Mass Effect

Template:Infobox Mass Effect is the first game in a trilogy, which consists of Mass Effect 2 and Mass Effect 3. Performance is fairly poor compared to Mass Effect 2, which runs at a higher visual fidelty at a higher framerate for the same hardware.

Version Differences

Digital and retail versions differ only in the fact that there is a problem with installing a retail version on Windows 7. Retail versions register onto Origin.

Steam carries Mass Effect and Mass Effect 2, but does not have Mass Effect 3.

Issues and Fixes

Steam

Steam must be running in administrator mode or Mass Effect will not load.

In some cases, character and weapon textures will display at low resolution even if the game settings are set to higher quality. To fix this, follow these instructions from the Steam Forums.

Intel Integrated Graphics

Mass Effect does not officially support Intel graphics chips. However, the game is still playable. The game will crash if the main menu is called up (through Esc). It is still possible to play through Mass Effect if one uses shortcuts to access desired menu item, for example, quick save or codex).

Windows 7 Retail Install

Mass Effect retail copies do not run under a Windows 7 environment. This, however, was fixed with the 1.02 patch. The real reason of this issue is originated by the MassEffectConfig.exe file, which crashes under Windows 7. Digital copies, however, are not affected by this issue.