************************ Mass Effect - README ************************ System Requirements ------------------- *Minimum System Requirements * Windows XP or Vista * 2.4 GHz Intel or 2.0 GHz AMD * 1 GB RAM (XP), 2 GB RAM (Vista) * 12 GB free HD space * 1x or better DVD-ROM drive * NVIDIA GeForce 6800 or better (7300, 7600 GS, and 8500 are below minimum system requirements) * ATI X1300 XT or better (X1300, X1300 Pro, X1600 Pro and HD2400 are below minimum system requirements) * Shader Model 3.0 required * 100% DirectX 9.0c compatible sound card and drivers. * DirectX 9.0c October 2006 (Included) * INTERNET CONNECTION, ONLINE AUTHENTICATION, AND END USER LICENSE AGREEMENT REQUIRED TO PLAY. MORE INFORMATION IS AVAILABLE AT WWW.EA.COM. *Recommended System Requirements * Windows XP or Vista * 2.6+ GHz Intel or 2.4+ GHz AMD * 2 GB RAM * 12 GB free HD space * 1x or better DVD-ROM drive * ATI X1800 XL series, NVIDIA GeForce 7900 GTX, or better recommended * 100% DirectX 9.0c compatible sound card and drivers. * DirectX 9.0c October 2006 (Included) * INTERNET CONNECTION, ONLINE AUTHENTICATION, AND END USER LICENSE AGREEMENT REQUIRED TO PLAY. MORE INFORMATION IS AVAILABLE AT WWW.EA.COM. Installing Mass Effect ---------------------- To install Mass Effect just insert the Mass Effect DVD into your DVD drive and follow the on-screen prompts to install the game. If the AutoPlay screen does not automatically appear after inserting the Mass Effect DVD into your DVD drive, follow these steps: 1. Close all running programs. 2. Ensure that the Mass Effect DVD is in your DVD drive. 3. Double-click My Computer on your desktop. 4. Double-click the DVD icon. 5. Double-click on the Setup.exe icon to launch the installer. 6. Follow the on-screen instructions to install the game. After installing the game, you will be offered the choice to view the readme or play the game. The readme is a text file, (this one) which lists additions to the manual since printing. Optimizing Gameplay ------------------- The Mass Effect configuration utility will attempt to read the system Specifications of the computer and attempt to set the graphic options automatically that allow the game to play very smoothly while showing a great graphic fidelity. These settings were determined though testing of many combinations motherboard, CPU type, RAM, Audio, and Video Cards, and using that data to set the default graphic options. If you would like to tweak the graphic settings to optimize performance for you and your style, we have some suggestions and information on what each option does: Windowed Mode - If this option is on, the performance can be reduced, especially if other applications are running as well. We highly recommend that all other applications be shutdown when playing Mass Effect PC. Particle Effects - Lowering these should increase performance slightly. Resolution - Significantly affects performance, this is the option that has the greatest influence on how well the game runs as far as general smoothness is concerned. The lower the resolution, the better the performance is. Dynamic Shadows - This noticeably affects performance on machines between the minimum and recommended system specifications. Turning Dynamic Shadows off will increase performance. Texture Detail - On Video cards with 256meg of video ram, turning the detail lower will increase performance. On video cards with more hen 256megs of ram, the increase will be less noticeable. Filtering Mode - Point Filtering mode is the best for performance and anisotropic should be used for greater graphic fidelity. Motion Blur - Similar to Dynamic Shadows, this noticeably affects performance on machines between the minimum and recommended system specifications. Turning motion blur off will increase performance. Film Grain - Turning this off will increase performance slightly on machines near our minimum specifications. Game Known Issues ----------------- In Zhu's Hope in the Feros system, if the player saves or quick saves right after the elevator doors open, the game will hang, and the save file will be overwritten and cannot be used to continue. Mass Effect does not run on a system using a GMA X3000 video card, a general protection fault error appear after double clicking the start icon. Mass Effect does not run optimally on the Sapphire Radeon x1550 series of video cards. We recommend that Mass Effect is not played on a system with this video card. Mass Effect does not run optimally on the NVIDIA GeForce 7100 series of video cards. We recommend that Mass Effect is not played on a system with this video card. The ATI X1950, and X1650 have a known issue with pixilation of some effects in the game. An upcoming Catalyst 8.6 update should address the issue. Mass Effect does not run optimally on a computer with a Pentium 4 CPU with a FSB below 800 MHz under Windows Vista. We recommend that Mass Effect is not played on a system with this CPU and operating system combination. Trademark and Copyright ----------------------- ? 2008 BIOWARE (Studio and Publishing) Ltd. All Rights Reserved. BioWare, the BioWare logo and Mass Effect are trademarks or registered trademarks of EA International (Studio and Publishing) Ltd. in the U.S. and/or other countries. EA and the EA logo are trademarks or registered trademarks of Electronic Arts Inc. in the U.S. and/or other countries. Unreal? Engine, Copyright 1998-2008, Epic Games, Inc. All rights reserved. Unreal? is a registered trademark of Epic Games, Inc. Portions ? 2008 Scaleform Corporation. Interactive Spatialized Audio Composition Technology (ISACT): Copyright ? Creative Technology Ltd. ISACT is a trademark of Creative Technology Ltd in the United States and/or other countries. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners. Copyright ? 2002, Xiph.org Foundation Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions are met: - Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer. - Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution. - Neither the name of the Xiph.org Foundation nor the names of its contributors may be used to endorse or promote products derived from this software without specific prior written permission. THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE COPYRIGHT HOLDERS AND CONTRIBUTORS "AS IS" AND ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE FOUNDATION OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE Uses Bink Video. Copyright ? 1997-2008 by RAD Game Tools, Inc. Facial animation software provided by OC3 Entertainment. ?2002-2007, OC3 Entertainment, Inc. and its licensors. All rights reserved. Disclaimer ---------- You may not modify, enhance, supplement, create any derivative work from, adapt, translate, reverse engineer, decompile, disassemble or otherwise reduce the Software to human readable form. Final Special Thanks from BioWare --------------------------------- A special thanks to the fans and friends of BioWare. Your thoughts and feelings presented on our website forums drive us to make great games.
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