Bioware Releases PC Requirements for Mass Effect

[Junaid Alam]

Bioware Releases PC Requirements for Mass Effect

System requirements for PC gamers eager to get their hands on the hit roleplaying game Mass Effect are now available.

Bioware, the developer, made the announcement in its forum section today.

The minimum and recommended hardware requirements are:

Minimum Requirements:

OS: Windows XP or Vista
Processor: 2.4+GHZ Intel or 2.0+GHZ AMD
Memory: 1 Gigabyte Ram (XP) / 2 Gigabyte Ram (Vista)
Video Card: NVIDIA GeForce 6 series(6800GT or better) / ATI 1300XT or better (X1550, X1600 Pro and HD2400 are below minimum system requirements)
HDD: 12 Gigabytes
DirectX 9.0c compatible sound card and drivers


Recommended Requirements

OS: Windows XP or Vista
Processor: 2.6+GHZ Intel or 2.4+GHZ AMD
Memory: 2 Gigabyte Ram
Video Card: NVIDIA GeForce 7900 GTX or higher / ATI X1800 XL series or higher
HDD: 12 Gigabytes
DirectX 9.0c compatible sound card and drivers - 5.1 sound card recommended


Of interest is the requirement for only 1 GB of RAM for Windows XP users, but 2 GB for Windows Vista users. Bioware makes no mention of dual or quadcore CPUs, although generally speaking, the hardware requirements and recommendations on the box are generous assessments of what is actually playable at decent resolutions.

Source: Bioware [http://masseffect.bioware.com/forums/viewtopic.html?topic=626379&forum=125&sp=0]

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[CarrierII]

"Of interest is the requirement for only 1 GB of RAM for Windows XP users, but 2 GB for Windows Vista users. Bioware makes no mention of dual or quadcore CPUs"

Basically, what MS write on the back of the OS box next to "RAM" is what's required to run the OS, not anything you run whilst using the OS, such that XP wanting 256MB really means you should have 256 + however much you want to be truly available for your programs.

Vista's ram usage is way higher, closer to 400MB (The OS itself, and that's being generous) so really 1GB is the minimum for Vista, and 2GB if you plan to use Aero and not wait ten minutes for the start menu to load.

As for Quad/Dual cores, just about everyone is on a dual these days. Also a program has to have more than one thread to use more than one core, but that's seperate.

What I find worrying is the requirement for such high end graphics cards. Those aren't cheap.