Mass Effect.

[Mario]

Here is the official Mass Effect readme file.

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Mass Effect - README
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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.


Digital Retail Installation
---------------------------
Please contact the digital retailer through whom you purchased this game for
instructions on how to install the game or how to download and reinstall
another copy of the game.

Note: If you’d like additional information about your game as well as tips and
patches please visit www.ea.com or www.eastore.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 Mass Effect you will occsaionally find elevators that connect different
locations. While riding in an elevator the game is loading significant amounts
of information and modifying data. We recommend against saving the game after
an elevator is activated until the player departs the elevator. Saving during
elevator trips can occasional cause unusual behaviors.

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 minor pixilation of some visual
effects in Mass Effect. An upcoming Catalyst 8.6 video driver from ATI update
will address this 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.

The the NVIDIA 8800 Series of video cards can require significant time (30
seconds or more) to change resolutions. This is due to a required
recalculation of thousands of video shaders.


Trademark and Copyright
-----------------------
© 2008 EA International (Studio and Publishing) Ltd. All Rights Reserved.
BioWare, the BioWare logo Mass Effect and the Mass Effect logo 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.

Ogg Vorbis 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
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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.



TECHNICAL SUPPORT
-----------------
U.S. & Canada
http://support.ea.com/

United Kingdom:
http://support.electronicarts.co.uk/

Australia:
http://www.electronicarts.com.au/en-au/support/

Europe:
http://eusupport.ea.com/


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.