Mass Effect High Def Play Experience

Mass Effect to the Modern Age

For the first entry in one of the greatest game series of all time, Mass Effect has some serious flaws. Considering the technology common at the time, these make sense, but if you want to play it today, it looks a bit rubbish. I've spent the better part of the past week finding and tweaking mods for ME1 on PC to get the best possible experience. You can watch the streams here!

First and foremost, the great quality at the time, even on highest settings, looks like a pixely mess today. This is partly due to the textures, and partly due to the engine.

ME1 Graphics Tweaks

This mod is essentially a .ini file that unlocks a good portion of the engine's capability that was just ignored by the base game. It also sets the resolution to 1920 x 1080, because that option was not available in the base game. Be sure to follow the instructions, especially to make the file 'read only' after you've placed it, because otherwise Mass Effect will overwrite it at startup and you won't get any benefit from it.

A Lot Of Textures (ALOT) for ME1 

Now that you have a better rendering instruction set, you need something better to render. This pack of textures is, strictly speaking, not the highest quality available. The MEUITM pack was the first, and is massive. But it`s not entirely stable. Any other graphical or post processing effects you use with MEUITM will actually make the game look worse than when you started. So if you don't want anything except new textures, it's fine, but you'll be seeing them at 1280 x 720, on a less than optimized rendering engine.

 FPS Counter and Post Processing Effects

This one is not strictly necessary, but does provide stability benefits, and if you're colourblind it can help you balance the colours on screen. My use for it comes from the 'AMD Black Blocky Character' glitch. At the time of development AMD CPUs used 3DMax instruction sets. These were soon after abandoned, but ME1 still calls them on any AMD system. So on an FX or later series of AMD CPU, it'll load weird looking blocky characters under certain lighting systems. Most notably on Noveria in Binary Helix labs, and on Ilos toward the end of the storyline. This mod applies post-processing instruction sets which outrank the 3DMax instructions, eliminating the problem even if you don't actually use any of the effects.

So I hope this short post will help anyone who wants to enjoy ME1 in a modern-looking, crisp fashion, taking advantage of far newer hardware than the game was originally designed for. Next I'll be doing ME2, which doesn't have so many texture or engine problems, but does have a few strange mechanics that we're all better off without. Enjoy.

So you want to Print...

So you want to print...

The process of transferring from PLA printing to ABS is functionally simple. You get ABS plastic filament, a compatible hot-end, a print surface heating pad, and borosilicate glass printing plate. Then you calibrate it for temperature and timing, and do a few tests. Simple. This is a task that should involve a few afternoons of work, assuming you can get the parts.

Not so for me. I haven't printed anything in over a year, because I can't afford all the best stuff. So I have to source it from wherever I can get it. As a result it's been a very long process. Nonetheless, I've persisted and was recently finally ready to get the last piece: a borosilicate printing plate.
The best I could find and afford was a little large, but would easily work. So I ordered it, and waited.

As you will see, this was not the greatest choice. I advise anyone with plenty of money to spend to order things like this from somewhere local to you. If you have the option, specify shipping in a rigid cardboard box with rigid foam lining.


A rendering of the proper way to ship a single sheet of glass

Feel free to take a copy of this image for your own reference, and send it to any company you order glass from. It's basically a sheet of soft, but shape holding foam, an outer ring of that foam, and another sheet. This all sandwiches the glass plate, and is placed in a cardboard box. Imagine a great big 'Fragile: Glass' sticker on the top, and you're all set.

Replacement

 

Fortunately for me, and for anyone else in the same predicament, eBay has a pretty good complaints department. I photographed the process of opening what I could hear was a bag of broken glass, and made my request. When you make these claims, be as concise as possible, and avoid sounding angry. You'll have an easier time of it if you keep a cool head.

That said, projecting your frustration is important. They won't take you seriously if you're apologetic or wavering in your goal. Make it clear exactly what you want from them, in a simple and civilised way.

For your amusement: the exact words I used in the complaint/refund/replacement form:

I ordered a single sheet of borosilicate glass measuring 213mm by 200mm by 3mm. What I got was a poly-bag filled with oddly shaped shards of borosilicate glass. On the upside, they were all 3mm thick. Some idiot packed these in a flexible poly-bag instead of a cardboard box with a rigid foam lining. I want a refund, and a replacement, and I want it to be sent in a container that makes logical sense for a sheet of glass. I also request a printed, signed apology from whoever packed the first one. Additionally I would appreciate the same kind of apology from their parents for raising such a stupid child. See included photos for the result of lazy packing.

Surveying the damage

 

So, I have to ask a question. Would YOU package a sheet of glass that was going to be handled by god-only-knows who, for weeks, like the following:


A poly-bag envelope full of little shards of glass



No, of course you wouldn't. Because my audience, I assume, is not made up of complete morons who don't know how glass works.
I suppose the lesson here is two-fold. For those of you on the consumer side, be careful where you order glass from. You never know who's going to be handling it, or their competency. And for those in the reselling and shipping side, come on. Be informed about the properties and requirements of the stuff you're handling. Basic understanding of your job is a requirement of your job. If you're not going to learn that, you shouldn't be doing it.

In the end they ignored the core of my complaint and just sent me the money back.

Magneto Gravitic Aircraft

Based on an experiment from the 50s, this aircraft would use very little energy, and would likely fly silently by default. The wings are mostly for control, as the actual lift is taken care of by opposing rotation of magnetic plates or assemblies, and forward thrust is created by magnetically driven turbines.


It is designed with a standard Pilot/Co-pilot control system in mind, however, the ergonomics necessary for fitting 2 people and their equipment in this vehicle still escape me. A scale model of the outer shell would be necessary, but I am not currently able to produce this.