Hi all,
First of all sorry if this is a stupid question but I'm curious about the extent to which I can mod ME games on the Xbox 360.
What I'm trying to do is get HD texture mods on the Xbox - is this possible? Or is it only for PC? (that would be annoying as I have a mac).
Cheers,
Well, unless one of the texture experts knows a really neat trick, I doubt this is possible for two reasons:
1. Accessing and altering files on the xbox is very difficult. The console has not been designed for that kind of accessibility (rather the opposite) and modding software on it most of the time also entails modding the hardware as well. Not advisable if you are not really very sure of what you are doing.
2. And this is the point that really breaks the back of this possibility: The xbox 360 has very limited memory (I think it's as little as 512 MB or something). Personally, I think it's a minor miracle that developers could make games that look this good on that kind of outdated hardware but one of the reasons they can is because they use every shred of resources the xbox has to offer. When they design a level, they have to weigh how many models, texture, animations and sound elements they can use before they fill up that limited memory. So, even if you could install 4k textures on your xbox, the hardware would not be able to load them.
So sorry to say, that ME3 is probably as visually impressive as it can be on the 360.
First of all, is modding on a console possible? Yes, it is possible, but it can only be done in a very limited number of cases, and it usualy involves extracting a game's resources from the disk to your PC and using specialized software to edit the files. Then, you recompile everything you de-compiled and you put it on your console's hard drive like a digital download rather than a disk-bound game. Console games are not developed on actual living-room consoles, you need a less restrictive environment to put it together. But since most people are not amateur/indie game devs and do not have the proper development tools in hand, console modding involves a huge amount of work to do properly. Compared to just buying and modding a PC game, it simply isn't worth it unless you really want to play it on a console, or if it's a console-exclusive title.
Oh, and you also have to consider the implications of what you intend to do when modding a game. Game design is an art, and you don't mess around with an artist's work if it is clear that the artist explicitly does NOT want you to mess around with it. Modding on the PC is not only cleaner and easier, it is also less likely to involve breaking the EULA.
As for the HD textures thing, i'm afraid that is simply not possible on last-gen console hardware.
Your mac will likely run Mass Effect better than a console anyway. And yes, you can mod games on Mac OS too, it's just impractical compared to the other options.
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