discord, but to be sure - gpu scaling/preserve aspect ratio/override app settings needs to be selected in the gpu control panel.

Hi Vodoo, yes thanks again for your help on discord!

Anybody using a integrated Intel HD4000 graphics chip - you have to check "override application settings" when selecting the scaling option "keep aspect ratio". Otherwise, it will still stretch the image to fit the screen, even if you set GPU scaling to "keep aspect ratio". At least that what happened on my laptop.