12 réponses à ce sujet

[DragonRacer]

Per the title, I am a complete noob to PC gaming seeking help/advice from the Master Race. My only experience was playing Doom on my uncle's PC back in the day, but I never went through any purchase/installation/tech stuff with that.

I'm a dirty console peasant who fell in love with ME via the 2nd and 3rd games on my PS3. I really, really want to experience the first game, though. Since I do not have an XBox, I can't go the console route to do this.

I do, however, have a new laptop. I'm dumb when it comes to things such as graphics cards, etc. I would assume a brand new laptop would have what's needed to run a game that is 5 years old, but I could be wrong. At any rate, the main thing that jumped out at me as I looked around online for ME system requirements is it wants Windows XP or Vista. My laptop is running Windows 7 as that is the operating system it came with. Can ME run on that at all or am I SOL straight out the gate?

Thanks in advance.

EDIT: Corrected to Windows 7 because I had a senior moment. LOL

Modifié par DragonRacer, 28 août 2012 - 10:13 .

[riccaborto]

A friend of mine just bought a laptop with Windows 7. I can tell you the game runs on it.
I must warn you that it is required to connect to EA server the first time you enter the game, then you can play disconnected.

Anyway ME1 is very cheap now, I suggest you tu buy it, it's worthy the risk.

[Just-Me]

Windows8 is not for sale anywhere (August 28 as I write).  It will be on sale from October 26, 2012. 

"New" is totally meaningless.  Buy a cheap enough clunker, and it won't be as good as a five year old middle of the road desktop PC. 

[PsiFive]

As Just-Me suggests your laptop is probably running Windows 7. If it really says Windows 8 then I'm guessing it's a beta version, and running anything reliably on it is going to be as much luck as anything else. If it's Windows 7 then the operating system will not be a problem. The computer's hardware is another story, and people here will tell you that Mass Effect is not designed to run on laptops. For a start you really do need a proper mouse - not a gaming mouse necessarily but a real mouse rather than a laptop's trackpad will make things far easier. The good news is that's a cheap USB solution, but the bad news is that the rest of the hardware, i.e. the processor, RAM, storage and graphics processing, also need to be up to snuff. If they're not then even with all the graphics settings in the game turned down you are relatively likely to encounter problems which could be anything from freezing and crashing to black blobs where the characters should be (there's a whole thread for that one) to refusing to work at all past an intro.
Since you haven't provided your computer's specs I'd suggest you go to http://www.systemreq...slab.com/cyri/' class='bbc_url' title='Lien externe' rel='nofollow external'>http://www.systemrequirementslab.com/cyri/, a useful resource I heard about just the other day while trying to find out if I could run Darksiders II on my machine. Either type "Mass Effect" into the first box or find it in the drop down menu in the second box and click the big "Can You Run It?" button. Allow the Java app when your computer asks for permission and within ten seconds or so the page should change to a gauge with marks showing the minimum and recommended levels for the game and where your computer's specs put it in relation to those. If you get a green bar reasonably above minimum spec you should be okay (caveat: *should be* as there can still be unwanted effects caused by drivers etc), while if you see a red bar that doesn't meet the minimum you need to scroll down and look at the details. If it just says you need more RAM or space on your hard drive they're fixable with most laptops. If it says your CPU or graphics processing ability is inadequate then I'd give up because it's rarely practical to upgrade those in a laptop and even if it was you could probably buy a used XBox in decent nick for less and play the first ME on a console as well.

Either way, laptop or XBox, do play the first game if you can. It's quite different from the latter two, not as polished in terms of looks but many prefer the story. And of course starting from scratch means you can replay the whole series with a character you create and import from the beginning.

[Just-Me]

Anyone going to the SR Labs site should keep in mind that the operation is a commercial one, and they do not have any hardware geeks on staff to tell them how to give accurate answers.  They are wrong so often that the place is just a joke among knowledgeable game players. 

However, if you IGNORE the judgments offered and just compare the list of components they report back to the technical requirements, you can do as well as they can, and can offer the component list at places like this when the details are asked for. 

