[Special K] Render Quality and Performance Settings SEGA Forgot - [Updated: 8/10/18]

[Kaldaien]

Version History

• 8/10/18: 0.9.24.5 - Config menu works without CEGUI; CEGUI disabled by default for compat.
  
• 8/9/18: 0.9.24.4 - Fixed screenshot deadlock
  
• 8/8/18: 0.9.24.1 - Fixed various threading issues with other overlays
  
• 8/7/18: 0.9.24.? - Re-Compiled with AVX instructions turned off for people with older CPUs.

Introduction

This mini-plugin for Special K will improve image quality as well as adding all the bells and whistles that come with Special K.

Current Features:

• Option to disable first-person blur
• Option to disable Depth of Field
• Option to disable SSAO
  Since people won't shutup about this, I should point out it's a performance option rather than img. quality -- I'm trying to cover all bases here and give players options that the developers did not.
  
  
• Fixed the volume at start; JESUS that volume is scary!
  
  
• HUDless Screenshots
  
  Default Keybind = Numberpad Minus

Download and Install

• 0. The Visual C++ 2017 runtime[aka.ms] is a required pre-req.

1. Grab this archive[github.com] from GitHub.
   
2. Extract it to your game's install directory (SteamApps\common\Yakuza 0\media)

Configuration

Press Ctrl + Shift + Backspace to open Special K's config menu, then focus on the options under the "Yakuza 0" heading.

Troubleshooting

If the mod does not work, third-party software (especially FRAPS!), anti-virus software or Windows 7 is usually to blame.

Windows 7 has a half-dozen optional updates that you need to install to use modern software such as mine; it's easier just to upgrade to Windows 10 :P

If after closing third-party software the game still does not start, please paste logs/dinput8.log, logs/modules.log and logs/game_output.log to pastebin.com and provide a link in a post.

Misc Notes

Texture mods with Special K are currently unsupported due to some truly bizarre memory management problems in this game's graphics engine.

Update: 8/5/18

A test version that enables texture mods is here[github.com].

Source Code

The changes staging in 0.9.24.x are available in a separate branch[gitlab.com].

I went overboard with code refactoring and that stuff's not going in the master branch until I have time to validate (that's where you guys come in) software operation better :)

[YoYoNinjaBoy]

Any chance of being able to disable third person camera blur? It hurts my eyes whenever I touched the right stick. Anyways thanks bruv this should be a good improvement.

[Kaldaien]

Originally posted by Yes:

Originally posted by FallenStar:

Something something "protecting my work" as if it needed any protection from anyone.

Don't ask him something that simple or he's going to answer with a totally incoherent post, will go on a rent about how the community hates him and pirates are the cancer of gaming and delete this post to make the mod unavailable to everyone. May also or also not blacklist you from using his mod using the SteamApi.

Ill wait it be cracked within 5 minutes like with his Nier patch. There is no way I'm willing to trust in dling this mod.

Actually, my NieR mod was "cracked" the second I released it. I don't know what those stupid pirates are doing, but the instructions have always been to set Steam.Log Silent=true if you have an invalid SteamAPI dll.

The license screen error message goes away as soon as you opt-out of SteamAPI enhancements. It's done, because, as I've been telling everyone for years now, CodexAPI (pirate version of steam_api), etc. will crash if parts of my mods aren't disabled.

[Yes]

Originally posted by Kaldaien:

Originally posted by Yes:

Ill wait it be cracked within 5 minutes like with his Nier patch. There is no way I'm willing to trust in dling this mod.

Actually, my NieR mod was "cracked" the second I released it. I don't know what those stupid pirates are doing, but the instructions have always been to set Steam.Log Silent=true if you have an invalid SteamAPI dll.

The license screen error message goes away as soon as you opt-out of SteamAPI enhancements. It's done, because, as I've been telling everyone for years now, CodexAPI, etc. will crash if parts of my mods aren't disabled.

What happens if a game youve modded gets released on something like gog? Would you make the mod work for that platform?

[Kaldaien]

Originally posted by YoYoNinjaBoy:

Any chance of being able to disable third person camera blur? It hurts my eyes whenever I touched the right stick. Anyways thanks bruv this should be a good improvement.

The only blur that is applied in third-person mode is Depth of Field.

[Kaldaien]

Originally posted by Yes:

Originally posted by Kaldaien:

Actually, my NieR mod was "cracked" the second I released it. I don't know what those stupid pirates are doing, but the instructions have always been to set Steam.Log Silent=true if you have an invalid SteamAPI dll.

