Pavlos Posted April 16, 2008 Share Posted April 16, 2008 Source. Accompanied by an immaculate chorus, BioWare's Jay Watamaniuk has released the system requirements for the corporation's critically acclaimed (buzz words are fun...) Mass Effect which is due to be released on the PC on May 28th in North America and June 6th in Europe. Minimum System Requirements for Mass Effect on the PC Operating System: Windows XP or Vista Processor: 2.4+GHZ Intel or 2.0+GHZ AMD Memory: 1 Gigabyte Ram (XP) 2 Gigabyte Ram (Vista) Video Card: NVIDIA GeForce 6 series(6800GT or better) ATI 1300XT or better (X1550, X1600 Pro and HD2400 are below minimum system requirements) Hard Drive Space: 12 Gigabytes Sound Card: DirectX 9.0c compatible sound card and drivers ---------- Recommended System Requirements for Mass Effect on the PC Operating System: Windows XP or Vista Processor: 2.6+GHZ Intel or 2.4+GHZ AMD Memory: 2 Gigabyte Ram Video Card: NVIDIA GeForce 7900 GTX or higher. ATI X1800 XL series or higher Hard Drive Space: 12 Gigabytes Sound Card: DirectX 9.0c compatible sound card and drivers – 5.1 sound card recommended ----------- Additional Note from Derek French: The Mass Effect Config program will automatically adjust your settings on first run, to attempt to give you an optimal play experience. As with all PC games, computer performance varies from system to system and adjustments can be made via the Config or through the in-game options to tailor your experience. The "Mass Effect Config program" in itself sounds epic, extreme, and ground breaking. (I told you buzz words were fun). But in all seriousness: it's nice to see a game out for PC that isn't going to need a nuclear power station to run it. Happy gaming, PC-ers! - Pavlos Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Astrotoy7 Posted April 16, 2008 Share Posted April 16, 2008 ...(I told you buzz words were fun). But in all seriousness: it's nice to see a game out for PC that isn't going to need a nuclear power station to run it. Happy gaming, PC-ers! - Pavlos since when can you have a decent gaming experience at min specs...!! in my thrifty student days I experienced constantly the disheartenment caused by trying to play a game on its min specs.... Also, on LCD screens, dumbing down rez and quality settings is not a forgiving process... I'd upgraded my rig to play NWN2, a year later, my specs are still decent for Mass Effect Gotta love BioWare. mtfbwya Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ghost Down Posted April 16, 2008 Share Posted April 16, 2008 Heh, and I'm about to buy a 700 dollar gaming rig, lol Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Miltiades Posted April 16, 2008 Share Posted April 16, 2008 The only thing I'm worried about is my graphics card. It says the minimum is an ATI X1300XT while I have an X800 Pro. Hmm... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Char Ell Posted April 17, 2008 Share Posted April 17, 2008 Most excellent! BioWare had been saying they were shooting for making the MEPC run on a high-end PC from 2 years ago. My system meets or exceeds all the recommended requirements except for the video card and that isn't by much. Considering that my PC was high end back in October 2005 when I built it I'm excited at the prospect of experiencing MEPC without having to turn down a whole lot of the quality settings. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Char Ell Posted April 19, 2008 Share Posted April 19, 2008 Oh yeah!!! BioWare announced today that Bring Down the Sky will be a free download to those who purchase Mass Effect for PC and register on BioWare's website. I would have been fine without this or if BioWare would have offered it as a $5 download but hey, free is even better! I can only imagine the howls of outrage from the Xbox 360 players though. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Commander Obi-Wan Posted April 19, 2008 Share Posted April 19, 2008 Bloody hell. That's not cool. I guess I'll keep waiting. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jvstice Posted April 19, 2008 Share Posted April 19, 2008 Char: It doesn't cost any money to get it on 360 if you're an x-box live member. It costs achievement points, which you get by playing through the game anyway. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JD-Rom Posted April 19, 2008 Share Posted April 19, 2008 Char: It doesn't cost any money to get it on 360 if you're an x-box live member. It costs achievement points, which you get by playing through the game anyway. No, I think it costs Microsoft Points, which are completely different from Gamerscore points and DEFINITELY cost money. Unless of course, someone can convert your Achievements into virtual cash, then that would be friggin' awesome! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ctrl Alt Del Posted April 19, 2008 Share Posted April 19, 2008 Unless of course, someone can convert your Achievements into virtual cash, then that would be friggin' awesome! QFT. So it would. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lantzen Posted April 19, 2008 Share Posted April 19, 2008 No, I know it costs Microsoft Points, which are completely different from Gamerscore points and DEFINITELY cost money. Unless of course, someone can convert your Achievements into virtual cash, then that would be friggin' awesome! fix'd When i just got my xbox it though you could buy things with your achievements point, why else have them ? But ohh, so wrong i was. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Char Ell Posted April 26, 2008 Share Posted April 26, 2008 For those that are interested, BioWare announced yesterday that MEPC will be available for purchase and download from the EA Store. Personally I still prefer to buy the box so I'll be picking MEPC up from one of my local brick-and-mortar retail outlets. