Progress on LE2 Engine file modification? ("Crush Blacks" issue)

[sagira24]

I was just wondering if the community has made any progress on the "crushed blacks" issue in LE2 (and to a lesser extent, LE3), where the game is just too dark at times and there isn't enough detail.

 

I know this was present in the original as well, but you could edit the engine files to correct it. Now, for whatever reason, any edit to the engine files results in a failure for the game to launch. I tried to replace the LE2 files with the LE1 files (this also used to work with the originals) but that's a no-go either.

 

I seriously think this is a critical blow to how LE2 looks, and disabling Depth of Field is just trading in one problem for another, in my view.

 

So yeah, I couldn't find any word on a fix or even an attempt to find one, just wondering if anyone here knows something. I've played around with a few reshades but I just don't find them to be very satisfying. I am, however, open to suggestions.

[sagira24]

For anyone else who comes across this problem, the most satisfying solution I've found this far is this combination of mod + reshade.

 

Disable DOF, Increase Shadow Resolution

 

and

 

Mass Effect HDR and Realism

 

It's not perfect but it's certainly better than vanilla, or vanilla sans DoF.

 

I hope one day we can just edit the engine files to correct the issue.