[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 :)

[Aemony]

Автор сообщения: kubikill

I've tried Special K after the old CPU fix and I'm getting the MGS sound even before the game window pops up. Win7 SP1, all updates installed, NVidia GPU, antivirus disabled.

Here's crash.log and dinput8.log: https://pastebin.com/sCL7EiYj

I'm curious why did it throw so many "Address Validation for addr. ( #Extremely#Invalid.dll# ) + 1h FAILED!" at me though?

Did you try renaming the mod DLL file to d3d11.dll or dxgi.dll so it uses another injection path instead?

Also, what are your specs? Is this a hybrid laptop with two GPUs or something?

[AT]

Автор сообщения: Aemony

Автор сообщения: Trek

Since the subject was brought up, is there any difference between SSAA and DSR? Would using one be preferably to the other or are they just about the same thing in terms of performance and quality? And on a last note, what about this DSR Smoothness setting that SSAA does not have?

I have been using DSR for most games but when this SSAA option comes up I wonder which implementation would best to use. I tried both in Yakuza 0 and could not tell much difference myself but im sure there must be something that sets them apart.

They're effectively different ways of implementing the same result: render the game at a higher resolution than the resolution of the monitor.

Which is the most preferred might vary based on games, but here's a basic summary of how they work:

* DSR works by spoofing the actual selected resolution. The game is not aware that it is being rendered at a higher resolution than the monitor natively supports.

* SSAA is a game's own way of blowing up the resolution in the way itself controls.

From these two different answers to what is effectively the same question, different results might emerge. For example, SSAA (or similar internal techniques) means the game controls the blown up resolution and what it "should be applied on", effectively being able to selectively use it however it wants to. Comparably, DSR is a brute-force approach that might affect elements that a game otherwise might not have rendered at a higher resolution if it supported SSAA natively.

Another example is that while SSAA might only affect the internal rendering of a 3D scene and not the HUD of the game, DSR would (if the HUD of the game scales to the resolution) also affect the HUD, for better or worse.

So what you decide to use is entirely up to yourself. SSAA is probably the least performance demanding of the two as what it is applied to is selectively decided by the game during development. On the other hand, the lack of a standardized naming scheme for SSAA means you might not be really certain what resolution is actually being used unless you use a tool like Special K to inspect the render targets. So in that aspect, DSR is "simpler" as it guarantees that the game renders at the exact selected resolution as if you actually had a monitor of that size.

The "DSR Smoothness" setting controls how smooth/sharp Nvidia's scaling algorithm that scales the image down should be. This is to prevent aliasing that otherwise might occur on one or more aspects of the image as they're rendered at a higher resolution and then downscaled. I imagine this mostly affects the HUD or text of a game on certain levels of DSR. It isn't really needed when using SSAA since, as I mentioned, the game selectively decides what to render at a higher resolution and what not. Or the game have hardcoded values for that part for the resizing algorithm that the user can not control.

Wow, quite the comprehensive answer, thank you for taking the time. I think as long as performance is stable and good then I will stick with DSR as it seems like a more sure thing in terms of the scaling. Thanks!

Автор сообщения: Kaldaien

Автор сообщения: Trek

That sounds hopeful for us Windows 7 folk, although, I do not have a particularly old CPU as it is a i7 4790k..still, maybe it would still help?

No, your CPU supports AVX2. My mistake was leavving AVX on, which was kind of introduced around i7 3xxxx if I recall. Older AMD CPUs or 2xxx series Intel CPUs are the ones that have trouble.

Oh wow, thats a shame. Guess theres no option but packing my things and going over to Windows 10. Theres just so much to pack... o.O

[kubikill]

Автор сообщения: HolyDeath3000

Is steam running as admin or game ?

Tried all 4 combinations (Steam and game as admin, Steam as admin, game as admin, none as admin) and I'm getting the same thing.

