topic Re: Game "Mass Effect" and Intel HD 3000 drivers? in Graphics

Game "Mass Effect" and Intel HD 3000 drivers?

idata — Thu, 08 Dec 2011 11:01:00 GMT

Hello,

the only driver I've gotten Mass Effect and Mass Effect 2 to work with reliably are version 8.15.10.2361 (and it runs quite well, too). Any newer driver - up to and including 8.15.10.2559 - causes the games to crash once the "esc" key is hit from in-game to access the in-game menu (e.g. for a save).

There are several postings on the issue on the web, e.g. http://social.bioware.com/forum/1/topic/131/index/7535912/1 http://social.bioware.com/forum/1/topic/131/index/7535912/1.

This is a pity, as the newer drivers cause other games such as Dragon Age to display much better than the older .2361 drivers. But I don't want to keep changing the driver just to play the game.

I'm running the game on a mid 2011 Macbook Air with an i7 processor. However, the problem is not limited to Macs - above Bioware forum link describes the issue on a Toshiba.

Does anyone have a similar experience? Has anyone been able to solve it? Does Intel know of the issue and is, perhaps, working on a solution?

Kind regards, and thank you for any replies.

Re: Game "Mass Effect" and Intel HD 3000 drivers?

Allan_J_Intel1 — Mon, 12 Dec 2011 17:52:34 GMT

Hi there!

I appreciate your feedback on this matter. I will make sure your comment reaches the proper department for future consideration.

Thank you for taking the time to communicate this issue to us.

Thanks

Allan.

Re: Game "Mass Effect" and Intel HD 3000 drivers?

idata — Tue, 13 Dec 2011 11:53:44 GMT

Thank you Allan, I am looking forward to the next driver updates, will test and provide my experience here.

Re: Game "Mass Effect" and Intel HD 3000 drivers?

idata — Sat, 17 Dec 2011 08:51:24 GMT

Just want to say I'm having the exact same issue as well. It really sucks because the new drivers make the game run a lot better but not being able to access the menu makes it unplayable. Luckily I had an old restore point that should let me play the game again, but I'm praying a new update will fix this problem.

Re: Game "Mass Effect" and Intel HD 3000 drivers?

idata — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 02:47:15 GMT

Hello my loved company intel I have a problem games Mass Efect 1games periodically takes off after 10-15 minutes after the game abozh when you go in the game menu it freezes and we throw out in Windows

I know that this is a problem in the drivers graphics adapter game on the system unit with processor Core I3 2105 HD3000 hope to address in the next version of driver

thank you

Re: Game "Mass Effect" and Intel HD 3000 drivers?

idata — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 09:58:04 GMT

It seems that driver version 2622 has solved the issue, at least on Windows 7 64 bit, on a MacBook Air. I've tried ME 1 and so far no crashes 🙂 Thanks!

Re: Game "Mass Effect" and Intel HD 3000 drivers?

idata — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 20:24:36 GMT

Update: I've had a few interesting crashes from Mass Effect 1 running under the HD 2622 drivers: a message is shown that I should clear up hard drive space as the system has run out of virtual memory. I'll try to write down the exact error code(s) next time this happens. Meanwhile, I've reduced the anisotropic filter level on the game from 8 to 4, this might possibly help (fingers xed).

Re: Game "Mass Effect" and Intel HD 3000 drivers?

idata — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 22:25:04 GMT

I keep having crashes. The higher the anisotropy, the more often the crashes. Hm. Win 7 64, 4 Gigs of Ram, around 20 Gigs free on an SSD disk, i7.

Re: Game "Mass Effect" and Intel HD 3000 drivers?

idata — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 10:33:00 GMT

This is the crash error message:

Ran out of virtual memory. To prevent this condition, you must free up more space on your primary hard disk. MallocLarge(size = 27709440, type = 4096, protect = 4, VM = 1986908160/2147352576)

... when this message is shown, I usually have to use alt-ctrl-delete to invoke the task manager where I can then quit Mass Effect.

It'd be great if you could have a look and possibly fix. Thanks!

Re: Game "Mass Effect" and Intel HD 3000 drivers?

idata — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 11:13:07 GMT

... this might be something to do with Windows 7 64 bit. The MallocSize error in Mass Effect (and other applications) turns up quite often on Google. After some digging this might be an explanation:

http://www.techpowerup.com/forums/showthread.php?t=112556 http://www.techpowerup.com/forums/showthread.php?t=112556

I'm going to try this on the console:

> bcdedit /set IncreaseUserVA 3072

Funny thing is, this did not happen with the old drivers I used (2361 if I recall correctly).

Re: Game "Mass Effect" and Intel HD 3000 drivers?

idata — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 12:23:27 GMT

... and another update: Applying the "Large Address Aware" flag to the Mass Effect executable as per

http://www.techpowerup.com/forums/showthread.php?t=112556 http://www.techpowerup.com/forums/showthread.php?t=112556

using the tool

http://www.techpowerup.com/forums/attachment.php?s=0d1bf8c0b1e2d67b9d2e56ee3cd54d29&attachmentid=34392&d=1269231650 laa_2_0_4.zip

actually helped. I have had no more MallocSize errors in Mass Effect 1. Now I'm a very happy camper with the 2622 drivers 🙂

Re: Game "Mass Effect" and Intel HD 3000 drivers?

idata — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 22:06:43 GMT

Have you guys tried the new driver version with Mass Effect 2 yet? Pretty curious if you can pause the game with that or it's still same old issues.

