If you’re tallying the number of days left till Mass Effect gets released for PC on May 28th (North America), then you’re not alone. In addition to screenshots of the revised UI and mini-game exclusive to the PC edition, BioWare announced the system requirements for the game.
From my point of view, the hardware requirements aren’t too steep; if your PC can handle pixel shaders 3.0 (or Unreal Engine 3), then you can handle Mass Effect.
A few follow-up questions were answered by BioWare’s Derek French, including that there’s no support for Direct X10 or the Xbox 360 controller in the PC edition.
Here are the requirements from Community Manager Jay Watamaniuk:
Minimum System Requirements for Mass Effect on the PC
Operating System: 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)
Hard Drive Space: 12 Gigabytes
Sound Card: DirectX 9.0c compatible sound card and drivers
Recommended System Requirements for Mass Effect on the PC
Operating System: 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
Hard Drive Space: 12 Gigabytes
Sound Card: DirectX 9.0c compatible sound card and drivers – 5.1 sound card recommended
