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EA Origin overlay client is causing performance issues on the Steam version of Mass Effect 3


EA recently released a new set of games on STEAM this past week, including Mass Effect, Battlefield, and the Star Wars Battlefront series. It has now come to our notice that a lot of Mass Effect 3 players are currently facing performance issues with the STEAM version of this game, as evident from this forum thread.

EA’s “Origin in-game overlay” seems to be the culprit here. The Steam version of Mass Effect 3 game has reportedly been suffering from performance issues, and the exact root cause has been narrowed down by gamers to the Origin overlay which actually remains permanently enabled in the background. These issues are yet to be addressed though.

Many PC gamers are suffering from significant gameplay performance issues. And the worst part is that Steam users cannot disable this feature due to the background ‘intrusive’ nature of EA’s Origin overlay. Mass Effect 3 should run easily on most of the modern PC systems, but gamers are unable to enjoy a smooth gaming experience due to framerate spikes, FPS drops and stuttering/lag.

Surprisingly, even if you disable the Origin overlay from the Origin settings, Mass Effect 3 will automatically enable the Origin overlay in the background on Steam, resulting in poor overall performance.

Before some gamers have noted that Mass Effect 3 had performance issues even on the Origin overlay. But when they disabled the overlay all the stutters and lag disappeared. However, this same solution does not seem to work on the STEAM version, since the steam client forces and enables the Origin overlay regardless.

EA told some of the Steam users that this is a Steam issue, but when the exact same problem already existed before on the Origin overlay, we find it hard to believe how can the STEAM client be at fault here.

As of now, Mass Effect 3’s Steam version has mixed reviews.

Stay tuned for an update.