Re: Game "Mass Effect" and Intel HD 3000 drivers?

idata — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 23:45:42 GMT

I've started playing ME 2 with the 2622 driver today. No crashes when hitting the esc key. No crashes from running out of virtual memory, either. In fact, the experience is quite pleasant 🙂

Re: Game "Mass Effect" and Intel HD 3000 drivers?

idata — Sat, 11 Feb 2012 02:29:59 GMT

Oh that is great news, thanks! And thanks to Intel as well for fixing this problem. Can't wait to try it out.

Re: Game "Mass Effect" and Intel HD 3000 drivers?

idata — Tue, 14 Feb 2012 11:16:44 GMT

... oh, and for all those who find Mass Effect 2 a bit too dark -

The Bioware forum has an http://social.bioware.com/forum/1/topic/106/index/4538319/1 entry on one of the shaders used by Mass Effect 2:

---

I have suffered with the heavy black shadows and tried changing the gamma settings and found posts suggesting to change Depth of Field to false in the gamersettings.ini.

The problem with both of those is it leaves the colours washed out and unrealistic.

I did find another fix on some other boards and thought I would post it here for people too. I dont take credit for this fix, just want to pass it on.

In your Mass Effect2\\Engine\\Shaders folder there is a file called UberPostProcessBlendPixelShader.usf

which defines post processing, including the DoF effect. Changing that with a text editor can fix the shadow issue, but keep the effect over all.

find this line:-

float3 x = max(0,InLinearColour-0.004);

and change it to

float3 x = max(0,InLinearColour);

You can also change the 0.004 to something closer to zero, like 0.001, to make the effect less rather than removing it, or to something larger to make the black crush even worse.

It works for me so I hope others find this useful too. --- Another post suggested copying the UberPostProcessBlendPixelShader.usf from Mass Effect (1) to the relevant Mass Effect 2 directory. I did that (not forgetting to back up the original Mass Effect 2 UberPostPr...whatever.usf) and it works very well. By the way - I used to play Mass Effect 2 on the "old" 2010 MBAir with Nvidia 320 integrated graphics. The game actually displays less graphics artefacts on the HD 3000 than on the Nvidia 320. The only thing I miss about the Nvidia card is its ability to set system wide anti-aliasing.

Re: Game "Mass Effect" and Intel HD 3000 drivers?

idata — Tue, 14 Feb 2012 21:25:18 GMT

Hello, I'm experiencing the same problems as the topic creater, whenever I press esc or map in Mass Effect 1 (using Intel HD 3000, from a 2500k CPU) it crashes the game. Also the laters drivers I could find was 8.15.10.2509, has this issue still not been addressed?

And where do you find this 2622 driver?

Re: Game "Mass Effect" and Intel HD 3000 drivers?

idata — Wed, 15 Feb 2012 15:04:44 GMT

The issue has been resolved with the 2622 drivers. You'll find the Windows 7 64 bit version here: http://downloadcenter.intel.com/Detail_Desc.aspx?agr=Y&DwnldID=20842&keyword=2622&DownloadType=Treiber&lang=deu Intel® Graphics Media Accelerator Driver for Windows 7* 64, Windows Vista* 64 (exe), the 32 bit version is here. http://downloadcenter.intel.com/Detail_Desc.aspx?agr=Y&DwnldID=20840&keyword=2622&DownloadType=Treiber&lang=deu Intel® Graphics Media Accelerator Driver for Windows 7*, Windows Vista* (exe).

Enter "2622" into the product search field on Intel's "Download center" page http://downloadcenter.intel.com/ http://downloadcenter.intel.com/

Re: Game "Mass Effect" and Intel HD 3000 drivers?

idata — Wed, 15 Feb 2012 16:57:38 GMT

Thank you for replying, I'm glad you linked me the 2622 driver, however I have another question, if I search for the driver my self, i end up finding 8.15.10.2509 everytime for some reason: Graphics --> processor graphics --> intel 2nd generation hd 2000/3000 driver and windows 7 ultimate 64 bit..

even if i use the intel utility to detect my driver and hardware, it says im up-to-date with the 2509, which also the website makes me believe

Is this because the second gen intel 3000 have different drivers or because intel simply didn't update them all to show the newest drivers available?

Re: Game "Mass Effect" and Intel HD 3000 drivers?

idata — Wed, 15 Feb 2012 17:05:10 GMT

I belive the 2509 release are the latest drivers that made an "official" release, and are the ones also released through Windows Update ; the 2622 drivers are "use at your own risk". I'm running 2622 as they allow me to play Mass Effect 1 & 2. I have had no issues whatsoever with them on my Boot Camp Windows installation on my MBAir. Your mileage may, of course, vary.

I don't know why they don't show up when navigating toward them manually in the Download center (Graphics --> processor graphics --> intel 2nd generation hd 2000/3000 driver and windows 7 ultimate 64 bit). 2622 was listed there a few days ago when I downloaded them. Maybe another update is forthcoming?

My personal impression is that Intel has about 3 people assigned to HD 3000 driver development: two developers who're also working on HD 4000 driver development, and a QA engineer who also gets to maintain the download center's graphics driver area 🙂

Re: Game "Mass Effect" and Intel HD 3000 drivers?

idata — Wed, 15 Feb 2012 17:11:43 GMT

In that case, I woud like to thank you again for the fast reponses and appreciated help I'm off to play Mass Effect 1!