[Special K] Improved Framegen, Cutscene FPS Unlock and Other Fixes - [Updated May 6th, 2025]

[Kaldaien]

Introduction

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3448793433

Problem Description and Work in Progress

I have updated Special K for this game with a number of fixes for Anvil Next's broken NVIDIA Reflex integration (higher latency Framegen than should be), mysteriously vanishing DLSS options, aspect ratio fixes, and framerate uncap (with correct cloth physics).

These changes are included as of 25.6.5 (currently the latest TEST release), which you can find on our Discord server[discord.gg] in the #nightly-builds, or can be downloaded directly from our website[special-k.info]:

Features

• Black bar removal in (real-time) cutscenes
  
• Unlocked (real-time) cutscene framerate
  
• Frame generation in (real-time) cutscenes
  
• Improved frame generation pacing
  
• Increased FOV range

Download and Install

Installer (first-time users)

https://sk-data.special-k.info/SpecialK-test.exe

Portable Upgrade (replace SpecialK64.dll from an existing install)

https://sk-data.special-k.info/SpecialK-test.7z

---

Miscellaneous:

• Frame generation during FMV cutscenes is disabled, but real-time cutscenes support it.
  
• It has been tested working on Epic Games Store, Steam, Ubisoft Connect and Ubisoft+ (in other words, works with all versions of the game).

Please visit our Discord server for help, Ubisoft likes to ban me whenever I fix one of their games (rofl), so it really isn't ideal to communicate here.

[Kaldaien]

Is it specifically combinations of the Alt key?
I think you may be activating the Alt+Spacebar menu somehow.

[alexyenov]

โพสต์ดั้งเดิมโดย Kaldaien:

Is it specifically combinations of the Alt key?
I think you may be activating the Alt+Spacebar menu somehow.

Yes, when I press alt and other buttons the game freezes, but not with alt + space, but with alt + shift + w , for example. (I use alt to jump, shift to accelerate and w to run forward).

[Viktor]

โพสต์ดั้งเดิมโดย Stonaar:

Please be aware there is currently a bug causing lots of people to not see any DLSS settings when starting the game.
Lots of people are experiencing this and the only workaround is to keep restarting the game until you see the DLSS settings.

This has nothing to do with Special K.

As for the author, thanks for this awesome job!
Now I only need a mod that removes the aweful black bars in cutscenes :).

The cutscenes are in 21:9 though. I wanted the black bars to be removed too, as i thought they are just covering part of the picture, as many other games that adds black bars to cutscenes does it. Just like RDR2 for example. But in this game they are not covering anything. It's the opposite. The cutscenes are showing more, as they run in 21:9. The easy way to deal with it is to play the whole game at 21:9 aspect ratio. If you have 16:9 screen, you can make custom resolution in Nvidia control panel. If you don't wanna have black bars at all, then you are looking for changing aspect ratio of the cutscenes, not removing the black bars alone.

[Paramexix]

โพสต์ดั้งเดิมโดย Rannixx:

โพสต์ดั้งเดิมโดย Paramexix:

anyone got the pixelated shadows? and how to fix it. please help me because the game run in a smooth fps but the shadows is pixelated

Are you using DLSS Performance by chance? That might be the culprit there. Heard there can be some really bad artifacting from it.

i tried every settings but still the shadows is very pixelated

[Kaldaien]

โพสต์ดั้งเดิมโดย Viktor:

The easy way to deal with it is to play the whole game at 21:9 aspect ratio. If you have 16:9 screen, you can make custom resolution in Nvidia control panel. If you don't wanna have black bars at all, then you are looking for changing aspect ratio of the cutscenes, not removing the black bars alone.

That's the painfully inefficient way of doing that :)

Special K has a virtual aspect ratio feature that can do this in real-time.

Select the Display menu, and click "Aspect Ratio Stretch: 21:9". Now you have a 21:9 game, immediately.

