Mass Effect 2 tweaking...

[IPlayNaked]

Originally Posted by Kaleid

Most is not enough.
Umh no, the enemies have not detected any of us yet. And even if they have sighted us, why should bioware stop players from saving whenever they want?
To prevent useless save games there could be several quicksaves as well as autosaves at some parts of the level in case the player screws it up.

And it is really stupid to have the space button do almost everything. Also, conversations which have already happened should have a different color.

You are desperately searching for things to complain about.

[JonasBeckman]

There are a few areas where you can't save though, often when you are alone on special missions like searching a downed spaceship wreckage or aligning solar arrays to form a shield to name two of them.
(Might have been to easy to complete if you could save and load as you wanted.)

[shadow85]

Originally Posted by JonasBeckman

There are a few areas where you can't save though, often when you are alone on special missions like searching a downed spaceship wreckage or aligning solar arrays to form a shield to name two of them.
(Might have been to easy to complete if you could save and load as you wanted.)

I dont really care about the not being able to save at all times thing, it just makes the battles that much more intense.

And I have learnt to live with the MAX graphic settings as is because I realise that there is nothing we can do about it, and I doubt any1 will ever bring texture packs out for this as they never did with ME1. Now I cant wait till Aliens vs Predator comes out as that looks like it has killa graphics. But then again so did ME2 untill I saw it in real life.

[JonasBeckman]

There was actually a texture pack for ME1, bit buggy though and no longer available due to how UE3 manages textures for different "package" files and LOD settings.

http://www.moddb.com/mods/mass-effect-texturen-mod

[Kaleid]

Originally Posted by IPlayNaked

You are desperately searching for things to complain about.

Umh no. There are tons of gripes I have with the game but I won't start listing them all. I don't btw have any trouble with the textures myself since they all look pretty fine for me.

[getsuga12]

damn, i seem to have a problem here.

So i made a female shepard and went down the renegade path, let the council die, but once i finished the game and went over to ME2 to import it, there was no character save for it! In fact, i've went back to my other ME1 saves and finished them, but still no character save. I only have 2 imports listed dammit

[Darren Hodgson]

You have to import the ME1 save from the Configuration > Save Game tool on the launcher. Once that's done you can load ME2 up, start a New Game and you'll be able to import the character from one of the options. It wasn't very well explained in the manual to be honest.

[getsuga12]

Originally Posted by Darren Hodgson

You have to import the ME1 save from the Configuration > Save Game tool on the launcher. Once that's done you can load ME2 up, start a New Game and you'll be able to import the character from one of the options. It wasn't very well explained in the manual to be honest.

lol i forgot to point out that i've already completed ME2 with an imported character.

the problem right now is that finishing ME1 doesn't seem to create any new ME1 character saves for me to import to ME2.

[JonasBeckman]

Save the ME1 game, copy the save files to somewhere and use the ME2 config utility to import them, they'll be placed in the \User\Documents\Bioware\Mass Effect2\ folder somewhere and renamed in a proper format, you can only have 11 or so import savegames at a time though from what I've read.
(You can place more files but just as with the savegame limit of 50 the game won't show those.)

EDIT: Utility.
http://www.mediafire.com/?sharekey=7...538f5672f1b9df
(Tool uses separate INI files to build a new coalsced.ini, makes editing very easy, managed to remove VSync completely, make enemies drop their weapons on death - kinda buggy - and do a few misc tweaks very easy to use just edit the INI files and then build the coalsced.ini file from those with the program.)

[getsuga12]

Originally Posted by JonasBeckman

Save the ME1 game, copy the save files to somewhere and use the ME2 config utility to import them, they'll be placed in the \User\Documents\Bioware\Mass Effect2\ folder somewhere and renamed in a proper format, you can only have 11 or so import savegames at a time though from what I've read.
(You can place more files but just as with the savegame limit of 50 the game won't show those.)

i think i should re-iterate that the latest saves do not even appear in the ME1 savegame folder. So i can't copy any file to anywhere and use the utility. The problem is not so much with ME2, but ME1 at the moment, simply because it does not generate a character save for me to import to ME2 (and i've checked the savegame folder, just to re-iterate).

[nzweers]

Hmm, I noticed that if you change MaxShadowResolution=512 to MaxShadowResolution=256 that you get quite some extra performace. Might have to do with my 4850 cards having only 512mb. Still it is better than disabling dynamic shadows altogether like the SLI dudes are doing.

I am running mostly 60fps with drops to 40fps now at 1920x1080 2xAA 16xAF, rest max. With MaxShadowResolution=2048 I get drops to 10fps Especially in conversations.

[nzweers]

Originally Posted by exaslave

I replaced the "load_f01.bik" file in the "BioGame > Movies" folder with a copy of "load_f99.bik" so to make some of the load parts faster, a quicksave then quickload or simply "resume" when launching the game takes 15 secs normal for me but with the replaced load_f01.bik it takes only 3 secs (shows a "Mass Effect 2 movie screen now). I do not know if it is the correct way to handle it but it worked for me and makes some load times much bearable
could use a faster .bik to replace but the 3secs "mass effect" screen seems enough to load stuff

I can confirm it loads indeed much quicker. Like 3x as fast on my quad-core. I replaced all the loading screens and it's great. You can get all the loading bik files with ME2 logo here: http://www.megaupload.com/?d=VA4J8P30
I got it from this guy: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YTD3NKOm7VE

[Lavans]

Originally Posted by nzweers

I can confirm it loads indeed much quicker. Like 3x as fast on my quad-core. I replaced all the loading screens and it's great. You can get all the loading bik files with ME2 logo here: http://www.megaupload.com/?d=VA4J8P30
I got it from this guy: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YTD3NKOm7VE

That would be me, lol. I made this exact same post just last page

[Wanny]

Originally Posted by nzweers

Hmm, I noticed that if you change MaxShadowResolution=512 to MaxShadowResolution=256 that you get quite some extra performace. Might have to do with my 4850 cards having only 512mb. Still it is better than disabling dynamic shadows altogether like the SLI dudes are doing.

