Mass Effect 2 - Gfx Artifacts on AMD CPU/Nvidia GPU + SLI

One thing to look at is your display settings show current mode is 2560 x 1440 (32 bit) (144Hz) and Native mode is 2560 x 1440(p) (59.951 Hz), and thus you may want to see what happens when you put your output to the native mode in settings on your PC.  Otherwise, slow it down from 144 HZ to 59.95 Hz.  Being that this is an old game, you don't really need SLI to run it, and you may also want to see what happens if you disable it and just see how the game runs on a single card....given the power of those cards and age of this game, you shouldn't see any real change in performance.

You may also check settings in Geforce experience program and see how it optimizes the game.

I am also assuming you have done the basic repair of install and aren't currently running any mods for the game....

Thanks for the reply.

As I mentioned in my post, although easy to miss, I do not run any mods what so ever on Mass Effect 2. Didn't have any installed on ME1 either, in case that possibly fuzzles with the Save Game.

I've done the basic repair function through Origin three times. No change. ☹️
I have reinstalled the game once but that was prior to me changing the executable file with the workaround I mentioned at the top of my post.

I'll try to turn of SLI first, then change to 60Hz native on my screen(s) as you suggested. After that I will unplug one of my screens, in case that messes with it (I sincerely hope it doesn't).
I did use SLI on my old PC, 2x 980Ti's, and an Intel 6700K, but that was about 1½-2 years ago.

Mass Effect 1 and 2 does NOT come up with Geforce Experience, since they are not supported by the tool.

Will update this post after testing with no SLI, 60Hz and 1 Screen.

Edit/Update:

No SLI - No change.
Set 60Hz - No change.

Only 1 Screen - No change.

As an addendum, I have turned the in-game graphics "down", in the sense that I can change the High Quality Bloom/Film Grain/Dynamic Shadows/Light Enviroment Shadows to OFF.

Also, a few items on the Normandy Pre-Desctruction are missing textures (black artifacts/blacked out). I can make other textures pop in and out with the artifact/tesselation effect if I walk back and forth close to them in the Zero-G area during Destruction. (Items lacking Textures/Blacked out are: Half of the Sleeping Pods, Illusive Mans PDA, floating chairs in 0-G area).

I do not try to play further than get access to Character Creator.

I will go and fiddle with the Settings through NVIDIA's Controlpanel - like turning VSync to "Off" etc. Will list what I change FROM and TO.

Lets start to fiddle with the settings in NVIDIA's Control.. While keeping no SLI, 1 Screen and it is set to 60Hz.
What settings are these then:

Anisotropical Filtration - WAS Program  - NOW Off

Screentechnique - WAS G-sync - NOW stable updatefrequence

CUDA - WAS All - NOW All (no change)

FXAA - WAS Off - NOW Off (no change)

Gammac Correction - WAS On - NOW Off

Transparency - WAS Off - NOW Off (no change)

Mode - WAS Program - NOW Program (no change)

Multiframe correction - WAS Off - NOW Off (no change)

PowerSavefunctions - WAS Max Power - NOW Max Power (no change)

Max Pre-rendered frames - WAS Use 3D-settings - NOW 1

OpenGL Rending GPU Unit - WAS Auto - NOW Auto (no change)

Shadowcache - WAS On - NOW On (no change)

Texturefiltration Anisotropical testoptimal - WAS Off - NOW Off (no change)

Texturefiltration Quality - WAS Quality - NOW Quality (no change)

Texturefiltration Negative Detail Difference - WAS Allow - NOW Allow (no change)

Texturefiltration Trilinear - WAS On - NOW On (no change)

Triple buffering - WAS Off - NOW Off (no change)

Threaded Optimization - WAS Auto - NOW Auto (no change)

Vertical Sync - WAS Use 3D-Program - NOW Off

Virtual Reality Pre-rendered Frames - WAS Use Global 1 - NOW Use Global 1 (no change)

Wished Refreshrate - WAS Programcontrolled - NOW programcontrolled (no change)

I make these small changes to force certain things off.
For example VSync is now forced Off, Anisotropical filtration is now Off to ease rendering, Screen Tech is no longer using G-Sync and Gamma Correction is now Off.
Those 4 changes are the things altered. Lets give it a try again.

These changes did NOT fix or alter any issue.

To make it clear, I am doing these tests on a new, 100% fresh Mass Effect 2 Character - using no old ME1 save-file - In case the save is corrupted.
So far it does not appear that my save is corrupted, but the game and my machine somehow not working as intended.

By now I will try to simply lower the games in-game resolution to 1080 instead of my current 1440.. After that, an uninstall -> Reboot -> Reinstall of ME2, with no DLC's through Origin.

Update/Edit #2:

Lowering the Resolution of the game lowered the effects of the texture-vanish/artifacts, but they are still there.
Miranda's armor were visible up until she took the last step towards the Illusive Man. Char-Creation/Joker faces still messed up.
As a note: At the games first window (Press Any Key to Start), the beams that criss-cross around the screen, are 100% black as if they do not have any texture. Main Menu's table also seem to lack textures on the lower-left corner (it's entirely Black).

