Mass Effect 3 Black Texture Problem

[g0dginrai]

Apologies if this is in the wrong place or if you folks don't normally deal with this, but I'm hoping someone will be able to help me this.

imgur.com/u4OczOH
imgur.com/7Jovk31
imgur.com/DzA2YYp
imgur.com/Vs3zZoX
imgur.com/D3P4I8C

Now, from what I can tell, I seem to be suffering from the 'Black Textures' problem as referenced in the ME3 Explorer Wiki here:

me3explorer.wikia.com/wiki/Troubleshooting:_Textures#I_have_black_textures_in_game.

The problem though, is that I'm getting this in a completely vanilla install of the game with absolutely zero mods installed. I've tried reinstalling the game multiple times, deleted all ME3 folders, even uninstalled Origin, deleted all it's folders and reinstalled that before then reinstalling ME3 and the problem still persists. I've also checked other games I own including ME2, Arkham Knight and FFXIII just to make sure that it isn't a problem with my Graphics Card (ASUS ROG Strix GTX 1080) and the problem only exists in ME3.

Really hope someone here can help me with this. Recently got a new 4K TV and was looking forward to playing through ME3 with High Res Textures.

All help is greatly appreciated and thanks in advance.

[giftfish]

This isn't a toolset or modding-related question, so it is indeed off-topic. This is where you'd post, if anywhere.

If you have black textures on a vanilla install, then something is profoundly wrong. It could very well be the GPU driver and how it's interacting with ME3. Just b/c you don't have problems in other games, doesn't mean there can't be a problem between the driver and ME3.

I'd recommend 3 things:

1. Vanilla again, and be sure you are vanillaing in the proper way. Delete the entire ME3 game folder inside Origin Games. Then, let Origin repair your install. If you do anything but this, results are unpredictable. Also, to be clear, even modding the coalesced is still modding, and can affect the display of textures. If you've modded your coalesced and this has happened, revert to a vanilla coalesced.

2. Experiment with your settings in the Nvidia Control Panel for ME3. Start with everything at default. The game is 5 years old; it may not be compatible with some of the newest settings available. If it's fixed with default settings, then slowly turn things on and see when you encounter the problem.

3. Try a different driver.

-----

Lastly, search/post on Nvidia's Geforce forums. See if anyone else has the problem. If not, make a post yourself. Assuming you vanilla'd properly and don't have a modded coalesced, this is likely a GPU problem, and not something anyone here can help with.

[alvaro]

g0dginrai:

Would you, please, take a look at your GamerSettings.ini config file?

You´ll find it at your "Documents\BioWare\Mass Effect 3\BIOGame\Config" folder

Edit it -using Notepad, i.e.- and look for any config line starting with "TEXTUREGROUP_". If you had any, remove them all and launch the game once more to check if the issue is solved.

Looks like you have a LOD issue here. Did you ever mod your Me3 game before? If so, that could be the cause here in case you tweaked your GamerSettings config file then.

HTH!
Alvaro

[creeperlava]

What alvaro said, or same instructions but for the Coalesced.bin. Depends on which one you chose to edit.

[giftfish]

alvaro -- I always forget about that little file. Good catch.

[g0dginrai]

Yes! That seems to have been the problem alvaro. Did as you suggested and everything is working fine again. Though I'm not sure what caused it in the first place as I've used mods (Textures or otherwise) and never had this problem before. Now, the mods I tried using are the following:

-MEHEM v0.5
-CEM Full
-MEHEM v0.5 to CEM
-Extended Final Anderson Conversation 2.0
-Ken and Gabby Recruitment Restoration Mod (AVPen's DLC version)
-Restored Zaeed Conversation v3

The six above are the mods I installed before (as well as High Resolution Textures) and had no problems with textures or anything else.

This time around, I also tried installing:

-Expanded Galaxy Mod 1.05
-ME3Recalibrated v2.0 (I know this also installs the 'Restored Zaeed Conversation, so I didn't install that this time round)
-ThaneMOD v2.0D

And finally ending it all with 'ALOT'.

All were downloaded from the 'Nexus' with 'ALOT' being the last of the 'mods' installed via the latest stable release of ME3Explorer.

-Installed Game and DLC
-Installed Mods
-Ran ME3Explorer and Unpacked DLC
-Ran Texplorer and built Tree
-Ran TPF Tools and installed 'ALOT'

So does anyone know if one of these additional mods could've caused the problem somehow or did I get something wrong with the install process?

[creeperlava]

The mods aren't in cause. What you've most likely done is edit the GamerSettings ini. Namely, the texturegroup settings. These should be edited carefully, if at all, and can cause the kind of issue you observed.

[g0dginrai]

Weird, must've done that some time ago (possibly years) and forgotten all about it. Well, once again, thanks for all the help folks.