Possible graphical enhancements and compatibility fixes

Some tricks to make Anachronox look a bit neater by adding widescreen support and any kind of visual effects you may want.

Intro

Here are some neat hacks that allow you to enhance (or mess with) the graphics in Anachronox that I've discovered (with some help from others). Ever since I played Anachronox with the doom 3 bloom hack I realized no other game benefits so much from bloom as Anachronox. But that hack stopped working on more modern videocards (at least nvidia ones), so I've been seeking to replicate that ability ever since.

This guide contains the list of the known modifications that you can apply to the graphics in Anachronox, which currently include widescreen support and any graphical effect you may possibly want since now you can inject absolutely any shaders into the game with ReShade.

RESOLUTION

– Widescreen

In one of the community threads somebody has posted a link to a widescreen patch.
Here it is.[www.wsgf.org]
The usage is very straightforward: extract, pick the folder with the desired resolution, replace the files in the Anachronox folder (backing them up first would be wise).
It works well together with ReShade which is the best currently available solution for adding graphical effects to the game. It also works well under Wine.

POST-EFFECTS

– ReShade (highly recommended!)

Since I first wrote this guide an amazing thing has happened: a universal shader injector called ReShade has been developed. And it works with OpenGL games and that of course includes Anachronox.

You can get ReShade from its official website: http://reshade.me
The installation involves dropping the files of ReShade and the shader pack you intend to use in the directory where Anachronox is installed.

The advantages of using ReShade instead of other older alternatives listed in this article for posterity are:

• It just works and it works well.
  
• It works together with the widescreen patch! Use both!
  
• Not only you can use ready made shader collections, you can write your own custom shaders specifically for Anachronox! (if you do, please share!)
  
• The best part? It even works on Linux! Yes, together with the widescreen patch! (tested using the latest Wine Staging at the time of writing).

The shader pack that I currently use with Anachronox is Master Effect. I believe the current most relevant URL for it is this[http//reshhttp], but if not feel free to google and correct me. I particularly like the bloom effect, DOF (I use the MagicDOF one), and FishEye lens with Chromatic Aberration turned off. Here's my ReShade.fx for it, but it might be outdated for the current Master Effect, so use with care: http://hastebin.com/avikifigut.cs. I'll update it whenever I look into it.

Well, I really have nothing more to say here other than "Yaaay!", "you don't need anything else" and "what's not to like?". Have fun. Here are some pictures of me using this setup.

– QEffects GL

GSM has suggested a solution that turned out to be much better than my old proposal for most purposes (the other is assumedly still viable and of interest if you want to play with stereoscopic 3D). However it's worse than using ReShade so you probably should scroll up and use that instead. These old solutions are only kept here for historical purposes.

You just need to grab QeffectsGL[code.google.com], put it in the Anachronox folder and you're almost all set.
To make it work you need to edit the QeffectsGL.ini file and add there the following lines

[anox.exe]
RenderFrame=-1

Also the default values for Ambient Occlusion make everything bizarrely dark, so you either have to change the relevant line in the beginning of the file to SSAO=0 and thus turn it off or to use different values.
The values I use are

SSAO=1
SSAOScale=1.0
SSAOMinZ=0.0005
SSAOMaxZ=0.0010

However, it's all experimental laymanship and I'd be very glad if somebody suggested something more carefully chosen.

Here's the full contents of my http://pastebin.com/dnLPVEHm file. Warning: extreme blurriness and bloom for blur addicts! Tweak to your own taste.

Finally, let's have a couple of pics:

I hope my excessive blur doesn't scare people off from trying this stuff. But I think it's good in a way, so people don't underestimate the extent of the change you can get. Please feel free to suggest alternative configurations and screenshots, those are very welcome!

– QuindieGL and ENB Series

This solution is inferior and isn't recommended unless you want to try stereoscopic 3D or you have other reasons to make Anachronox render with D3D. So if that doesn't apply to you and you're satisfied with the first one, just skip this part.

First of all you need qindie-gl OpenGL->DirectX wrapper[code.google.com]. Simply double click the .reg file that comes with it, then drop the dll into the Anachronox folder.
Then grab ENB series for Half-Life 2[www.enbdev.com]. Just drop the relevant files into the Anachronox folder.

And you're all set. Not only it does add bloom, it also adds some kind of adaptation/occlusion effect that makes the game's wonderful lighting come even more alive.

Obviously, you can also tweak the ENBSeries configuration file to your heart's content. Here's the contents of mine [pastebin.com].
To illustrate the results:


Personally, i think it looks rather great. If not as a definitive replacement for the original look, at least as a kind of refreshment.

It's also worth noting that forcing anisotropic filtering and antialiasing on the game through the graphics card driver settings produces great results. And it will play smoothly on modern hardware even with high settings.

