Modding Alpha Protocol

[Tigranes]

I'll try that engine ini and see how it does, though I doubt my laptop can handle it.

[blackwolfe]

It sure did alot of different in the last level, ran alot smoother and looked better too. Atlhough in the beginning of the game it still stuttered acted all weird.

[MarteenDee]

I'll try that engine ini and see how it does, though I doubt my laptop can handle it.

 

Instead of inserting it straight to your config files - grab WinMerge or any other file compare program or plugin and check changed lines with your APEngine.ini. I'll make comprehensive list of all changes/tweaks with proper explanation later, and I'll post it... in tech part of the forum.?

Only thing which keeps me from doing it is that I'm waiting until finishing with all ini files. Then I'll be able to sort out really useful tweaks which really works.

 

Anyway - compare files and in every value indicating that it's RAM or gRAM related lower every value proportionally to your hardware specs.

 

I was already playing again through Saudi with these settings and finally AP doesn't look like some half-baked console port*

 

 

*I'm still pretty sure, that behind the choice of leaving XBox oriented caching settings, hides SEGA - "wide compatibility with lower-end platforms" - as they call it.... Sigh...

 

It sure did alot of different in the last level, ran alot smoother and looked better too. Atlhough in the beginning of the game it still stuttered acted all weird.

 

I can imagine. Really depends on your system, but primary factor would be "cooking". Everything is cached in chunks and probably texture, model and logic packs are prepared to fit with narrow console resources. To keep smoother gameplay I had to expand cache settings - which means that with every new level game have to purge a lot of data and load new chunk of data. It creates huge HD activity. Luckily same textures and models are used for every next region - which means, that in bigger cache they can be kept longer - and used multiple times. That's why I asked if someone having 8GB RAM and 64bit OS could try to create RAMdisc and load all game into it. HD defrag helps a lot too.

It might be the only remedy for stuttering until Obsidian come with some patching...

Edited June 10, 2010 by MarteenDee

[Starwars]

Thanks for investigating all this, it's really appreciated! And yeah, would be great if you could have a comprehensive list on tweaks and their effects if you feel up for it.

 

Keep up the good work and thanks for doing it!

[MarteenDee]

Thanks for investigating all this, it's really appreciated! And yeah, would be great if you could have a comprehensive list on tweaks and their effects if you feel up for it.

 

Keep up the good work and thanks for doing it!

 

Happy you like it.

 

I think AP deserves proper treatment. After so many unfortunate reviews I doubt if SEGA is going to give Obsidian green light for making any DLCs, Add-Ons or sequel. Hell... I'm afraid we won't get any patch, as devs might be already "redistributed", to work on next Fallout.

It's a shame, that witty and innovative games are bashed for some insignificant reasons and rot in Tesco bargain bins - when so many crappy and dumb games are getting recognition. I've seen that too many times.

 

Modding is my hobby - under different names I was doing stuff for NWN, STALKER, Mount&Blade, Freelancer, classic OPF... When I was tracking development of AP , its premises and engine devs used - I knew its going to be great platform for modding. I was using UDK before - it's very powerful tool. And IMHO - Alpha Protocol might only survive thanks to modding community (like Freelancer for example). And the fact, that it might be left behind by the developer, because of its poor reception - for the niche game it's even better. Less crowd, more involved and more adult community, and very slight chance (but always) that some of the devs, who was really believing in this project, may join us to give Mike Thorton a second chance and a bunch of new adventures...

 

Edited June 10, 2010 by MarteenDee

[wintermute]

Does anyone have any idea how to increase the range for critical hits with pistols? I think it should be just a tad farther...

[WILL THE ALMIGHTY]

....blah blah blah.....

 

If you want to play some shooter game, you should go and buy Conviction or Modern Warfare 2 - instead of RPG game.

In Alpha Protocol, to be more accurate with your guns, you have to gain experience and get some skills. There's also many upgrades available, which makes weapons even more deadly. Stop trolling on these forums and especially in this thread. There's no proof yet that any gun stats are moddable through config files...

 

Now - kindly leave, if you want to continue this idiocy - in every language, there's thing called "punctuation", and similarly - every game have its premises. You seems to not knowing either, which makes you a joke. Over.

 

---------------------------------------

Back on topic - could anyone with W7 or Vista try to enable DX10 support in above config (AllowD3D10=True) and check if it's crashing the game? Thanks in advance.