[Viktor]

โพสต์ดั้งเดิมโดย Kaldaien:

โพสต์ดั้งเดิมโดย Viktor:

The easy way to deal with it is to play the whole game at 21:9 aspect ratio. If you have 16:9 screen, you can make custom resolution in Nvidia control panel. If you don't wanna have black bars at all, then you are looking for changing aspect ratio of the cutscenes, not removing the black bars alone.

That's the painfully inefficient way of doing that :)

Special K has a virtual aspect ratio feature that can do this in real-time.

Select the Display menu, and click "Aspect Ratio Stretch: 21:9". Now you have a 21:9 game, immediately.

Ok, i didn't know that.

And when i'm talking to you now, i tried Special K for unlocking frame rate for cutscenes. And now i know why devs locked them at 30 fps. Because they run like crap. They run like 20 fps less than normal gameplay. Why the cutscenes just can't run the same as gameplay? And even if locked at 30 FPS, the frame pacing is pretty bad too. They stutter a lot.
Also, it seems like they always run at DLSS quality mode, no matter what DLSS you set the game to.

Another thing. The FPS limiter in Special K doesn't work for me.

[Pirlouit]

A huge thanks for this. I just wanted the cutscen fps unlock, but running the game through special K also helped improve overall experience with better framerate... I'm not sure what wizardry it is, but I struggled with my 3090ti at 2k on low settings but with SK, I can play with decent framerate on DLSS quality and even enable FSR Frame gen without it breaking the game performance. Still some rough FPS dips around big settlements but It's manageable. Works on Ubisoft+ btw.

[Kaldaien]

โพสต์ดั้งเดิมโดย Pirlouit:

A huge thanks for this. I just wanted the cutscen fps unlock, but running the game through special K also helped improve overall experience with better framerate... I'm not sure what wizardry it is, but I struggled with my 3090ti at 2k on low settings but with SK, I can play with decent framerate on DLSS quality and even enable FSR Frame gen without it breaking the game performance. Still some rough FPS dips around big settlements but It's manageable. Works on Ubisoft+ btw.

Awesome, that's great to hear :)

I'm surprised it works with Ubisoft+, since I only reverse engineered the normal game executable. Glad to hear it does though.

Shame you don't have an RTX 4xxx+ GPU though, the optimization I did to fix the game's DLSS Frame Generation implementation is very impressive. Lower latency than any implementation of frame gen I've ever seen and it's smooth as hell too.

[Etern]

โพสต์ดั้งเดิมโดย Kaldaien:

the optimization I did to fix the game's DLSS Frame Generation implementation is very impressive. Lower latency than any implementation of frame gen I've ever seen and it's smooth as hell too.

Hi Kaldaien, big thanks for releasing this fix for AC Shadows, it's quite amazing. Quick question, did I set Special K up correctly to take advantage of your frame gen optimization you mentioned above? I set it to "Disable this game's native reflex" and pace native frames is checked. Let me know if I'm missing anything on the set up: https://imgur.com/a/WSoPY81

[Kaldaien]

โพสต์ดั้งเดิมโดย Etern:

โพสต์ดั้งเดิมโดย Kaldaien:

the optimization I did to fix the game's DLSS Frame Generation implementation is very impressive. Lower latency than any implementation of frame gen I've ever seen and it's smooth as hell too.

Hi Kaldaien, big thanks for releasing this fix for AC Shadows, it's quite amazing. Quick question, did I set Special K up correctly to take advantage of your frame gen optimization you mentioned above? I set it to "Disable this game's native reflex" and pace native frames is checked. Let me know if I'm missing anything on the set up: https://imgur.com/a/WSoPY81

Actually no.

A few things.

1. This game literally has no native Reflex, they forgot to add the code (lol), so you don't have to disable native. SK is implementing it for the game.
   
