Mass Effect 1 on PS3 has long load times, pop-in and frame rate issues

Mass Effect Trilogy finally launched on the PlayStation 3 today. For the first time ever, gamers can experience the series’ first entry on Sony’s console.

[NovusTerminus]

I don't mean to offend anyone here... I loved the first Mass Effect...

But it had long load times, large texture pop ins and frame rate problems on the 360 as well... Mass Effect was fun, and a great story, but in terms of tech, it was not so good...

[boybato]

For those who bought it, Is it worst than what is exhibited in Rage?

[Bimkoblerutso]

No, Rage is literally one of the most technically embarrassing high profile games ever released, in all seriousness. Mass Effect is bad, but it's not THAT bad.

[vickers500]

RAGE wasn't THAT bad, at least not for me. Sure there was texture pop in, but it always fixed itself in a few seconds.

With Mass Effect 1 I barely seem to recall any issues at all. Guess I'm just a little less nitpicky when it comes to game issues than most other people. Well, except issues in games like CoD MP, where the issues actually negatively affect the game.

[moneygun2]

Rage was actually pretty stable. This was only after the optional 6.6gb install. Was it perfect? No. But the performance was night and day compared to playing an uninstalled version on the 360

[Orange]

Anybody see Eurogamer's Rage analysis of SSD use? Pop-in was dramatically reduced by popping a solid state drive into the ol' PS3:

http://www.eurogamer.net/ar...

The video shows some dramatic differences with Rage.

[Biggest]

That's what every console gamer dreams about. Upgrading their "rig" for one game.

[Yodagamer]

@Biggest, it didn't only help Rage it can help other games too, especially if they use the hard drive extensively.

[da_2pacalypse]

Don't even read this article PS3 players. Take it from an xbox player, these issues are well worth the best game in the series. Play it, It's amazing. Bioware wont make anything this good for a while!

[Reverent]

If you want a game with embarrassing tech, try Dead Island. It was a fun game, but Jesus Christ, the texture pop in, draw distance, load times, and auto-saving *attempts* were just atrocious.

[-Mika-]

Even if this was a ps3 only problem. I still would of bought it anyway.

[Eyeco]

I remember when they said the Orange Box was an unplayable mess on the PS3 i'll guess allot of PS3 didn't buy it because of that.

it's a shame because i bought it a few years back and it's nowhere near as bad as the media made it out to be, aside from the loading in between checkpoints which was about 3 seconds max the game ran fine for me , it wasn't the unplayable mess the media had made it out to be.

[Anon1974]

I picked up the Orange Box in a bargain bin just for the helluva it and loved it. Going back, it received excellent review scores but the backlash against the game made it seem, as you mentioned, that it was an unplayable mess. Nothing is further from the truth.

It's a shame that we let internet rumblings color our opinions of games. That's why I have my review sources that I've come to trust over the years and I tend to stick with them to assist my buying decisions.

I don't know about Mass Effect though. I've got ME2 on my PS3, I just haven't tried it yet. Usually I like to start at the beginning of a series but just due to limited gaming time these days I think I'll start with 2 and, if I enjoy it, go back and play one.

[rainslacker]

I was playing this last night for a while. About halfway through the Eden Prime mission before I decided sleep was a better option. I personally didn't notice any texture pop-in, but I dont' really look for that stuff. Load times seemed to be fast enough given the size of the maps. Haven't played any on the Normandy yet so can't say how bad it would get when there is lots of loading going on. There were a couple of frame rate hiccups, but I only noticed them in movies, not actual gameplay...kinda like with ME3.

So far the only downside I've seen is the long install time before you can play, and the crappy QTE hacking mini-game.

Personally I'm kinda happy to have a reason to go back and make a renegade Shep.:)

[Megaton]

Yeah, it was a technical mess on 360. It wasn't uncommon for the framerate to drop under 20 FPS.

[iamgoatman]

The PC port was awful as well. Started a new game the other day but it stutters like crazy even on an SSD.

