Arise-SDK v29 - Skit resolution/NPC distance fix (supports new update)

[Havoc]

v29 released with support for 7th April 2022 game update!

Hopefully all the Arise-SDK features should be working fine, what I've tested seems to be working without issues at least (and I've double-checked that all the offsets to patch seem correct), there's always a chance something might have changed which stops one of the fixes from working though - if anyone finds something broken please let me know about it!

(eg. the EnableResolutionFix setting seems to prevent game from changing resolution itself now, so it's no longer enabled by default, if you want to enable it make sure to add a r.SetRes line to your Engine.ini, inside a [SystemSettings] section - I'm not sure if this fix is even needed anymore really, maybe can be removed in a later update)

v29 has only been tested with the 7th April 2022 update, earlier updates might also still work, but I haven't tried them myself.

---

(Now includes a fix to make 30/60FPS cutscenes run at your native refresh rate!)

Latest download can be found on NexusMods: https://www.nexusmods.com/talesofarise/mods/5

(would appreciate if you can update your links to point there instead!)

This should help fix the NPC distance issue by changing the fadeout/despawn distances - if you have any problems with it please let me know!

Cutscene resolution can also be changed to be closer to your actual in-game resolution, should improve quality & reduce aliasing of them a lot!

This'll also automatically unlock the dev-console for you, and allow loading in loose cooked files, without them needing to be pak'd (also allows files to be hot-swapped at runtime without a relaunch needed, should be useful for modders testing their changes)

The issue with screen resolution being changed on startup should also be fixed too (if the fix doesn't work straight away, try setting the Engine.ini cvar as detailed in the readme)

Achievements aren't affected by this DLL at all, so no need to worry about that!

For test builds & source code check my github: https://github.com/emoose/Arise-SDK/releases/latest

Check out my similar fixes for other games too: Automata-LodMod[www.nexusmods.com] for NieR Automata, and DQXIS-SDK[github.com] for Dragon Quest XI S.

Support

If Arise-SDK helped you out and you'd like to help support development in some way, please consider donating a coffee at https://ko-fi.com/emoose - I'm grateful for anything you could help with!

[N7]

Originally posted by tap and die:

What's the optimal settings for decent increase in draw distance without heavily impacting performance?

There really isn't, since as soon as you use even the most basic settings for draw distance:

r.ViewDistanceScale = 2
r.StaticMeshLODDistanceScale = 0
foliage.LODDistanceScale = 2
r.Shadow.DistanceScale = 2
r.Shadow.MaxCSMResolution = 8192

your framerate will tank, up to 40fps even, in places like Gilanne Woodland, Este Luvah Forest.

@Havoc, have you tested your ini in these places? What fps are you getting? I assume you are also on 2560x1440?

[Havoc]

Arise-SDK 0.1.14 test-release

Uploaded Arise-SDK 0.1.14 to https://github.com/emoose/Arise-SDK/releases/tag/v0.1.14

Changes:
- added r.ForceLOD cvar back to the game (normally removed in non-debug UE4)
- added a fix to scale up UTextureRenderTarget2D render resolution to match screen resolution, hopefully fixing skit/cutscene resolution!

This is a test-release since I haven't tried it out much myself yet, right now every UTextureRenderTarget2D will get rescaled to your screen res, haven't found how to make that skit/cutscene only yet (maybe only skits/cutscenes ever actually use it though?)

r.ScreenPercentage isn't used for rescaling yet, similarly I haven't handled the case where the RenderTarget's existing resolution is larger than your screens - if there are any like that, they'll be resized down to your screen res right now. I'll add stuff to handle these in soon.

If you try it out please let me know how it goes!

Originally posted by N7:

@Havoc, have you tested your ini in these places? What fps are you getting? I assume you are also on 2560x1440?

Yep I'm at 1440p, just got up to Traslida Highway and it's the first time it's been going below 60 for me, getting ~50-55 there, I did have it working at 60 there fine at some point though,..

[system2]

Originally posted by Ryousuke:

Originally posted by Havoc:

Updated my INI on NM to 0.4

Speaking of your ini, there's a line

r.ScreenSpaceReflectionColorDownSampledScreenScaleTO14 = 0 ; game default = 12, 12 seems to make reflective surfaces kinda ugly, 0 looks fine though

0 disable the reflection completely so that's an issue, setting it to 1 enables it, 12 I'm guessing, renders it scaled as ♥♥♥♥.

Hmm ,if thats the case I dont understand why I get a a performance drop changing it to 0 from 12. Wonder whats going on there.

[inso]

Originally posted by Havoc:

Arise-SDK 0.1.14 test-release

Uploaded Arise-SDK 0.1.14 to https://github.com/emoose/Arise-SDK/releases/tag/v0.1.14

Changes:
- added r.ForceLOD cvar back to the game (normally removed in non-debug UE4)
- added a fix to scale up UTextureRenderTarget2D render resolution to match screen resolution, hopefully fixing skit/cutscene resolution!

