User:TechAngel85/MassEffect

Mass Effect Guide
A guide created and maintained by TechAngel.
Last Update: 16:34:19 29 March 2014 (UTC)

Mission Briefing

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
Improve the Dynamic Shadows

This guide will not:

(Completely) 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 looked okay on consoles; however, when the game was ported over to the PC, like many titles before it, Mass Effect had no real optimization done specifically for PCs which are typically capable of much more than consoles are. Below, in the INI Tweaks, dynamic shadows are address but do not expect gold. Unfortunately, dynamic shadows are simply going to remain bad when compared to more modern game; 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. Many "old school" gamers 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 and will not cover any tweaks that would allow cheating or easier gameplay.

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 many texture replacement mods for Mass Effect; however, this most often requires the use of a utility called TexMod. This tool is famous for making the game unstable so there will not be any mods in this Guide which would require this tool.

Software Installation & Initialization

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. It should be noted that most modern systems will be able to run Mass Effect at 1920x1080 resolution and maxed out settings with no performance issues at all. Keep this in mind and use the recommended settings during the initial setup. You can always adjust later if the game is running at too low a frame rate.

Video Settings

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>

Audio Settings

There is only one setting here with two options to choose from; Hardware or Software. This will determine how the audio is handled and could be different for different systems. The recommended option is Hardware which will use your onboard or expansion slot audio hardware for all sound rendering. Users who have anything above a 2.0 channel speaker setup will have to use the Hardware setting in order to take advantage of these setups.

Software Hacking (Easy Dencryption)

Before you can adjust the INI settings, the game has to create them. Do this by launching the game for the first time. Allow the game load up the to the first menu and then exit back to your desktop. This creates the default INI files that you'll need for tweaking. They are local in your \Documents\BioWare\Mass Effect\Config directory. The only files of interest are BIOEngine.ini, BIOGame.ini and BIOInput.ini.

Take the usual precautions for moving forward by backing up the INI files that will be edited. This is more important for those experimenting with the following tweaks and others not covered in this guide. If the INI files because an issue, they can be restored by simply deleting them. When the game is relaunched, a new set of default INI files will be created for the ones that were deleted. There are also a couple things to keep in mind before tweaking on your own:

Some settings are in multiple locations in the INIs. For this guide, pay special attention and only change the setting in the location shown below or it won't work.
Many settings of the INI files don't have an effect on the PC version of the game. These are the unused settings of the Unreal Engine mentioned above and sections used for debugging and other things not applicable to this guide.
Only the settings which appear to have a useful impact on the game are included in this section. Feel free to explore the other settings on your own; however, they didn't have any impact during testing.

BIOEngine.ini

The BIOEngine.ini file hold the main audio and graphic settings for Mass Effect.

[Engine.GameEngine]

bSmoothFrameRate=True: This is similar to vsync. It will tell Unreal Engine to keep the game within a minimum and maximum frame rate. It's recommended to leave this set to true or change it to true. If you desire to use Mass Effect in benchmarks, then setting this to false and turning off vsync will enable you to record the maximum FPS the system is capable of.

MinSmoothedFrameRate=22
MaxSmoothedFrameRate=60: These two parameters control the minimum and maximum framerate for the setting above. If bSmoothFrameRate above is set to true then the parameters specified here will be enforced. The framerate will be capped at the minimum and maximum specified in order to prevent framerate spikes and dips. The default for minimum has been left alone; however, the maximum has been edited from 62 to 60. This is to match the most common refresh rate of most monitors. If your monitor has a higher refresh rate, feel free to increase the maximum to match.

bUsePostProcessEffects=True: This setting controls the majority of the post processing effects in Mass Effect. This includes the Film Grain, Motion Blur, Bloom and Depth of Field effects. It is recommended to keep the default of true or change it to true to enable these effects. If there is an effect you prefer to disable, you may be so individually either below or in-game.

bEnableBranchingPCFShadows=True: This setting enables a rendering of softer shadow edges. It is recommended to keep it enable or some shadows can appear blocky. From testing, this doesn't not affect dynamic shadows which is unfortunate.

bUseBackgroundLevelStreaming=True: This setting should remain as "true". It is related to background streaming of textures. Setting it to "False" will dramatically increase level loading time and may result in crashes.

