The "All You Need" Guide for Mass Effect (LAST UPDATE: 19 Aug, 2021)

This guide was last updated on 19 Aug, 2021. Therefore, the information provided in it might be outdated. You can still follow the steps provided in the guide, as I will leave it as it is for those who need guidance, and don't plan to update it anytime soon. That being said, most if not everything in my guide should still work today, but, as always, I highly suggest everyone also check PCGamingWiki [www.pcgamingwiki.com] for the latest fixes and improvements to the game, provided by the community.

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While Mass Effect has a number of issues, some unfixable, such as microstuttering in some places, most of the other issues can be fixed. I remember how long it took me to get through everything there is for Mass Effect, and how hard it was to understand what to install and in what order. So that's this guide's purpose, to make it easy for anyone to experience the original first Mass Effect game as beautifully as possible and with as few bugs as possible.

This guide does not include anything new. It includes everything already available in other guides, but put together, so whoever wants everything can check this out instead and have an easy time installing them.

This guide tries to be as vanilla and lore-friendly as possible, but there might still be minor stuff not entirely as it was supposed to be originally, so please keep that in mind. Also, this guide includes everything I have chosen to use and do (with some tiny stuff like how to fix the DLCs or the Controller mod, that I have included without trying) so there might still be mods available out there that might look awesome and could be used, but I did not include them because I did not want to use them.

Lastly, there might also be issues others in this huge world might have had, for which they have used fixes that I have not included in this guide. For anything that's not in this guide, I suggest PCGamingWiki [www.pcgamingwiki.com].

Let's make Mass Effect great

Yo, guys! This is the first guide I have ever written, so please bear with me.

**Everything I have here is thanks to their respective authors. I also want to thank PCGamingWiki [www.pcgamingwiki.com], since without their page I would have never found anything for this guide. Everything here can probably also be found there.



- Please do everything in the order I wrote.

DLCs

The game has 2 DLCs that, on Steam, are not installed by default. EA has provided installers for both of them officially for Steam users.

Both installers can be found here . The Pinnacle Station DLC might ask for a key. They have also provided it there, free of charge.

*Make sure you launch your game at least once before running the installers; otherwise, they might not be able to see the game. Launch the game after the installs have finished as well, to check if they are shown in the Downloadable Content tab in the settings menu.

**In case the Pinnacle Station DLC installation fails at the end, go to the game's main folder and open installscript.vdf.

There, replace

%CDKEY%

with

5GUCXRFPQNBMTJBD3L5J

.
Then try installing it again. (I did not try this fix myself, since I did not need it, but many do)

Fix Patches

Download:

• Mouse Fix [community.pcgamingwiki.com] (makes Mass Effect use raw mouse input and removes the game's mouse acceleration)
  
• SilentPatchME [cookieplmonster.github.io] (ONLY for AMD >K10 CPUs / fixes characters becoming black blobs in some places)
  
• FOV Fix [thirteenag.github.io] (fixes FOV)
  
• PhysX Legacy Software [www.nvidia.com] (fixes crashes/stability issues)

- unzip the first 3 (or 2 if you don't need the AMD CPU fix) and copy "dinput8.dll"(Mouse Fix); "d3dx9_31.dll" (SilentPatchME / again: ONLY for AMD >K10 CPUs) and "binkw32.dll"+"MassEffectTrilogy.FOVFix.asi" (FOV Fix), everything in

game's main folder\Binaries

- run the PhysX installer and install it like you would install anything else

ME3Tweaks Mods

Here's a list of mods that must be installed using ME3Tweaks, which you can download here[www.nexusmods.com].

Then download the mods:

• Saren Stages[www.nexusmods.com] - This one fixes Saren's transformation visually, making way more sense lore-wise.
  
• ME1 Recalibrated[www.nexusmods.com] - This one fixes a list of bugs and issues within the game.
  
• Same-Gender Romances[www.nexusmods.com] - This one can be skipped if you're not interested. It adds same-gender romance for Ashley and Kaidan, using stuff already present in the game files but not used by BioWare for some reason.

1. Start ME3TweaksModManager.exe (after you extract it using the file you downloaded).
   
2. Select ME1 on the left, then drag & drop the Saren Stages file on the right side. You can then proceed to install it. There are 2 options available here; I chose the Alternate one for vanilla reasons. You can choose whichever you wish.
   
