To help narrow down the best solution for your system, let me know:

activation system, which often prevented players from launching the game due to invalid or already-used serial keys.

: Beyond bypassing DRM, the fix was marketed to resolve certain launch errors, crashes, and freezes that were common in the base version. Implementation Steps

The original BioShock 2 is notorious for texture budgeting crashes on modern GPUs. Go to your game's configuration folder (usually found in AppData\Roaming\Bioshock2\ ), open Bioshock2SP.ini , search for TexturePoolSize , and adjust the value from 512 to 3072 or higher to match your modern graphics card's VRAM.

Open the Run dialog ( Win + R ), type %appdata% , and navigate to BioshockHD\Bioshock2 . Open Bioshock2SP.ini . Locate TexturePoolSize .

Before discussing the solution, one must understand the battlefield. When BioShock 2 launched on PC in February 2010, it did so with not just one, but two layers of controversial anti-piracy software.