Special K - v 0.4.3 [Initial Public Release] - (8/27/16)

[Kaldaien]

Introduction

This is the core system used by all of my mods to do D3D9 / D3D11/12 and GL-related render tasks. It is designed to be relatively light-weight, free from any experimental features (e.g. texture streaming in my Tales of ... projects).

Periodically, I will move features that have been tested in multiple games and that I find useful into the DLL (dxgi/d3d9/OpenGL32) itself.

General Overview

As a standalone product, Special K currently offers:

1. Hardware Monitoring OSD for AMD and NVIDIA GPUs
   
2. Steam Achievement Unlock Sound
   
3. Cursor Management
   
4. Framerate Limiter
   
   
5. D3D9 and 11 Swapchain Overrides
   
   • Improve Frame pacing and Input Latency the same way I do.
     
   • Explicit control over things like Refresh Rate, Triple-Buffering and Pre-Rendered Frames
   
   
6. D3D11 Adapter Override
   
   • For systems that have trouble bypassing Intel GPUs in D3D11 games
7. D3D11 Texture Caching
   
   Improve performance in most D3D11 games that use texture streaming
8. D3D11 Texture Dumping and Injection

Additionally, some debug-related functionality is also provided:

• CTDs caused by abnormal SteamAPI events can be blocked
  
  • The Steam client is responsible for a LOT of mysterious crashes; its policy is to silently terminate a running game when something abnormal occurs.
    
  • Avoid losing in-game progress when Steam decides to kill your game.
  
  
• Special K has a standardized crash handler (logs/crash.log)
  
  • Makes quick work of figuring out what third-party utility is blowing your game up (all DLLs involved in a crash are printed clearly).

Installation

There are 32-bit and 64-bit versions of Special K available on GitHub[github.com].

These DLLs function as either d3d9.dll, dxgi.dll or OpenGL32.dll for D3D9, D3D11/12 and OpenGL games respectively.

Drop the correct version of the DLL into your game's directory, name it according to which render API it uses and you are good to go!

Configuration

<EXPAND ME>

V 0.4.0 adds cursor management support, this feature allows you to hide the mouse cursor in any game after a period of inactivity (measured in seconds).

[Input.Cursor]
Manage=false           ; Disabled by default, set this to true if you need it.
Timeout=1.5            ; Number of seconds of inactivity before cursor is hidden.
                       ;  -- 0 will hide the cursor indefinitely.
KeyboardActivates=true ; Whether pressing a key shows the cursor

Troubleshooting

I use this in all of my games if for no other reason than the Steam achievement sound. It is my hope that by releasing this as a standalone product the quality of my projects will improve as well as your general PC gaming experience.

I am very interested in any compatibility problems you encounter in games you try; fixing these is good for the health of all of my projects.

Currently the only game I am aware of that does not work with Special K is Metal Gear Solid V (64-bit D3D11 game). Early versions of the mod system _did_ work with this game.

[Kaldaien]

Reserved For Future Use

Please be patient while I clean this thread up ;)

Guides are easier to MUCH easier to format, but impossible to moderate

[Kaldaien]

Game Compatibility

I am interested in hearing any compatibility problems you encounter, the easiest way for me to tackle these things would be if you started a thread on this forum for a particular game that is giving you trouble.

I would like to keep this thread limited to more general discussion, such as configuring the features listed in the bullet points above. I have not documented much of that stuff, but am eager to explain how it all works as needed.

[Bubsy]

Thanks Kaldaien, It really improves the loading times and the framerate is more stable on my rig.
My Specs: Win 7, i7 4790K, MSI GTX 1070 Gaming , 16 GB Ram 1600.
Thanks a bunch mate.

[Kaldaien]

Just so you know, the load time benefits (in D3D11 games) come primarily from texture caching. That feature is disabled by default because it is not compatible with all games. I intend to write an in-depth configuration guide at some point in the future.

[Kaldaien]

Special K v 0.4.3 Released

Adds Flip Mode Support for Deus Ex: Mankind Divided

Please see the release notes[github.com] for a discussion on how to get best performance out of this feature.

[Fraggoso]

Does SpecialK need RTSS to work 100%?
It creates the log files after renaming both 32.dll as well as .pdb to d3d9.dll and d3d9.pdb but I don't hear anything after an Achievement gets unlocked. :(

The logfiles:
http://pastebin.com/YZfHwkht (d3d9.log)
http://pastebin.com/9E8zhysg (steam_api.log)

And yeah, we only have a Laptop with intel GPU.

[Kaldaien]

Yes, for the OSD to work, you need RTSS. For the achievement sound to work, you need to use the right API in 0.4.3. In 0.6.5+ you do not need to know if the game is 32-bit or 64-bit and d3d9 or d3d11/d3d12 or OpenGL.

[Fraggoso]

I used 0.4.3 SpecialK32.dll as well as SpecialK32.pdb and renamed them both to their counterparts d3d9.dll and d3d9.pdb.
The Steam_api log file is weird, not? It doesn't say that any kind of soundfile was loaded or reverting to standard.

[Kaldaien]

Yeah, that's why you don't use 0.4.3

[Fraggoso]

I think we're not on the same page. *lol*

[Jack Gold Wind]

How can disable it for other games like league of legends i have some problems with special k when i run league

[Kaldaien]

Originally posted by OldMartin:

How can disable it for other games like league of legends i have some problems with special k when i run league

Other people have reported this as well. The normal procedure is to hold down Ctrl + Shift when starting a game, but it doesn't work at all in that game because of some weird anti-cheat stuff.

I really don't know how to fix League of Legends. GeDoSaTo and RTSS should be causing the same sort of problem though.

[Jack Gold Wind]

Originally posted by Kaldaien:

Originally posted by OldMartin:

How can disable it for other games like league of legends i have some problems with special k when i run league

Other people have reported this as well. The normal procedure is to hold down Ctrl + Shift when starting a game, but it doesn't work at all in that game because of some weird anti-cheat stuff.

I really don't know how to fix League of Legends. GeDoSaTo and RTSS should be causing the same sort of problem though.

Ohh i see, So.. its not another way to disable for some games via .ini files o some kind advance text?

[Kaldaien]

The way disabling works is to create an empty file called SpecialK.deny.<exename> in the same directory as the executable.

My DLL has to run at least a few lines of code to check for that file, but Leage of Legends doesn't allow that from what I have heard.

[Jack Gold Wind]

Originally posted by Kaldaien:

The way disabling works is to create an empty file called SpecialK.deny.<exename> in the same directory as the executable.

My DLL has to run at least a few lines of code to check for that file, but Leage of Legends doesn't allow that from what I have heard.

I see i try to put the exclude to all the exes files in the game but doesnt work i hope see future realeases to exclude folders but right now i just wait to future realeases