Title: Long loading times in Mass Effect 2 or Dragon Age?
Slug: long-loading-times-in-mass-effect-2-or-dragon-age
Date: 2010-01-30 16:33:00
Tags: Videogames


<p align="center"><img src="https://images.kartones.net/posts/theelderthoughts/MassEffect2.jpg" width="500"></p>


<p>This week Mass Effect 2 launched worldwide, and I've had to leave on hold my Dragon Age gaming until I finish it (I'm around 16 hours of ME2 playtime).</p>

<p>While I will leave my judgement of the game, it's RPG softening for the masses, it's incredible narrative (being simple doesn't means it can't have deep transcripts) and a small screenshots gallery I'm taking as I play for a later post, today I wanted to comment something that happened to me and I've finally fixed (thanks to <a href="http://social.bioware.com/forum/1/category/106/index">the ME2 community</a>, but I can't find the exact post).</p>

<p>If you have a Dual-Core or Quad-Core CPU, <b>there seems to be an Unreal Engine 3 bug that causes some incredibly long loading times in Mass Effect 2 and Dragon Age</b> (I suffered it only on ME2, but I will try in Dragon Age to see if speed improves too). A 5 seconds loading screen in an affected computer takes easily 20 to 30 seconds!</p>

<p>The solution is easy but a bit boring because each time you launch the game you have to repeat it:</p>

<ol>
<li>When the game is running, ALT+TAB from it or minimize and open the Windows Task Manager</li>

<li>Go to the <i>Processes</i> tab, right click on <i>masseffect2.exe</i> and select <i>Set Affinity</i>.</li>

<li>Uncheck all CPUs and check only the first one (<i>CPU 0</i>).</li>

<li>Close Task Manager and get back to the game again.</li>
 </ol>

<p>Loading times should be much much faster!</p>