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mimartin Posted April 28, 2008 Share Posted April 28, 2008 For those that are interested, BioWare announced yesterday that MEPC will be available for purchase and download from the EA Store. Personally I still prefer to buy the box so I'll be picking MEPC up from one of my local brick-and-mortar retail outlets. $49.95, U.S. Amazon and Best Buy are offering it for $49.99 and Game Stop is offering it for $39.99. Seems you should get more of a discount for purchasing it electronically than 4 cents and it definitely should not be higher. There wasn’t anything great about the special edition or the booklet for the Xbox360 version so buying it from EA is no big deal, but I too will pick up the PC version at a brick-and-mortar shop and with Game Stop’s price it will most likely be there. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Char Ell Posted May 5, 2008 Share Posted May 5, 2008 BioWare has made it known on their forums that Mass Effect for PC will feature SecuROM. Mass Effect uses SecuROM and requires an online activation for the first time that you play it. Each copy of Mass Effect comes with a CD Key which is used for this activation and for registration here at the BioWare Community. Mass Effect does not require the DVD to be in the drive in order to play, it is only for installation. After the first activation, SecuROM requires that it re-check with the server within ten days (in case the CD Key has become public/warez'd and gets banned). Just so that the 10 day thing doesn't become abrupt, SecuROM tries its first re-check with 5 days remaining in the 10 day window. If it can't contact the server before the 10 days are up, nothing bad happens and the game still runs. After 10 days a re-check is required before the game can run. - Derek French, BioWare Technical Producer Some PC game players are not happy about this but IMO this is something we're all going to just have to deal with. Publishers aren't just going to sit back and watch their games get stolen. They're either going to stop publishing for PC altogether or they're going to try various things until they find a method that will greatly reduce or eliminate the piracy problem. It's unfortunate legitimate users have to suffer as a result. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stoffe Posted May 5, 2008 Share Posted May 5, 2008 They're either going to stop publishing for PC altogether or they're going to try various things until they find a method that will greatly reduce or eliminate the piracy problem. It's unfortunate legitimate users have to suffer as a result. The problem with this sort of scheme is that it's usually only legitimate customers who have to jump through the hoops and suffer the extra annoyance in the long run. The pirated versions tend to remove the copy protection entirely, usually with better performance as a result. Bioshock had something similar in place, requiring online activation. Took the crackers a week to figure out how to remove the protection, then they had a hazzle-free version available for download, while legitimate customers still have to jump through hoops to play the game we've bought. So these kind of schemes will at most give the developers a week or two to compel those who need to have the game Right Now to buy rather than pirate it. My main beef with online activation of games is longevity. What happens when, for whatever reason, the online activation server isn't there anymore? The game becomes unplayable. This might not be a problem for most people, but I like installing old classics and giving them another play-through years after they were released. You can hope the developers have the decency to remove the copy protection in the last patch before they drop further support for a game, but only a small minority do this service for their customers, in my experience (Ionstorm with Deus Ex and Firaxis with Alpha Centauri comes to mind). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Q Posted May 5, 2008 Share Posted May 5, 2008 ^^^ Don't forget that Bioware itself removed the disk check in the final patch(es) for NWN, which could be a good sign. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Char Ell Posted May 5, 2008 Share Posted May 5, 2008 My main beef with online activation of games is longevity. What happens when, for whatever reason, the online activation server isn't there anymore? The game becomes unplayable. This might not be a problem for most people, but I like installing old classics and giving them another play-through years after they were released. You can hope the developers have the decency to remove the copy protection in the last patch before they drop further support for a game, but only a small minority do this service for their customers, in my experience (Ionstorm with Deus Ex and Firaxis with Alpha Centauri comes to mind). You aren't the only one with this concern. Others have already expressed similar sentiment in the thread I linked to in my previous post. This is what Mr. French had to say in response: Quote: Posted 05/04/08 00:03 (GMT) by darthviper107 That's ridiculous. To have it require activation every 10 days, what happens in the future if the servers go offline for some reason? (out of business, decide not to support it or whatever) Then we would release an update that removes this. Quote: So that means that if I wanted to play the game again in 10 years that it might not work because I can't activate it? No, because either the servers will still be running or an update would be released to remove the system. Hope that makes you feel a bit better about MEPC's anti-piracy feature. I don't even go to pirate/warez sites so I know very little about what the hackers can do. But since I read so much about the piracy problem on PC I think I'll pay more attention to how soon Mass Effect gets hacked after release, just so I can see how this works. