[Special K] Performance fix

[Kaldaien]

Important Re: 10/4/24 Patch

Atlus has fixed the performance problems that this special version of Special K originally fixed. Special K is no longer essential, though may offer other improvements, such as removing the game's exit confirmation, flip model (for Windows 10 users), etc.

I suggest following this project instead:

https://github.com/lyall/metaphorfix

Made by a friend, it includes a lot more game-specific QoL fixes than Special K will.

Tl;Dr: This fix is no longer needed, the below text is just for archival.

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This game has absolutely insane timing code under the hood that's causing some of the worst performance I have ever seen in a game. I threw together a patch to remove the bulk of the offending threading code and replace it with more efficient scheduling.

None of the problems are graphics API related, they should be so lucky :)

Extract either of these to your game's directory and it will apply the fixes automatically:

Special K

https://sk-data.special-k.info/misc/SK_MetaphorFix.7z

Standalone Fix

https://sk-data.special-k.info/misc/SK_MetaphorFixLite.7z

The standalone fix can be loaded either as XInput1_4.dll or using an asi loader and renaming it; it has not been tested as well and may cause hitching

Please see the Special K Discord for more info.

https://discord.gg/SpecialK

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I have bundled a version with the latest version of DXVK for testing

https://sk-data.special-k.info/misc/MetaphorFixDXVK.7z

In my testing, a few scenes benefit from DXVK, but many are 30%+ slower than NVIDIA's actual D3D11 driver. It's likely only AMD GPU users who will benefit from DXVK.

If you want to test this, please be aware that you must delete d3d11.dll and dxgi.ini to revert back to a working setup. The included INI points to DXVK's DXGI DLL and the game will not start until you remove it and DXVK's D3D11 DLL.

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For those who find DXVK is smoother out-of-the-box, you can achieve the same result in SK by adjusting backbuffer and maximum latency.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3339757586

Smoothest operation is always Backbuffers=n, Maximum Latency=n+1.

If you have an NVIDIA GPUs, you can use the Reflex graph to see the effect this has on latency.

It may be a good compromise if you can't get the stutter from the game's crappy culling in cities to go away.

This is basically the only advantage that DXVK has, it's extremely high latency because it's not framerate limited. But you can easily do the same thing in Special K, and can tweak this stuff to find a good compromise a hell of a lot quicker.

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Press Alt+Enter twice after changing the number of backbuffers to get that setting to take affect.

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Re: 9/28 Patch -- Conflicting reports about performance

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3339374363
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3339374699

There is still a CPU bottleneck here that prevents breaking 240 FPS in this scene uncapped even after the patch. That is the same bottleneck I have been removing from the game's code since day one.

They did optimize some other parts of the game's code, but you are not going to realize those optimizations until the giant honking CPU bottleneck is addressed.

They still do not know how to implement efficient timing code and it is utterly destroying performance (!!)

[Lana_Ray]

İlk olarak BDtetra tarafından gönderildi:

I'm completely stumped on how to get this game to work with DS4 controllers. Using latest version of specialK

• Launch from Special K Launcher
  no input or controller recognized (default ini settings).
  
• Launch from steam without specialK commandline and steam input on
  works perfectly fine
  
• Launch from steam with specialK commandline with steam input on or off
  no input or controller recognized (controller displayed in Ctrl+Shift+BckSpc menu correctly)
  XBox Mode on or off has no effect, enable and disabling slots has no effect. turning controller on and off has no effect.

Haven't used special k because I also didn't notice any problems but I've had extensive issues with controllers in the past for various games. Have you tried DS4Windows with special k ?

I remember one in particular was trying to use CE, it doesn't take PS button prompts only xbox so I had to trick CE into thinking I was using one.

[BDtetra]

İlk olarak Lana_Ray tarafından gönderildi:

Haven't used special k because I also didn't notice any problems

I really am trying to use Special K for the sole purpose of "don't pause on window unfocus" feature.

I stopped using DS4Windows quite a while ago once steam added steam input as an official feature since adding another layer of spoofing controllers would probably cause more problems.

[Lunar Fox]

saving

[PewPew]

Waiting for release version or if there are brave souls who tests this for the real game

[Stoibs]

İlk olarak PewPew tarafından gönderildi:

Waiting for release version or if there are brave souls who tests this for the real game

I was literally just about to give it a go.
My performance dropped from 144fps to ~95 in the Goblin Dungeon when loading up the full game - so it turns out the latest build from ATLUS maybe wasn't as fixed as Kaldaien suspected.

However as soon as I quit, the game immediately started downloading another ~5gb update.. so I'll see if that does anything first :P

(Might be the missing 35th anniversary stuff too - I couldn't figure out how to access it when I was playing just now)

[Stoibs]

Bump-Edit

Yeah using the Special K Lite version here in the full game, fixed my performance up again.
Works fine

[sm1e]

The full game runs much worse than the demo version on my PC. I can run the demo version at 150% render scale at 4k and get 90+ fps with a 10700k and an RTX 4090. The demo drops it down to 55-60 fps, plus I need to set the render scale to 100%. Tried using Special K with the fix and it didn’t change much.

[Grymz]

sorry if already mentioned, is there a version of this for the release game that allows for HDR, borderless fullscreen render in background?

[kumasama]

İlk olarak Grymz tarafından gönderildi:

sorry if already mentioned, is there a version of this for the release game that allows for HDR, borderless fullscreen render in background?

use auto hdr it works very well

[Adelfuns]

İlk olarak sm1e tarafından gönderildi:

The full game runs much worse than the demo version on my PC. I can run the demo version at 150% render scale at 4k and get 90+ fps with a 10700k and an RTX 4090. The demo drops it down to 55-60 fps, plus I need to set the render scale to 100%. Tried using Special K with the fix and it didn’t change much.

For me too, the full game definitely runs way worse. In my case, the most tanking area is the cathedral.

[loki_101]

I think the frame pacing issues are back in the full game release. I don't seem to get a performance boost (at least according to Nvidia's OSD) but the Special K fix certainly smooths out the inconsistency for me.

[poperboy]

Any chance this could somehow fix the weird deadzone for vertical mouse camera movement?
You have to move the mouse fast to look up or down, while looking left and right are fine.

[BDtetra]

I finally figured the PS4 controller (Dualshock) issue out, you have to have Steam Input on (with the proper bindings of course), add the "SKIF %COMMAND%" in launch options, launch game through steam, and once the game loads, open the SKIF menu with Ctrl+Shift+BckSpc, and under "Input Management" > "Gamepad" > "PlayStation" > turn "Xbox mode" off (it was on by default for me). This fixed the issue of it not working.

[KingKrouch]

So I just tested this game on the Steam Deck, and it still wildly fluctuates between 40-50FPS in the cave area. They didn't optimize the other areas of the game as shown in that blogpost.

[sunnrocks82]

Without Special K: Full game is definitely running worse for me than the last version of the demo. The stuttering in the first open desert area and the first city is quite heavy. And all this with GPU and CPU-cores (considered individually) way below 100% all the time.

Specs: RTX 4070, Ryzen 7800X3D, Game on SSD, capped at 60FPS, no funny stuff running in the back, doesn´t matter if GSYNC or fixed, stutters are always present in named areas which was not the case in the demo. Whereby the game is runnig completely smoothly in smaller areas.

Game of course is playable, but it´s a bit of a downer.