I'd still like to tweak the accuracy on weapons. Sometimes it just gets frustrating.

[WorstUsernameEver]

Tried to run the game with AllowD3D10=True and it just crashes on startup.

 

P.S. : Yeah, I have Windows 7.

Edited June 10, 2010 by WorstUsernameEver

[MarteenDee]

Funny how people react on the same game - I'm rising AI skill and amount of damage enemies can deal to me on hard diff (first two hits = armour down, third hit kills, well maybe fourth if Mike's lucky) to make game more challenging and to create bigger sense of realism and danger and other come to complain about the game being frustrating..

 

Anyway - haven't check yet, but I would be surprised if it's all in some mere ini files. You can always install Notepad++ and use "Search in files" for anything related to "dispersion", "recoil" or "accuracy". Maybe you might find something.

 

Only thing I recall were some bits and pieces in connection with difficulty level (and it was AI damage and not weapon accuracy). I've lowered amount of damage dealt by any boss (well, actually the variable common for all bosses on hard) and upped damage dealt by regular grunts. And it's only because all bosses are so overpowered.

 

It was in APGamedata.ini:

 

HardModePawnDamageIncrease=0.25; <----- I've upped that to 1.50

HardModeBossDamageIncrease=0.10; <----- and decreased this to -0.80

 

Tried to run the game with AllowD3D10=True and it just crashes on startup.

 

P.S. : Yeah, I have Windows 7.

 

Was that with APEngine file I've submitted few posts ago?

I can imagine that it wouldn't add any visual value (as there isn't anything related to DX10 in shaders used by AP) but I was hoping that, thanks to backward compatibility and improved calculations, it could help to run the game smoother with my over-the-top visual tweaks.

Ah - btw - seems that shaders might be easily editable as they're not packed. Unless some of them were altered by Obsidian and these original UE3 shaders are obsolete.

 

We'll see - for me first priority would be altering how packs are "cooked" to get rid of lag spikes and excessive HD activity in some areas.

Secondly - to teach Mike how to walk instead of constant running.

Finally to map minigames controls to arrow keys without use of 3rd party applications and create gadgets shortcuts accessible during a fight without any need of using in-game menu. I'm afraid that it might be impossible without making some new scripts.

 

Theoretically it's possible to create user-made content and adding it through +seekfreepacket and content cooking folders through the ini files.

Haven't looked into the subject to say anything for sure, though.

 

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1,880 thread views after only two days of existence... seems that people are really interested in the subject...

Edited June 10, 2010 by MarteenDee

[Orchomene]

For precision, you may try to change this setting in APGame.ini and test a bit :

 

[Engine.PlayerController]

bAimingHelp=false => true

 

For the issues of frames at rotation of the camera, one may try to lower the value of this (same file APGame.ini)

PlayerRotationSpeed=270000.0f

[Spydude]

That was already pointed out a couple of pages ago. I started on a new playthrough and not planning on using shadow operative,silent running nor chain shot. Even awareness I am mostly not going to use. The game gets easier and easier the more times you play it. I'm on my 3rd playthrough now on hard/recruit and I am running and shooting. lol I've only died a couple of times, but I'm only on my 2nd hub so far.

 

I am thinking of modding a realistic mode ie. Enemies alerted easier, capping skill level at 7-10 or so. I would like to mod out the stealth cheats but it looks to be hard coded. The weapons are fine. This game is probably closer to realism than any other game out there without the skill cheats. I prefer the game without skill upgrades, but allowing weapon/armor upgrades. That would make it closer to a real stealth based game.

 

I haven't noticed a difference with the graphical tweaks but it might be a minor difference. It's possible the shadows look better. I also noticed the lockpick minigame is more responsive now. I'm not sure why though.

[Zerosaber]

Hey guys,

 

I'm somewhat new to this modding ini thing.

 

in the APDamageTypesData is a list of special ammo types. It may not help with the pistol's accuracy but....

 

[APGame.APDmgType_Traquilizer]

BaseDamage=-2

ArmorPenetration=-3

 

you can modify how much damage it's doing. I have not tested this yet but hopefully this may help some people

[irakmata]

Funny how people react on the same game - I'm rising AI skill and amount of damage enemies can deal to me on hard diff (first two hits = armour down, third hit kills, well maybe fourth if Mike's lucky) to make game more challenging and to create bigger sense of realism and danger and other come to complain about the game being frustrating..