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Darth333 Posted May 5, 2008 Share Posted May 5, 2008 I was looking forward for that game but now it looks like I won't be playing it. This system won't stop piracy whatsoever. Also, other than the longevity concern (which has been addressed by Mr. French) this method also raises privacy issues. As someone who has always purchased my games in a legitimate way, I'm getting fed up by that "Big Brother" attitude. I can live with an initial authentification check (I think that falls within what's reasonable) but I really don't see any justification for this every 10 day check. Where, when and how often I play a single player game, on what hardware and whatever other data they are collecting isn't anyone's business. I'd take the CD check over that anytime. I'm not too fond of that 3 activations limit either...I hope that it will at least be well explained on the box. When I travel I always reinstall games on a different laptop...and very often there's no internet connection where I go. I don't think that treating customers like criminals and placing such limits on the use of a product after it has been legitimately purchased is really going to help PC gaming... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Miltiades Posted May 5, 2008 Share Posted May 5, 2008 The reason why MMO's sell so much is because of their activation key and how the company behind the MMO can ban illegal keys/users. I don't really know how that works, but isn't it possible to implement that sort of security in SP games? Either way, good try of BioWare, but I'm pretty sure that it won't last long and won't stop the illegal downloading of the game. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mur'phon Posted May 5, 2008 Share Posted May 5, 2008 It dosen't work in singelplayer games because you won't play multiplayer. If you remove the whole authentication from a game you can't play multiplayer. MMOs copy protection only work because you need to be multiplayer to play them, case in point: it's easy to get a pirated singleplay version of WoW. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Char Ell Posted May 6, 2008 Share Posted May 6, 2008 I was looking forward for that game but now it looks like I won't be playing it. This system won't stop piracy whatsoever. Also, other than the longevity concern (which has been addressed by Mr. French) this method also raises privacy issues. As someone who has always purchased my games in a legitimate way, I'm getting fed up by that "Big Brother" attitude. I can live with an initial authentification check (I think that falls within what's reasonable) but I really don't see any justification for this every 10 day check. Where, when and how often I play a single player game, on what hardware and whatever other data they are collecting isn't anyone's business. I'd take the CD check over that anytime. I'm not too fond of that 3 activations limit either...I hope that it will at least be well explained on the box. When I travel I always reinstall games on a different laptop...and very often there's no internet connection where I go. I don't think that treating customers like criminals and placing such limits the use of a product after it has been legitimately purchased is really going to help PC gaming... Hmmm.... So what about buying MEPC and then getting the hacked .exe so you can play the game whenever, wherever, and on whatever hardware you want? Just a thought. Though probably better suited for a separate thread, I've read a lot of complaints about copy protection on PC games. The only real solution I've read is that publishers shouldn't use any copy protection at all, like Stardock did with Sins of a Solar Empire. IMHO this isn't a solution that publishers are going to accept. One only has to look at the music industry for an example of how that strategy doesn't work. Publishers want people to buy their game if they're going to play it. How do publishers/developers achieve their goal of only allowing legitimate installations of their PC games to be played? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Serpentine Cougar Posted May 6, 2008 Share Posted May 6, 2008 What if you bought the game legitimately but then downloaded the hacked version? EDIT: Didn't see your post, Char Ell... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ghost Down Posted May 6, 2008 Share Posted May 6, 2008 I know I am not supposed to discuss this, but can't you just purchase it legally and then use a no-CD crack to bypass the security? Btw, I understand if this post gets deleted because I am talking about something illegal. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RedHawke Posted May 6, 2008 Share Posted May 6, 2008 I was looking forward for that game but now it looks like I won't be playing it. This system won't stop piracy whatsoever. Also, other than the longevity concern (which has been addressed by Mr. French) this method also raises privacy issues. As someone who has always purchased my games in a legitimate way, I'm getting fed up by that "Big Brother" attitude. I can live with an initial authentification check (I think that falls within what's reasonable) but I really don't see any justification for this every 10 day check. Where, when and how often I play a single player game, on what hardware and whatever other data they are collecting isn't anyone's business. I'd take the CD check over that anytime. I'm not too fond of that 3 activations limit either...I hope that it will at least be well explained on the box. When I travel I always reinstall games on a different laptop...and very often there's no internet connection where I go. I don't think that treating customers like criminals and placing such limits the use of a product after it has been legitimately purchased is really going to help PC gaming... Word! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mur'phon Posted May 6, 2008 Share Posted May 6, 2008 You are the third person sugesting that, and cracking games you already own isn't ilegal. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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