Minimum System Requirements for Mass Effect on the PC
(Corrected from dumb, Pie in the Sky lies to the real thing)

Operating System:
Windows XP or Vista

Processor:
2.4+GHZ Intel or 2.0+GHZ AMD (P4 & A64)

Memory:
1 Gigabyte Ram (XP)
2 Gigabyte Ram (Vista)

Video Card:
NVIDIA GeForce 6 series (6800GT or better: G.205, 210, 310, 520, 7100, 7200, 7300, 7400, 7500, 7600 GS, 8200, 8300, 8400 GS, 8500, 9100, 9200, & 9300 are below minimum system requirements)
ATI Radeon X1650 XT or better (X1050, X1300, X1300 Pro, *X1550*, HD 2400, HD 3100, HD 3200, HD 3450, HD 3470, HD 4200, HD 4250, HD 4270, HD 4350, HD 4550, and ("probably") HD 5450 are below minimum system requirements) no video device with Intel's name on it is supported in any way, shape, or form.

Hard Drive Space:
12 Gigabytes

Sound Card:
DirectX 9.0c compatible sound card and drivers

Modifié par Just-Me, 28 août 2012 - 09:21 .

[DragonRacer]

Just-Me wrote...

Windows8 is not for sale anywhere (August 28 as I write).  It will be on sale from October 26, 2012. 

"New" is totally meaningless.  Buy a cheap enough clunker, and it won't be as good as a five year old middle of the road desktop PC. 

Yes, I'm an idiot. I am actually running Windows 7 and had a massive brain fart. LOL

[DragonRacer]

First off, I hate the laptop's trackpad. I have a wireless mouse equipped.

Secondly, that website says my laptop is good to go on the minimum requirements except for the video card. It had this to say:


Minimum Required: NVIDIA GeForce 6 series (6800 GT or better), ATI X1300 XT or better (X1550, X1600 Pro and HD2400 are below minimum system requirements)
 
I have: Intel® HD Graphics Family

Yet, the subrequirements are all met:

3D - I have
Hardware T&L - I have
Pixel Shader Version -- it wants 3.0 and I have 4.1
Vertex Shader Version - it wants 3.0 and I have 4.1

Which is all Greek to me, but looks like I meet the requirements even though it fails me overall on the video card. Thoughts?

Worst case scenario, my husband's laptop passed all tests for even recommended requirement, so we may be trading.

For details, this is what I have, according to that site:

Operating System:
Required: Windows XP or Vista
Have: Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium Edition Service Pack 1 (build 7601), 64-bit

Processor:
Required: 2.4+GHZ Intel or 2.0+GHZ AMD (P4 & A64)
Have: Intel® Core™ i3-2350M CPU @ 2.30GHz; 2.3 GHz Performance Rated at: 4.83 GHz

Memory:
Required: 1 Gigabyte Ram (XP) / 2 Gigabyte Ram (Vista)
Have: 6.1 GB

Video Card:
Required: NVIDIA GeForce 6 series (6800GT or better: G.205, 210, 310, 520, 7100, 7200, 7300, 7400, 7500, 7600 GS, 8200, 8300, 8400 GS, 8500, 9100, 9200, & 9300 are below minimum system requirements)
ATI Radeon X1650 XT or better (X1050, X1300, X1300 Pro, *X1550*, HD 2400, HD 3100, HD 3200, HD 3450, HD 3470, HD 4200, HD 4250, HD 4270, HD 4350, HD 4550, and ("probably") HD 5450 are below minimum system requirements) no video device with Intel's name on it is supported in any way, shape, or form.
Have: See above in earlier part of my post

Hard Drive Space:
Required: 12 Gigabytes
Have: 531.9 GB

Sound Card:
Required: DirectX 9.0c compatible sound card and drivers
Have: DirectX 11.0 CyberLink WebCam Virtual Driver

Modifié par DragonRacer, 29 août 2012 - 12:52 .

[Just-Me]

The game absolutely REQUIRES a true, actual gaming graphics card or it WILL NOT WORK.  Only AMD and nVIDIA care enough about games and gaming to produce such hardware.  Intel just fakes it, and fakes it badly.  