Will reinstall game.

Currently Reinstalling game.

Origin and Origin Games are located on: G:\Origin\Origin Games - meaning that Mass Effect 2 are found at G:\Origin\Origin Games\Mass Effect 2

This really shouldn't affect anything - am I right?

Update#3:

First reinstallation messed up Windows 10 - Taskbar etc stopped working. Uninstall of ME2 got me back to its (Win 10) working order.

M$ really need to fix their own sh*t.
Going through another ME2 uninstall->reboot->Reinstall right now. No Mods, no DLC's.

Last update on this post, new post will be done next time.
Update #4:

Reinstall did not fix things.
Still no texture on beams on the Launch Window/Page of the Main Menu. Table DID get fixed.

The Illusive Man now has his face riddled with artifacts.

Miranda's armor again goes into black once she moves close enough.
The Illusive Man's PDA/datatab looks good until he sets it in his lap, then it goes black.

Lifepods - all of them gets black/no textured when I move character close to them. ALL WALLS/ITEMS turns black when I near them.

Jokers face is fixed.

Character Creator is NOT fixed.

Put the in-game graphics back to "On", changed nothing of the above.

Willson's face is messed up with artifacts - Miranda's is not in the "awake" state/part. Both of their Armors are black when close, visible when stepping away.

Once in-game, Shepard face, armor and weapon (default) is not messed up - walls/objects do render Black when I get close to them.

Enemy Target-boundaries (the "marker" on them when you aim at them) is shifted by a lot to the right (about 2-figures width to the right).

Raising the Resolution to 2560x1440 fixes walls but not objects (doors etc), they still turn Black/non-textured.

Plugging in the 2nd Monitor, raising the resolution to 2560x1440 on both, and the game, increasing the Hz to 144Hz on both in the native sense.. Now the game does not render a face for Shepard, walls/objects are black again, same with armor/clothes for Miranda, Willsons face is FUBAR... But the Targeting marker, is now on-point.

^ This is with a fresh Reinstall of ME2, through Origin, with no DLC's installed. Fresh ME2 Male Shepard character, no saved ones.

I have read in passing that AMD Chipsets and GPU's supposedly in the past, had issues with this form of black/artifacting. Any basis on those claims?
If so, the game should come with a notice of this, that AMD Chipsets/CPU/GPU's can't run the game properly - meaning my 1950X Threadripper can't "play" a 8  years old game?

The issue of black artifacts was ME1, on a couple areas there were settings in the code that when it saw a AMD gpu it used a setting(I guess you could call it) that is no longer used by AMD chips and as such, things wouldn't draw.  (There is a mod on the Nexus to fix this)

As far as newer amd cpus causing issues, not inherently, well at least my Ryzen7 seems to have no issue at all with the game, and I am running a MSI Lightning R9 290X amd gpu and again seems to have no issue. 

Now, on my machine the game config utility has no issue running and does exactly what it is supposed to.  I am wondering if you issue is a bit deeper or different than common stuff.  You may look into reinstalling all the game specific DirectX files from the installer files in the game.  You may also want to try swapping the video card you are using to the other one....it is a check to see if you have a bad video card starting.  Also check to see if all cables and such are installed and tight.  Also, do you happen to have a computer close that the game works fine on??  Maybe you could try copying the files directly from that computer over to the install location, as maybe something such as anti-virus or firewall is interfering???(not likely but hey)

The fact that installing ME2 caused Windows 10 issue also kinda leads to thinking issue is with Windows 10 itself....meaning something corrupted in it....a system check of Win10 may yield something.

@DenzohD

Lets test something.

Open the msconfig tool, press the windows key and R at the same time > Typ or copy and past "msconfig" (without the quotes) in the new window > enter >  under "Start" click on  "Advanced Option" > limited the machine to 4 cores > OK > OK > reboot > test.

Test the config utility also, it should run with this settings.

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@mcsupersport wrote:

The issue of black artifacts was ME1, on a couple areas there were settings in the code that when it saw a AMD gpu it used a setting(I guess you could call it) that is no longer used by AMD chips and as such, things wouldn't draw.  (There is a mod on the Nexus to fix this)

As far as newer amd cpus causing issues, not inherently, well at least my Ryzen7 seems to have no issue at all with the game, and I am running a MSI Lightning R9 290X amd gpu and again seems to have no issue. 

Now, on my machine the game config utility has no issue running and does exactly what it is supposed to.  I am wondering if you issue is a bit deeper or different than common stuff.  You may look into reinstalling all the game specific DirectX files from the installer files in the game.  You may also want to try swapping the video card you are using to the other one....it is a check to see if you have a bad video card starting.  Also check to see if all cables and such are installed and tight.  Also, do you happen to have a computer close that the game works fine on??  Maybe you could try copying the files directly from that computer over to the install location, as maybe something such as anti-virus or firewall is interfering???(not likely but hey)

The fact that installing ME2 caused Windows 10 issue also kinda leads to thinking issue is with Windows 10 itself....meaning something corrupted in it....a system check of Win10 may yield something.

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Right, so the black artifacts in the past, due to AMD, was for the GPU and only in ME1. Thanks for clearing that up.

