Hi,
when i try to start BS3 the game crashes directly with an error.
The error is something like "Adress 5x76433874 can't access Adress 3x6437642".
My HW is:
Core 2 Quad 3.00 GHz
4 Gig Ram
Radeon 5870 (Cat 9.12)
Soundblaster X-Fi

HI,
What OS are you using ?
If you'reon XP try to adjust the level of Sound HW Acelleration.
If you're on Vista/Win7, right click the shortcut and run the game as admin.
Also, have you tried applying different compatibility modes to the shortcut ?

If your computer is anything like mine, it hates .bik video files. Try this. Go into the games directory/movies/english and rename the intro.bik to 0intro.bik. This will stop the intro video from playing on start up. Then if it works and gets you to the main menu, the problem is with your computer and .bik files.
If this is the case, it might happen with any of the cut scenes throughout the game. Unfortunately, I've never found a fix for this other than to disable the movies. I've had the same problem with other games, and scoured the internet, going so far as to replace .dll files with files from other games, but nothing worked for me.

I found a solution that fixes it for Radeon cards (this might work in a similar setting for other kinds of cards). Basically you go into the Catalyst Control Center and select the Display menu and then set the dropdown refresh rate to the same as desktop. http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1066199. I confirmed it works on the GOG version of the game.

Okutnik "My solution for startup hang is to lock the monitor refresh rate for 3d application to 60Hz. No other changes were needed. I have a ATI Radeon 4850HD card. I went to Catalyst Control Center, then Display Options, in the middle - 3D Refresh Rate Override changed from "Same as desktop" to 60Hz which is ok for LCD panel. Now the game works just fine. "