2. Set a framerate limit, you really don't want frame generation running without pacing.
   
3. Do not use Preset J or K for DLSS, there will be all kinds of ghosting.

If you upgrade to the latest nightly build from Discord, (25.3.24) cutscene frame generation is also production ready. Tempted to turn it on by default in the next release :)

[Pirlouit]

โพสต์ดั้งเดิมโดย Kaldaien:

โพสต์ดั้งเดิมโดย Pirlouit:

A huge thanks for this. I just wanted the cutscen fps unlock, but running the game through special K also helped improve overall experience with better framerate... I'm not sure what wizardry it is, but I struggled with my 3090ti at 2k on low settings but with SK, I can play with decent framerate on DLSS quality and even enable FSR Frame gen without it breaking the game performance. Still some rough FPS dips around big settlements but It's manageable. Works on Ubisoft+ btw.

Awesome, that's great to hear :)

I'm surprised it works with Ubisoft+, since I only reverse engineered the normal game executable. Glad to hear it does though.

Shame you don't have an RTX 4xxx+ GPU though, the optimization I did to fix the game's DLSS Frame Generation implementation is very impressive. Lower latency than any implementation of frame gen I've ever seen and it's smooth as hell too.

Yeah I tried getting my hands on a 50x since I didn't see the point on getting a 40x with the 3090ti still holding strong since I got it, but the prices are definitely a no go atm... I'll probably wait for next gen or at least the TI / Super version of the 5080... the 5070ti doesn't really seems worth it from what I've seen.

As for AC:S I was still able to get some settings from low to medium for some visual improvements and no huge performance cost so it's a win.

[I am Groot]

โพสต์ดั้งเดิมโดย Kaldaien:

Introduction

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3448793433

Problem Description and Work in Progress

I have updated Special K for this game with a number of fixes for Anvil Next's broken NVIDIA Reflex integration (higher latency Framegen than should be), mysteriously vanishing DLSS options, and framerate uncap.

These changes are included as of 25.3.22.4 (currently the latest TEST release), which you can find on our Discord server[discord.gg] in the #nightly-builds, or can be downloaded directly from our website[special-k.info]:

Download and Install

Installer (first-time users)

https://sk-data.special-k.info/SpecialK-test.exe

Portable Upgrade (replace SpecialK64.dll from an existing install)

https://sk-data.special-k.info/SpecialK-test.7z

Important Injection Requirements:

You must use SKIF to launch the game, local injection (i.e. naming Special K's DLLs to dxgi.dll) is unsupported due to DRM and anti-cheat (lol) complications.

---

Miscellaneous:

• Frame generation during FMV playback may cause crashes, so the feature is not enabled by default.
  
• It has been tested working on Epic Games Store, Steam and Ubisoft Connect, but is not currently compatible with Ubisoft+.

Please visit our Discord server for help, Ubisoft likes to ban me whenever I fix one of their games (rofl), so it really isn't ideal to communicate here.

I have a few problems with the latest SK 25.3.22.4. Not all cutscenes are free from the 30fps limit also the box graph with gpu and cpu usage is empty and isnt showing latency frame time etc, also with this version I get a random dx 12 error that I didnt get before...

[Kaldaien]

Can you not quote the entire title post please? :)

As for cutscene framerate, they're extremely GPU demanding, without frame generation, many times you won't break 30 FPS even with them uncapped.

Dunno what any of the other things mean from your description. If this were Discord, you could just paste a screenshot or something.

[Viktor]

โพสต์ดั้งเดิมโดย Kaldaien:

As for cutscene framerate, they're extremely GPU demanding

I would like to know why they are so demanding though. Why games like Death Stranding or FF7 Rebirth runs their cutscenes butter smooth and Ubisoft's cutscenes are always so choppy, even though they are not even so interesting as the other games i mentioned.

[Viktor]

Is there a way to make Special K work with Nvidia game filters? Those you activate by pressing alt + f3 in game, Special K seems to disabling them.