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]

Gamepad vibration is probably b0rked. Disable XInput hooks in the ini file.

[Input.XInput]
Enable=false

[Mkilbride]

Man I wish I was like other people and could just ignore that kinda stuff.

[laimazin0330]

I had a problem when in a battle, and use rb to choose enemy, it always has a very obvious fps drop, 60 -> 50. If i hold rb, fps drop to 3X

[Kratos Aran]

Hi

My game crash on launch since I've installed this mod

Without, the game run but I would like to use this mod to disable blur and DOF

I don't know what is the problem ...

( ofc I've installed Visual C++ 2017 runtime )

[TrowGundam]

Make sure you have the 2019 runtime installed as well. I can't remember when he swapped over, but it won't hurt having that installed as well. Also are there any logs generated? Those would be helpful for trying to figure out any issues. Finally, these forums are mostly dead. We moved off of the Steam discussion forums to a dedicated forum and even have a Discord now. Try over on the forums or better yet join the discord (link on the forums) and that will probably be a bit quicker. Forums are located here: https://discourse.differentk.fyi/

[Gias]

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

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

[Shadow Esper]

Still not fixed for the new exe.

[Gias]

Shadow Esper님이 먼저 게시:

Still not fixed for the new exe.

i don't think tvfix is going to be updated for the newer exe nor do i think it's needed or worth the work/time it would take... the older exe can be used without issue and it's provided in the page i linked if you want all the adjustments/features of tvfix.

otherwise, you can also still use the version of tvfix provided in the sk wiki link with the newer exe of the game. it won't crash the game, but some features of tvfix will be missing if you're using the newer exe instead of the one provided in the tvfixreviver archive

[StellaSymphony]

If anyone else is experiencing the same issues that I have, these are the solutions I've found to fix them:

Installing Special K, Preventing Crash on Startup
1. Avoid using the TVFix Winrar from the GitHub link that is under the "Download and Install" section of this steam page. It may cause your game to crash on startup. Instead, download the TVFixReviver zip folder from the official Special K wiki provided here or at the top of the steam page (https://wiki.special-k.info/SpecialK/Custom/TVFix). Right click it and choose "Extract All" and then copy and paste the extracted folder's contents into Vesperia's "Browse Local Files" folder and choose "Replace All" when it asks if you want to replace files with the same name.

Cheat Engine Values not Working (Party and Stat Modifiers)
2. If you are using Cheat Engine, you will have to right click Vesperia in your Steam Library and go to Properties to find and use "Verify integrity of game files" AFTER installing the TVFixReviver. It will tell you that a file has failed and it will restore it. If you don't do this, the Party Modifier and stat modifier options from Vesperia's Cheat Engine tables may not work. Read "3." below before doing this.

Disable Bloom and HDR Options Missing After Verifying Game Files
3. As far as I can tell, "Verifying the integrity of game files" will cause the "Disable Bloom" option as well as the HDR settings within the in-game TVFix Menu to be missing for some reason. They can still be edited through the dxgi.ini file through Notepad but it is unclear whether or not they work.

Screen Flickering when Using an HDMI cable to play on the TV or Magpie upscaler
4. Plugging in an HDMI cable to connect a laptop to play Vesperia with TVFix on the TV or using Magpie upscaler from GitHub may cause screen flickering. Changing the values under the SwapChain settings to 1, 3, 3 in that order may fix this issue.

Game Crashing After Updating Special K through the in-game TVFix Menu
5. Have the option to "check for updates" set to "never." If you don't TVFix may ask you if you want to update it when you launch the game and doing so may cause your game to crash on startup. If you accidentally do this, you will have to re-copy and paste the dxgi.dll from TVFixReviver to fix this.

In-Game TVFix Settings and NVIDIA Control Panel Settings
6. Turning on MSAA x8, Generate Mipmaps On, and the preset settings for TVFix's in-game menu have not caused any problems on my end. If you have a NVIDIA GeForce Driver, leaving most of the options to default ("Use the 3D application setting" including Vertical Sync) with the exception of shader cache size being set to 100 hasn't caused any problems.

[TalesOfManiac]

how to install this fix on steamdeck?