Mass Effect 1, unusual stuttering and lag problem.

[Saeo0901]

Hello.

I am looking to get in to a Mass Effect series playthrough, possibly 100% on everything, however, I simply cannot.

When the game launches, perfect. No issues. Nothing. Smooth and buttery. Give it about an hour on the citadel and it will rapidly start to get laggy, choppy, audio desync and very unplayable. I save and reload the game, back to being amazingly fine. I eventually get out the citadel and save before I leave, go pretty much anywhere and no matter what planet I land on, immediately it gets even worse with how laggy it is.

I have tried a plethora of .ini tweaks, reinstalled and used CCleaner, tried all compatibility modes, no firewalls and allowed accesses in Windows, updated drivers and even just straight up reinstalled them. Set profiles in the drivers to force some settings on or off. The game IS ran as Admin however this seems to not effect anything if I do not, and it is installed on an SSD. I know Mass Effect has issues running on newer AMD/ATI things, but surely it should not be to an unplayable point? It does not crash, just lags massively.

CPU loads, while doing other stuff doesn't even break 15% load.
GPU loads, while doing other stuff, doesn't break 50% load.

9/16GB Ram used,
3/8GB VRAM used.

AMD Ryzen 1700X,
ATI RX480
16GB RAM
Windows 10.

I am at a loss to what to do to fix it. I am running in to the same replies and solutions. I hope some people can help.

Side note; I am not willing to do a clean boot of my windows. I would have far too many things to set up, organize, configure and restore due to my work and I do not want to risk getting a few things wrong and being haunted for weeks by it.

Thank you in advance for any information you could provide.

[holger1405]

@Saeo0901

Please create a DxDiag in text file format and post it with your next reply.

Also go to your Reliability monitor > Press the Windows key and "R" at the same time and copy and paste or type "perfmon /rel" (without the quotes) in the new Window > hit “ENTER” and look if it has entries for the game you have trouble with or errors you can't explain.

If yes double click at the last entry for the game executable, copy the info to the clipboard, and save it to a text file.

 

You can attach the DxDiag text file you created (and the “Reliability monitor” text file as well) to your post in the “Reply” window with the “Choose File” button. 

Furthermore, a clean boot will not brake anything. Non Windows services or apps will simply not auto start in clean boot mode, and will again after you end clean boot mode. 

[Saeo0901]

I followed your instructions and attached the files you asked. I did notice, however, (not sure if this is relevant?) that there is only 3 entries on one date, however I have been struggling for days trying to get this to work. There is no other entries.

Thank you for the help!

[Saeo0901]

Here is the screenshot of my Perfmon window. The one to the right of this date is not Mass Effect, but my music equipment, the entry to the left - I had not even thought of installing Mass Effect at that time.

Hope this helps.

-Edit.

Forgot to add the second entry. Added.

[holger1405]

@Saeo0901

First, after you mentioned how important this system is for you, if you not already did, make a complete backup of all important data.

Non of the steps I suggest are particular dangerous, but there is always a risk of something going wrong. 

OK, you only have 9GB left on your system drive, you should make more space here, at least 20 to 30 GB.

Your Graphic driver is outdated as well.

• Download the newest version from here.
• Go here and follow the guide.
• Install the new driver.
• Repair the game. (In Origin > right click ME > repair.)
• Test.

If it still not works:

The "ntdll.dll" error displayed for ME is most probably not related to a corrupted "ntdll.dll" but because of an error in a module that is called by the "ntdll.dll".

Still, lets make sure:

• Press the Windows key and "X" at the same time.
• Choose "PowerShell" (Adminisrator)" or "Command prompt (Administrator)" (Depends on the OS)
• Inside the "PowerShell" or "CMD" window, at the prompt, type or copy and paste "DISM.exe /Online /Cleanup-image /Restorehealth" (Without the quotes) > ENTER. 
• The validation process should start after a short while:
  
  
  After it reached 100%: (If you get a error message, please inform us)
• Press the Windows key and "X" at the same time.
• Choose "PowerShell" (Adminisrator)" or "Command prompt (Administrator)"
• Inside the "PowerShell" or "CMD" window, at the prompt, type or copy and paste "sfc /scannow" (Without the quotes) > ENTER. 
• Post the concluding message.