Tales of Vesperia "Fix" - v 0.5.2 [HDR Display + 2/4/8x MSAA] - (2/5/19)

[Kaldaien]

The Special K wiki now has an updated guide for TVFix / Tales of Vesperia

https://wiki.special-k.info/SpecialK/Custom/TVFix

Old stuff, plz ignore

Introduction

This port is better than Zestiria in some ways and worse in others. Microstutter @ 60 Hz is atrocious, but I have mostly fixed it as of v 0.4.0.

Where The Port Went Wrong

• Partial mipmaps (5 LODs for textures that need 10)
  
• Unusual D3D11 device context code makes debugging very difficult
  
• Game does not behave rationally in menus if a mouse is unplugged
  
• CPU-side model animation is incapable of skipping frames to prevent hitching
  
• Poorly designed worker threads cause micro stutter
  

What Went Right

• Liberal use of BC7 compressed textures
  
• Inclusion of DualShock and Xbox Gamepad Icons
  
• MSAA support (though only 4x and incompatible with Flip Model)
  

What Needs Improvement

Very technical; spoiler'd to avoid confusing non-developers

• Give choice of button icons; do not force this based on the Input API in use.
  
  
• Perform Multi-sample AA resolve off-screen using a single-sampled swapchain backbuffer as the destination @ end-of-frame for flip model (high-perf. windowed rendering) compliance
  
  
• SIGNAL worker threads when work is ready; do not loop calling Sleep (1)!
  
  
• Add option to run model animation on a single thread and/or implement frameskip
  
  
• The Env. Map Bumpmap Shader for Water is Addicted to Fillrate!
  
  
  • Since this is a forward-shading engine, an early-Z pass would setup the GPU to reject as much of that expensive pixel shader (~2 ms per-draw on a GTX 1080 Ti @4K) as possible without running the shader first.
    
    
  • Early fragment rejection would dramatically improve GPU performance in coastal areas, especially on Nintendo Switch hardware.

Special K :: Tales of Vesperia "Fix"

Current TVFix Features:

• Eliminate Most Micro-stutter
  
• Continue Running in Background
  
  
• Disable Depth of Field, Bloom and Blur
  
• Generate Missing Mipmaps
  
  Mipmaps are a Work in Progress
  Ignore Mipmap Gen. for now; clear Mipmap cache if any exists.
  
  
• MSAA Support in FlipModel (Win 8.1+) Windowed Mode
  • 2x and 8x Multi-sample to Complement Base Game's 4x or None
    
  • MSAA Applied to Entire Scene, instead of
    
    ...whatever QLOC was trying to do?
  
  
• HDR Display Output (16-bit FP scRGB)
  • HDR -> SDR tone mapping for easy screenshot upload to Steam
    
  • JPEG-XR Screenshots preserve HDR image detail

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\Tales of Vesperia Definitive Edition)

Configuration

Press Ctrl + Shift + Backspace to open Special K's config menu.

Suggested SwapChain Settings (Windows 8/10 users only)

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1621057330

Suggested settings require Borderless mode

Do not use Fullscreen mode

Version History

v 0.5.2 (2/05/19): Improved Framerate Limiter Clock Skew
v 0.5.1 (2/03/19): Added MSAA (2x, 4x, 8x) and Windowed Mode Support
v 0.5.0 (2/02/19): HDR Display Support
v 0.4.6 (1/24/19): Button Mod Support
v 0.4.5 (1/24/19): Added Option to Sharpen Shadows
v 0.4.4 (1/23/19): Fixed DOF in Dahngrest
v 0.4.2 (1/23/19): More Advanced Render Mod Tools (texture names)
v 0.4.1 (1/22/19): Mipmap Generation (Separate Alpha Support)
v 0.4.0 (1/21/19): Support Special K's Render Mod Toolkit
v 0.3.0 (1/16/19): Finally Eliminated Microstutter !
v 0.2.0 (1/15/19): Add Mipmap Generation
v 0.1.1 (1/15/19): Fix Mute / Input issues with Background Render Option
v 0.1.0 (1/14/19): Added Blur, Bloom and Depth of Field Options
v 0.0.2 (1/13/19): Added Post-Process and Particle Effects Toggle
v 0.0.1 (1/12/19): Improved CPU Widget Performance

Troubleshooting

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

If after closing third-party software the game still does not start, please paste

• logs/dxgi.log
  
• logs/modules.log
  
• logs/game_output.log
  

to http://pastebin.com and provide a link in a post.

[Kaldaien]

Reserved for Future Use

[Forte]

Thanks for reposting this thread!

[Tanasinn [AZ]]

Yep, thank you. I'm about to try to get this working since you eliminated stutter completely.

Edit: Got it working on the first try. Thanks for the reasy to follow instructions. <3 sound while not in focus.

[Kamikaze Ice]

I was going to wait a few more days before bringing it up again, but there are some textures that are not listed in the mod tools (showing all "non-active").
I've not tried to go around and look for every single texture, so primarily it's the controller buttons that are missing (and a wall lantern in the castle dungeon (2nd save point of the game).

You mentioned elsewhere about possibly making a button texture option ala previous games, so if you can see them I wonder why I cannot.