ShadowFilterRadius=3.50000: This parameter controls the shadow filtering and determine how sharp or clear the outlines of shadows appear. Higher values result in more rounded and faint shadows. Lower values result in sharper shadow outlines. I have set the recommended value above which are for "ultra shadows". You can reduce this and the other shadow values if the performance hit is too great on your system.

DepthBias=.008: This parameters determines the way Dynamic Shadows appear. Higher values will reduce the number of shadows shown; whereas, a value of 1.0 will totally remove dynamic shadows on objects. Lower values will increase the number of shadows; however, values too low can result in glitches. As of the 1.02 Patch, the DepthBias value may default to "0.030". This will remove dynamic shadows. Setting it to "0.012" to restore all dynamic shadows. The recommended value is .008 for this guide.

MinShadowResolution=16
MaxShadowResolution=4096: These two parameters determine the minimum and maximum values for shadow resolution and may have a performance impact on some systems. Higher minimum values result in darker and richer shadows. Lower minimum values result in less distinct and grey shadows. Too low or too high of values for the two parameters may also result in visual glitches. The upper threshold for MinShadowResolution and the lower threshold for MaxShadowResolution varies from system to system. Raising the minimum higher than 32 may result in missing shadows. The recommended values for this guide are above.

ModShadowFadeDistanceExponent=0.20000: This parameters controls the distance at which shadows fade into/out of view. Higher values result in shadows fading at shorter distances and will also result in fainter dynamic shadows. At 0.5 most shadows will be very faded to almost invisible. At 0.0 all shadows will be shown at all distances. This improves the realism of the game at the cost of some performance on some system. The recommended value for this guide is 0.20000.

[SystemSettings]

DynamicDecals=True: Dynamic decals are decals left by players from weapons fire. When set to "False", weapons will not leave scorch marks or bullet holes on objects when hit. It's recommended to leave it set to "True".

DynamicLights=True: This parameter controls the Dynamic Lighting. Dynamic Lighting is lighting that interacts realistically with the world. Setting this to "False" can result in lighting glitches such as objects appearing as black. It's recommended to leave this set to "True".

LightEnvironmentShadows=True: This parameters controls whether or not the environmental lighting, such as sunlight, creates shadows. It's recommended to leave set to "True".

CompositeDynamicLights=False

This is a less accurate form of dynamic lighting and as a result, not as high a quality. Leave it set to "False".

ShadowFilterQualityBias=4: This parameter appears twice in this section for some unknown reason. Which changing one, also change the other for good measure. It controls the quality of the shadow filtering used. Higher values result in higher quality shadows. The recommended setting for this guide is "4".

DirectionalLightmaps=True: Leave this parameter set to "True". Disabling it can result in black textures where lightmaps are used. When enabled, this will improved image quality, giving surfaces additional depth and detailing.

FloatingPointRenderTargets=True: Altering this parameter can have an negative visual impact on the game. Leave it set to "True".

Trilinear=True: Trilinear Filtering can improve the appearance of textures in the game. It's impact is minimal; however, it is recommended to leave it set to "True".

SkeletalMeshLODBias=0 ParticleLODBias=0 LOD Bias alters the clarity of textures and details via mipmaps. Higher (positive) values will make these blurrier and less detailed. Lower (negative) values will make these clearer and crisper but can result in unwanted aliasing. The SkeletalMeshLODBias parameter affects animations and the ParticleLODBias affects particle effects. It's recommended to leave these set to "0"; however, a "-1" value should be safe as well.

MaxAnisotropy=16: This parameter controls the level of Anisotropic Filtering (AF). The default is 4; however, the recommended setting for this guide is 16.

[TextureStreaming]

PoolSize=564: This should be changed to the value above to help reduce texture glitching. This is 4x the default value of 140.

[TextureLODSettings]

The parameters below control the LODs in the game. The recommended values for this section are below. You can simply copy and paste this section to overwrite the defaults.

