Overview
A very basic guide to adding a Alt+F4 quick game quit hotkey, both through BioInput.ini and a macro text file.(Mostly applicable to the Origin version; I haven’t yet checked whether the Steam version complies with Alt+F4 natively.)
Introduction
If you’re anything like me, you may want an easy way to quit Mass Effect midway through, so that you can make different decisions without having to wait through several cutscenes and then reload a much older save.
However, Mass Effect doesn’t seem to be responsive to Alt+F4 without some editing. (At least, the Origin version isn’t; I haven’t checked the Steam version. I imagine they are identical, though.)
This isn’t a problem if you can retrain yourself to use Shift+F5 instead, since the game does respect Shift+F5 as an exit key. Unfortunately, this alternative was not very natural for my muscle memory, and I didn’t want to risk accidentally overwriting my quick-save file. I figured other people may have had the same issue.
This guide is intended to make the process as easy as possible.
For supplemental information about editing the Mass Effect configuration files, I recommend Mass Effect Wiki’s guide to PC Tweaks.[masseffect.wikia.com]
The traditional way (BIOInput.ini editing)
Most edits to the control scheme involve editing BIOInput.ini. This is a very powerful file that can allow you to change a lot of things about gameplay.
The file is located in Bioware Mass Effect Config.
Scroll down until you find this line, or search for it:
Then, you can replace it with something like this:
The semicolon in front of the original line will turn it into a comment, and the second copy of the line will actually perform the quit command when the keystroke is pressed.
However, I’ve heard occasionally that sometimes BIOInput.ini gets overwritten if you haven’t played for a while or change your hardware configuration. Therefore, I decided to try something else with this.
Creating a macro text file
That “AFKEY_F4.txt” line in BioInput.ini gave me an idea.
It turns out you can create macro[en.wikipedia.org] text files that will execute some commands in the console, possibly longer than a single command (I haven’t tested this), by placing properly named TXT files in the Binaries directory.
For the purpose of making Alt+F4 work, go into Binaries (in the game install directory) and create a standard Notepad TXT file called “AFKEY_F4.txt”. Once you have created it, put simply “exit” inside it, without quotes.
When you are done, boot up the game and try it out.
Good luck!