Using Inspector/Reshade for Softer Sprites Mod [2017-08-23]

[yaypuff]

About

This guide is about how to use ProfileInspector "sgss-aa" or Reshade shaders for generally "softer blended" visuals.

Do I need to use this?

• Recent game updates [since patch 1.05] have fixed many of the graphical issues via in-game graphic settings. So the use of these mods are completely optional.
  
• It may help for uncommonly large resolutions such as 3840x2160 or greater (as some users have mentioned).
  
• If you think the game already looks fine, then please skip this guide.

Does the author use this?

• I use a standard 1920x1080 setup. The game looks and runs well with just the available in-game options [since patch 1.05]. As a result I do not really use these mods anymore.

Requirements

A dedicated graphics card past minimum requirements for both gpu and cpu. It uses brute force to override graphics settings.

• Profile Inspector requires Nvidia graphics card.
  
• Reshade uses any Amd / Nvidia directx9.0 compatible graphics card.

Sometimes hardware and third-party software are incompatible. If you experience issues then please stop using this.

Complete guide is here. Please CLICK BELOW ↴

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=952973215

[ViperZeth]

Oh thanks OP, this makes the game playable for me. Thanks alot :D

Quick note for some people that can't get it to work:
If you already have an Nvidia Control Panel profile set up for BBCF, remove that before making an Nvidia Inspector profile.
The Control Panel doesnt have the same options and seems to override the Inspector.

Also follow these steps if you haven't. GeForce Experience likes to block the Inspector.

Publicado originalmente por Slaskburk:

If Nvidia Inspector is failing to apply your specified settings*, it's most likely that your Control Center is preventing you from overriding the global defaults, or enhancing the application's settings.

The following steps should get Nvidia Inspector working properly:
• Remove GeForce Experience.
• Download the latest set of Drivers for your graphics card (but don't install yet).
• Download a Driver Sweeper, recommend: DDU[www.guru3d.com].
• Reboot into safe mode and run your Driver Sweeper. (DDU offers this after install)
• Perform a Clean Installation of Drivers, preferably without Geforce Experience. Reboot.

Run and setup Nvidia Inspector using Kirbypuff's settings as a baseline - gradually crank up the settings and see if there's any quality improvement without taking a hit to performance.

*An easy way to see if Nvidia Inspector is actually applying to the game is to temporarily set an FPS limiter around 25 FPS. It's instantly noticable, or you can just display the FPS indicator in-game.

[OHhhhMan]

Thanks very much, it does work for me

[ShimazakiD]

Publicado originalmente por ViperZeth:

Oh thanks OP, this makes the game playable for me. Thanks alot :D

Quick note for some people that can't get it to work:
If you already have an Nvidia Control Panel profile set up for BBCF, remove that before making an Nvidia Inspector profile.
The Control Panel doesnt have the same options and seems to override the Inspector.

Also follow these steps if you haven't. GeForce Experience likes to block the Inspector.

Publicado originalmente por Slaskburk:

If Nvidia Inspector is failing to apply your specified settings*, it's most likely that your Control Center is preventing you from overriding the global defaults, or enhancing the application's settings.

The following steps should get Nvidia Inspector working properly:
• Remove GeForce Experience.
• Download the latest set of Drivers for your graphics card (but don't install yet).
• Download a Driver Sweeper, recommend: DDU[www.guru3d.com].
• Reboot into safe mode and run your Driver Sweeper. (DDU offers this after install)
• Perform a Clean Installation of Drivers, preferably without Geforce Experience. Reboot.

Run and setup Nvidia Inspector using Kirbypuff's settings as a baseline - gradually crank up the settings and see if there's any quality improvement without taking a hit to performance.

*An easy way to see if Nvidia Inspector is actually applying to the game is to temporarily set an FPS limiter around 25 FPS. It's instantly noticable, or you can just display the FPS indicator in-game.

I´ll not uninstal Geforce Experience for this!.....is the only way i can stream and record with good quality without taking to much processing power............guess i have to wait for the patch then!

[Blitzz]

Its fine i have gforce experiance and it works, Just test it with the frame limit cap, if the game moves in slow mo from the 25fps then it works.