This is a test-release since I haven't tried it out much myself yet, right now every UTextureRenderTarget2D will get rescaled to your screen res, haven't found how to make that skit/cutscene only yet (maybe only skits/cutscenes ever actually use it though?)

r.ScreenPercentage isn't used for rescaling yet, similarly I haven't handled the case where the RenderTarget's existing resolution is larger than your screens - if there are any like that, they'll be resized down to your screen res right now. I'll add stuff to handle these in soon.

If you try it out please let me know how it goes!

Originally posted by N7:

@Havoc, have you tested your ini in these places? What fps are you getting? I assume you are also on 2560x1440?

Yep I'm at 1440p, just got up to Traslida Highway and it's the first time it's been going below 60 for me, getting ~50-55 there, I did have it working at 60 there fine at some point though,..

Amazing! Thank you once again. The skits look a lot better.

[N7]

Originally posted by Havoc:

Originally posted by N7:

@Havoc, have you tested your ini in these places? What fps are you getting? I assume you are also on 2560x1440?

Yep I'm at 1440p, just got up to Traslida Highway and it's the first time it's been going below 60 for me, getting ~50-55 there, I did have it working at 60 there fine at some point though,..

Yea Traslida was the first area I started getting sub 60, and from then on, my fps has been getting hit badly (I'm on RTX3070 Ryzen 9 1440). Testing your ini, taking out lines, it seems the (; optimization attempts) also contribute up to 10fps loss. Everything else were minimal, and I boiled it down to the draw distance settings I posted above that really tanks the performance. Even setting the values down to just 1.25 gave up to 20fps loss.

You'll soon be at a forest area after Traslida that will really test your fps tho.

[Kite]

Originally posted by Havoc:

- added a fix to scale up UTextureRenderTarget2D render resolution to match screen resolution, hopefully fixing skit/cutscene resolution!

I didn't think you could get more godly. You fixed the last thing that was driving me nuts.
4k SDK off vs. On: https://imgsli.com/NzMwNDA

[system2]

Originally posted by Havoc:

Arise-SDK 0.1.14 test-release

Uploaded Arise-SDK 0.1.14 to https://github.com/emoose/Arise-SDK/releases/tag/v0.1.14

Changes:
- added r.ForceLOD cvar back to the game (normally removed in non-debug UE4)
- added a fix to scale up UTextureRenderTarget2D render resolution to match screen resolution, hopefully fixing skit/cutscene resolution!

This is a test-release since I haven't tried it out much myself yet, right now every UTextureRenderTarget2D will get rescaled to your screen res, haven't found how to make that skit/cutscene only yet (maybe only skits/cutscenes ever actually use it though?)

r.ScreenPercentage isn't used for rescaling yet, similarly I haven't handled the case where the RenderTarget's existing resolution is larger than your screens - if there are any like that, they'll be resized down to your screen res right now. I'll add stuff to handle these in soon.

If you try it out please let me know how it goes!

Originally posted by N7:

@Havoc, have you tested your ini in these places? What fps are you getting? I assume you are also on 2560x1440?

Yep I'm at 1440p, just got up to Traslida Highway and it's the first time it's been going below 60 for me, getting ~50-55 there, I did have it working at 60 there fine at some point though,..

Damn, night and day difference. Seeing the skits in my native 1440p res is glorious. Would be great if the render res scale also applied but this is already a massive improvement. Thanks alot!

[Havoc]

Arise-SDK 0.1.15 test-release

Uploaded Arise-SDK 0.1.15 to https://github.com/emoose/Arise-SDK/releases/tag/v0.1.15

This should let the cutscenes get scaled up by r.ScreenPercentage now, but there's a chance scaling with that could break the aspect ratio, which seems to mess up the camera position or something in those cutscenes... if you notice anything like that please let me know!

(I did notice the RT resolution-change also seems to get triggered when opening menu, please tell me if you find anything broken in there...)

Changes:
- made the UTextureRenderTarget2D render resolution fix have r.ScreenPercentage cvar applied to it
- now will only change the RenderTarget2D resolution if it's smaller than screen-resolution
- added CutsceneRenderFix setting to Arise-SDK.ini to allow disabling that fix
- allowed setting MinimumNPCDistance to -1 to disable the NPC fix.

[The Big Z]

Originally posted by N7:

Originally posted by tap and die:

What's the optimal settings for decent increase in draw distance without heavily impacting performance?

There really isn't, since as soon as you use even the most basic settings for draw distance:

r.ViewDistanceScale = 2
r.StaticMeshLODDistanceScale = 0
foliage.LODDistanceScale = 2
r.Shadow.DistanceScale = 2
r.Shadow.MaxCSMResolution = 8192

your framerate will tank, up to 40fps even, in places like Gilanne Woodland, Este Luvah Forest.

@Havoc, have you tested your ini in these places? What fps are you getting? I assume you are also on 2560x1440?

Just guessing here, but try those settings again but with r.StaticMeshLODDistanceScale=0.25 if you haven't already. I'm changing a minimal amount of settings myself just to help with the pop in/draw distance issue. I'm using a higher end GPU then you but I'm running at 4k60 without any drops.