[Megaton]

Didn't have any stuttering on PC unless it was from loading. The framerate crawl spots from the 360 version don't exist in the PC version since it's all up to your GPU.

[Gazondaily]

Indeed. Aside from the frame rate issues, it also suffered from odd bugs. One example, nearer the end of the game there was a bit where you have to drive the Maco vehicle and for some reason, the bloody thing was driving like there was little to no gravity. It was bouncing all over the place and I couldn't complete for ages.

After restarting the game, the handling suddenly changed and lo and behold, I could finish the sequence.

I'm not surprised that the PS3 port suffers the way it does; the original was quite messy technically. Still...it is an amazing game and this should not detract potential purchasers.

[f789790]

I played it on the pc and it would use 100% of my cpu constantly. It was ridiculous.

Mass effect 2 used about 60-70% so yeah...the coding sucked balls for Mass Effect 1.

[Perjoss]

"The PC port was awful as well. Started a new game the other day but it stutters like crazy even on an SSD."

Sounds like you have a problem, My system is more than 3 years old, I dont have a SSD and I can run it on max settings and it stays silky smooth all the way from start till finish.

[andrewsqual]

Waits for REAL analysis by Eurogamer's Digital Foundry guys, not some retard looking for hits.

[Norrison]

@Iamgoatman
I didn't experience stuttering, you should check that, what I did experience was really low res character textures it was bad on every platform but it's still one of the best games ever made and a high res texture mod fixes it's only flaw.

[ProjectVulcan]

PC version worked perfect for me. Didn't have an SSD at the time but ran brilliantly. Much much better than the 360 version which has framerate problems, texture pop in and also slow loading aka the infamous elevator rides.

That was all virtually eliminated on a half decent PC even with a standard mechanical hard drive. A 2007 Pc as well.

5 years later with an SSD it runs even better.

[showtimefolks]

LordMe

thank you as someone who played the original on xbox360, when did ME1 not have frame rate issues along with texture pop in?

trouble_bubble

i remember when you got in the elevators the game would sometimes drop to single digit frames lol,

you know the cray party is even with those issues ME1 is still a great game on xbox360,ps3. ps3 fans are getting the same game xbox360 gamers got few years back and now it seems with same problems lol

[Cam977]

I might buy it regardless.

[rpd123]

Very true. I had it for 360 and I it so much even with all the technical problems. It was incredibly fresh and new at the time. Fantastic story.

[ABizzel1]

That's true, but you'd think they would have fixed it by now for both versions, but why work hard when you can make a quick $$$

[princejb134]

sad part is bioware promised better framerate and better load times than the 360 version
im still buying this trilogy since i never played any mass effect

[Denethor_II]

At first it was, and in Microsoft owns words," XBox is the only place to have the full Mass Effect experience". Which was followed up by legions of fans repeating the sentiment with lines like, you can't enjoy Mass Effect 2 and 3 on the PS3 without 1. Now it's yeah well, Mass Effect 1 has pop in issues. Give it a rest.

[theEx1Le]

Why would any xbox 360 player claim this? The 360 version is littered with the same problems.

[Denethor_II]

@theEx1Le The same reason they bought the console in the first place maybe?

[rpd123]

No 360 fans are even saying that though. Everyone above just admitted it's the same on 360.

[TheTwelve]

Exactly...I was about to say...just like the original??

[deafdani]

I remember quite well the large texture pop ins (it was even amusing to watch) and frame rate issues, but long load times? I don't know, unless of course you count those elevator travels in the Citadel. :P

Mass Effect 2 also had quite long load times, especially after you got killed in a mission and had to restart it.

I still loved the series, blemishes and all, though! :D

[MWong]

It's funny I guess people thought that since it was released so many yers ago all the issues would have been fixed. I remember all that texture popping and the frame rate slowing to a crawl.

