Mass Effect PC graphics settings

[Dorkenstein]

I'm trying to tweak the game to look better, mostly un-successfully, but I was wondering if anyone here knows how to get the black translucent edge of the screen to go away and give me a nice clean screen. Thanks for any help. If I didn't describe it correctly, it's almost like you're looking through a paper towel tube and it cuts off the edges of the screen.

 

[Jesusthewererabbit]

I turned off the film grain. It annoyed me to no end.

 

[PepePeru]

i'm not in front of my computer @ home, but I purchased this game through Steam.

If that is what you've done as well, I had to go into the folder /steamapps/.../....

and run the game's launcher, which had more options for resolution & graphics (16:10 aspect ratio, for instance, that I couldn't change in game)

 

[Dorkenstein]

See, that's just it. I turned off the film grain, but the effect I'm talking about remains. This is a retail disc copy of Mass Effect. I'll put a screenshot up when I get home. I can almost not play it enjoyably, between this and the floaty controls. It makes me feel like I have a blind spot.

 

[MStele]

Try playing without dynamic shadows. I find the dynamic shadow system just doesn't do it for me, and turning it off fix alot of the shadow anomalies I encountered.

 

[zerocool84]

The game has motion blur and film grain. I killed those. It also has a crapload of HDR as well. I've not experienced what you are though.

 

[CP5670]

I'm trying to tweak the game to look better, mostly un-successfully, but I was wondering if anyone here knows how to get the black translucent edge of the screen to go away and give me a nice clean screen. Thanks for any help. If I didn't describe it correctly, it's almost like you're looking through a paper towel tube and it cuts off the edges of the screen.

I know what you're talking about, and the only way to disable this seems to be turn off all post-processing in the ini. This effect varies with the world you're on and it was actually making me a little dizzy in the Eden Prime level. It's the only time I've ever had such a reaction from a game. It's not nearly as bad once you leave Eden Prime though, so I kept post-processing turned on.

Apart from that, I turned off motion blur and film grain, which both look terrible. I also turned off the framerate smoothing that a lot of UE3 games have, as it causes microstutter.

 

[GodlessAstronomer]

The effect is called vignetting. I don't know how to turn it off.

 

[Udgnim]

worse performing game I own outside of GTA4

 

[MStele]

worse performing game I own outside of GTA4

What are your system specs? I play with everything maxed with the exception of film grain and dynamic shadows at 1920X1200 and get very smooth gameplay. The only time i get any drop in frame rates is in the main station.

C2D E6850 @ 3.0 Ghz
Geforce 260-216
7GB ram
Win7Pro64

 

[Dorkenstein]

Does patch 1.02 really mess with character textures? I installed it and character models look much seedier. Especially the Volus guy in the citadel. I'm looking into it.

 

[jonks]

worse performing game I own outside of GTA4

wth are you talking about. This is a not a demanding engine. There are at least 2 spots that do not play well with SLI however and the fps drops to single digits so disable SLI. Other than that, an 8800gt will play it at 1680x1050 max settings no problem. I know, cuz I did it.

http://www.tomshardware.com/charts/gaming-graphics-charts-q3-2008/Mass-Effect,772.html

 

[manko]

Does patch 1.02 really mess with character textures? I installed it and character models look much seedier. Especially the Volus guy in the citadel. I'm looking into it.

The patch reset my custom .ini file, so I had to redo all the tweaks to get it back to what I was used to.

 

[GodlessAstronomer]

worse performing game I own outside of GTA4

You're on crack.

 

[digiram]

wth are you talking about. This is a not a demanding engine. There are at least 2 spots that do not play well with SLI however and the fps drops to single digits so disable SLI. Other than that, an 8800gt will play it at 1680x1050 max settings no problem. I know, cuz I did it.

http://www.tomshardware.com/charts/gaming-graphics-charts-q3-2008/Mass-Effect,772.html

QFT...I used to the run the game at decent settings on my x1950 and single core 939 cpu

 

[CP5670]

The effect is called vignetting. I don't know how to turn it off.

You can get rid of it by disabling all post processing. However, this also turns off many lighting effects and makes the game look quite a bit worse.

 

[Dorkenstein]

This is weird. I distinctly remember the game looking better than this. I am using the 195.62 nvidia drivers and the game's 1.02 patch. I'm re-installing the game and I'm going to try it with just the 1.01 patch.

 

[zerocool84]

This game ran fine but was buggy as hell.

 

[Ika]

worse performing game I own outside of GTA4

So, you own two games?