[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 (!!)

[Pilda]

Hi, I use last version of SpecialK and Dual Sense controller. Trackpad is not working. Is there a way to fix it?

First, I unchecked Xbox mode and it helped but after some time, the gamepad stopped to work completely.

[Polyh3dron]

For whatever reason, this game is still broken for me on two different PCs without Special K. The game refuses to run at my laptop's native resolution without Special K whether in borderless or exclusive full screen modes, and G-Sync/VSync are both broken on my desktop PC. Special K fixes all of it.

[Kaldaien]

Originally posted by Pilda:

Hi, I use last version of SpecialK and Dual Sense controller. Trackpad is not working. Is there a way to fix it?

First, I unchecked Xbox mode and it helped but after some time, the gamepad stopped to work completely.

Trackpad doesn't work in the game, no.
The game is XInput-only.

If trackpad was doing anything at all, that's because of third-party software, and nothing to do with SK.

[Pilda]

Originally posted by Kaldaien:

Originally posted by Pilda:

Hi, I use last version of SpecialK and Dual Sense controller. Trackpad is not working. Is there a way to fix it?

First, I unchecked Xbox mode and it helped but after some time, the gamepad stopped to work completely.

Trackpad doesn't work in the game, no.
The game is XInput-only.

If trackpad was doing anything at all, that's because of third-party software, and nothing to do with SK.

No, it works without SpecialK. It works as a button for Travellers’ Voices. It only stops to work if I use SpecialK.

[Kaldaien]

Originally posted by Pilda:

Originally posted by Kaldaien:

Trackpad doesn't work in the game, no.
The game is XInput-only.

If trackpad was doing anything at all, that's because of third-party software, and nothing to do with SK.

No, it works without SpecialK. It works as a button for Travellers’ Voices. It only stops to work if I use SpecialK.

I guarantee you it does not work, you have third-party software doing that.
And apparently it's not very reliable software, so my guess is Steam Input.

The game only supports XInput, whatever software you were using to map the trackpad to something else, it's buggy.

You can just as easily bind that button to something in Special K or DS4Windows, both are more reliable than Steam Input.

[Pilda]

Originally posted by Kaldaien:

Originally posted by Pilda:

No, it works without SpecialK. It works as a button for Travellers’ Voices. It only stops to work if I use SpecialK.

I guarantee you it does not work, you have third-party software doing that.
And apparently it's not very reliable software, so my guess is Steam Input.

The game only supports XInput, whatever software you were using to map the trackpad to something else, it's buggy.

You can just as easily bind that button to something in Special K or DS4Windows, both are more reliable than Steam Input.

Yes, I use Steam input. I just solved it. I set the first input slot to yellow color and unchecked the Xbox mode. Now it works as intended.

Maybe SpecialK could detect this case and set it like that automatically? Detect if someone use Dual sense and Steam input and if they do, set it like that? Or at least write a warning about it. It would save people with this configuration and knowledge a lot of trouble.

[Kaldaien]

Originally posted by Pilda:

Originally posted by Kaldaien:

I guarantee you it does not work, you have third-party software doing that.
And apparently it's not very reliable software, so my guess is Steam Input.

The game only supports XInput, whatever software you were using to map the trackpad to something else, it's buggy.

You can just as easily bind that button to something in Special K or DS4Windows, both are more reliable than Steam Input.

Yes, I use Steam input. I just solved it. I set the first input slot to yellow color and unchecked the Xbox mode. Now it works as intended.

Maybe SpecialK could detect this case and set it like that automatically? Detect if someone use Dual sense and Steam input and if they do, set it like that? Or at least write a warning about it. It would save people with this configuration and knowledge a lot of trouble.

Not really, no.

The game only supports XInput, and Steam Input rarely works, so I have Xbox mode enabled by default. You can easily just bind the trackpad click yourself in Special K. But SK always assumes that Steam Input is broken unless first proven otherwise.

And the game ships on Microsoft Store too. Where you need DS4Windows (ideal) or Special K anyway. It's only Steam where you're likely to have problems caused by the Store you bought it from.