High Mass Effect fan speed
High Mass Effect fan speed
I recently downloaded the Mass Effect trilogy on PC and have been revisiting Mass Effect 1 (which I also played on Xbox 360). This game really pushes my fans to their limits. Usually they only reach a noticeable level around 70-75°C, but this one boosts them up to 100% by the time I hit 68°C. It’s quite bothersome. Mass Effect 2 and 3 perform similarly in temperature but don’t strain the fans as much. My system includes an i7 6700hq, a GTX960m, and 16GB RAM on a Dell XPS 15.
Additional checks show GPU usage remains around 55% regardless of the display quality. Lowering visual effects doesn’t seem to ease the strain. At maximum performance, frame rate stays steady at 60fps.
I initially thought about creating custom curves for GPU fans, but then realized it was a laptop.
When using tools such as Afterburner, this should not occur. Afterburner relies on CPU temperature as the starting point for the curve. Other programs in this category lack direct control over hardware, which means the GPU driver is likely responsible for this behavior.
I installed Afterburner to test custom fan settings, but it seems my 960M isn’t equipped with its own speed controller—it appears both fans are managed by the motherboard. I’m curious why Mass Effect has a unique fan curve compared to regular games, and Fallout New Vegas is almost completely quiet at around 68°C.