Sine Mora EX FAQ

[VRBALAZS]

GAMEPLAY

What's new?

• Sine Mora EX now displays at a 16:9 aspect ratio by default, making it fullscreen. The original 21:9 is still available in the settings as "CINEMATIC ASPECT RATIO".
  
• Voiceover is now available in English. The original alien language voices are still available, disguised as "HUNGARIAN" in the settings, which also happens to be the developers' native language. And yes, that makes us cool lizard punks.
  
• The whole campaign is available for cooperative play. The second player controls a different craft, essentially a spherical wingman. You can choose to shoot the bad(?) guys, or protect your partner with a shield from the bullet hell you're flying through.
  
• The PS3 exclusive Challenge levels are available in all versions, but be warned they're hard. Really, seriously, very hard!
  
• Three brand new VERSUS levels for a quick two player face-off. Expect to survive around 15-20 seconds per round :)
  
• There's a new "half-speed" button, holding it will make the ship move slower, enabling finer maneuvering for those who prefer digital controls.

What's tweaked?

• ARCADE play mode has dropped one difficulty down, so it's CHALLENGING and HARD now.
  
• Token "random" drops are deterministic - meaning the same chain of actions should lead to the same powerups acquired.
  
• When lost, weapon upgrade tokens bounce back ONCE from the edge of the screen, making it much easier to reacquire them. Still, don't be hasty.
  
• Collision with the background is causing much less damage, depending on the difficulty level. (Down to 1/10 on NORMAL)
  
• The garbage chute section is more forgiving, the radius of the trash in which you can hide has been increased by 50%.
  
• The homing missile is accurate even in slow motion.

TECHNICAL

The FAQ will refer a lot to "sinemoraex.settings", it's a text file located in the game folder, you can use steam's "browse local files" to pinpoint its location. Just use notepad, or any other text editor of your liking to open it.

The game runs too slow!
Lower the resolution in the settings, and make sure GFX QUALITY is not set to ULTRA. If it seems unplayably slow even on the lower settings, as a last resort, edit sinemoraex.settings, and change the value of "force_frameskip" from 0 to 1.

The game runs too fast!
Sine Mora likes VSync. It's trying to find the most optimal resolution on startup, but sometimes, rarely, it fails. Please try the following:

• It's highly recommended never to force "VSync OFF" using the GPU Control Panel, or other third party software. Please leave it on the default "Application Controlled", or at the very least make it the setting for "SineMoraEX.exe". This way the game can properly detect and use the right settings.
  
• If you're running in windowed mode, best results can be observed if the desktop is set to 59/60/61hz.
  
• If all else fails, edit sinemoraex.settings, and change the value of "software_sync" from 0 to 1. This will engage the game's own software FPS limiter, which always works, but isn't as smooth as VSync.

I've changed GFX QUALITY to ULTRA and now display is corrupted!
The ULTRA setting doubles the internal rendering resolution, and at 4K it seems to cause problems with certain GPU/driver combinations. There are several ways to resolve this:

• Start the game with the command line "/default:gfx_quality", without quotes. This will reset the quality to its default "HIGH". Don't forget to remove the command line once the game has saved its new settings.
  
• Edit sinemoraex.settings, change the value of "force_width" from 0 to e.g. 1920 (or 1280, anything that still works). Start the game, go to settings, change GFX QUALITY back to HIGH, and when the game has finished saving, quit. Edit sinemoraex.settings, and set the value back to 0.

Can i run it borderless windowed, or normal windowed?
Yes! At the moment, you'll have to edit sinemoraex.settings, change the value of "videomode" from 0 to 1, which will activate windowed mode. If you leave the values of "window_width" and "window_height" at 0, the game will open a borderless fullscreen window, otherwise a normal, bordered window will be used with the size requested.

Is it possible to remove the 60fps cap and play the game at a smooth 120/144hz?
No. The game itself has been coded for a 60hz refresh rate, all gameplay, collision, simulation, etc is expecting 60 updates per second. If your monitor supports a 60hz video mode, it's best to let the game use it. Forcefully removing 60hz modes will result in software throttling which is much less smooth than proper VSync.

[Mairo the bear]

Does force_aniso or force_aa do anything? Or am I just inserting values that are not acceptable.

[VRBALAZS]

Yes, both range 2..16, they're both silently clamped to values your device support. It's safe to specify f.e. 16 for both if you want to max out your settings.