After a couple weeks of going through EA support on this issue and finding no resolution, I turn to the Wiki community - hoping someone's seen something like this or could give me some decent advice.
The game loads fine and runs without issue. On the ship, the graphics are crisp and clear. But on the first planet-side scene, there is a red snow-like effect across the screen. At first I just thought it was supposed to be there, like red sand kicked up everywhere. I made my way through the scene, the obelisk blows up, and back on the ship everything's crisp and clear again.
Next playable scene after the ship is on a station, and a white snow-like filter is showing. And when you rotate the camera, it's like a filter - part of the character is visible, the rest is obscured by the snow-like effect. Here's a visual.
Visible filter
I've got a ATI X1400 256MB card that supports DirectX 9.0c and passes all the DirectX tests. I've tried max/min/default resolutions, emptied the temp folder, ended all background tasks, done a Microsoft clean boot (MS services, minimal programs loaded), have the latest video drivers, tried each filter setting in the in-game settings, etc. No relief.
I'm figuring there's got to be a setting I can disable, maybe in the .ini files, that will remove that effect.
Any constructive assistance would be appreciated. Thanks much.
Possible Solution: Check your video settings. There is a setting that says "Particle Effects". From what I've seen, it could be that the particle effects are glitchy so turning it off might help. --24.193.226.142 01:34, May 24, 2012 (UTC)
Appreciate the suggestion, but no relief. Particle Effects is on low, and there is no off. In addition, I also tried modifying the ParticleLODBias in BioEngine.ini from low (2) to highest (-1) and then varying degrees of what I was guessing was lower (9 and 999), to no avail. I also tried turning the Mipmapping quality all the way up and all the way down in the Catalyst Control Panel, to no avail.
Issue remains.
- I have seen a couple of threads with similar problems, and updating the vid card drivers fixed it for them. However that was upgrading the drivers back when ME first came out, whereas you are updating with brand new drivers (I assume) and they dont always work well with older games.
- I am having a whack at finding one which used a different method, but my internet is being an infernal pile of rubbish. So for now, why not try turning off every graphical option, or setting them to minimum where applicable, in the INI rather than in game, and also turn off all catalyst override settings (ie turn off any instance where the catalyst program would alter the graphics, rather than the actual game, or turn off catalyst as a whole), as this can cause problems.
- Then run the game, see if the problem persists. If it does not, then gradually turn on options, until you find the one that causes it. Wish I could be more help, but this goddamn connection... FeckThisShyt 00:47, May 26, 2012 (UTC)