AMD have hooked us up with a VisionTek 4850 Mass Effect bundle - including the video card and a copy of the Mass Effect game for PC - and we're giving it away to the best entrant in our new competition. About the card:

The VisionTek ATI Radeon HD 4850 brings the power of graphics supercomputing to gamers, setting a new standard for visual computing. Redefine the way you play and take HD gaming to the extreme with best-in-class performance. The new TeraScale graphics engine delivers an immersive, cinematic gaming experience. Add this GPU to your PC and watch Blu-ray movies and play HD content with incredible visual fidelity.

Dive in now and make sure you're in the running to win!

when does comp close?

http://www.ausgamers.com/competitions/index.php/VisionTek-4850-Competition/Terms

All entries must be received by 3:00pm 15th August 2008.

The PC version of Mass Effect is THE buggiest game I have ever played in my life. Extremely unstable. Tech support cant help. A LOT of people are screaming because of constant crashes and freezes. I myself cant play for more than 5-10 minutes without freezing and I have a pretty good PC with the best drivers available (tried a number of driver versions / combinations without any success). Its just a reeeeally buggy game right now. Don't get your hopes up on playing it. Don't believe me? have a quick browse through the MEPC forums...

http://masseffect.bioware.com/forums/viewforum.html?forum=127

For the curious:

- Q6600 OC @ 3Ghz (Yes it is stable)
- 4GB DDR2-800
- 8800GT OC @ 660/1650/950 (This is stable too) currently using XTreme-G 175.63 Drivers
- 4x 250GB HD in Raid 0
- Windows XP 32-Bit SP3 Fully Updated
- Onboard Realtek HD Audio

interesting, i've had zero issues with Mass Effect.

Meh, I played it on my 360, loved it..I think I'll wait for Mass Effect 2.

Same here orbitor, no issues with crashing or freezing whatsoever and i played the game for hours on end.

+1 for no probs.

Played through to finish once so far, and will prob do a repeat of it in the not to distant future.

yeah i had no dramas at all with it with an old x2 3800+ and shagged 7900gt.

just ran a bit on the slow side with plenty of artifacts thanks to the dodgy mosfets.

4x250 in raid 0? Hope you don't keep anything critical on that :p

No dramas at all either.

I have a pretty good PC with the best drivers available

currently using XTreme-G 175.63 Drivers

Modified by 3rd party beta drivers isn't the way to go if you're truly having trouble with the game.

Though a quick perusal of the ME forums came up with this:

Please note that the following sound cards are not supported by Mass Effect in hardware mode:
* RealTek AC97 * SigmaTel Audio * Realtek HD Audio output * Sound Blaster Audigy * SB Audigy If you have one of the above cards you will need to change the audio setting in the configuration utility to software mode.

Played through to finish once so far, and will prob do a repeat of it in the not to distant future.

The game was insanely repetitive the first go, not sure how you could motivate yourself to go through that all over again.

last edited by step at 00:40:17 31/Jul/08

haha at the clown having problems playing a game with an overclocked pc running hacked drivers

gee, i wonder what the problem could be there?

Yeh, I would certainly try de-clocking everything and running default drivers. Also there's a v1.01 patch out now with a couple fixes.

Mass Effect on xbox is sexy.

Maybe it's a buggy crack as well Prophet650

ahha

Add another to the list of people who have never had an issue running it.

I borrowed a mates copy and it wouldn't get passed the internet connection part. Did a google and there is an epic thread with people having the same problem and no official fix.
I found a nice and friendly unofficial fix on piratebay.

That's their one copy per customer program. Clever of them, but it will annoy some people.

It's not like they're gonna have trouble selling anyway.

Okay, where do I start?

Read what I said, tried multiple driver setups (WQHL and modified), i've reverted back my XG drivers because i've given up on MEPC and absolutely no other game gives me problems regardless of drivers. The XG just help improve my fps.

Next if the OC'ing was an issue, there would definitely be other games crashing. Unreal 3? Nope, Crysis? Nope, Splinter Cell Double Agent? Nope, Witcher? Nope, AoC / WoW? Nope, NWN2? Nope. Every single game I have doesnt have so much as a hiccup except for MEPC, for the record I did revert to default clock settings and ran Mass Effect, still same issue. Oh yea, the big indicators are that Unreal 3 and Splinter Cell DA both use the Unreal 3 engine just like Mass Effect but they have no issues whatsoever... hmmm...

The Audio issue. I was already aware of that, it is in Software mode, there are no audio issues in MEPC.

I bought the 360 version first, I love the game, im not bagging it out. The whole bloody reason I forked out more cash to grab the PC version was because I loved the game but whoever did the 360 to PC port should be shot. I BOUGHT MEPC, no cracks involved so dont give me that 'crack' crap either.

Please think before you type...

Hrm, sounds like you just don't know how to install a game then.

Which antivirus are you running?

Sounds like a dumb question but trust me it counts big time. THe same thing was happening to me with oblivion on my old pc about a year back and it was all because I was running PC Cillen.

Did I win??? :)

I played Mass Effect on the 360 and finished it, although towards the end it was becoming tedious. I found the game to be somewhat repetitive when it came to combat and the different classes came across as the same person with different powers.
I would like to have seen more non-combat skills, as these are the skills that make an RPG. It is easy to have a bunch of different combat skills and separate them by class. Having many non-combat skills can give a far greater range of avenues to various puzzles that the game could present.

I would have liked the MAKO(?) to be customizable.

I and they had this cool little movie when you left the main ship and landed on a planet, however I really missed and kind of wondered how they got back to the ship :/

I was going to attempt an entry at this even though i havent played the game. Hit up wikipedia to find out classes etc..

Then i just bought a 4850.. not a visontek though :(