Why does Mass Effect run like crap on my PC?

So i just bought the mass effect trilogy on origin (3 isn't on steam, sadly) and booted up the first game. It runs absolutely horrible for a 7 year old game. Playing at 1080p I had to turn down the textures to low and turn off dynamic shadows to hit 60fps, and it always bogs down to around 40ish when i start moving or shooting. My PC is pretty high end, so could this be an issue with Origin? Specs:

i5 4670k

GTX 770 2GB

8gb g skill 1600mhz ram

It is likely that it is your specs. I know that mass effect 1 has issues on newer machines. I had an amd 6300 cpu and when you get to noveria the second half of that level every character and enemy was just a mass of black pixels. Had something to do with the amd bulldozer. But it is kind of weird that its running so bad. One thing have you updated it if I remember correctly none of the mass effects except 3 auto update so you do have to do that manually.

edit. I didn't even think about you having it for origin so you probably don't need to update. My copy is from when it first launched on the pc (no such thing as origin at the time :) )

http://masseffect.bioware.com/me1/pc/updates/

In nvidia control panel find or add mass efect and force max performance in the power management.

I don't have it on Origin but my PC version works fine. On a slower machine.

I was just playing it a couple of weeks ago on my machine with no problems. I7-4790k, EVGA GTX 780 Ti, 16GBs 2133 DDR3 RAM, 1TB SSD, EVGA FTW Z97 motherboard.

I seem to recall there was a way to manually fix some things in the config file for optimization. It's been a while, but I think it was something like "hardware shadows on"

It doesn't run at a locked 60 fps on my Phenom II 965, but it runs a hell of a letter better than on the xbox 360.

It's the same for all of us. My old config of a i7 920 and a GTX 680 ran it about the same with dips to the 40's and my current config also runs about the same with a i7 3930k and 2 x GTX 980's. I'm pretty sure it's the game engine as ME2 and ME3 pretty much lock to 60fps. Once way to look at it is that even though it dips, it's not nearly as bad as the console versions. They dip into the 20's if not lower. Mainly it's the citadel for me that dips in FPS that badly. Still though, it's one of my favorite games of all time, even with it's inconsistencies. Maybe there is a fix like Cobra said, I personally never looked into it and just enjoyed the game, the 1440p res with AA and highest settings make it look very nice and smooth that I have always been forgiving of it's performance issues.

I think your computer might be trying to tell you to, "play a better game." Just a guess though. I'm no PC whiz kid or anything.

If it's not that you may have to check your Flux Capacitor, or something.

It's running on your CPU's integrated GPU instead of your videocard. Find the executable that the game's shortcut points to, manually add it to the nVidia control panel game list with the settings that you want, and disable Intel HD graphics in your motherboard's bios...

I had the same issues on a 980, its the way the game is. You'll get used to it and its still an amazing game

This. Your GPU might be downclocking itself because it's closer to sleeping than breaking a sweat.

The game is running on his Intel embedded HD 4000...

Runs flawlessly for me

Yeah, it only runs slow on Intel systems, due to the game running on the embedded HD 3000/4000. I provided a fix for everyone a few posts above this one...

Another possibility is newer Nvidia GPUs may have weaker DX9 performance while being strong in DX11.

I noticed this with Metro: Last Light when I forced DX9 and DX10 with my GTX 560 Ti. DX9 was the slowest out of the three (DX9, DX10, DX11).

I had to go back to this because one solution I had (for my own Mass Effect install) was to disable Origin In-game.

Right click on the game icon in the Origin app

View Game Details

Under Actions, click on Game Properties

Check the box for "Disable Origin in Game for this game." then OK

You can only use local save games. But, oh well. It's a single-player game.

Locked at 60fps.

With Origin in Game enabled, my framerates were in the teens at this spot.

@jun_aka_pekto: You are a saint and a scholar. I have an utter beast of a PC and was so confused why my FPS would drop in certain areas and you solved it.

Thanks bud

@jun_aka_pekto man i love you!!! I tried everything from the lowest graphics settings to force max settings in nvidia control panel and only your advice works! I was gonna uninstall the game a get a refund cause i just cant play it on 15 fps with 1050 ti so THANK YOU!

@danielo_the_tomato: Glad that fixed your problem, but this is a necro bump so I'm locking the thread.