STEINS;GATE Steam Improvement Patch

[daxxy]

Introduction

Greetings and salutations, lab mems and gigalomaniacs. This is a fan patch to touch up some blemishes on the Steam release of STEINS;GATE.

To download, visit our website.[sonome.dareno.me] Installation instructions and credits can also be found there. We will be providing support in this thread, however.

This was just a side project of a side project. Watch our blog or follow us on Twitter for more Science Adventure stuff soon.

UPDATE: That was nearly five years ago now. Can you believe it? Well, a promise is a promise, and we’ve finally gotten around to releasing this major update for the STEINS;GATE Steam patch! Throughout the years, we’ve gained more and more experience working with this series, so it was only natural that someday we’d return to the project that started it all! Even though STEINS;GATE still remains as a top-of-the-line localization, there’s always a few things to fix, aren’t there? Now then, without further ado, let the 19790th development council commence!

Changelog

Version 2.0 (Jul 28, 2021)

• Lots of internal updates.
  
• Installer and launcher updated.
  
• Steam Play (Linux) support.
  
• .NET Framework is no longer required.
  
• A full proofreading pass of the game has been completed, fixing slight grammatical issues, minor typos and wording issues, as well as an extensive amount of inconsistencies with text formatting.
  
• A full translation check of the TIPS has been completed, fixing minor terminology issues, light inaccuracies, as well as improving general readability.
  
• A small handful of text and translation fixes.
  
• More edited CGs added.
  
• Improved song translations.

Version 1.1 (August 30, 2020)

• Fixed the text font to remove certain display errors.
  
• A few more edited CGs added.
  
• Some edited images have been redone with improved visuals or translations.
  
• More script edits to fix Engrish and various other major mistakes.

Version 1.03 (Sep 11, 2017)

• Compatibility update for 09/11/2017 game patch.

Version 1.02 (Feb 8, 2017)

• Fixed an issue where saving to file 38 would corrupt the outline texture, causing black boxes to be drawn above hyphens.

Version 1.01 (Nov 21, 2016)

• Fixed crash relating to HQ Audio functionality.

Version 1.00 (Nov 21, 2016)
Initial release.

Features

Here's the full list of improvements. Each can be turned on and off individually, if you like.

• Script fixes: A full proofreading pass of the game has been completed, fixing slight grammatical issues, minor typos and wording issues, as well as an extensive amount of inconsistencies with text formatting and a handful of translation fixes. Also includes display fixes in Suzuha’s route.
  
• Checked TIPS: A full translation check of the TIPS has been completed, fixing minor terminology issues and light inaccuracies, as well as improving general readability.
  
• Better typography: Adds word-wrapping to the phone and displays text in a nicer font. (before[sonome.dareno.me], after[sonome.dareno.me])
  
• High-quality CGs: Replaces low-quality (more heavily upscaled/compressed) translated images with edits of the high-quality Japanese originals.
  
• High-quality FMV music: For openings and endings, plays high-quality BGM tracks instead of the included low-quality audio tracks.
  
• Karaoke subtitles: Adds styled karaoke subtitles to openings and endings.
  
• Forced texture filtering: Greatly improves visual quality during zoom-ins and at sub-1080p resolutions.
  
• Black screen fix: Workaround for issue where game hangs at black screen when exiting while in fullscreen mode.
  
• Higher-quality videos: Adds subtitles to some translated videos, allowing you to use the high-quality Japanese originals. (Requires manual setup, see installation instructions)

[Rain]

How does this compare to the JAST version?

[daxxy]

Originally posted by 561:

How does this compare to the JAST version?

This version has higher resolution/quality CGs (they're not 1080p natively, but look higher than the JAST version's 1024x576).

The English-edited CGs in the unpatched Steam version were upscales of the JAST version's CGs, while ours are new edits of the HD CGs from the Japanese Steam version.

Probably the biggest issue with the Steam version was the text display. Text looks like this[s.vndb.org] in the JAST version. Our text looks similar to that (slightly better, I'd say, but I'm obviously biased). I've linked pictures of the unpatched Steam version's text and our patch's text in the OP, so you can compare for yourself.

The Steam version also has some Engrish, but we fixed that too.

Note that the JAST version is much older and thus has lower system requirements than the Steam version (though that isn't very resource hungry either).

[Mr. Hugh Mannity]

Could the mod please sticky this thread? Just tried the patch and holy hell it totally fixed my main issue with the game. Way better font, no more black screen and some noticeably improved audio too. I can finally play this masterpiece of a game!

[Coolcor]

Originally posted by Mr. Hugh Mannity:

Could the mod please sticky this thread?

An even better option would be for the devs to ask whoever made this permission into making this an official patch so all steam users will automatically get it, not just ones that visit the forums. But they probably don't care enough to do something cool like that.

[Snakethesniper]

I tried the mod but the game wouldn't start

[daxxy]

Originally posted by Coolcor:

An even better option would be for the devs to ask whoever made this permission into making this an official patch so all steam users will automatically get it, not just ones that visit the forums. But they probably don't care enough to do something cool like that.

