Mass Effect 3

[shinra-electric]

Description

Gets to the title screen, background doesn't display.
Main menu doesn't display, but works in the background.
Loading screen works (I used Vulkan to create a save so I could get past the main menu).
Most of the intro cutscene runs at less than 2fps, blackscreens after a certain point.
Black screen in-game (audio works, I don't think the game is running)

Screenshots

Title Screen:

Main Menu (menu works in background):

MoltenVK status

Goes in-game with Vulkan, though there are graphical issues.

Title Screen:

Main Menu:

In-game cutscenes:

In-game:

GPU Traces

Title screen and Main Menu:
https://file.io/IgGb9vh8szHs

Cemu Metal version

testing2.1.0

Mac

M1 Pro
macOS 15.2

Similar reports

• I have checked that the game hasn’t been reported on the Issues page yet

[SamoZ256]

@shinra-electric do you have a log? The black background could be due to shader error

[shinra-electric]

@shinra-electric do you have a log? The black background could be due to shader error

There doesn't seem to be anything useful in the log (that I can see)
log.txt

This error did show up in Terminal when trying to run the intro cutscene though:
Cemu_release[16489:4524547] error messaging the mach port for IMKCFRunLoopWakeUpReliable
Edit: This shows up on Vulkan too, so not likely to be a problem

[shinra-electric]

I managed to capture a gpu trace from in-game, where the HUD is working:
Limewire link

(Looks like file.io was bought over by Limewire. I didn't know Limewire still existed...)

[SamoZ256]

@shinra-electric Looks like there are some strange issues with framebuffer fetch in this game. Could you please try turning it off in General Settings -> Debug?

[shinra-electric]

Title screen, menu and in-game working with framebuffer fetch disabled:

[shinra-electric]

However, the fps still drops to 2fps for the intro sequence:

[SamoZ256]

@shinra-electric great! The low FPS would probably require some profiling, but I doubt that it's bottlenecked. More like it's waiting for something. Could you please try this build to see if it works even with framebuffer fetch enabled?

[shinra-electric]

@shinra-electric great! The low FPS would probably require some profiling, but I doubt that it's bottlenecked. More like it's waiting for something. Could you please try this build to see if it works even with framebuffer fetch enabled?

With this build, the title screen and menus are working even with the framebuffer fetch enabled.
(I'll try in-game too, but I'll have to use Vulkan to get past the intro again. Presume it works, I'll only report back if it doesn't).

[shinra-electric]

I'm not sure if you changed anything related to Vulkan in that build, it's crashing on launch:

Unrecoverable error in Vulkan renderer
Msg: Failed to allocate buffer memory for VkBufferChunkedHeap

Edit:
Same with 2.2.0
2.1.1 is working

[SamoZ256]

@shinra-electric that’s a regression that has been merged to main Cemu (so macOS no longer works on it 🙂), but it’s a very easy fix (and should get fixed soon). But if the menus are working then I supposed that there was the same issue ingame

[shinra-electric]

Yep, in-game is working.

Here is a gpu trace from the intro cutscene

[SamoZ256]

@shinra-electric does this image appear later in the intro?

Cause in the frame capture, this is rendered first and then it gets overridden by the text

[SamoZ256]

Wait, you said that it's in game?

[SamoZ256]

As for the strange patterns on hands, that seems to be caused by a corrupted normal texture/incorrect decoding of it

[shinra-electric]

@shinra-electric does this image appear later in the intro?

No, it doesn't.

Here is a video of the intro on YouTube starting at 3:19.

Wait, you said that it's in game?

Yes, I had to use Vulkan to get past the intro video and make a save, then when loading with Metal with the test build, in-game works.

Edit: Did you mean the gpu trace? No, that's from the intro when it drops to 2fps.

[shinra-electric]

As for the strange patterns on hands, that seems to be caused by a corrupted normal texture/incorrect decoding of it

Vulkan has quite a few rendering issues too, but the intro plays at full speed.

[SamoZ256]

@shinra-electric does this image appear later in the intro?

No, it doesn't.

Here is a video of the intro on YouTube starting at 3:19.

Wait, you said that it's in game?

Yes, I had to use Vulkan to get past the intro video and make a save, then when loading with Metal with the test build, in-game works.

Edit: Did you mean the gpu trace? No, that's from the intro when it drops to 2fps.

Oh, alright, so the trace is still from intro. In that case, it's even more interesting, since it seems like the intro has already finished running from the game's perspective. Could you maybe try running it from Xcode and sending the console output? Might be another GPU hang

[shinra-electric]

Here is the lldb output.

There was nothing new printed there when it started going into the intro sequence.

ME3_lldb_console.txt

[SamoZ256]

I see. Don’t know what could cause it then

[shinra-electric]

I tried this build with framebuffer fetch off, but it doesn't render in-game. (Same as with framebuffer on)

[SamoZ256]

@shinra-electric but it did render in-game on the build that broke Devil’s Third? Also, does the menu render correctly (with framebuffer fetch off)

[shinra-electric]

@shinra-electric but it did render in-game on the build that broke Devil’s Third?

Yes, I mentioned it was working here. (Actually, for in-game I said I would report back later, which I did here).

Also, does the menu render correctly (with framebuffer fetch off)

No, the whole thing is the same as with framebuffer fetch on. Title screen, menu and in-game.