User:TechAngel85/MassEffect

Introduction

Welcome! Mass Effect has been out for several years now. Anyone that has played these games can attest to their greatest in both story and gameplay. Although an older game Mass Effect is still visually appealing on modern systems but there is some room for improvement. This guide aims to:

• Setup Mass Effect on modern systems
• Improve the visual appearance of the game
• Improve the stability of the game

This guide will not:

• Fix the Dynamic Shadows
• Use tweaks which provide no measurable benefit
• Be a complete game overhaul such as S.T.E.P., SR:LE, or Fallout New Vegas Guide

Mass Effect was build upon Unreal Engine 3 which provides users with some customization; however, certain things can not be fix (easily). One of these are Dynamic Shadows. BioWare's implementation of dynamic shadows in Mass Effect is horrible. Yes, they may have look okay on the consoles; however, when the game was ported over to the PC, like many before it, no optimization was done specifically for PCs which are typically capable of much more than consoles. Below, in the INI Tweaks, dynamic shadows are address but do not expect gold. Unfortunately, dynamic shadows are simply going to remain terrible even with the tweaks.

Since Mass Effect was build upon Unreal Engine 3, there are a lot of customizations which can be done via INI files; however, Mass Effect does not use a good majority of the parameters in the Unreal Engine. When the game was ported to the PC by Demiurge Studios there were a few changes made to the game to make it easier for keyboard and mouse users but very little was actual optimization for the PC. As such, much of the Unreal Engine was left unused so many "old school" games that have tweaked Unreal Engine to its limits will be left disappointed. This guide will only cover the tweaks which have actual value in the game.

Mass Effect was not build to be an easily modded game such as Skyrim; however, with the right tools anyone can mod games built on the Unreal Engine. There are some texture replacement mods out there as well but at this time this guide will not be covering texture replacements.

Game Installation & Initial Setup

Install the game as you normally would. I personally recommend installing most of your games to a different drive/partition than your OS is installed on unless you are using a SSD. Once the game is installed download and install the Official 1.02 Patch from BioWare.

The Mass Effect Config

After the patch, you should run the configurator. Navigate to where you installed the game ...\Mass Effect\Binaries\ and launch the MassEffectConfig.exe application. Click on Video in the left pane and choose the settings best for your system. Unfortunately, these settings will vary from system to system so there is no right or wrong instructions here. I do recommend choosing the maximum settings for your personal system.

Resolution

This is the resolution the game will run at. It is recommended to choose the native resolution of your monitor.

Aspect Ratio

This is the orientation of your monitor. The choices are 4:3, 16:9 and 16:10. This defaults to 4:3 on most systems so you'll be required to change this before changing your Resolution if the monitor being used is a widescreen monitor.

Particle Effects

Think of this an early version of PhysxX on the NVIDIA graphics cards. The higher the setting the more particles will be rendered during explosions and other effects. The recommended setting for this is High.

Texture Detail

This determines the detail at which textures are rendered. The recommended setting for this is Ultra High.

Filtering Mode

The determines how the textures are rendered. The recommended setting is Anisotropic.

Dynamic Shadows

Dynamic shadows are shadows which are rendered on moving objects in the game, such as the characters. These shadows are determined from the light sources and are rendered by default by the CPU in Mass Effect. The recommended setting is Enabled (checked); however, Mass Effect's implementation of dynamic shadows isn't very good. They are often blocky and feathery. If this bothers you, simply disable them because there is no fix for this. The INI edits below will only improve them slightly. Ambient Occlusion can be forced in Mass Effect which will improve the dynamic shadows a bit more.

Vsync

Vertical Sync (vsync) will sync the game's FPS with your monitor's refresh rate which is most commonly 60Hz. This means your FPS will be capped at around 60FPS. This can be changed in the INIs. See below in the INI Tweaks. The recommended option is the enable this (checked).

Windowed

If checked, this will run Mass Effect in a window instead of full screen. This is not recommended so leave it unchecked.

Here is a screenshot of my settings: <Insert Screeshot>