Mass Effect Legendary Edition – Lag, FPS Drops and Stuttering fix

Recommended:

• • Requires a 64-bit processor and operating system
  • OS: 64-bit Windows 10
  • Processor: Intel Core i7-7700 or AMD Ryzen 7 3700X
  • Memory: 16 GB RAM
  • Graphics: GPU: NVIDIA GTX 1070 / RTX 200, Radeon Vega 56, GPU RAM: 4 GB Video Memory
  • DirectX: Version 11
  • Storage: 120 GB available space

You’ll want to be running 64-bit Windows 10, with either an Intel Core i5 3570 or AMD FX-8350 processor, at least 120 GB of free space, and 8 GB of system memory. For the best experience an Intel Core i7-7700 or AMD Ryzen 7 3700X processor and NVIDIA GTX 1070, AMD Radeon Vega 56, or DirectX 11 compatible video card are recommended.

And also download the graphics drivers optimized for Mass Effect Legendary Edition. Nvidia users can download the latest drivers from here or via GeForce Experience. AMD users can download the latest drivers from here.

Methods to fix the Lag and FPS Drops

Tweak Graphics Settings

This is the first thing you should do as soon as to start the game and get access to the Settings menu. I know a lot of people still don’t pay attention to the graphics settings in games. But trust me, they should. This is the easiest method to squeeze out a few extra FPS and performance from any gaming title.

There is a huge chance that there isn’t any issue with your game at all. And the lag is being caused by the Graphics Settings of the game, set too High. In that case, follow my guide [Guide will be up soon] to the graphics settings of Mass Effect. I have tested the game on a GTX 1050 ti.

Update : Instead of making a separate post for the graphics settings, I decided to post them here only.

• Resolution : 1920×1080 (16:9)
• Window Mode : Fullscreen
• Dynamic Shadows : On
• Motion Blur : Off
• VSYNC : Off
• Framerate Cap : 240
• Film Grain : Off
• Antialiasing : On
• Ambient Occlusion : On

I was easily able to get more than 60 FPS most of the time while playing the game, with the settings given above. You shouldn’t have any issue running the smoothly on a GTX 1050 ti.

Tweaking the Graphics Card Control Panel Settings [For Nvidia users]

A lot of the times, a game can end up lagging due to the Nvidia Control Panel not being set up properly. Just to be sure that your Nvidia Control Panel settings is not the cause of the fps drops:

1. Open the Control Panel
2. Click on ‘Adjust image settings with preview’ on the left
3. Select ‘Use my preference emphasizing’
4. Put the slider on Performance

Now just restart your PC. Try playing the game again. The quality of the in-game textures might look degraded a bit. But it is a price you have to pay for smooth gameplay. If this method is not working for you, then just revert to the old settings in the control panel. There is no point playing a game with low quality visuals if you are not going to get any performance benefits.

Hardware-accelerated GPU Scheduling

If you have the latest build of Windows 10 (2004) then you should make use of the brand-new feature called hardware-accelerated GPU scheduling. If you have a decent graphics card then you might actually benefit from this. Here is how to turn it on:

1. Type “Graphics” on the Windows search bar
2. Click on the first result that shows up
3. You are on the Windows graphics settings menu
4. Turn on Hardware-accelerated GPU Scheduling
5. Restart your PC

Graphics performance preference

The Graphics Settings menu has another awesome feature that allows you to set a graphics performance preference for a particular app. Here is how to do it:

• Set “Choose an app to set preference” to Desktop app
• Click on browse
• Go to the installation folder of Mass Effect Legendary Edition
• Select the .exe file or the executable
• Click on Options once the .exe file is added
• Choose High Performance
• Restart your PC

For Gaming Laptop Users

If you are using a laptop that has a dedicated Nvidia GPU then make sure that your laptop is using the dedicated GPU and not the integrated one.

To do that, just open Nvidia Control Panel, click on Manage 3D Settings and set ‘Preferred graphics processor’ to ‘High-performance Nvidia processor’. Restart your system.

Now let’s talk about the methods to fix the stuttering

Are there any demanding applications running in the background?

If you have heavy applications running in the background, then there is a chance that the stutters in Mass Effect Legendary Edition are being caused by some applications eating up a lot of resources. Just open your Task Manager, select the Processes tab and click on CPU. Make sure the arrow beside it is facing downwards. Doing this will pull the resource hungry applications on top. Look for the processes that you do not need, yet they are consuming a hefty chunk of the CPU. Right click on them and click on “End Task”.

Delete the temporary junk files from your system

If you have a lot of useless files piled up inside the “Temp” folder of your system, there is a chance that it might be making your PC slow and less responsive. Especially if you are using a normal HDD instead of a SSD. So removing them is the best thing to do. To do that:

1. Just press the Windows+R keys at the same time
2. Type %TEMP% inside the box and press Enter
3. Select all the files inside the temp folder by pressing Ctrl+A and, just press the Shift+Delete keys on your keyboard
4. There might be some files you might not be able to delete. Skip them instead

Windows 10 Gaming features are a hit-and-miss

Microsoft has been adding a lot of “Gaming” utilities recently in Windows 10 that keep running in the background, hogging a ton of resources, without users having any idea about it.

Like Background Recording. Turn it off by heading over to the “Gaming” settings located inside the Windows Settings menu. There you should find something called “Captures” on the left. Click on it and disable the Background Recording feature inside it.

The Xbox Game Bar is another feature you need to disable. Go to Windows Settings > Gaming > Xbox Game Bar. Turn it off.

And finally the Game Mode feature, it is a complete hit or miss. In some games this features helps while it causes performance issues in some. So it is better to turn it off. Here is how to disable game mode. Open Windows 10 Settings menu > Click on Gaming > Select Game Mode from the left sidebar > Turn it off > Restart your game launcher

A lot of games still don’t work well with Overlays

Disable every single overlay that you have on right now. Overlays from applications like Discord, Nvidia GeForce Experience, Steam, etc, are known to cause issues in games. So disable all of them.

These are all the methods I could recommend at the moment. Yes, there are some others. But most of them require you to edit the game files. I am still testing the game and as soon as I come up with something new, I will update this article. If there is a method that has worked for you and is not mentioned on this article. Please write it down in the comment section below. I am sure it will help a lot of people.

That’s all folks!