This should go without saying, but just in case: MAGES are free to integrate any and all of these changes into an official patch.

Originally posted by Snakethesniper:

I tried the mod but the game wouldn't start

Sorry to hear that.
- Does the game work for you without the mod?
- When trying to use the mod, does the launcher open (and just fail to do anything when you click Start Game), or does the launcher not show up either?
- Inside the "languagebarrier" folder in your game folder, there should normally be a "log.txt" file. Can you check whether that exists? If it does, can you post its contents on Pastebin[pastebin.com] and post the link here?

[Grelo]

Thanks, works perfectly. :)

[Snakethesniper]

Originally posted by DrDaxxy:

Originally posted by Coolcor:

An even better option would be for the devs to ask whoever made this permission into making this an official patch so all steam users will automatically get it, not just ones that visit the forums. But they probably don't care enough to do something cool like that.

This should go without saying, but just in case: MAGES are free to integrate any and all of these changes into an official patch.

Originally posted by Snakethesniper:

I tried the mod but the game wouldn't start

Sorry to hear that.
- Does the game work for you without the mod?
- When trying to use the mod, does the launcher open (and just fail to do anything when you click Start Game), or does the launcher not show up either?
- Inside the "languagebarrier" folder in your game folder, there should normally be a "log.txt" file. Can you check whether that exists? If it does, can you post its contents on Pastebin[pastebin.com] and post the link here?

Yes without the mod it works as intended. I simply unpacked the archive in the STEINS;GATE folder.
So what happens is that the process launcher starts but it doesn't show up. The log is basically clear:
[11/21/16 12:21:50] LanguageBarrier for STEINS;GATE
[11/21/16 12:21:50] **** Start apprication ****

EDIT: removing the video options in the patch launcher (karaoke and the high quality stuff) the launcher now starts
EDIT2: enabling them again, the launcher starts now. I don't know why. Thanks for the patch!

Also I wanted to ask, I noticed that the text (not with the patch, normally in the vanilla game) is blurrier when in fullscreen (1360x768) while windowed (1280x768) is clearer. Do you know if it's possibile to do anything about that? But probably I'm the only one with this issue.

[daxxy]

We just released an update fixing a crash that occurs after certain cutscenes when using the HQ Audio option. You'll probably want to check the downloads again. Apologies for the inconvenience.

Originally posted by Snakethesniper:

Also I wanted to ask, I noticed that the text (not with the patch, normally in the vanilla game) is blurrier when in fullscreen (1360x768) while windowed (1280x768) is clearer. Do you know if it's possibile to do anything about that? But probably I'm the only one with this issue.

Yeah, the game doesn't support nonstandard resolutions very well. I can't make any promises for updates right now, but we'll look into it.

[Snakethesniper]

Originally posted by DrDaxxy:

We just released an update fixing a crash that occurs after certain cutscenes when using the HQ Audio option. You'll probably want to check the downloads again. Apologies for the inconvenience.

Originally posted by Snakethesniper:

Also I wanted to ask, I noticed that the text (not with the patch, normally in the vanilla game) is blurrier when in fullscreen (1360x768) while windowed (1280x768) is clearer. Do you know if it's possibile to do anything about that? But probably I'm the only one with this issue.

Yeah, the game doesn't support nonstandard resolutions very well. I can't make any promises for updates right now, but we'll look into it.

thank you!

[ATKOtter]

I know it's unlikely, but is there any possibility for porting the font enhancements to the Vita version of the game?

[Mr. Hugh Mannity]

Originally posted by AlexHusky:

I know it's unlikely, but is there any possibility for porting the font enhancements to the Vita version of the game?

And why would they do that?

[daxxy]

Originally posted by AlexHusky:

I know it's unlikely, but is there any possibility for porting the font enhancements to the Vita version of the game?

Technically possible, but it's a lot of work. No plans to do so right now, sorry.

[ATKOtter]

Originally posted by Mr. Hugh Mannity:

Originally posted by AlexHusky:

I know it's unlikely, but is there any possibility for porting the font enhancements to the Vita version of the game?

And why would they do that?

Because it's the exact same version that was ported to Steam?
That's the only reason I brought it up, is because it's based on the same build of the game that the Steam version is.

Originally posted by DrDaxxy:

Originally posted by AlexHusky:

I know it's unlikely, but is there any possibility for porting the font enhancements to the Vita version of the game?

Technically possible, but it's a lot of work. No plans to do so right now, sorry.

Thanks for the response! I thought so, just wondered if there was the possibility.

[wildpomme]

This is awesome! Thanks. I was just deciding if I should buy a third copy of Steins;Gate (steam version) or play one of the two I already own (PS3 and JAST) in preparation for Zero, since I've only seen the anime. The biggest put-off for me was the text wrapping. Seems like with this patch the Steam version might be the best version now.