Which Ryzen 7 do you run? They are all 8-cores if I'm not mistaken, with AMD's version of HT/Theoretical Threading so it has twice the active "cores" for code execution, ie 16 Threads.

I have, as I mentioned, an intel 6700k with a 1080 sitting next to this current machine. It has had no issues with ME1 or 2. For the sake of it I ran it and it did not give any issues.

Did pull o ut one of my 1080Ti's and swapped them around, removing the SLI bridge etc. No difference, even with only one card plugged in to the PCI-E socket. Did try both 16x Sockets on my motherboard, in case the socket itself was messing up. Cables are nice and snug.

There's no AV or FW active on my system apart from Windows 10's basic system. So most likely not interfering with the program as such.

Nah, Win10 has had that issue since 2013 - some fix it with a forced reboot of PowerShell, others with a recheck/scan of the underlying executive code.. Others with creating a local account. Some fix it with simply logging out and back in.. And others, like me, need to uninstall the last program (Adobe Acrobat Reader, Photoshop, Mozilla Firefox, and now ME2, all mentioned by others).

I did a system scan, nothing wonky (SFC and DISM).

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@holger1405 wrote:

@DenzohD

Lets test something.

Open the msconfig tool, press the windows key and R at the same time > Typ or copy and past "msconfig" (without the quotes) in the new window > enter >  under "Start" click on  "Advanced Option" > limited the machine to 4 cores > OK > OK > reboot > test.

Test the config utility also, it should run with this settings.

---

The utility program now works.

Graphical errors persists in-game though.

Just as a notice/addendum: I am running the game through one of your work-arounds, @holger1405, even now when I tried with only 4 executable cores.
I am also telling Origin NOT to update my game, as it wishes, due to the fear that the DLC's may have a finger in on the issue.
If wanted I can uninstall and reinstall the game, no work-around, 4 Cores, and allow Origin to download updates/DLC's - in case this is a possible reason for failures of texture loading/rendering.

Also - depending on my resolution in-game, the distance that Armor and "Objects" textures vanishes/turns black, shifts. Low Resolution will let me get close to objects before they go black, high resolution removes textures once I reach aprox 3 Character-widths.

I am running a AMD Ryzen 7 1800X Eight-Core Processor 3.6 Ghz listing 16 threads.....basically it is half the number of yours, and I looked at your chip when I bought this one, but two things made me go with the Ryzen7.....

1)  My computer MoBo or CPU died about a week before the release date of the Threadsplitters.

2)  The price was just a bit much for me to pay for the extra 8 cores when most programs can't/don't take as much advantage of them as they could, so I went with a cheaper option but still upgraded my 4 core AMD system.

Can you try using a USB stick to copy the game files from the other machine over to your current one?? You can do this anytime you want to move a game either from one drive on the computer or between them with Origin.  Moving between drives is easy, just copy the game files from the current location to the new one, uninstall the game, then change Origin install location to the new location and tell Origin to install it....this makes Origin think for a second realize the game is already there, verify files and then proceed to use the new files(Quick easy way if you want to move stuff on and off a SSD or move stuff to a larger drive), which also means you can do the same between computers as well.

The items turning black at shorter range almost is like the game is having an issue with the higher graphics shown at closer ranges....ie at distance you get low detail, up close you get high..and for some reason either DirectX or file corruption or driver issue, or something else, you system isn't drawing the better resolutions....

Removed the work-around and did not force the system to boot with 4 Cores.
SLI off, only 1 screen (cable pulled out), G-Sync off.

Let Origin Update the game, incl DLC's (no mods, again).

Moved the "Mass Effect 2"-folder to remove any possible odd settings etc.

Game won't launch through Origin. The ME2Game.exe-file in the "Binaries"-folder does start the game. Graphical issues persists in menu, Pre-Destruction and Char Creator.

Will do a Clean Boot - with the same parameters as above.

With Clean Boot, the game does not have the issues in-game or Pre-Destruction! (Yay!)
Launch-Screen/Splash-Screens beams are still black-black, but that is an extremely minor issue which I won't bother to fix if the game works.

I will restart the machine with a normal restart - to see if things went back to borked mode.
If so I will start removing the Autostart items one by one, once they are all gone and if the game still doesn't work, I guess I'm forced to go through the list of Non-MS Services to find the culprit.

Update:
With all Services activating as normal, the game still has no issues.
Issues arose when I allowed CTHelper.exe to start, same with Windows Defender notificaiotn icon. No difference if I allow one or both to start, graphics won't work as they should.

I have yet to try with G-Sync on, or with SLI, or with both screens active.

I moved my old saves, only the "saves"-folder back into the Mass Effect 2 and it did not alter anytthing - so I can actually play the saves.

G-Sync works.

SLI works.

Both screens works as well.

Thank you for the help with this @holger1405 and @mcsupersport.

@DenzohE

That is good to hear.

I must thank you for posting such a detailed bug report and letting us know which applications caused the problem. 

Have fun Gaming!

Edit: The "CTHelper.exe" is part of the driver for your "Creative Sound Blaster Audigy", a clean installation of this driver might help with the remaining problems.