[Romanmtg]

Originally posted by Havoc:

Updated my INI on NM to 0.4: https://www.nexusmods.com/talesofarise/mods/5?tab=files

Changes:
- added Arise.PF.Culling.ForceInFrustum=1 & r.LandscapeLODBias=-1, landscape change doesn't make a huge difference, but there are a couple areas that it helps to improve (eg. snowbanks in Cysloden)
- added AriseCharacter.AllowUseFixedDeltaTimeForClothSimulation=0 to maybe help cloth movement work better at different refresh rates
- improved r.StaticMeshLODDistanceScale (thanks to CarlosNeri's suggestion) - this forces static meshes to LOD0, didn't notice any perf difference in my quick tests, but the visual improvement was pretty obvious on some far-away objects
- use a.URO.Enable instead of a.URO.ForceInterpolation since it gives better results

Originally posted by Romanmtg:

Seems right, but rather wait if Havoc confirms it to not screw up anything tho

It'll work fine with it deleted, but the NPC distance fix will still be applied (since that was the original point I didn't think anyone would want to use it without it, next version I'll add something so it can be disabled too)
It'd default to 50000 with no INI present, for now if you want to use vanilla distance you could use an INI with it set to 2800 or so.
Besides that & DPI/resolution fix the other stuff only gets applied if you enabled it in INI.

Tried as you said, can confirm that NPC fix and DPI/resolution bug fix works even if no INI present, just the .dll was enough, but in final ended disabling stuff in INI and kept NPC fix and just added few shadows tweaks in Engine. Thanks for help. Will keep looking for further updates, as this MOD/Fix saved me so much trouble and some issues in game.

[Kaldaien]

Originally posted by N7:

Add only this in your Engine ini

[SystemSettings]
r.setres=2560x1440f (set to your native resolution)

The f at the end chooses what mode, but can be changed to: w = windowed, f = fullscreen, wf = borderless-fullscreen

I would steer users clear of wf.

Unreal Engine is using BitBlt model here, so the least efficient windowed mode possible. Special K can override that and get Flip model windowed mode (same performance as fullscreen exclusive), but barring that, the game's borderless mode will add 2 frames of latency.

[Roy]

Getting a freeze/hard crash at the second phase of Balseph during the loading. Removing "Arise.PF.Culling.ForceInFrustum=1" might have fixed it but it could be coincidence.

[N7]

Originally posted by The Big Z:

Originally posted by N7:

There really isn't, since as soon as you use even the most basic settings for draw distance:

r.ViewDistanceScale = 2
r.StaticMeshLODDistanceScale = 0
foliage.LODDistanceScale = 2
r.Shadow.DistanceScale = 2
r.Shadow.MaxCSMResolution = 8192

your framerate will tank, up to 40fps even, in places like Gilanne Woodland, Este Luvah Forest.

@Havoc, have you tested your ini in these places? What fps are you getting? I assume you are also on 2560x1440?

Just guessing here, but try those settings again but with r.StaticMeshLODDistanceScale=0.25 if you haven't already. I'm changing a minimal amount of settings myself just to help with the pop in/draw distance issue. I'm using a higher end GPU then you but I'm running at 4k60 without any drops.

Yea it didn't much matter 0 vs 0.25 as the fps suck here is mainly from the shadow tweaks. We're basically forced to choose performance vs shadow pop-in. I just hope Bandai Namco will further optimize this for PC.

[Havoc]

Been playing for a little while with no issues, so...

Arise-SDK 0.1.16 release

Uploaded Arise-SDK 0.1.16 to https://www.nexusmods.com/talesofarise/mods/5?tab=files&BH=0

Changes (from the last non-test release):
- added a fix to resize/scale up UTextureRenderTarget2D render resolution to match screen resolution (reduces aliasing & improves quality of skits/cutscenes a lot!)
- allows the UTextureRenderTarget2D render resolution fix to have r.ScreenPercentage cvar applied to it
- added CutsceneRenderFix to Arise-SDK.ini to allow disabling that fix, and allowed setting MinimumNPCDistance to -1 to disable the NPC fix.
- added r.ForceLOD cvar back to the game (normally removed in non-debug UE4)

Only difference from the last 0.1.15 test-release is that this only hooks RenderTargets created via UKismetRenderingLibrary::execCreateRenderTarget2D, which is what cutscenes/skits seem to use, so hopefully won't have any effect on any other things using RenderTarget2D.

(I did see some full-screen cutscenes that seemed lower-res before finding this fix, but haven't seen any since adding it - not sure if that means this helps to fix them or maybe I just haven't triggered the kind of cutscene that had that issue - if anyone still notices any low-res cutscenes please let me know - maybe 0.1.15 will help with them, since that version affected pretty much all RenderTarget2Ds)

[Xbob42]

Oh my god the skits look like normal parts of the gameplay now instead of weird low-res videos. Thank you!