[Piglet]

Publicado originalmente por q1234:

Publicado originalmente por Blitzz:

dam sprites look amazing, mind sharing the settings :P ?

https://pastebin.com/iEwQNBWH

Publicado originalmente por ForthRight:

Could you explain how to use ReShade please, as your screenshot looks very good but I've never used it before.

Thank you.

Download Reshade from reshade.me. Install it to the game folder. Pick the shaders (HQ4X,SMAA,Technicolor2,AdaptiveSharpen,AmbientLight,FXAA for this preset, plus whatever you want). Save the preset (see above) as .ini into the game folder. Start the game, follow the on-screen instructions, select the preset from the list. Menu is toggled with Shift-F2. Technicolor2 and AmbientLight are unrelated to the sprite issue, so you may want to turn them off.

Publicado originalmente por Slaskburk:

Seems to help nicely for smoothing out the sprites, but is that severe brightness really required though?

Not really, I was just messing around with Technicolor and AmbientLight. Looks more "cartoonish" that way, and AmbientLight allows the background to illuminate sprites, making the picture softer and more natural. But I'm using an aRGB monitor, so my settings for these two shaders are going to look like crap for most people.

Thank you very much for these settings, they make a massive difference. :-)

[xStormKillerx]

Any tip for AMD users?

[Qai]

Publicado originalmente por xStormKillerx:

Any tip for AMD users?

Buy NVIDIA.

[Minmataro]

Publicado originalmente por Qai:

Publicado originalmente por xStormKillerx:

Any tip for AMD users?

Buy NVIDIA.

I was waiting for a brain damaged response like this... lol

[Dashiell]

Publicado originalmente por xStormKillerx:

Any tip for AMD users?

Radeon Pro, RadeonMod, whichever will work.

[Qai]

Publicado originalmente por Minmataro:

Publicado originalmente por Qai:

Buy NVIDIA.

I was waiting for a brain damaged response like this... lol

=)

[quinto]

I tried the suggested settings and i didn't see any difference with the character sprites. Is Nvidia Inspector the same thing as Nvidia Control Panel? (that's what it's called on my system)

[Qai]

Publicado originalmente por El_Quinto:

I tried the suggested settings and i didn't see any difference with the character sprites. Is Nvidia Inspector the same thing as Nvidia Control Panel? (that's what it's called on my system)

No, they are not the same thing. NVIDIA Control Panel is part of the official NVIDIA drivers. The Profile Inspector is a third-party program made for NVIDIA cards. It has no official affiliation with NVIDIA.

[Blitzz]

Went ahead and disabeled everything to get a good "before" pic for anyoane interested to see a vanilla game comparison

before: http://i.imgur.com/OS5e94i.jpg
after: http://i.imgur.com/2jeaq8w.jpg (8x SGS, Reshade)

My reshade settings for who is interested: https://pastebin.com/L638EbzE
Im using HQ4X, SMAA, AdaptiveSharpen, Clarity, Colourfulness, DPX

Kyrby you should consider adding a Reshade tutorial to the main post and maybe Slaskburks info about Geforce experiance and how to check if it stops nvidia inspector

[masterotaku]

In the first two games, the best way to improve the graphics was playing at 1280x768 and using a very high SSAA or SGSSAA method (higher resolutions were internally upscaled in a pixelated way). Without them, character sprites would flicker when they were far from each other (when the camera goes backwards and you don't see the sprites at their native resolution). Also, this solved shimmering on the floor textures.

Chronophantasma Extend broke this, and I couldn't successfully force supersampling.

I'm glad that we can finally play at high resolutions (can it be any resolution, like 1440p, 4K, 5K, etc? I haven't bought it yet, but I'll be glad work on the 3D Vision fix when I do). About the issue, right now they are nearest neighbor filtered sprites. The higher the internal resolution, the more similar sprites will look to the resolution they need. I guess that devs need to filter the sprites when the monitor resolution isn't 1280x768 or an exact multiple, or offer an ingame option for that.

It would also be great if 16:9 aspect ratio resolutions just cropped some top and bottom view (I don't know if they do in this game). At least in the older games, sprites were scaled and it was ugly at 1280x720 and 2560x1440 (and I can't use 2560x1536 cropped, sadly).

[quinto]

Okay, I set Nvidia Inspector to 8x sparsegrid supersampling, then installed reshade and applied HQ4X, SMAA, AdaptiveSharpen. The character sprites look much better now. Thanks for this.