Introduction[edit | edit source]
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 system
- 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.