I am running mostly 60fps with drops to 40fps now at 1920x1080 2xAA 16xAF, rest max. With MaxShadowResolution=2048 I get drops to 10fps Especially in conversations.

AA flag 08020205 is your friend. Trust me you will never drop below 60 FPS and you can keep dynamic shadows, you know that thing that makes the game beautiful. The Framerate drops in cutscenes and it's not even a SLI/AA bug, it's a plain bioware bug.

[Understandable]

Originally Posted by lavans

i compiled replacement load screens for all existing ones. Mass effect 2 should now load as soon as your system is ready.

Please remember to back up your original load_fxx files if there is a need to restore them.

Download - http://www.megaupload.com/?d=va4j8p30
download mirror - http://a.imagehost.org/download/0636/movies

you can see it in action here - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ytd3nkom7ve

nice!!!!!!

[EarlZ]

Originally Posted by Wanny

AA flag 08020205 is your friend. Trust me you will never drop below 60 FPS and you can keep dynamic shadows, you know that thing that makes the game beautiful. The Framerate drops in cutscenes and it's not even a SLI/AA bug, it's a plain bioware bug.

How can it be a bioware bug when it happens only when you enable AA, on this engine AA is NOT official supported.. please care to elaborate..

[Wanny]

Originally Posted by EarlZ

How can it be a bioware bug when it happens only when you enable AA, on this engine AA is NOT official supported.. please care to elaborate..

Seriously man I think I saw the framerate drop with The Illusive Man cutscenes, that's about it seriously. It always stayed 60 FPS in gameplay.

Just use SLI compat 13, 22, 25 and 08020205 AA flag and you are good.

[ScoobyDooby]

I am having the framerate drop also as soon as I enable any AA at all.. doesn't matter 2x or 8x it still drops dramatically. I also find that coming out of cutscenes or discussions, the fps tends to stay lowered and then slowly creeps back up to 60. I hope that it will be remidied by a patch, unless it is just something weird with the engine??

[IPlayNaked]

What's the deal with switching the load screens? Load times are pretty much instant except at start up for me.

I did have my quad with two cores disabled for testing purposes in a few games and the load times in ME2 became 10x longer with 100% pegged CPU usage...Is that what you guys are talking about?

[mudkips]

Originally Posted by ScoobyDooby

I hope that it will be remidied by a patch, unless it is just something weird with the engine??

Why do people keep saying this. AA is not supported in this game, its up to the driver writers to fix any issues with how forced AA performs in ME2.

[Lavans]

I've got a modding guide started over here for those of you who are interested.

[Morel]

Here is my gamersettings.ini an I have wonderful results with my ATI card.

[SystemSettings]
Resolution=_1680x1050
ResX=1680
ResY=1050
DisableAudio=False
FullScreen=True
BorderlessWindow=True
FilmGrain=False
MotionBlur=False
DynamicLights=True
DirectionalLightmaps=True
DynamicShadows=True
LightEnvironmentShadows=True
EnableLightEnvSHLights=True
MaxAnisotropy=16
QualityBloom=True
MaxCharacterCinematicLightingPasses=5
Trilinear=True
MinShadowResolution=32
MaxShadowResolution=4096
DepthOfField=True
UseVsync=False
bSmoothFrameRate=False
MaxMultisamples=8
CompositeDynamicLights=True
ModShadowFadeDistanceExponent=0.200000

Though I may turn down the bloom level a tad and in increase light source de-fusion.. However it looks outstanding running at 16xAF and 8xAA

Very stable frame rates too.

Also, If wearing headphones put windows setting on Quad speaker settings and Creative Launcher on Headphone setting (if you have an Xfi Card).
Then Download the new version of OpenAL and replace the DLL found in the Binaries folder in your game directory for improved sound.. I'd recommend using some EQ loving and up the Lower range boom boom for the club areas..

Hope it helps someone..

[EarlZ]

Originally Posted by Morel

Here is my gamersettings.ini an I have wonderful results with my ATI card.

[SystemSettings]
DirectionalLightmaps=True
EnableLightEnvSHLights=True
QualityBloom=True
MaxMultisamples=8
CompositeDynamicLights=True

Can anyone confirm what these settings do and if the work with ME2 also where are you guys getting a list of these extra settings ?

[EarlZ]

Originally Posted by IPlayNaked

What's the deal with switching the load screens? Load times are pretty much instant except at start up for me.

I did have my quad with two cores disabled for testing purposes in a few games and the load times in ME2 became 10x longer with 100% pegged CPU usage...Is that what you guys are talking about?

The loading screen makes the loading times longer, like it only starts to load the actual files when the loading animation is done by removing the loading screen the files can be actually loaded right away, you say its instant on your system.. care to make a video on it to prove your point..

[XLR8]

Lavans, everything was fine until now except for load_f13m.bik (right before *spoiler* collectors normandy invasion)
video loads just fine but nothing happens and I'm left with a blank screen and I can only hear background sound...
so I restored the original and it continued just fine.
maybe my system wasnt fast enough to load the game and kept crashing...