The license screen error message goes away as soon as you opt-out of SteamAPI enhancements. It's done, because, as I've been telling everyone for years now, CodexAPI, etc. will crash if parts of my mods aren't disabled.

What happens if a game youve modded gets released on something like gog? Would you make the mod work for that platform?

There's no issue there. If the game were on GOG right now, it would work perfectly fine.

This, again, goes back to what my entire mod framework does. It enhances the Steamworks platform with a bunch of features. I don't have _any_ features for GOG Galaxy, so I have no reason to validate GOG. I have every reason to validate Steam and inform people running cracked versions of the game that they need to disable SteamAPI stuff. But nobody listens, and instead this is DRM :-\

[Tzamen]

Works great. thanks.

[Sloth242]

So will this stop first person from looking like its in 480p? Im playing in 4K and first person looks terrible

[Yes]

Originally posted by Sloth242:

So will this stop first person from looking like its in 480p? Im playing in 4K and first person looks terrible

Wait theres first person?

[Kaldaien]

Originally posted by Sloth242:

So will this stop first person from looking like its in 480p? Im playing in 4K and first person looks terrible

Yes. I'm also playing at 4K on a nice new 144 Hz HDR screen too :) I'm _really_ big into graphics, which I guess makes sense given my line of work :)

The first-person camera blur when taken away makes a world of difference.

The real remaining problems are:

1. Some textures have no mipmaps
2. The Bloom filter is locked to a resolution that only looks good at 1080p -- I'm working on fixing that as we speak.

[truCi]

im having in game cursor issue , you told in other thread that your software can fix the issue , i tried but it didnt work , any suggestions ?

[Sloth242]

Originally posted by Kaldaien:

Originally posted by Sloth242:

So will this stop first person from looking like its in 480p? Im playing in 4K and first person looks terrible

Yes. I'm also playing at 4K on a nice new 144 Hz HDR screen too :) I'm _really_ big into graphics, which I guess makes sense given my line of work :)

The first-person camera blur when taken away makes a world of difference.

The real remaining problems are:

1. Some textures have no mipmaps
2. The Bloom filter is locked to a resolution that only looks good at 1080p -- I'm working on fixing that as we speak.

Awesome your my hero. This game is so beautiful and so detailed it baffled me why they would blur first person like that. I was REALLY disappointed when I noticed nothing in the settings would fix it either. I could understand a little blur in the peripheral view, but to make it look like the resolution dropped to 480p was disgusting. Keep up the good work

[kubikill]

Originally posted by Yes:

Originally posted by Sloth242:

So will this stop first person from looking like its in 480p? Im playing in 4K and first person looks terrible

Wait theres first person?

Yes. You can look around in first person, but not move around. Not sure what's the button for that on keyboard, but on controller, press right stick.

[Kain]

Originally posted by Kaldaien:

2. The Bloom filter is locked to a resolution that only looks good at 1080p -- I'm working on fixing that as we speak.

Interesting! How much worse bloom looks on other resolutions? More "bloomy"?

[Twitch.tv/Vashzaron]

Is it possible for you to fix the LOD provlem?

https://steamcommunity.com/app/638970/discussions/0/1739964751473463932/

This thread explains it well enough I think.

[Aemony]

Originally posted by Ryusch:

instant crash when opening the game Logs:

game_output.log https://pastebin.com/14fQCBe7

dinput8.log https://pastebin.com/64RfEtAp

modules.log https://pastebin.com/NWYCbeLs

Hmm, does the game work properly without the mod? I can't spot anything out of the ordinary (that's not to say that Kaldaien might not be able to spot something) so there's little to go on here.

Do you have a crash.log file as well or is it empty?

Originally posted by Trek:

Hey there,

Thanks for sharing this. However, it does not seem to work for me at the moment. Once I run the game, I get the MGS sound and it crashes.

I am running Windows 7. However, I have all updates installed, important and optional, except for the Silverlight thing. I also installed the linked Visual Runtime and restarted the computer. In addition to this, I have momentarily disabled the antivirus but that has not helped to make it run.

Here are the logs:

dinput8.log:

https://pastebin.com/eKE9MX3N

modules.log:

The modules log is empty.

game_output.log:

https://pastebin.com/7VdWwvBu

crash.log:

https://pastebin.com/zTcwvS6L

steam_api.log:

https://pastebin.com/pyQEMcy8


Any tips?

Have you tried renaming the mod file (dinput8.dll) to e.g. d3d11.dll or dxgi.dll ? It might have a higher compatibility rate of being injected with the game.