Mass Effect 2

What works

Installation

Mouse(pre-hacked with 'force_edge' option)/Keyboard

3D Rendering,character animations,shader programs,bloom,Shadows,Lighting and post-processing

Multi-Core support (*see extra comments)

Cerebus network

Sounds (*see extra comments)

What does not

Initial startup but can be fixed with a hack to the newer Wine versions - 1.1.22 and above

Revert patch - http://paste2.org/p/700203

 

Workarounds

What was not tested

Lan/Multiplayer..yet.

Hardware tested

Graphics:

• GPU:
• Driver:

Additional Comments

-=System Info=- Linux 2.6.33/Ubuntu 9.10 Phenom II X3 720 @ 3.4 Ghz Geforce GT 200 DDR3 1024MB (695/840) 2 Gig 1066Mhz DDR2 ME2 v1.01 @ 1280x1024 *There's an odity in Multi-core/Multi-Processor detection with MassEffect2Config.exe where multi-core processors are designated as having 1 processor and 1 core. To override this oddity open ~/BioWare/Mass Effect 2/BIOGame/systeminformation.xml and set the appropriate values for numcores and numprocessors and then make the file read-only. *If you expereince low-resolution blocky lighting and shadows initially, open ~/BioWare/Mass Effect 2/BIOGame/Config/GamerSettings.ini and add [TextureLODSettings] TEXTUREGROUP_LightAndShadowMap=(MinLODSize=256,MaxLODSize=4096,LODBias=1) or [TextureLODSettings] TEXTUREGROUP_LightAndShadowMap=(MinLODSize=256,MaxLODSize=4096,LODBias=0) Since ME2 is UT3 based all .ini tweaks can be put in here and will override the Coalesced.ini and DefaultEngine.ini. *Use foobar2000 to set the playback device and then select the Direct Analog version in MassEffect2Config.exe. I haven't had a problem running it with Alsa version 1.0.22.1 after the pain of getting sound figured out right. *GamerSettings.ini - http://paste2.org/p/700213 *Did I mention this game is amazing? :)

DLC for Mass Effect 2 seems to work okay. You need an EA account & Bioware account. You have to link your bioware account to your EA master account.

When done, you can login to http://social.bioware.com/user_entitlements.php  and download the  content manually.

I have tested the Inferno Armor, Blood Dragon Armor, Zaeed - The Price of Revenge (Cerberus Network), Normandy Crash Site (Cerberus Network).

Launch the installer in the wineprefix you have Mass Effect 2 installed, the installer will fail (for me) at cleaning up the install. It is safe to kill the install process.

Once you have started Mass Effect 2, login to the Cerberus Network with your EA account and the DLC will be authorised (you may get a warning the first time)

Please purge your previously wine installation before using that HowTo!

For patching and installing wine on Ubuntu:

apt-get build-dep wine
wget http://prdownloads.sourceforge.net/wine/wine-1.5.9.tar.bz2
(This wine version is given as an example)
tar xjpf wine-1.5.9.tar.bz2
cd wine-1.5.9
wget dl.dropbox.com/u/6901628/raw3.patch
patch -p1 < raw3.patch
tools/./make_requests
tools/./wineinstall

For patching and installing wine on Gentoo:

mkdir -p /etc/portage/patches/app-emulation/wine-1.5.9
wget -O /etc/portage/patches/app-emulation/wine-1.5.9/raw_input.patch 'dl.dropbox.com/u/6901628/raw3.patch'
emerge =app-emulation/wine-1.5.9

Thanks to t800 for the tip ;-)

Increasing in-game performance

If you have experienced performance degradation please deactivate dynamic shadows and antialiasing from game graphic menu. Also set proprietary driver image settings to Maximum Performance. This helps for weak graphic cards like NVIDIA Geforce 120 GT.