Автор сообщения: Aemony

Did you try renaming the mod DLL file to d3d11.dll or dxgi.dll so it uses another injection path instead?

Also, what are your specs? Is this a hybrid laptop with two GPUs or something?

Renaming the DLL to d3d11.dll or dxgi.dll causes a "Yakuza0.exe stopped working" window to pop up. It shows ntdll.dll as the fault module name. No MGS sound.

I have a desktop computer. The integrated GPU is disabled. My specs are:

- OS: Windows 7 SP1 64-bit (all updates installed, along with optional updates)
- CPU: Intel Xeon X3360
- GPU: Nvidia Geforce GTX 650 Ti Boost
- RAM: 4GB

[HolyDeath3000]

Okay I had to do some tweaks to get the latest DLL File to work.

First off rename dinput8.dll to dxgi.dll and same with config file. dinput8.ini to dxgi.ini.

Then added the line EnableDirectInput8=false to the following section inside dxgi.ini file.

[API.Hook]
LastKnown=64
d3d9=false
d3d9ex=false
d3d11=true
OpenGL=false
d3d12=false
Vulkan=false
EnableDirectInput8=false

This allowed my game to not crash and close out of the blue. removed custom_dinput8.ini file as well since it was most likely not in this latest update.

[AT]

Автор сообщения: kubikill

Автор сообщения: HolyDeath3000

Is steam running as admin or game ?

Tried all 4 combinations (Steam and game as admin, Steam as admin, game as admin, none as admin) and I'm getting the same thing.

Автор сообщения: Aemony

Did you try renaming the mod DLL file to d3d11.dll or dxgi.dll so it uses another injection path instead?

Also, what are your specs? Is this a hybrid laptop with two GPUs or something?

Renaming the DLL to d3d11.dll or dxgi.dll causes a "Yakuza0.exe stopped working" window to pop up. It shows ntdll.dll as the fault module name.

I have a desktop computer. The integrated GPU is disabled. My specs are:

- OS: Windows 7 SP1 64-bit (all updates installed, along with optional updates)
- CPU: Intel Xeon X3360
- GPU: Nvidia Geforce GTX 650 Ti Boost
- RAM: 4GB

Maybe the new update by Kaldaien could help out or by Sega itself, but you might have to jump over to Windows 10 eventually to be able to use this mod proper. I also have Windows 7 and installed all updates, important and optional. No dice. MGS sound ruining sneaky mod.

[HolyDeath3000]

Автор сообщения: DarkKnight

Another modder fixed the LOD geometry bug:

https://pcgamingwiki.com/w/index.php?title=Yakuza_0&curid=97277&diff=598299&oldid=598229#Maximum_LOD_settings

https://community.pcgamingwiki.com/files/file/1163-yakuza-0-lod-mod/

Just tried this. And it worked. No more low level polygon chars up close even on Ultra. Not much a hit on my FPS at all actually lol. Pretty solid right now at 72 FPS. Though I capped it at that halfway mark for my 144hz monitor. Very good mod once you figure out how to use it. :)

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1469324668

https://pcgamingwiki.com/w/index.php?title=Yakuza_0&curid=97277 - Btw who ever made this page really pushed out Yakuza 0 SpecialK fix on that page. :)

[Smash45]

Sorry if this was asked already, but is there a way to have the CRT filter/scanlines for the arcade games as that was in the PS4 version and even in the trailer for the PC version?
If not then at least an option to remove the horrible bilinear filter since it looks terrible with pixel games.

[Aemony]

Автор сообщения: kubikill

Автор сообщения: HolyDeath3000

Is steam running as admin or game ?

Tried all 4 combinations (Steam and game as admin, Steam as admin, game as admin, none as admin) and I'm getting the same thing.

Автор сообщения: Aemony

Did you try renaming the mod DLL file to d3d11.dll or dxgi.dll so it uses another injection path instead?

Also, what are your specs? Is this a hybrid laptop with two GPUs or something?

