There are several options that are now available. There are two newer mods currently available that fix the problem for you. Alternatively players can manually tweak the files by enabling the in-game console and entering manual commands.

I'm delighted to say that the wonderful people who mod and fix our broken games have released two mods which should make the rest of this guide obsolete and redundant, so no more tinkering with files and washed out environments. These mods also happen to work with reshade/sweet fx.



Mod:https://cookieplmonster.github.io/mods/mass-effect/

"It’s been confirmed to work fine with both Origin and Steam versions of the game. It works out of the box, without the need for an ASI Loader or any other third party software.

To our best knowledge, the game now looks exactly how it should, without any downgrades in the lighting" Silent (mod author)

Please note: Bulldozer and AMD FX still affected, author is investigating.


I recommend reading Silent's notes/observations, it's an interesting read some real detective work going on there. It's a really thorough examination of the problem.



Mod:https://www.nexusmods.com/masseffect/mods/181 by Mgamerz

"This is technically more of a workaround - there are several directional lights on these maps that seem to trigger this issue - not all of them, but some of them, and there is nothing really to denote which ones trigger it. I simply trial-and-errored removing them from the level. In the end I removed about 13 lights. They don't technically change anything on AMD since they didn't work anyways. The side effect of this mod (vs Intel) is that these areas will have slightly dimmer characters. But there are thousands of other light sources on these maps so it's not that noticeable and it is far nicer than having huge black blobs on the screen." (mod author)

Find the Config file here:
Open the BIOinput ini file in the Config folder with Notepad and enable the console. This also works with Origin. If you think you need a back up, make a copy of the Config folder before you start.

The console is the third block of text down in the BIOinput ini file. To enable it make the text look like this. (The first one is for the US and the 2nd for International keyboards. If you still have problems opening the console, try changing the console key to another unbound key)


US Keyboard:

[Engine.Console]
MaxScrollbackSize=1024
HistoryBot=-1
ConsoleKey=Tilde

International Keyboards:

[Engine.Console]
MaxScrollbackSize=1024
HistoryBot=-1
ConsoleKey=Tab





This will create a much smaller on screen console that only uses one line of the screen instead of the normal 3/4.

[Engine.Console]
MaxScrollbackSize=1024
HistoryBot=-1
ConsoleKey
TypeKey=Tilde (or Tab)





Noveria, Peak 15 - Entrance

On restarting the game enter Peak 15 Noveria, press either Tilde/Tab or your designated consolekey. Enter the command:

Peak 15 - Rift Station

Once you reach Rift Station enter console command:
Quicksave and reload at Rift Station the graphics should return to normal and you won't need to make any further changes until you get to Ilos.


Ilos

At Ilos enter command:

Citadel

At the Citadel graphics return to normal so enter the command:

http://masseffect.wikia.com/wiki/Console#Enabling_The_Console



https://www.nexusmods.com/masseffect/mods/181 by Mgamerz

https://cookieplmonster.github.io/mods/mass-effect/ by Silent/CookiePLMonster




http://bsn.boards.net/
(watch out for spoilers if you haven't played all the games)