It also makes the game work with Steam overlay. (I don't know why it's not the case out of the box though, before when I added Anachronox as a non-steam game it always worked)

And at last but not least, the OpenGL->DirectX wrapping enables some other options, such as stereoscopic 3D, using for example iz3d driver[www.iz3d.com]. I haven't tested it with this setup yet, but I've had it working with Anachronox with another, inferior wrapper, so I'm somewhat confident that it would work.

Hope this brings somebody else than me some joy too!

– Known issues with QuindieGL & ENB Series

Please note that those only manifest with QindieGL & ENB. Using QeffectsGL has no such side-effects.

Known issues:

1. The game crashes on exit every time according to w7, but it's a small price to pay i think and it doesn't actually affect anything
   
2. All texts get slight noise and artifacts; not a huge deal for somebody who is replaying the game for the 10th time, but prevents this solution from becoming a must have mod; not unreadable, but can be distracting. Looks like this:
   
   
3. The game loses the gamma setting to alt+tabbing, so every time you alt+tab back, you have to go to the settings and set the gamma setting to where it already was again (at least it used to do that, the last time I tested it with this Steam version I didn't notice it happening)

– REMOVAL

If you decide this is not for you and you forgot what exactly you put in there, simply remove the files opengl32.dll and QeffectsGL.ini if you went with QeffectsGL or opengl32.dll, d3d9.dll and enbseries.ini if you went with the other approach from the Anachronox folder and it's all back to how it was before.
For ReShade it's also opengl32.dll

HIGH RESOLUTION TEXTURES

Graphical Enhancements

Texture upscale for characters, objects and skyboxes (x4). Partial transparency fixes. 3D signs at Bricks restored.

Page on Moddb

COMPATIBILITY

– 3dfx Glide

The game supports rendering with Glide. It is an old alternative to OpenGL and DirectX. Provided the best visual effects at the time and Anachronox is one of the games that supports it.
First you need to install a Glide wrapper. There are many of them, here's what works:

NGLIDE http://www.zeus-software.com/downloads/nglide

The most common and easy to use wrapper. It works out of box except the fact that you need to select glide as a renderer for Anachronox. Read about that below.

DGVOODOO 2 http://dege.freeweb.hu/dgVoodoo2/dgVoodoo2.html

Another Glide wrapper, sometimes works like a charm where nGlide fails to. Much more options to tinker with.

It provides more accurate emulation, by alowing to select the particular graphics card you need, the amount of memory and a lot more. Definitely worth a try if nGlide doesn't work properly.

SETTING UP ANACHRONOX TO USE GLIDE

To run the game with glide render you need to run it first time using GCT Setup from the Anachronox folder.
Set the GL driver to 3dfx and choose whether to run it in window or in full screen.

For some reason Glide works best in windowed mode, handles colors and gamma better.

– Mesa3D

If all else fails to make your game run and it constantly crashes there is an easy solution. (make sure you tried to wrap the game to 3dfx before doing that since it usually helps too with this kind of issues). Anachronox usually crashes or runs really slow on the newest versions of Windows (8+). To solve this there is a thing that will make the game more compatible but it will take a lot of performance in exchange and that is why it must only be used as a last resort solution.

The library provides software rendering capabilities to OpenGL applications.


MESA3D[fdossena.com]

The setup is pretty straightforward: just copy-paste everything in your Anachronox folder and hope for the best.

– What works on Wine

• The widescreen patch works under Wine (in fact the game works more gracefully with it)
  
• ReShade works under Wine (I only tested it with Wine Staging though)

HOW-TO LATEST RESHADE ON WINE

Any wrapper can possibly work with Wine, the problem is that the game will not hook new libraries by default. You need to set up DLL override in winecfg. The library we need to override is opengl32.dll if we are dealing with original Anachronox.
Notes:

• OpenGL -> DirectX wrapper (qindie-gl) from the ENB section has a huge performance impact, making the game almost unplayable.
  
• dgVoodoo 2.4. Glide2x.dll. Half of the textures do not render. Low framerate.

The closing statement

If you have any suggestions, any other similar tricks to share, please do! If it's something nice I'll put it here and credit you.

All feedback is much appreciated. Game on!

[f1ames0ff]

Just download gog version and replace the files

[FortKavanagh]

is there an easier way to do this?

[Hey]

It would be amazing if these solutions + the patches and speeding up of combat could all be uploaded into a Github or a Google Drive link, for ease of access.

[MasterZoen]

The hastebin page is empty. I don't suppose you could upload the file to a sharing site?

[Artur]

Needs more lens flare.

[malditobastardo]

Thanks you

[Torus]

Thanks to your guide, I can play Anachronox in Stereo 3D! Thank you!

[Julzerinos]

Thanks for the guide, it'll come in handy - just one thing to take into account: hastebin has a very short lifespan, so the link you've shared for your reShade has already expired. I recommend using pastebin if you want an endless lifespan for your files.

[minefield]

Reshade causes weird graphical glitches for me. Textures can appear black, or are just random garbage...and sometimes animated too. The links on this guide seem broken too. Does anyone know which version is best?

[Dave Voyles]

This graphics tutorial is fantastic. Thanks!