Renaming the DLL to d3d11.dll or dxgi.dll causes a "Yakuza0.exe stopped working" window to pop up. It shows ntdll.dll as the fault module name. No MGS sound.

I have a desktop computer. The integrated GPU is disabled. My specs are:

- OS: Windows 7 SP1 64-bit (all updates installed, along with optional updates)
- CPU: Intel Xeon X3360
- GPU: Nvidia Geforce GTX 650 Ti Boost
- RAM: 4GB

I wonder if that is related... There's no reason why dxgi.dll or d3d11.dll should not work... Perhaps Kaldaien can guess something more?

Also, what you can do is ensure that no compatibility settings are applied for neither Steam nor the game. This is the most easiest way to do through "regedit" in Windows.

Just open the below paths in regedit and ensure that no Steam or Yakuza 0 paths are listed. If they are, remove them and restart both Steam and the game.

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\AppCompatFlags\Layers

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\AppCompatFlags\Layers

Автор сообщения: MythAlex

@Aemony: Have you read the notification I sent you earlier ?

I did. Don't take it personal, but I prefer to leave my posts as is unless I need to correct something I said. I honestly don't really see a need to edit the post since it seemed like a minor honest misunderstanding occurred.

[kubikill]

Автор сообщения: Aemony

Also, what you can do is ensure that no compatibility settings are applied for neither Steam nor the game. This is the most easiest way to do through "regedit" in Windows.

Just open the below paths in regedit and ensure that no Steam or Yakuza 0 paths are listed. If they are, remove them:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\AppCompatFlags\Layers

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\AppCompatFlags\Layers

I checked both places and didn't find any paths for Steam or Yakuza 0. I honestly have no idea what else could be causing this... This seems so weird for now.

[d0x360]

just posting to have a bookmark until this gets stickied

[MarcoReckless]

These are my logs, I tried everything.
https://pastebin.com/cVHi3Awy (dinput8)
https://pastebin.com/LnY3HvNb (modules)
https://pastebin.com/MLYc8KNh (game ouput)

[Mkilbride]

Kaldaien, I've noticed something interesting.

In all games, when I use Borderless Windowed Mode, I get FPS drops when something blinks, my FPS plummets to like less than half and it's stuttery and jerky. S This happened in 2016, got fixed, then came back in early 2018 for me. I think it's Windows related or something .Unsure. I have a theory it's related to hardware accelleration in Steam though and the way W10 handles it.

Using your mod, still in Borderless Windowed...fixes that. When Steam blinks or something else like Discord blinks...nothing. No FPS drops. Remains rock solid.

Microsoft should ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ hire you.

[Aemony]

Автор сообщения: MarcoReckless

These are my logs, I tried everything.
https://pastebin.com/cVHi3Awy (dinput8)
https://pastebin.com/LnY3HvNb (modules)
https://pastebin.com/MLYc8KNh (game ouput)

Can you remove the CEGUI folder from My Documents\My Mods\SpecialK and see if that resolves it?

[MarcoReckless]

Автор сообщения: Aemony

Автор сообщения: MarcoReckless

These are my logs, I tried everything.
https://pastebin.com/cVHi3Awy (dinput8)
https://pastebin.com/LnY3HvNb (modules)
https://pastebin.com/MLYc8KNh (game ouput)

Can you remove the CEGUI folder from My Documents\My Mods\SpecialK and see if that resolves it?

I tried, doesn't work.

[=(VR)= blindfold]

Автор сообщения: Makoto Niijima

WTH, now I cannot change to windowed/bolderless (in game or with graphic.ini) ?
When I change to w/b in game, it change but after I quit the game and start again the game back to fs.
No matter what I choose, I stuck at fullscreen

I use RX580 and win10.

Are you using a DS4 controller ?

Go to Steam settings / controller / general controller settings and disable PlayStation Configuration Support.