3. Do the "drag & drop & install" again, this time with the ME1 Recalibrated file. There are some options you can choose from. I did not check 3 of them (fast transit, unique armor, and mission timings module) for vanilla reasons, but you can choose whatever you wish.
   
4. Once again, for the last time, do the "drag & drop & install" with the Same-Gender Romances file. (In case you choose to use this mod.) Make sure you check the ME1 Recalibrated patch when prompted.

ME1Controller (optional)

This adds Controller Support. I will only provide the link to the mod, nothing else, as I have never tried it and have no idea how it works, what issues (if any) it has, and if it breaks anything while running with anything else inside my guide. You can try it if you so wish. Follow the steps written there.

You can find it here[www.nexusmods.com].

AMD GPUs settings

The game might have some issues with AMD GPUs. If you do have an AMD GPU, then I suggest you make the following changes in the AMD Radeon Software's Mass Effect profile:

• Tesselation mode -> AMD Optimized (fixes bugged lighting all around the map)
  
• Anti-Aliasing -> Use application settings / Enhance application settings (just make sure it isn't on Override, as it might cause the same lighting issues as Tessellation Mode)
  
• Texture Filtering Quality -> High (fixes all textures looking incredibly washed out)

ALOT, ALOV & MEUITM

ALOT is a visual upgrade that contains over 1200 textures; ALOV upscales and remasters all pre-rendered cutscenes, and MEUITM is a high-definition texture overhaul.

First of all, download ALOT[www.nexusmods.com], found under the MAIN FILES category. Unzip it somewhere (wherever you want, since you will be deleting it after the install), and then launch ALOTInstaller.exe. Let it update, and then let it open, don't close it.

We then have a list of stuff we gotta download (save them wherever you want, best in the same place/folder):

• Improved Static Lighting[www.nexusmods.com] (you can find it under the OPTIONAL FILES category)
  
• ALOV[www.nexusmods.com] (you can find it under the MAIN FILES category. Also, I highly suggest you download the 4K version instead of 1080p, no matter what resolution you will be playing on)
  
• MEUITM[www.nexusmods.com] (you can find it under the MAIN FILES category)
  
• ALOV Update[www.nexusmods.com] (you can find it under the MISCELLANEOUS FILES category)
  
• ME1 Improved Bun Textures[www.nexusmods.com] (download the ALOT version)
  
• HR Armor[www.nexusmods.com]
  
• MET-SR1[www.nexusmods.com] (download the MEM version)

Drag and drop all of them, one by one (waiting for each to load), into the already open ALOTInstaller. After that, go install them. In my opinion, you can ignore the warning that you didn’t back up the game. You can do it if you want, though.

Also, you will be given some settings you can choose from. You can choose whatever you want. It also includes the option to use ReShade. Some love ReShade, and others hate it, but I do feel like the game looks way better with it.

Launch the game once after the install has finished

Steam Overlay fix

Mass Effect prompts UAC, and because of it, the Steam Overlay does not work. To fix this, open CMD as administrator and copy+paste this:

FOR /F "skip=2 tokens=2,*" %A IN ('REG QUERY "HKLM\SOFTWARE\bioware\mass effect" /v Path /reg:32') DO REG ADD "HKCU\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\AppCompatFlags\Layers" /v "%B"\Binaries\MassEffect.exe /t REG_SZ /d RUNASINVOKER

* Accept it with "y" if it asks.

MERLIN

MERLIN aims to restore dynamic lights and post-processing to Xbox 360 levels. It also corrects other things broken in the PC port and some things broken in all releases of Mass Effect (bug fixes).

Download the installer from here[www.nexusmods.com], and the Softer Less Pixelated Shadows file found under Optional Files. Unzip MERLIN's archive, and inside it, in the mods folder, extract the Softer Less Pixelated Shadows archive. Overwrite if prompted. Then launch „MassEffectModder.exe” and check what you want to install. For vanilla reasons, what I did not install were the two „AshArmorConsistency” options and the „MERLIN Intro Video”. But you can, obviously, install them as well.

** In case the shadows look really weird: turn Dynamic Shadows off in the in-game settings.

Launch the game once after the install has finished

Config files changes

The config files are located at C:\Users(YOURUSER)\Documents\Bioware\Mass Effect\Config.

Open "BIOEngine.ini".