[Legion]

Yes... Mass Effect 1 did have long load times and pop-in. (but the pop-in was actually just texture pop-in from what I recall) but how long ago was that? You would think they would resolve those issues instead of just bringing them to the PS3 in this day and age?

[Chuk5]

How is this still a problem 5 years later? Goddamn it Bioware, get your ish together.

[slaton24]

all they did was just port it over they did nothing extra...look at when it was announced to release date...they rushed it to make some money...but i will still buy the collection soon because i would love to play mass effect been waiting for the first game before i got started on the 2nd and 3rd

[nukeitall]

It is a problem when you port it a game over to a more restrictive platform.

For instance, texture pop-ins are due to low ram, i.e. Xbox 360 has up to 512 MB of RAM, while PS3 only has 256 MB of RAM for the task. It wouldn't then surprise me that the PS3 version has severe texture-pop ins.

[neoMAXMLC]

Umm... Then why does Mass Effect 2 look and run so much better?
Don't pretend like the 360 didn't have the same exact issues in this game.

[TekoIie]

"Umm... Then why does Mass Effect 2 look and run so much better?"

Umm... It doesn't...

[neoMAXMLC]

Sure as hell looks to be that way compared to Mass Effect 1, Pekolie. Mass Effect 2 on PS3 ain't half bad. Performance wise it's definitely better than Mass Effect 1 so the PS3's hardware clearly can't be the reason for the first game's shortcomings like nukeitall suggests.

[f789790]

#2 ran and looked better on the pc than #1!

[DigitalRaptor]

Nukeitall.

Mass Effect 2 on PS3 definitely looks and runs better than ME1 on 360, so suggesting that its a problem exclusive to PS3's RAM limitations is absurd. We all know about the differences in RAM between the PS3 and 360, but in this case, you're wrong.

From what I've heard, the screen tearing is no longer an issue in this port so other issues aside I can't commend BioWare enough for going out of their way to give PS3 owners the chance to experience Mass Effect from begging to end. 5 years on, better late than never.

[Silly gameAr]

You have no clue what you're talking about.

[nukeitall]

@DigitalRaptor:

That is comparing apples to oranges.

ME2 on PS3 runs at best on par with the Xbox 360 version. Then you compare the Xbox 360 version of ME1 to PS3 version.

Keep in mind that in both cases, the games were released on PS3 long long after meaning there is expected to be improvements which there are none.

In particular, ME1 was a 2007 release and we are talking 4-5 years later!!!

@neoMAXMLC:

"Umm... Then why does Mass Effect 2 look and run so much better?
Don't pretend like the 360 didn't have the same exact issues in this game."

See above, but essentially one is a corridor shooter while the other is an open world game that requires a longer draw distance i.e. pop ups!

[Hicken]

Trying too hard, nukeitall.

Crappy port is crappy. End of story. No need for you to try and BS some imagined weakness the PS3 has.

[solidjun5]

@nukeitall

you have no idea what you're talking about. You're spouting off BS; which is common for you.

[cjbow16]

Bioware is shit of piece! they don't care. they don't fix issues. they always fail fail fail fail.

[trouble_bubble]

"Now, it’s true that some of these problems were apparent in the original Xbox 360 release of Mass Effect 1..."

Ummm, no. ALL OF THESE were problems on the original XBox 360 release of Mass Effect 1. Go play it, and bring some popcorn for the long elevator rides. The game was bogged down on the 360, the more enemies the worse it got. Frames were always hit hard.
http://www.gamespot.com/for...
http://forum.teamxbox.com/s...
http://www.youtube.com/watc...

[ALLWRONG]

Yeah it is a little buggy on the 360. Little buggy LOL. The game drops to a crawl at some points.

[humbleopinion]

Well there are framerate drops, and there are "framerate dropped so badly that I had to restart". I don't recall having to restart anything on the X360 version nor the PC version like the article mentions here.

[Jazz4108]

Is the article where you blame the dev or the 360 or ms? Just wondering since sony can do no wrong. Even there turd slides down the toilet in a symetrical way. Open the bathroom windows sony mush be in someones house again.

