Mass Effect PC - Graphical Issues

Technology and Gaming Help and Support
#1

Now, I know I just had a problem that I posted (specifically, deciding what graphics card I wanted to upgrade to). I’ve purchased the card and almost everything runs smoothly. That is, except for Mass Effect. I’ve spent an hour or so changing the settings around and messing with the Nvidia control panel, but I always get one or both of these two problems: Low framerate and high aliasing (as in the edges are all jagged). I don’t know why this is happening, as my system specs are well above those required for Mass Effect. Even with Antialiasing at 16x in the Nvidia control panel (I’ve tried it with Override the program and enhance the program settings, and neither does much good) it’s still aliased. The framerate isn’t that big of an issue except in the Citadel (I could be wrong as I’m not far in the game). Anyone else have problems with this? Any way I can fix it?

Relevant System Specs:
XFX GTS 250
Intel Core 2 quad 3.0 ghz
3 gb of RAM

Quick Note: I tried to take this to the Mass Effect forums, but their registration is a pain in the ass. Whoever heard of having to put in your CD key in order to ask questions about how to fix the game’s problems?

#2

the game engine in Mass Effect ( unreal 3.0 ) doesn’t properly support Anti-Aliasing. Forcing any sort of aliasing aside from the in game option causes terrible performance, and no reduction in the aliased effect on edges.

On your card the only way to even get a positive effect is to turn on super sampling. With this SOME AA will be applied, but nothing all that beneficial and frame rates bottom right out.

#3

The engine doesn’t like too much forcing AA on it, so this should be the first thing you turn off (it produces also some ugly ghosting without improving the quality too much). There would be another way to reduces Aliasing, by taking the “Downsampling road” which consists in fooling the display to accept a higher than the native resolution and resampling it for output.
But that’s another story.

You may not face this issue but you never know:
If you have any other UE3 powered game installed like Mirror’s Edge (or not) and experience Lag at certain points, try reinstalling the PhysX driver.
If that doesn’t help go into your “Mass Effect\Binaries” folder and rename “PhysXCore.dll” to “PhysXCore.dll.fail” or whatever you like.

#4

a friend had the same problem with all UE3 games, after a OS reinstall all UE3 games worked without any problems.

#5

I’m thinking the problem is probably with the PhysX drivers (as I don’t recall ever updating them, or even remembering their existence). Thank you for the help, I will try that.

EDIT: Installing the PhysX drivers helped with all Framerate problems, but the aliasing is still pretty bad. I’ve managed to make it manageable with a program called nHancer, that allows me to use AA on Unreal Engine 3 games, but I want a good solution that would make it looks as good as it does on a console. Why is there aliasing on PC, anyways? Why not to this extreme on 360s?

#6

Can you not read?
THE ENGINE USED IN GAME DOESN’T PROPERLY SUPPORT ANTI-ALIASING.
It’s no better on the console, that is your imagination.

#7

I’ve never played Mass Effect, but this engine sounds pretty poorly designed if it doesn’t support AA.

#8

^ It’s more of a compromise than a poor design decision. The engine uses the deferred lighting technic that is incompatible with the conventional AA processing. The advantages are many different light sources without too much of a performance hit.
Although there have been some advances in getting AA to befriend deferred lighting, there was even the possibility to make it work with DX10.

It would be interesting to know how the guys working on the Cryengine 3 are going to solve this issue since they’re implementing this shading… or we can say goodbye to smooth edges :stuck_out_tongue:

Mirror’s Edge supports AA because Dice incorporated their very own lighting into the game to fit the overall style.

#9

I´m currently playing Mass Effect (steam) too, but without any problems wtih AA.

System:
Vista 32
Nvidia gtx 280 (driver 195.62 !!!)
2gb ram
same core

#10

You can force it in the nvidia control panel but all that aliasing in your screenshot tends to indicate isn’t not really doin’ a very good job.

#11

Exactly what I mean. Do they just purposely put Aliasing into the game somehow so it doesn’t look good on the PC? Or do they just suck at Console ports?

#12

Hardware anti-aliasing is near impossible with deferred shading and directx 9.

Nvidia applies a post process to the scene.

https://notjustgraphics.blogspot.com/2009/04/deferred-shading-and-anti-aliasing.html

#13

No.

No. It’s the same game engine for both console and PC. The image differences you think you seeing…you aren’t.

#14

It may be my very high quality monitor compared to my very low quality TV.

#15

So basically the Unreal Tournament 3 is Aliased and unfixable? That seems a pretty terrible way to make an engine.

EDIT: Oops, double post.

#16

you have the chance now to program a new AA technique for deferred shading

#17

If you haven’t figured it out yet, there is an option in the nvidia control panel that configures single/multiple monitor displays. Switch it to single display, because I was playing quake wars and it lagged like shit until I changed this option.

https://forums.overclockers.com.au/showthread.php?t=499905

Second post.

#18

Yeah Gesicht, but every time I attempt to program something my computer ends up worse off than before. The single/multi monitor display is already at single.

EDIT: OH! So the problem is not really in the game, but in the outdatedness (I know it’s not a word) of Direct X 9. So, I have to upgrade to Vista or 7 to get optimal graphics. Thank you for your assistance (I know it took me a while to get that :/).

Founded in 2004, Leakfree.org became one of the first online communities dedicated to Valve’s Source engine development. It is more famously known for the formation of Black Mesa: Source under the 'Leakfree Modification Team' handle in September 2004.