 

Anyway - haven't check yet, but I would be surprised if it's all in some mere ini files. You can always install Notepad++ and use "Search in files" for anything related to "dispersion", "recoil" or "accuracy". Maybe you might find something.

 

Only thing I recall were some bits and pieces in connection with difficulty level (and it was AI damage and not weapon accuracy). I've lowered amount of damage dealt by any boss (well, actually the variable common for all bosses on hard) and upped damage dealt by regular grunts. And it's only because all bosses are so overpowered.

 

It was in APGamedata.ini:

 

HardModePawnDamageIncrease=0.25; <----- I've upped that to 1.50

HardModeBossDamageIncrease=0.10; <----- and decreased this to -0.80

 

Tried to run the game with AllowD3D10=True and it just crashes on startup.

 

P.S. : Yeah, I have Windows 7.

 

Was that with APEngine file I've submitted few posts ago?

I can imagine that it wouldn't add any visual value (as there isn't anything related to DX10 in shaders used by AP) but I was hoping that, thanks to backward compatibility and improved calculations, it could help to run the game smoother with my over-the-top visual tweaks.

Ah - btw - seems that shaders might be easily editable as they're not packed. Unless some of them were altered by Obsidian and these original UE3 shaders are obsolete.

 

We'll see - for me first priority would be altering how packs are "cooked" to get rid of lag spikes and excessive HD activity in some areas.

Secondly - to teach Mike how to walk instead of constant running.

Finally to map minigames controls to arrow keys without use of 3rd party applications and create gadgets shortcuts accessible during a fight without any need of using in-game menu. I'm afraid that it might be impossible without making some new scripts.

 

Theoretically it's possible to create user-made content and adding it through +seekfreepacket and content cooking folders through the ini files.

Haven't looked into the subject to say anything for sure, though.

 

----------------------------------

1,880 thread views after only two days of existence... seems that people are really interested in the subject...

 

 

 

For me is imperative, in addition to the points exposed, a improve of Mike animations. These aren't bad however are too fast and Thorton moves like supersonic agent.

This ruins the (little) realism of the game, what I see on the screen i don't believe it despite of nice graphics and it's sad.

 

If there was a way to change the animations speed modifying only .INI files...

 

If you could assign a key to walk could also be used for stealth mode, which also has two animations (stealth slow and stealh fast).

[Orogun01]

Hey guys,

 

I'm somewhat new to this modding ini thing.

 

in the APDamageTypesData is a list of special ammo types. It may not help with the pistol's accuracy but....

 

[APGame.APDmgType_Traquilizer]

BaseDamage=-2

ArmorPenetration=-3

 

you can modify how much damage it's doing. I have not tested this yet but hopefully this may help some people

I already have and it works perfectly. 5, is a 1 hit kill.

[MarteenDee]

That was already pointed out a couple of pages ago. I started on a new playthrough and not planning on using shadow operative,silent running nor chain shot. Even awareness I am mostly not going to use. The game gets easier and easier the more times you play it. I'm on my 3rd playthrough now on hard/recruit and I am running and shooting. lol I've only died a couple of times, but I'm only on my 2nd hub so far.

 

I am thinking of modding a realistic mode ie. Enemies alerted easier, capping skill level at 7-10 or so. I would like to mod out the stealth cheats but it looks to be hard coded. The weapons are fine. This game is probably closer to realism than any other game out there without the skill cheats. I prefer the game without skill upgrades, but allowing weapon/armor upgrades. That would make it closer to a real stealth based game.

 

I'm more than happy to hear about some realism improvements, but then - instead of going through strain of changing AP into something which this game never meant to be I would rather focus on game difficulty and improvement of stealth/shooting mechanics but within RPG boundaries.

 

What I mean by that would be:

- as general fix - improving AI reactions and awareness and PC controls responsiveness;

- tweaking boss fights to be still challenging but not ridiculously arcade;

- balancing damage caused by AI grunts towards difficulty and realism (1-3 shots and game over);

- tweaking skills and weapons upgrades towards realism but with maintaining RPG mechanics;

- decreasing XP and financial rewards to make progress slower and more specialized;

- balancing equipment prices to more realistic values but still making them hard to afford (hence rewards tweak above);

- reducing gadgets and upgrades availability (not more than 1-2 of each / mission);

- removing all mission and environment icons from 3D view and map. Points of interests, mission and optional objectives would be available on the map (PDA) view only after intel is bought;

- removing HUD completely;

- altering how some active skills work (extending cooldown time, shortening activity time, maybe some skills could drain endurance? - great ideas for extensive brainstorming);

- introduce some other changes I can't think right now....