[DOMination-]

There is one side mission on the 360 where you fight some rachni in a cave. When you come out there is a bug where the game is probably less than 1fps.

Other than that there's some dipsmonly on the citadel but its usually if you try and move straight after its loaded. I never thought it was a big deal. And I've put 200 hours into it.

[cjbow16]

if i remember Bioware told us promised to improvise texture pop up and add engine from Mass Effect 2. if true, Mass Effect 2 engine may responsible to have issues. if without... maybe good or bad at all. i m not sure. i'm not expert.

[ab5olut10n]

?!

[soundslike]

I'm not able like as to therefore I even will never though all without.

[zgoldenlionz]

^ I'm with soundslike on this one.

[wishingW3L]

as expected from a rushed port but I will play it anyway.

[BanBrother]

Yes but it is disappointing. They promised a better version. They took the time to make ME 1 with the ME2 or ME3 engine and still didn't get it right.

Just sums up EA. So many broken promises.

PS3 fans will still enjoy it, as the 360 version also had these issues. It's just disappointing they haven't been sorted out 3 millennia later.

[WeAreLegion]

Ya dun goofed!

[banjadude]

For me, all of the above is true, but I ALSO get some audio issues. Some of the dialogue appears, but Shepard doesn't say anything (nor does his mouth move).

But anyways, it doesn't "really" matter, I'm just so damn happy I can finally play this one.

[JAMurida]

I wanted to play the first game as well, since I never played it before, but for the first time ever, I waited for a review of the game after dealing with so many corrupted multiplats on PS3.

The thing that is so sad here is how Bioware said themselfs, "Imporved texture pop-ins, better loading times, better framerate" and then this happens. It's no different from Mass Effect 2 on PS3. They sit there saying how it's so good on PS3 yada yada, then what do we get? Corrupt save issues, freezing, glitches, etc...

Forgive my light rant, but I'm kinda glad I waited on this one. I'll wait for Digital Foundry to do an in-depth overview of the game's performance to put my final word on it, but as of now, I'm glad I didn't jump the gun on this.

[rainslacker]

I noticed this too. One scene in Eden Prime Ashley and Kaiden were talking, their mouths were moving, but no dialog was spoken. I ended up hitting scene skip and it returned to normal on the next line of dialog. I've played the first game so I knew what they were talking about, but I hope it's not a major issue through out the game as it takes away from the immersion.

[banjadude]

Yep, Eden Prime (for me) had 2-3 cases of dropped audio.

Do you have the problem where some of the voices "trail off"? For instance Joker would be talking, then near the end of his line, he goes from normal loudness to near silent...

[rainslacker]

I haven't seen anything like that. But I only played for about 30 minutes or so last night.

[RockmanII7]

The game is half a decade old, what do you expect?

[Norrison]

Half life 2 and far cry don't have those issues and they're a year older than ME and also look better.

[Ethereal]

Do not care... The fact that they invested the money to port the game running an engine not even designed for the PS3 is enough for me to buy it. Instead of just releasing the trilogy for XBOX they shelled out to complete the experience for PS3 owners to show them the way it was meant to be played (save carrying). Got to give them some credit guys...Personally I don't think Thank you is enough.

[devilhunterx]

Unreal Engine 3

[Eyeco]

which is known to run better on the 360 and PC

[vickers500]

Not to mention the game is only 15 bucks digital.

[rainslacker]

Definitely worth the price at $15. The collector in me made me buy the trilogy though.:)

[Ethereal]

Same here. =)

[crazysammy]

I guess they really wanted PS3 owners to experience Mass Effect the way it was lol. Seriously though its a great game, has issues, no love lost.

[ALLWRONG]

Funny as hell +1

[BanBrother]

I want to see a comparison. Hopefully Digital Foundry does it soon. I really think it won't be that big of a deal when they see how it stacks up to the 360 version.