//TEXTUREGROUP_Character=(MinLODSize=256,MaxLODSize=4096,LODBias=0)
//TEXTUREGROUP_CharacterNormalMap=(MinLODSize=256,MaxLODSize=4096,LODBias=0)
//TEXTUREGROUP_Effects=(MinLODSize=256,MaxLODSize=4096,LODBias=0)
TEXTUREGROUP_LightAndShadowMap=(MinLODSize=256,MaxLODSize=4096,LODBias=0)
TEXTUREGROUP_RenderTarget=(MinLODSize=1,MaxLODSize=4096,LODBias=0)
//TEXTUREGROUP_Skybox=(MinLODSize=256,MaxLODSize=4096,LODBias=0)
//TEXTUREGROUP_UI=(MinLODSize=256,MaxLODSize=4096,LODBias=0)
//TEXTUREGROUP_Vehicle=(MinLODSize=256,MaxLODSize=4096,LODBias=0)
//TEXTUREGROUP_VehicleNormalMap=(MinLODSize=256,MaxLODSize=4096,LODBias=0)
//TEXTUREGROUP_Weapon=(MinLODSize=256,MaxLODSize=4096,LODBias=0)
//TEXTUREGROUP_WeaponNormalMap=(MinLODSize=256,MaxLODSize=4096,LODBias=0)
TEXTUREGROUP_World=(MinLODSize=16,MaxLODSize=4096,LODBias=2)
TEXTUREGROUP_WorldNormalMap=(MinLODSize=16,MaxLODSize=4096,LODBias=2)
TEXTUREGROUP_AmbientLightMap=(MinLODSize=32,MaxLODSize=512,LODBias=0)
TEXTUREGROUP_Character_Diff=(MinLODSize=512,MaxLODSize=4096,LODBias=0)
TEXTUREGROUP_Character_Norm=(MinLODSize=512,MaxLODSize=4096,LODBias=0)
TEXTUREGROUP_Character_Spec=(MinLODSize=256,MaxLODSize=4096,LODBias=0)
TEXTUREGROUP_Environment_512=(MinLODSize=32,MaxLODSize=512,LODBias=0)
TEXTUREGROUP_Environment_256=(MinLODSize=32,MaxLODSize=256,LODBias=0)
TEXTUREGROUP_Environment_128=(MinLODSize=32,MaxLODSize=128,LODBias=0)
TEXTUREGROUP_Environment_64=(MinLODSize=32,MaxLODSize=64,LODBias=0)
TEXTUREGROUP_VFX_512=(MinLODSize=8,MaxLODSize=512,LODBias=0)
TEXTUREGROUP_VFX_256=(MinLODSize=8,MaxLODSize=256,LODBias=0)
TEXTUREGROUP_VFX_128=(MinLODSize=8,MaxLODSize=128,LODBias=0)
TEXTUREGROUP_VFX_64=(MinLODSize=8,MaxLODSize=64,LODBias=0)
TEXTUREGROUP_GUI=(MinLODSize=8,MaxLODSize=1024,LODBias=0)
TEXTUREGROUP_Environment_1024=(MinLODSize=32,MaxLODSize=1024,LODBias=0)
TEXTUREGROUP_VFX_1024=(MinLODSize=8,MaxLODSize=1024,LODBias=0)
TEXTUREGROUP_APL_128=(MinLODSize=32,MaxLODSize=128,LODBias=0)
TEXTUREGROUP_APL_256=(MinLODSize=32,MaxLODSize=256,LODBias=0)
TEXTUREGROUP_APL_512=(MinLODSize=32,MaxLODSize=512,LODBias=0)
TEXTUREGROUP_APL_1024=(MinLODSize=32,MaxLODSize=1024,LODBias=0)
TEXTUREGROUP_Character_1024=(MinLODSize=32,MaxLODSize=1024,LODBias=0)
TEXTUREGROUP_Promotional=(MinLODSize=32,MaxLODSize=2048,LODBias=0)

BIOGame.ini

The BIOGame.ini file hold various game world settings for Mass Effect.

[BIOC_Base.BioActorBehavior]

AllowFriendlyCollateral=False: If set to "True", this parameter will allow your squad members to be injured by friendly fire and vice versa. Enabling this will make the game more realistic but will also make it more difficult in heavy combat areas. The option is yours whether or not to enable it.

[BIOC_Base.BioPawnBehavior]

m_bAllowPhysicsOnDeadBodies=True: If set to "True", this parameter will active physics on dead bodies. This allows them to be shot resulting in blood and minor movements. Enabling this will add realism to the game. It's completely optional; however, I recommend it be set to "True".