 

Unfortunately, for most of these changes to happen we need direct access to packed scripts and confirm that we can cook custom made content and have it streamed and replacing original files, or that we can decompile, alter and compile back original files.

 

I'll be testing such possibilities after the weekend (*looking at some guys from dev team who maybe stumbled upon this thread and are reading my words*). With UDK we don't need some special modding tools. The only problem is, that AP files are "protected" because it's modified UE3. What we need to figure out is what compression method was used or if AP can read "unprotected" packs made in UDK. We can always try to alter original files in hex editor, but from my experience it's major pain in the a$$ for both editing and testing. Besides we won't be able to add anything - eventually alter existing functions without any clue about logic behind them.

If we would be able to at least extract files and then just load "unprotected" packs instead of original ones - we can see what AP specific functions and logic Obsidian added to well documented Unreal Engine functions, and made our own additions. In this situation - we would have huge advantage of using full UDK which is license free for non-commercial use (modding).

 

For now I would focus on creating proper Community Patch though, and tweak/fix/test anything we can do to improve our game experience. In a perfect world there should be a rule: "we help dev team to fix their game - they help us to mod it". Unfortunately our world is anything but perfect, but sometimes it happens (like with "Mount&Blade" for example).

 

I deeply believe that Obsidian guys are developers who keep in touch with community not only before release but also later. Especially, that after such completely unfair bad reception, if they want to make Alpha Protocol more popular - they have to keep in touch with the community. If they've learned anything from history of Black Isle's Fallout there's big chance that I'm right. And that's the reason I'm here - on Obsidian forum and not on SEGA's - only right move is to stay with developers.

Publishers care only about economy and revenue.

 

Anyway - another lengthy post and not enough important stuff. Here's some update on ini tweaks to fix our broken gem:

 

Implemented and working fixes:

 

-better files caching

-reduced mouse and movement stuttering

-reduced textures popping

-improved shadows and and textures rendering quality

-multiple tweaks causing better resources management

-when AA and AF forced through Nvidia or ATI panels - dialogue options don't disappear any more

(complex community test needed)

-removed FPS cap which leads to smoother gameplay

-shortened loading times

-HD activity decreased during missions and cinematic and dialogue parts of the game

-small tweaks to improve lightning and particle effects

 

Future plans:

 

- removing stuttering during AI spawn

- removing massive fps drop and visible textures LOD swap when buying items from Clearinghouse

- further visual improvements

- improving PC controls response time and mouse reactions during mini games

- if possible - changing mini-games mouse controls bindings to keyboard controls (arrows or Num Pad)

- matching Thorton's and AI movement speeds with animations speed

- improving AI reactions and removing of most common AI related bugs

- trying to solve "AI not spawning after quick load" bug

 

Optional changes:

 

- improving boss fights, so they would fit into realistic game setting and premises - multiple gameplay tweaks to balance both RPG (levelling, perks, rewards) and action (guns accuracy, sneaking, combat) aspects of the game, with focus on maintaining original idea of creators but also making them more realistic and pleasing for more "action oriented" gamers.

 

I will upload new files later this weekend. I'm making comments in the files to every value altered, for anyone to fiddle with them and alter to be suitable with different hardware capabilities.

 

I haven't noticed a difference with the graphical tweaks but it might be a minor difference. It's possible the shadows look better. I also noticed the lockpick minigame is more responsive now. I'm not sure why though.

 

It depends if you used exact values from my files, your hardware setup, and such - I can see huge difference between vanilla ini file and mine. Especially because now AF and AA is working properly, texture LODs are fixed to remain sharp on longer distances, postprocessing is tweaked and I've increased limits for particles and shaders which makes all things like debris, bullet holes, fog and dust and guns/gadgets blasts look a lot nicer. Also - the way how shadows are rendered have huge impact on visual quality (I've practically removed draw distance for shadows - which means that even distant objects have shadow of some kind).

 

Lockpick minigame is more responsive because:

lack of fps cap = way higher fps = lower latency between your mouse/keyboard and what is rendered on the screen.