It is over 5 years old, so I wasn't expecting it to have ME3 graphics.

[cervantes99]

Just played through Eden Pime and landed on the Citadel. Game runs better than the original on 360. Texture pop-in is greatly improved and the screen hitching is very much improved. Game looks great too.

I played the 360 version 4 time all the way through and just did a quick comparison and the PS3 version appears the best version so far. No screen tear either - although this may show up later during large battles.

Just my quick impressions.

[zgoldenlionz]

Thank you for the comparison. I'm happy to see there is some improvement on the old versions, Its going to be a lot easier to purchase considering I still have my copy for the 360.

[MizTv]

Couldn't agree more this game plays so much better now!

[MizTv]

I'm just happy there is no more screen tearing!
It was the one thing I hated about playing thus on 360

[cervantes99]

Agreed. The whole package is just more polished.

Screen tearing is my pet peeve this generation - I hate it! I'm glad it appears to be fixed in the PS3 edition.

Despite what others say, I love the Mako exploration on different planets in this game.

:)

[Sokol]

Absolutely agree, I have played the Xbox 360 version 2 times and on my PC years ago.

The PS3 version is sharper, cleaner textures and smooth gameplay.

This is nothing more then a publicity stunt article...

Edge or Reality is a excellent PS3 developer.

[Ethereal]

Thanks for your honest input guys. This is why we should listen to the gamers not some bs "gaming" journalist.

[taquito]

lol...so do all console games on 360 and ps3, plus the jaggies, screen tear, low res-sub-hd

thats just what last gen ps3/360 games all look like

the only games that do not have all those issues are 2d games like trine and deadlight and some indie arcade games with simple graphics

when devs try to make the game look similar to its pc counterpart the have to make it 950x600 or some wierd resolution, get rid of all Anti aliasing, and let it run awful

next gen, ps4/nextbox will finally be able to run the games from the last 3 years on console properly, hope they remake the good ones

[Phoenix76]

Y are some ppl blaming BioWare for this port? It's my understanding that BioWare were brought out a few years back by EA, who turned the mass series into a run and gun game, rather than the full RPG experience that BioWare first offered us in the oridginal ME.
Want to do some hating....

Hate EA for this port.

[DOMination-]

Full rpg experience?

Im a mass effect fanboy but this was no full rpg. People say its more tactical but its only unintentionally tactical because the combat was... Rubbish

The narrative was better but honestly the sequel improved everything else imo.

[BanBrother]

@DOMination

It comes as no suprise that a Gears fan would prefer the sequels. Probably felt right at home in the 3rd person shooter + tiny amounts of RPG elements that was ME2 and ME3.

[black911]

I'm busy with work. I 'm behind on so many games. Resitance3,arkham city,max payne 3,assAsins creed 3 and many more.

[ziggurcat]

you'd think that they would have done *something* to improve the frame rate/pop-in textures after how many years, and how much time developing the game for PS3?

this is just one of every game bioware has ever put out for PS3 that they've ****ed up.

[girlwithturn]

>UE
>2012
>PS3
>crappy port
You're doing it wrong

[tigertron]

It's getting a mixed reception, but from what I gather it's not perfect, but it's a slight improvement to the 360 version, which is fine by me.

I'll be picking this up as ME1 is in my opinion, the best Mass Effect.

[tigertron]

By the way guys, watch the Youtube videos and take a note of what people are saying on the Bioware forums. The article title is misleading.

[kupomogli]

The 360 version couldn't keep above 20fps and five years later PS3 owners get the same crappy version. May as well have kept it exclusive.

[yourgodisdead]

Iv never played any Mass Effect, so im gitty as a school girl for this! :D

[NicSage]

You know what really grinds my gears? EA thats what grinds my gears.

[medman]

I'm shocked. This is the first port I've seen perform poorly on the PS3.

[Raoh]

The first one on the 360 was a mess too.

As far as ram goes that's not the issue.

