[Special K] Framerate Unlock + HDR10 Goodies + Perf. Fixes

[Kaldaien]

Introduction (to Coloring)

For players using HDR display devices, the game uses HDR10 without metadata.

This means the signal covers 0 - 10,000 cd.m^-2 luminance and Steam does not understand the encoded luminance range, the color space (Rec. 2020) or even the gamma (SMPTE 2084) necessary to correctly draw its own overlay or take a screenshot.

Any HDR screenshot taken without Special K will appear greyscale!

Special K XDR—"Making HDR actually work since 2018."

• Luminance control for Steam overlay (refer to the HDR menu atop the control panel)
  
• Fix the Steam overlay to run in Rec 709 instead of Rec 2020 (LSD colors)
  
• HDR->SDR tonemapping prevents captured screenshots from being washed out
  
• Support for preserving HDR screenshots (JPEG-XR)

What HDR10 Screenshots are Supposed to Look Like (in SDR)

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1695342392https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1695348420https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1695437213

NOTE:
The game uses proprietary driver APIs to enable HDR; Special K only has codepaths for NVIDIA's driver-based HDR and the much preferred DXGI-based HDR.
AMD GPU owners with HDR displays will not see any benefits.

Download and Install --- []

Grab the latest version[github.com] and extract it to your game's install directory (default=C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Sekiro)

All features of the mod can be configured in-game by pressing:

⌨	Ctrl + Shift + Backspace
🎮 🎮	Xbox / Steam Back + Start PlayStation Select + Start

Most Popular Features

1. HDR Engages w/o Alt-Tab at Startup
   
2. Fixes Multi-Monitor Performance (optional)
   
3. Fixes Netcode Performance
   
4. Fixes Input Performance (gamepad / mouse)
   
5. Unlocks Framerate + Refresh Rate Configuration
   
6. Adds Advanced Framerate Limiter (lower stutter / input latency)
   
7. Costs $0.00

Misc. Useful Features

1. HUDless screenshots
   Ctrl + Shift + 8
2. HUD Toggle
   Alt + Shift + H
3. Functional HDR Steam Overlay / Screenshots
   
4. Texture / Shader modding

Source Code

I am in the middle of preparing Special K v 0.10.0 for release, so the GitLab source repository is not up-to-date at the moment. I have opted to publish the plug-in's source code on GitHub temporarily:

https://gist.github.com/Kaldaien/104cee045671e2b65a8b003ffd9bfa33

Frequently Asked Questions

1. The mouse cursor is visible constantly
   
   
   • Refer to Input Management | Enable / Disable Devices and disable Mouse Input to the game
   
   
2. The Steam Overlay is not working
   
   
   • Refer to Steam Enhancements | Compatibility and check "Load Steam Overlay Early"

TL;DR Suggested Settings for Best Framepacing

Uncap the framerate, turn fixed timestep mode on and then set Special K's framerate limiter to whatever (i.e. set it back to 60 if you want).

[ToveriJuri]

Yeah I think endgame Ashina castle seems to be an issue for everyone regardless of their rig.

[SenMithrarin85]

Originally posted by ToveriJuri:

Yeah I think endgame Ashina castle seems to be an issue for everyone regardless of their rig.

how bad we talking?

[qhil]

While using this mod, the game should not be minimized when tabbing out.

[=(VR)= blindfold]

Ok, its done, DS4 buttons prompts:

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1698973695

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1698974251

Since this mod uses the Special k mod tools to inyect the new textures I see no need to open a new thread so I´ll drop this here.

DS4modfiles[drive.google.com]

Just drop the texture files in the inyection folder and that´s it, no extra tools or files or anything.

[tptnmtzgr]

Originally posted by SenMithrarin85:

Originally posted by tptnmtzgr:

Nope, not necessarily. RTX 2080 over here - same slight framerate issues around Ashina Castle.

this before or after its set on fire?

For me? Before.

[SenMithrarin85]

Originally posted by tptnmtzgr:

Originally posted by SenMithrarin85:

this before or after its set on fire?

For me? Before.

not noticed anything on my 7700k and gtx 1080. beaten genichiro there and headed down into the other areas too like the resevoir and dungeon.

[Czar]

It's before for me as well. The area near the gate idol is the worst, with frequent 5-15 FPS dips. The entire castle has occasional stutters though. The end of Hirata estate (the buildings on fire) and Senpou temple have issues too, but not as severe.

[SenMithrarin85]

Originally posted by Czar:

It's before for me as well. The area near the gate idol is the worst, with frequent 5-15 FPS dips. The entire castle has occasional stutters though. The end of Hirata estate (the buildings on fire) and Senpou temple have issues too, but not as severe.

noticed the estate yeah. happens for me when you kill the archer around the corner from the rest idol and then grapple to the roof just before the gang of enemies. will stutter a bit either during the grapple or at some point whilst running along the roof.

[Ian]

So I'm the author of Sekiro mod engine, and I've gotten reports that the game crashes when using Special K as well. I'm wondering why this is the case because I just tried it myself and they both seem to be working together just fine. @kaldaien, did you do any update recently for compatibility? I'm not seeing any crashes so either it was updated or this crash is deterministic in a sense.