Hence all controls seems more responsive and a lot "smoother" than previously. It also depends on how sensitive is your mouse.

Mouse with higher DPI needs higher FPS in games.

 

High DPI + ~30-60FPS = Big Latency, where: Low DPI + ~30-60FPS = Normal Latency

but

High DPI + over 100FPS = Small Latency, and Low DPI + over 100FPS = same Normal Latency as with ~30-60FPS

 

 

For me is imperative, in addition to the points exposed, a improve of Mike animations. These aren't bad however are too fast and Thorton moves like supersonic agent.

This ruins the (little) realism of the game, what I see on the screen i don't believe it despite of nice graphics and it's sad.

 

If there was a way to change the animations speed modifying only .INI files...

 

If you could assign a key to walk could also be used for stealth mode, which also has two animations (stealth slow and stealh fast).

 

Somewhere earlier in this thread someone posted what's needed to alter Mike's moving speed. It's impossible to alter his animation (as in: changing the way he waves his hands, moves his legs and holds his gun). Although when you carefully lower movement speeds for all - running, sneaking, sprinting and behind the cover - you'll get the values which are more synchronised with animation - so he won't be "floating" and "sliding" from A to B - and instead it's going to look more natural. That rises difficulty slightly (you need to time better your moves if you want, for example, avoid being spotted by security cams) but it's even better IMHO.

 

Edited June 10, 2010 by MarteenDee

[Oblarg]

My system specs:

 

4gb DDR2 800 5-5-5-12 (only 3gb visibile, using windows XP 32bit)

Nvidia 8800 gts g92

AMD Athlon 64x2 6400+ 3.2ghz dual-core processor

 

Game has run absolutely smoothly on max settings for me. The graphics look fine (better than DA:O), though I don't really like the blur effect in the flash forward sequences. I have no problems accessing the clearinghouse at all, no slowdown to speak of. I've also only seen one or two minor bugs.

 

I guess I'm lucky?

[MarteenDee]

My system specs:

 

4gb DDR2 800 5-5-5-12 (only 3gb visibile, using windows XP 32bit)

Nvidia 8800 gts g92

AMD Athlon 64x2 6400+ 3.2ghz dual-core processor

 

Game has run absolutely smoothly on max settings for me. The graphics look fine (better than DA:O), though I don't really like the blur effect in the flash forward sequences. I have no problems accessing the clearinghouse at all, no slowdown to speak of. I've also only seen one or two minor bugs.

 

I guess I'm lucky?

 

Two factors: you have great HD and access times are better than majority of complaining people, or it might be something with game better performing on dual core processors than on quads? We might post a poll in Tech forum and see if people who are having spikes have also something in common hardware-wise.

 

Do you have your game installation on same HD as your system (I mean like default installation path in Program Files)? As I have quite similar configuration, except my processor is quad-core and with lower clock. I might overclock my system and reinstall the game to see if that helps. I'm not having some enormous lag spikes in Clearinghouse, but sometimes (like about every third time or something) it gives me huge lag when buying stuff with crazy HD activity (hence my idea that it has something to do with resources management).

[Hassat Hunter]

I think it's a little too early to already assume we need to make a community patch (the game is only out 2 weeks, they could be working on an official one already).

 

As for clearinghouse lag, I mentioned elsewhere I got none either, and I don't get HD management (atleast clearly audioable). I use a single-core though...

[Zoraptor]

I'd suspect the clearinghouse issue is vista or win7 related. My Graphics card is technically below minimum spec and I get no lag at all in XP- I have dual core, so it ain't that.

[MysterD]

Wow...never ceases to amaze me, how the mod community can just totally embrace a game and totally change, fix, repair, improve, or bend it to their own will. Mod communities for certain games - NWN, Vampire: Bloodlines, Morrowind, Oblivion, Planescape: Torment, Arcanum, etc etc - have really done wonders w/ such gems.

 

Do all UE3 Games have SM3.0 disabled by default? Very interesting that y'all already basically have it unlocked and are also messing w/ built-in AA and AF features.

 

I see that y'all are messing w/ the game's values and junk - interesting. I don't know if the UE3 Engine is this flexible - but is there a way to basically leave those values alone that Obsidian have set already for Normal and Hard Mode - and ALSO just create a totally NEW additional game difficulty setting of your own w/ its own values?