GTA IV had better lighting on the 360 but the 360 had the most pop ins. Why is that if it has more ram than the PS3?

disc to drive transfer rate. While the 360 dvd spins faster than PS3's blu ray (about 7x to 2x) the actual transfer rate data is higher on the blu ray (about 7-12mb per second on 360's dvd and about 34mb per second on ps3's blu ray).

This is not the issue in every game. Why? Because some games are made with each console strength and weakness in mind. Some games are just ported.

[Norrison]

GTA 4 had better lighting on the 360 because the 360 got a better GPU, it had more pop ins because of ps3's mandatory install and running from the HDD is better than running from that slow BR drive and I think installing the game to you 360 will keep pop ins from happening but I still think the PS3 version is the best console version.

[MizTv]

Well I have now played it on 360 and ps3
And yes there is no screen tearing on the ps3 at all and played MUCH better than how it did on Xbox hands down

[OmegaSlayer]

What everyone beside this idiot that twitted is saying.
The game runs a bit better but someone with old PS3 has problems.

[rainslacker]

I have a launch PS3 and I haven't seen any big problems with it.

[sway_z]

I played ME1 on 360 many moons ago, agreed its the best in the series...but hasn't the world moved on from there?

I'll probably get disagrees, but IMO they should move on from the Mass Effect series...that story is done! ...New franchise please :)

ME1 Good for anyone who's never experienced it and the completest only.

[kingPoS]

Don't worry that's just the authentic Mass Effect experience everyone knows and loves.

s/

[Reaper9937]

I want amazing performance so let me go replay ME on my 360...oh wait.

[Braid]

That'd be great if they renewed the graphics with the ME3 engine. If they did that, I'd buy it in an instance. Unfortunately I played the first game on PC and there's nothing special or different this version could offer to me. Still good for PS3-only gamers, though.

[djinieyes]

Look past the problems if you have never played this trilogy in its entirety. Create YOUR Shepherd in ME1 and take them through all 3 games, its a great experience.

[Lucreto]

I have been watching a live stream of the game and it was not at all what this guy has said.

[isyourhouseonfire]

Im sick of these articles. Yes, we know the PS3 is a developer's nightmare and therefore nothing runs as well on it as on X360. Blah blah blah. Old news. Its why I play everything on X360 and use my PS3 for exclusives and blu-ray. Its the same story millions of gamers have.

Sony has learned its lesson. The PS4 will be a true competitor's to Microsoft's console, and as gamers we will be the ones benefitting from it.

So stop writing these articles.

[Sokol]

Maybe I had been playing the wrong version then since my PS3 ME1 is running great with smooth framerates and excellent textures quality.
Not only that, I'm able to switch from R2 and L2 controls to traditional PS3 L1 and R1 for aiming and shooting.

This isn't a simple port, Edge of Reality did a fantastic job bringing the game to PS3. it runs and looks fantastic...
Very unprofessional article that is aiming for nothing more then hits... gaming journalism at its fines

[Soldierone]

Does this include the download version? was literally about to buy it, its sitting in the cart lol

[Sokol]

I got the PSN digital version yea.

[Soldierone]

Based on your other comment, I'm buying it still :P

[dkgshiz]

So its the same as the 360 version?

[ajax17]

Well BioWare pretty much lied to all of our faces when they said the technical issues were fixed for the PS3 version. Then again that wouldn't be the first time BioWare lied to all of us...

[P_Bomb]

Consensus on forums, from NeoGaf to BioWare, seem to be that the port is of better quality.

Word is the frames are apparently smoother although it still slows on the Citadel at times, tearing is gone due to vsync and the pop-in and textures seem to be better. Colin apparently doesn't have a 360 so he's got nothing to compare it to, especially if it's his first time playing the game. We'll need further analysis on this from DigitalFoundry or whoever.

[lilbroRx]

So, using the logic that people use with the Wii U, I guess that means that the PS3 is weaker than the 360.