[PsiFive]

DragonRacer wrote...

I have: Intel® HD Graphics Family

That's not good news.

DragonRacer wrote...

Which is all Greek to me, but looks like I meet the requirements even though it fails me overall on the video card. Thoughts?

My thoughts at this point are that I'd get that XBox. Sorry. Just-Me's given some caveats about that website that I wasn't aware of (like I said, I only found the place a couple of days ago) but even as is if it's saying that your laptop just doesn't have the graphics ability then it's a non-starter. IANAE but I believe that in gaming a computer's graphics processing does a great deal of the heavy lifting. With a desktop you can generally go and buy another graphics card but in a laptop you're pretty much stuck with whatever the manufacturer put in there.

Swapping with your husband? Heh, I'd fight my wife to keep my machine, but as it happens she's got the lappy anyway (and the TV, which is why I don't play on a console much:whistle:). Possibly an option but if it's got Intel graphics as well and the advice is all Intel graphics are no good then you'd be wasting your time. I'm not normally one for singing the praises of concoles and I don't even own an XBox myself, but I will say this - XBox games are certain to run on an XBox straight out of the wrapper. In your shoes I'd be thinking that I could pick up a half decent preowned XBox from a retailer offering a warranty for about $150 Aussie. Could well be cheaper still where you are because we get ****ing robbed in the shops on a lot of things. And if you're used to console play on the other two games - on the couch, nice big screen, etc - you might even prefer to stick with that than hunch over a 17" laptop screen.

[Just-Me]

Most forums like this one have an ongoing message thread with the tech requirements in it and a place to ask in the thread, whether your PC can run a given game, and how well.  I'll do a quick Google and I know I'll find it.  Meanwhile, the YouGamer web site has the Game-o-Meter, and that company has a geek on their staff who knows enough to make their test more accurate.  Not perfect, but ten times more accurate than SR Labs. 

It was for the ME-2 / ME-3 sequels, not for ME-1 (the local Can You Run it on site here).  My bad, sorry. 

[PsiFive]

Just-Me wrote...

Meanwhile, the YouGamer web site has the Game-o-Meter, and that company has a geek on their staff who knows enough to make their test more accurate.  Not perfect, but ten times more accurate than SR Labs.

Bit off topic, this.

Out of interest I've just tried that one and it says that I'll get nowhere with Darksiders 2. It also says that Batman, Arkham Asylum, Deus Ex: HR and both Mass Effect and Mass Effect 2 will not run on my computer either - having played them all and just begun ME1+2 playthrough #7 on it last weekend I beg to differ. Game graphics settings aren't maxed out for any of those, but they're not minimal either. Not sure if it's anything to do with my "PC" not being a true gaming PC or even a PC at all as such, but a bootcamped Mac Pro (Windows install on its own drive) but YG's tool seems to think I have only one processor. Maybe that tool doesn't work quite right with an Intel Mac. Or maybe it's just luck and plain old YMMV. Whatever the reason other than the very occasional crash, and I mean an everage of maybe one every other entire playthrough, I've never had any problems with the first two ME games. 

Sorry for the diversion, as you were.

Modifié par PsiFive, 29 août 2012 - 03:32 .

[DragonRacer]

Well, I am happy as a clam right now and, admittedly, a bit shocked. After running that web site test on my laptop and getting everyone's feedback, I feared the PC disc I had ordered would just be a black screen once installed. And was gonna put it on hubby's laptop as a backup plan if mine didn't work (and, worst case scenario, break down and get an XBox).

The disc arrived today. I installed the game, downloaded and installed the patch, and have just begun my adventure into the original Mass Effect. Sure, graphics look like an old Playstation game, but I am actually getting to play through the first game instead of read codex entries and Wikipedia about it, so I color myself pleased.

However, controls are definitely like learning to walk all over again. Am starting to get the hang of it, but I have to tip my hat to you regular PC gamers -- I wouldn't want to do this full time for all my games! You guys are a hardy bunch.

Modifié par DragonRacer, 31 août 2012 - 02:21 .

[PsiFive]

Fingers crossed it continues to work for you.