My dll isn't super complicated. Basically I hook the dinput8 setup, which I use to hook onSteamInit (required since steam has to decrypt the exe before I can do any game patches). From there I do a few hooks: I hook an in game virtual file system function to check if a archived file reference has a modded file on disk, and then do an in place edit to tell the game to load the file from the filesystem instead of the game's data archives, and then I hook CreateFileW to do the actual path overrides (so you can load mods from wherever on the file system). I tried an alternate hook that doesn't depend on CreateFileW, but I couldn't get it to work stably as the game doesn't take too kindly to modifying its internal string data structure pointers (and I need to reallocate path memory for it).

I'm wondering if either the onSteamInit or CreateFileW hooks could interfere?

Anyways this DLL is important for any sekiro modding because it allows for modification of any game file like 3D models, animations, parameters, maps, events, etc. PS4 button prompts was just a simple thing I did because it was a mostly trivial file edit (of some scaleform xml config files) to enable them.

[MoustacheDad]

I still have to alt tab for HDR to work properly. Was working when I first installed it. Help? :(
Btw - tried deleting and copying the files back over, but my user settings seem to be saved? Please help Special K man

[Tyrant]

Originally posted by Katalash:

So I'm the author of Sekiro mod engine, and I've gotten reports that the game crashes when using Special K as well. I'm wondering why this is the case because I just tried it myself and they both seem to be working together just fine. @kaldaien, did you do any update recently for compatibility? I'm not seeing any crashes so either it was updated or this crash is deterministic in a sense.

My dll isn't super complicated. Basically I hook the dinput8 setup, which I use to hook onSteamInit (required since steam has to decrypt the exe before I can do any game patches). From there I do a few hooks: I hook an in game virtual file system function to check if a archived file reference has a modded file on disk, and then do an in place edit to tell the game to load the file from the filesystem instead of the game's data archives, and then I hook CreateFileW to do the actual path overrides (so you can load mods from wherever on the file system). I tried an alternate hook that doesn't depend on CreateFileW, but I couldn't get it to work stably as the game doesn't take too kindly to modifying its internal string data structure pointers (and I need to reallocate path memory for it).

I'm wondering if either the onSteamInit or CreateFileW hooks could interfere?

Anyways this DLL is important for any sekiro modding because it allows for modification of any game file like 3D models, animations, parameters, maps, events, etc. PS4 button prompts was just a simple thing I did because it was a mostly trivial file edit (of some scaleform xml config files) to enable them.

Would you be able to look into a boolean toggle in the mod engine to turn off intro screens? It has really sped up testing and troubleshooting quite a bit. I couldn't imagine not using it now. It also uses dinput8.dll, so it's incompatible with the mod engine. There is a source available:

https://github.com/bladecoding/DarkSouls3RemoveIntroScreens/releases/tag/v1.15c

[One Ora Man]

Originally posted by abcismasta:

The game won't start after I drop the files in the folder.

If you're using bitdefender make sure to add an exclusion for Sekiro. I had to do that to make Sekiro launch with Special K installed. I also excluded the Special K files just to make sure.

[Kaldaien]

Originally posted by Katalash:

So I'm the author of Sekiro mod engine, and I've gotten reports that the game crashes when using Special K as well. I'm wondering why this is the case because I just tried it myself and they both seem to be working together just fine. @kaldaien, did you do any update recently for compatibility? I'm not seeing any crashes so either it was updated or this crash is deterministic in a sense.

My dll isn't super complicated. Basically I hook the dinput8 setup, which I use to hook onSteamInit (required since steam has to decrypt the exe before I can do any game patches). From there I do a few hooks: I hook an in game virtual file system function to check if a archived file reference has a modded file on disk, and then do an in place edit to tell the game to load the file from the filesystem instead of the game's data archives, and then I hook CreateFileW to do the actual path overrides (so you can load mods from wherever on the file system). I tried an alternate hook that doesn't depend on CreateFileW, but I couldn't get it to work stably as the game doesn't take too kindly to modifying its internal string data structure pointers (and I need to reallocate path memory for it).

I'm wondering if either the onSteamInit or CreateFileW hooks could interfere?

Anyways this DLL is important for any sekiro modding because it allows for modification of any game file like 3D models, animations, parameters, maps, events, etc. PS4 button prompts was just a simple thing I did because it was a mostly trivial file edit (of some scaleform xml config files) to enable them.

I have various options that will create hooks on ReadFile, but those only happen if a user turns on a setting that's not even in the INI file normally. I use that to trace filesystem activity and reverse engineer game file formats, it's never enabled by default so it shouldn't be a problem.

No, I haven't made any changes for compatibility because I haven't seen any compatibility issues to begin with. I would rather see texture mods using Special K though for the simple reason that an artist can reload the texture while the game is running if they want to make multiple revisions.

In any case, this shouldn't interfere in any way. My ability to inject and reload textures has nothing to do with filesystem hooks, it's done through D3D11 and data hashes to identify texture memory.

---------
Oh, one thing just occurred to me. My filesystem hooks, which are not enabled by default, are not using the normal Win32 API.

I don't hook ReadFile, I have hooks for NtReadFile. That API is a bit lower-level and captures things like named pipes.

[Tyrant]

Originally posted by Kaldaien:

No, I haven't made any changes for compatibility because I haven't seen any compatibility issues to begin with.

What about needing to load SpecialK as dxgi.dll to use ReShade (even through your plugin system)? I'd like to see that be addressed so it can be loaded as d3d11.dll as intended...

The Sekiro custom version has the same problem (on top of the other issues it has, like not being able to load presets properly).

[SenMithrarin85]

just fought the horseback spearman boss in a new file to test. There's supposed to be an achievement tied to him but it never unlocked.