**High quality Anisotropic Filtering:
Go to the [SystemSettings] section and edit the following values:

• Trilinear=TRUE
  
• MaxAnisotropy=16

**High frame rate:
Search for and change SmoothFrameRate to FALSE.

Open "BIOGame.ini"

**Make dead bodies no longer disappear:
Go to [BIOC_Base.BioArtPlaceable]

Change the following:

• m_nMaxCorpseVisibilityCleanupAttempts=0
  
• m_fCorpseCleanupFirstAttemptTime=0.0
  
• m_fCorpseCleanupAttemptRetryTime=0.0
  
• m_fMaxCorpseCleanupDistanceThreshold=0.0
  
• m_fMaxCorpseCleanupScreenSizeThreshold=0.0

Go to [BIOC_Base.BioPawn] and do the same.

Large Address Aware

Lastly, making the game's executable Large Address Aware improves stability by allowing the application to use more than 2GB of RAM. You can download it here[www.techpowerup.com].

Launch Large Address Aware.exe, choose Launcher.exe from the game's main folder, check the box, and then save. Do the same for MassEffectLauncher.exe, and for MassEffect.exe from the game's main folder/Binaries.

Authors

Nothing could have been possible without the authors of the awesome stuff I have provided in this guide:

• PCGamingWiki (fixes & list of mods)
  
• Methanhydrat (Mouse Fix)
  
• CookiePLMonster (SilentPatchME)
  
• ThirteenAG (FOV Fix)
  
• Mgamerz (ME3Tweaks)
  
• C3Anderson (Saren Stages, MEUITM & MERLIN)
  
• KkJiro (ME1RE)
  
• rondeeno (Same-Gender Romances)
  
• Dybukk (ME1Controller)
  
• CreeperLava (ALOT)
  
• Audemus (ALOV)
  
• LiasFfalenn (ME1 Improved Bun Textures)
  
• Ottemis (HR Armor)
  
• AlvaroMe (MET-SR1)
  
• FordGT90Concept (Large Address Aware)

You can now enjoy the game with as few bugs and performance issues as possible, with huge improvements and a big overall quality difference. I am sure there are other things one can add to this guide or change, but this is 100% what I did and I am more than happy with the results. I hope my guide helped you! ^^

P.S. Check my "All You Need" guide for Mass Effect 2 as well, if you're interested.

[mirHL]

Running steam as admin is dumb, and there's no file recommended to be edited here

[thorvindr]

You don't need to edit any files to make the overlay work; Just run Steam as admin. Works for me too.

[Ciocolici]

What files edit for the steam overlay? One only needs to use what I have written in the guide, in CMD, and the overlay+UAC prompt is fixed

[whit]

Also, forgot to mention this for those that don't want to go through the hassle of editing files for the steam overlay for a single game. Just run steam as admin when playing this and the overlay will work. It was the hardware accel that was causing the issue for me. Turning it off fixed it.

[mirHL]

Vorbis is just the audio codec of .ogg files. It has nothing to do with the sound engine in general.

[whit]

I was just looking at the vorbis.dlls, but yeah they're a bit different than the fallout files. And yes you're right 16/8 instead of 8/4

[mirHL]

ISACT/OpenAL is nothing like fallout audio-wise.
PhysX is not hardware accelerated in mass effect (unless *maybe* on AGEIA PPUs)
And 60fps is 16.6ms.

[whit]

I had two hiccups/dips on the citadel in about a 6 hour session, but I"m wondering if it's the old audio libraries, some of the audio seems off. Uses the same as fallout. So I'm going to back those up and replace them and see what happens. Legacy drivers cover 2.7.0 and 2.7.2 For some reason 2.7.1, 3, 4 etc are all good, just read the version notes.

And naturally, there would be less of delay. 60fps is 8ms delay itself. 120 is about 4 (regardless of app). And it's possible that AMD people do notice more of an issue, because physx will process on nvidia GPU's, while with AMD gpu, it processes through the CPU.

[mirHL]

I just run twice across all the presidium, and even though there seem to be some "proportional dip" here and there (a race condition with loading new assets perhaps?) nowhere was there stuttering.

With the default fps limit I got some frame above 20ms (for as much as I already wouldn't call this concerning).. but once I unlocked it the game was smoother than silk. 1% frametime below 10ms, and 0.1% was like 14ms at worst.

[Ciocolici]

Okay, so people that check my guide out won't have issues with the game, I will add the physx & dlcs fixes, although I did not need them.. but will specify that anyway.