Edited June 11, 2010 by MysterD

[Oblarg]

My system specs:

 

4gb DDR2 800 5-5-5-12 (only 3gb visibile, using windows XP 32bit)

Nvidia 8800 gts g92

AMD Athlon 64x2 6400+ 3.2ghz dual-core processor

 

Game has run absolutely smoothly on max settings for me. The graphics look fine (better than DA:O), though I don't really like the blur effect in the flash forward sequences. I have no problems accessing the clearinghouse at all, no slowdown to speak of. I've also only seen one or two minor bugs.

 

I guess I'm lucky?

 

Two factors: you have great HD and access times are better than majority of complaining people, or it might be something with game better performing on dual core processors than on quads? We might post a poll in Tech forum and see if people who are having spikes have also something in common hardware-wise.

 

Do you have your game installation on same HD as your system (I mean like default installation path in Program Files)? As I have quite similar configuration, except my processor is quad-core and with lower clock. I might overclock my system and reinstall the game to see if that helps. I'm not having some enormous lag spikes in Clearinghouse, but sometimes (like about every third time or something) it gives me huge lag when buying stuff with crazy HD activity (hence my idea that it has something to do with resources management).

 

HD is just a cheap 320gb seagate drive, nothing special. Installation is on the same HD as system, there's only one drive in the machine. I haven't even defragged the disk in about 6 months.

 

The install was a digital download, if that changes anything.

 

I've experienced no slowdown at all using the clearinghouse.

[Spydude]

I have never had lag in PDA or Clearinghouse(i7 920,W7 x64,6GB RAM, GTX 470 SLI). I still have missing dialogue when I force AA with tweaks. AF works fine.

[Tigranes]

For gameplay balances, I'd suggest that a significant increase in cooldown times for abilities, and an increase in AP required for skills, is probably the best way. Decreasing XP gained doesn't really work too well because the game is designed to have you reach Level 18-20 at endgame. I think if its possible, certain skills in the same tree should cost more AP than others (e.g. chain shot might cost 7 AP, other 'normal' pistol skills 5 AP), so that you can't max out 3 skill trees by endgame, like you can now.

 

Shadow oeprative and Chain shot might also benefit from a significantly reduced duration - they're meant to simulate Mike's ability to sneak and shoot, so it's kind of ridiculous when you get 20 seconds, effectively letting you clear a room full of baddies. If it were reduced you mighta ctually have to hurry with CS, and use SO to run away and hide.

 

Alternatively, perhaps taking down an enemy with SO should make SO end: it makes no sense you can knock someone out and the other guy is right next to you and doesn't notice. In the same sense, maybe Evasion can be changed so you don't turn 'invisible', but simply that the guard doesn't change to alerted status immediately (though this woudl be much harder to do).

[MarteenDee]

Wow...never ceases to amaze me, how the mod community can just totally embrace a game and totally change, fix, repair, improve, or bend it to their own will. Mod communities for certain games - NWN, Vampire: Bloodlines, Morrowind, Oblivion, Planescape: Torment, Arcanum, etc etc - have really done wonders w/ such gems.

 

Do all UE3 Games have SM3.0 disabled by default? Very interesting that y'all already basically have it unlocked and are also messing w/ built-in AA and AF features.

 

I see that y'all are messing w/ the game's values and junk - interesting. I don't know if the UE3 Engine is this flexible - but is there a way to basically leave those values alone that Obsidian have set already for Normal and Hard Mode - and ALSO just create a totally NEW additional game difficulty setting of your own w/ its own values?

 

No clue about extra difficulty setting, but I can imagine from my experience that it isn't so simple without certain amount of scripting - which we are unable to do (yet).

Same with SM3.0 support. I just figured out that couple of recent games made with UE3 were looking a lot better and at least haven't got any problems with enabling some sort of AA and proper, long distance AF with Bloom/HDR emulation still present. When I was lurking through few different forums with submitted ini tweaks for those games, I've seen that some values usage was expanded since, let say ME2. That pushed me into re-reading recent development articles about UE3. Only risk with trying to enable something is that the game would crash or there won't be any noticeable difference because certain values won't be used. There was a huge quality difference for me. So I've decided to use it as a temporary fix before we get some proper patch.

 

I think it's a little too early to already assume we need to make a community patch (the game is only out 2 weeks, they could be working on an official one already).

