When killing the docile salarians in their cell on Virmire, the framerate is reduced to an unplayable level. Saving and reloading doesn't fix it. Shutting down the game and resuming also doesn't work. The only thing that seems to resolve it is loading an earlier save. I tried this twice and it happened each time.
Hardware:
AMD Radeon RX 5600 XT (Driver: 21.5.1)
Intel Core i5-4690K
16GB DDR3
Windows 10 64-bit
Purely for player advice as per this reddit thread - https://www.reddit.com/r/masseffect/comments/nda7s2/pc_legendary_edition_do_not_open_this_door_and - many users report that the issue resolves itself not long after the docile Salarian room if the player perseveres a few rooms further.
Can confirm, reproduced on following hardware:
W10 OS
intel i9900k
nvidia 3090
24 gb ram
nvme2 ssd, etc etc
play-testing is hard ☹️
The barbie game forums are over that way ---->
After doing the exact thing you mentioned on Virmire, fps dropped to 5. FIVE! Can't even complete the mission. I've actually had far less problems with Cyberpunk 2077. Framerates have never gotten this bad in that game.
I also had this bug, didn't resolve if I back-tracked but did once I managed to get to the asari researcher conversation.
For me it fixed itself once I went to the next room an spoke with the crazed salarian