Also, using the recommended swapchain settings with game set to Borderless, the resolution is not quite right and returns to this state every time the game starts (3864x2224 instead of 3840x2160). Overrides don't seem to stick either, requiring me to toggle the center button, or changing resolution and back so it is using the desired resolution. I'm judging based on Special K UI by dragging it around, almost as if the UI is being scaled to a total resolution of the game and windows shell (titlebar/border) despite being borderless (again, simply toggling center or whatever appears to correct this).
https://i.imgur.com/7nuTSfA.jpg

https://pastebin.com/M4DfiUPy
https://pastebin.com/TbEwRKUc
https://pastebin.com/JGEhkUci (unofficial reshade)
Note: forcing 4xSGSSAA via Nvidia Inspector (made no difference off).
I noticed the game resets it's own settings.ini to fullscreen if it was window/borderless and you enter the options even if you don't change anything.


Unrelated to Special K:
I've noticed the audio doing some strange stuff in combat. Battle music volume lowers whenever Sound effects/voices are triggered.
Often this normalization (?) creates clipping/distortion in the effects/voices.
It's definitely the game and not anything else on my end (this guy is one of those home theatre elitist jerks lol)

[Shinrin Cole]

Thread has been unlocked on the Tales of Vesperia section of the forums.

[JBeckman]

Good to see it was just temporary, some cleanup action or whatever and hopefully that won't be too frequent.
(Or at least perhaps the moderators could utilize the features this forum has and notify the thread creator about why the topic was locked next time via the message functionality.)

[Kaldaien]

And the troll's back, so it's only a matter of time before it's locked again :-\

[JBeckman]

More tools for moderators to exclude users from forums probably wouldn't hurt, then again the forum is due to for a overhaul but it's looking like the store front and client interface are next and it's on the standard Valve Time schedule so probably hitting beta sometime this year and maybe a full overhaul and release some time later after that.

It's going into more than just trolling too at this rate and disruptive behavior so Steam or well Valve should take some action really but well it's temp bans and then a VPN or alt is just circumventing it.

At least the mods should be more up to speed on the situation after the prior review so hopefully it's less problematic if they have to close the thread again.

Not really sure what else to say about it, topic is important for reaching most of the users compared to a group such as this but these problems are going to be a issue going forward and there's no real solution outside of administrative action far as I'm seeing it.
(Even then unless it's a full IP ban a blank account would just allow the user to make additional comments. Or at worst users I don't really know hopefully it's just one.)

[JBeckman]

Or more directly it's about your previous reply for Monster Hunter World I think and the psychic health and what you wrote then, far more serious if that's going to continue having to deal with this over and over with no real stop to it short of stopping using the community forums completely for whatever game is being supported via SpecialK.

EDIT: But I'm not the best with words and such but that's clearly not a good situation. Though I don't really know a solution if these problems are going to appear in every single thread now.

Though Valve could certainly do with one less user account among all the others they have although closure like that and full on bans are very rare from what I know.
(But this is quite a serious problem too and then all the other breaches of conduct and rules on top of it from the Steam security bragging and more including how the alt accounts are utilized to continue personal attacks.)

[TrowGundam]

I know changing an entire discussion board so that only Owners of a game can post is a bad idea. But, maybe if it was an option that Topic Creators could set, or maybe a Moderator only option to help issues like what Kaldaien is having..

[BONKERS]

Originally posted by TrowGundam:

I know changing an entire discussion board so that only Owners of a game can post is a bad idea. But, maybe if it was an option that Topic Creators could set, or maybe a Moderator only option to help issues like what Kaldaien is having..

That's a great idea honestly. It would keep the dupe account trolls out that's for sure.


Topic creators shoudl have this option.

[Seattlehockeyfan84]

Originally posted by BONKERS:

Originally posted by TrowGundam:

I know changing an entire discussion board so that only Owners of a game can post is a bad idea. But, maybe if it was an option that Topic Creators could set, or maybe a Moderator only option to help issues like what Kaldaien is having..

That's a great idea honestly. It would keep the dupe account trolls out that's for sure.


Topic creators shoudl have this option.

They should also have an ignore user feature.

[Ezodagrom]

Originally posted by gstommylee001:

They should also have an ignore user feature.

Wouldn't do much in this case since the harassers just keep making new accounts just for the purposes of harassing Kaldaien and spreading misinformation...

[DNMock]

Dunno if this is a game specific bug or not, but when using the latest version of Re-shade as a 3rd party plug-in, get a really wierd double image as if the game was running in full screen and windowed at the same time. However when using version 3.08 of reshade as a 3rd party plugin it works as intended.

[TrowGundam]

Originally posted by gstommylee001:

Originally posted by BONKERS:

That's a great idea honestly. It would keep the dupe account trolls out that's for sure.


Topic creators shoudl have this option.

They should also have an ignore user feature.

That feature does exist. You can go to a users profile and "Block All Communication". That results in their posts being minimized with a simple message of "Blocked User". THat wouldnt' help here, as the person has at least 15 alternate accounts that I know of and just continues to make more as thy get banned from forums.