[BIOC_Base.BioPawn]

m_fCorpseCleanupFirstAttemptTime=60.0: This parameters determines how many seconds the game will wait before attempting remove a corpse from the game. Increasing this value will increase realism in the game. The recommended setting is "60".

m_fCorpseCleanupAttemptRetryTime=30.0: This parameters controls how long the game will wait before attempting to remove a corpse once the m_fCorpseCleanupFirstAttemptTime parameter's value has expired. The recommended setting is "30".

BIOInput.ini

The BIOInput.ini file holds the key bindings for Mass Effect.

[Engine.Console]

ConsoleKey=Tilde: This parameter doesn't exist by default so it must be added. Setting this to "Tilde" will enable access to the in-game command console using the ~ key (the key above Tab on a U.S. keyboard). Common console commands can be found at the end of this Guide.

Texture Hacking (Easy Dencryption)

I was hesitant to add any mods into this guide because the main modding tool for doing this (Texmod) is notorious for making the game unstable. However, there is one overhaul that doesn't require using this tool. Many more mods exist for Mass Effect; however, the majority use Texmod. The guide will not cover these mods due to Texmod issues with stability.

M.E.U.I.T.M.

Mass Effect Update/Improvement Textures Mod (M.E.U.I.T.M.) sets out on a mission to improve the game's textures in a way that doesn't alter the original concept of these textures. They are upscaled to higher resolutions, re-painted, have added/enhanced details and bump maps, and some of the normal maps have been rebuilt. This gives the textures a higher quality look and an overall polished feel. Not only has the author improved the textures, the Lighting and Shadow maps on the walls and floors have also been improved. Finally, the author gives us a new Film Grain texture that mimics Mass Effect 2's grain texture which is much improved from the muddy grain of the default game. The best thing about this overhaul is that even though Mass Effect was released in 2008 on the PC, it's still currently being updated!

There are two ways to download this mod. If you have a torrent client, click the "MUEITM torrent Link v032214" main file for the download. This will download a .zip archive. Exact this file and open the torrent file in your torrent client to start the download. If you don't have a torrent client, you can download the mod in 2 parts via .zip archives by clicking the "MEUITM Part1" and "MEUITM Part2" main files. These files are very large! The torrent is highly recommended!

Mod: M.E.U.I.T.M
Size: 4.21GB
Website: MEUITM on Nexus

Installation

To install the torrent, extract the archive and run the .EXE file. Point to your Mass Effect installation folder when asked and install the mod.

Mission Debriefing

Clean the Shader Cache

Before running the game, you should clear your shader cache. Open "MassEffectConfig.exe" located in your Binaries folder ( ...\Mass Effect\Binaries ). Click the "Repair" button on the left and then click the "Delete Local Shader Cache Files". Now click on the "Video" button on the left to ensure your settings are correct. If so, simply exit the program. If not, correct the settings and then save them by clicking "Mass Effect" at the top and clicking "Save Settings".

Set the Compatibility Mode

Mass Effect apparently doesn't like to run on 64-bit systems very well. If you're running on a 64-bit version of Windows, doing this step will help protect you against the "General Protection Fault" error and save you so headache. It could be beneficial doing this on 32-bit systems as well; however, I have no way of testing this. User on 64-bit systems will need to set the game to run in compatibility mode. To do this you'll need at least Windows Vista or Windows 7, 1GB of free system RAM and 15 GB of free disk space. Windows 8 does not have the compatibility mod. Here's how:

Navigate to the installation folder ( ...\Mass Effect ). Here you will see a file called "MassEffectLauncher.exe".
Right click on this file and choose "Properties".
Click the "Compatibility" tab at the top of the window that opens.
Here, check the box for "Run this in compatibility mode for:" and choose "Windows XP (Service Pack 3)" from the drop-down menu.
Next, click the box for "Run this program as an administrator" at the bottom and click the Apply button.
Exit the window.

Now open the "Binaries" folder. Repeat the above steps for the "MassEffect.exe" file.

Console Commands

Debugging

General Protection Faults

These errors will cause the game to freeze. Alt+Tab during a freeze and you should see an error message. If this message states, "General Protection Fault" near the top of the message, then you forgot to set the game to run in compatibility mode. This solution will only be available to Windows Vista and Windows 7 users. Microsoft opted to not include compatibility modes in Windows 8; therefore, if you're a Windows 8 user and are receiving this error, you're basically out of luck. So save often and learn to live with it if you wish to continue playing the game on a Windows 8 system. See above under the "Mission Debriefing" section to learn how to set up compatibility mode.