 

As for clearinghouse lag, I mentioned elsewhere I got none either, and I don't get HD management (atleast clearly audioable). I use a single-core though...

 

I'd suspect the clearinghouse issue is vista or win7 related. My Graphics card is technically below minimum spec and I get no lag at all in XP- I have dual core, so it ain't that.

 

I wonder if these stories have something in common, as every one of them reveals some hints but not the full picture. I'm on quad, XP and having non-digital version installed on different partition than my system. I had some lag at the beginning - mainly with AI spawn and Clearinghouse, but the latter only randomly every 3 or 4 times. After HD defrag and few tweaks spawn lag is gone completely and Clearinghouse lag is still present but even less often, and laggy "loading" times are way shorter. Which makes me think that it's something directly connected with files management.

 

I don't think it's too early for community fixes. Actually it's never to early. Look - game got bashed almost everywhere mainly for its technical issues and clunkiness, which obviously isn't truth for everyone. Yet - for two weeks there's no official word from neither Obsidian nor SEGA about any plans or attempts to patch the game. And people who bought the game are coming here asking for help. How do you plan to convince them, that the game you like isn't such a crap as they think or were told to think?

What you *should* say is: - here's quick fix for this and here's for that, with this value you can pimp your visuals - enjoy, come later and tell me how was it.

 

Sure - you can't do everything for developers, after such bad reception they should be informing about upcoming patch from day one. And I'm not even saying "working on it" but short info "we are aware of reported issues, we're really sorry that you have problems with our game, we are investigating the problem...". Instead - there's dead silence since release.

 

Besides, I really hate waiting for the patches. If something annoys me, but I like the game, I'm at least trying to do something myself to play it as it supposed to be played. Especially with the game I was eagerly waiting good few years for. And if my attempts are going to help someone with even bigger problems? Why not? For the last 12 hours file I've submitted got downloaded over 50 times - if it's going to fix some issues for those people - I'm happy with it. Maybe it's going to help developers with fixing the game or at least with nailing the problem? I'm even more happy.

 

Hell - the truth is, I'm having good time playing and tweaking those files - is it only for myself or for some people. I don't really care is it called "Community Patch" or "MarteenDee's ****ty And Useless Tweaks".

It's definitely better to do, than sitting on your a$$, bitching, and waiting for someone who might *eventually* fix it for you...

 

I have never had lag in PDA or Clearinghouse(i7 920,W7 x64,6GB RAM, GTX 470 SLI). I still have missing dialogue when I force AA with tweaks. AF works fine.

 

Well - that I suppose might have something to do with W7 and some drivers incompatibility.

Have you used all tweaks from the APEngine.ini file I've submitted? I'm especially thinking about adding

to [D3DDrv.D3DRenderDevice] section:

 

DisableShaderModel3=False

DisableHWShadowMaps=False

 

 

Especially adding DisableShaderModel3=False fixed proper hardware AA on on my system. I haven't got disappearing dialogues though - but afaik it fixed dialogue issue for few people. Sadly - I don't have a clue what hardware and systems they have.

When both won't help you might want to try and set AllowD3D10=False to =True, people are reporting that it causes crash, but who knows? Maybe it's going to help you?

There's as many combinations to fix broken games as many various configs, systems and people. What's worst - DRM conflicts with different software/hardware setups are just way too common and well known problem, to exclude such suspicion.

Well - the ultimate truth is - we may sit and do nothing, or at least die trying....

[palathas]

My system specs:

 

4gb DDR2 800 5-5-5-12 (only 3gb visibile, using windows XP 32bit)

Nvidia 8800 gts g92

AMD Athlon 64x2 6400+ 3.2ghz dual-core processor

 

Game has run absolutely smoothly on max settings for me. The graphics look fine (better than DA:O), though I don't really like the blur effect in the flash forward sequences. I have no problems accessing the clearinghouse at all, no slowdown to speak of. I've also only seen one or two minor bugs.

 

I guess I'm lucky?

 

My Specs are -

 

PS3

 

32" WSHD LCD TV

 

It looks fine for me also. From what I've seen so far there's been no graphical, sound or performance issues. The only problem with the game that I have is me. I'm really finding that console + me + TPP game = not so good. I'm just a gumby when it comes to First or Third Person Perspective games on consoles I guess. I'll most likely be getting the PC version because the game does seem promising.

Edited June 11, 2010 by palathas