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Ottomic's avatar
13 years ago

Weird graphics (colors, shadows)

Hi everyone. I have a problem for which I haven't seen an answer or solution yet despite being posted regularly at Bioware's forum, and while I know it's not urgent, it's very annoying. Look, it's the color banding. Well, at least I think it's called like that. I call it "the 16-bit wallpaper syndrome", since the pictures seem to have been rendered with a lower color depth, especially on backgrounds. Background shadows also look awful. Even Shepard's armor has it. [Gallery]

Just to be clear, it seems like some users have fixed this either by turning the harmonic lighting or manually disabling the DOF. Neither of these have worked for me. RadeonPro does not have useful settings on this matter, either, but I have been able to smooth it out a little by playing with FXAA and in-game Gamma (the banding would be much more accentuated if I didn't have it on at the moment of taking the screencaps). In fact, I've fiddled around with all the settings (both ingame and MassEffect3Config), with little success. Now, I'm pretty sure this feature isn't entirely intentional, since I've even noticed banding on the elevator menus (a bit, but nonetheless), and the console versions don't seem to have this problem.

I have considered the possibility of it being an auto-setting since my computer is pretty low-end (Core Duo 2.1Ghz, Radeon Mobility 45xxHD 512mb), but there is no setting for it (no setting for textures either, which keep the standards of previous game, by the way). Since this seems to be a pretty widespread problem among both ATI and Nvidia users of a variety of models, I'd like to know if someone can at least tell if this can be fixed from the user end or if it's the way this game renders things and there is nothing to do about it. It may seem trivial, but graphics look terrible and it's really distracting. I'm not a graphics guy, mind you-- I'm always disabling advanced shadows, antialiasing and such on games because I prefer a smooth framerate, but this is incredibly annoying to me. It looks like the pre-rendered videos in old timey Win 95 games and compressed Sega CD videos.

4 Replies

  • Anonymous's avatar
    Anonymous
    13 years ago

    for the people constantly complaining about graphics i dont understand, i run on 1920x1080 in full 1080p HD and i do fine. if you wish to boost the graphics, and you have an AMD card, you can choose to override the games colours set graphics and everythign else fromt he catalyst control center. GO under "gaming" "3D application Settings" and choose "Override Application Settings" and put in your own. you can also turn up the gamma to reduce the shadows you have, playing in HD helps alot as it helps dispurse shadows so they arent so concentrated in certain corners, you can also change your Anisotropic filters colour concentraion and how vibrant etc you want them and turn them way up along with tessilation and triple buffering. the game chooses the best graphics setting so you dont lag , it does thsi so others dont have to deal with your lagg.

  • Ottomic's avatar
    Ottomic
    13 years ago

    Alright, but just to make sure, does your game look like mine? And do you know which parameter does control this? I've tried changing some parameters with RadeonPro, including AA, tesselation and Anisotropic, but I couldn't fix this.And while I know it's a relatively minor graphic issue and the rest of the game looks and plays just fine; I'd trade anything, from filters to shadows to particles for a fix for this issue. It's incredibly ugly and bafflingly constant.

    Will try with the CatalystCC, it's missing since I update my drivers directly from Steam. Thanks for the answer! 🙂

     EDIT: Catalyst didn't help either. I also tried spoofing the drivers to a Radeon 4850 (vendor recommended) to no avail, so I guess autodetect is out of the question, too? I refuse to believe not a single reviewer has had this and just decided it didn't impact enough on gameplay to mention it. I've seen complaints for stupider things than this.

  • Anonymous's avatar
    Anonymous
    13 years ago

    are you in 32 bit colour with full range instead of limited?

  • Ottomic's avatar
    Ottomic
    13 years ago

    I'm using Windows 7, and on the display mode window I can see I'm using 1366 x 768 @ 60hz "True color 32 bit", which is the highest color combination available. I can't find "full range" anywhere, but I'm pretty sure to be currently using the highest color combination my computer is able to dish by the looks of it.

    I've been using this computer for the last 4 years and this is the first time I encounter this problem. Moreover, I've been reading related problems on other games, and for the most part I haven't been able to see any banding at all on their screenshots. Again, this has been reported by a lot of users, to the point of people pointing out this is a deliberate design choice. I see it on review videos, too, so just to be sure: Everyone is getting this? I just want to know if you look at this and see several points where the colors abruptly change tones (on the walls, cupboard, floor and on Shepard's shoulder and back black armor pieces).

    I don't know. I've never complained about the graphics on anything, and this is the first time on the Mass Effect franchise I've had the slightest problem with the graphics. It just surprises me that all threads related to this go cold without a proper explanation or solution and that neither Bioware nor manufacturers has commented on it despite being something that I can't see happening on the xbox version. Seriously, are you OK with the game looking like an abstract painting every time there's some aggressive lighting changes? After two games that still look gorgeous?

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