The True VTMB Patch -- GOLD EDITION (preview)

[Tessera]

I feel ashamed. 

[Tessera]

UPDATE:


I have completed two preliminary test runs and as of today, the True Patch GOLD Edition should be ready to start closed beta testing in another day or two. I just want to run through my checklist and make sure that everything is ready to go for the final testing phase.

Several members of the tessmage.com Forums community have volunteered to become beta testers. Many thanks to them... because beta testing our patch has always proven to be the most valuable part of development. And this is why I have always insisted on having such tests, prior to releasing anything to the general public. The last thing that we want to do is accidentally introduce new bugs where none existed before. Hence the beta testing phase, during which all of our volunteers will do a complete and thorough run through the entire game. And if they discover any bugs that I may have missed, then we have an entire sub-forum already set up in which they can file their various bug reports. We followed more or less the exact same procedure back when we were developing patch 5.04AT, which is why that version of the True Patch had such a smooth and virtually bug-free debut.

The True Patch GOLD Edition will include all of the repairs that currently exist in version 5.04AT, as well as numerous additional repairs and adjustments performed by yours truly. Everything from map repairs and dialogue repairs, to new fixes for graphical glitches and buggy game mechanics will be compiled into the next True Patch. I've been going through the game with a fine-toothed comb during my preliminary runs and so far, at least 100 separate bugs have been fixed which were not dealt with in version 5.04AT.

The True Patch GOLD Edition will also contain some additional "fun stuff" for the player. For example, I will be including some handy documentation with the patch, including some "cheat sheets" for those of you who may get stuck during game play. There will also be a few optional mods bundled into the Gold Edition, although all of them will be packaged separately within their own sub-folders. If you want to use them, then feel free to install them after you have first installed the True Patch. They are just small things... like a mod which changes the club music, a hi-res texture pack for several key NPC's in the game, and another mod which adds something fun to your haven. And don't worry... none of them are nude mods. If you want those, then you gotta go download them yourselves.

And as always... the True Patch will preserve as closely as possible the integrity of the Bloodlines gameplay experience, as originally intended by Troika. Aside from a very, very tiny handful of minor exceptions, there will be no frivolous or arbitrary changes introduced to Bloodlines by the True Patch. Not now -- not ever. A patch is a patch, and a mod is a mod. We make patches.

Tentative release date for the True VTMB Patch GOLD Edition: mid-July, 2010

[Cylnar]

Any experienced VTMB players, who want to help with the beta testing, need to throw their hats in the ring in the following topic:

http://www.tessmage.com/forum/index.php/topic,56801.0.html

This is the official sign-up thread for the Gold Edition beta test, and is in a separate child board devoted exclusively to that test. Some people expressed interest in this preview thread - if you are still interested, please go to the official sign-up thread linked above.

Thank you.

[Tessera]

Will the patched engine.dll include the FPS fix that Wesp's Patch uses?

I have investigated this issue further.

Wesp's mod, so far as I have been told, does not include an "FPS fix," per se. And in any case, I would never copy any of Wesp's garbage. We made that mistake a long time ago, with the very first True Patch (version 4.02AT) and I have regretted it ever since. Starting with version 5.04AT back in mid-2007, every single tiny bit of the True VTMB Patch has been a completely original piece of work. And it's gonna stay that way.  

That being said, I am aware that Wesp's mod includes a patched engine.dll file... which includes some sort of sprite rendering fix that Wesp obtained from someone else (he did not fix it himself).

And I do agree that this is an important issue, because it affects quite a few aspects of the game's graphics.

So I decided to look into it a bit more, and I discovered that there was a beta version of Half-Life 2 stolen by German and Russian hackers back in 2004, which had a somewhat different version of the engine.dll file that the early HL2 Source engine used. Many thanks to Jordi for steering me in the right direction.

Anyway, that file is not suitable in and of itself for use with Bloodlines, due to quite a few coding differences that are specific to Half-Life 2. However... and this is the good part... I did manage to do a hex comparison between the Bloodlines engine.dll and the beta HL2 beta engine.dll files. And in the course of my searching, I have discovered the sprite rendering fix that was written by Valve in that unreleased (stolen) version of the early beta engine.dll file.

 

What does all of this mean..? It means that I will be releasing an updated engine.dll file for Bloodlines within the True Patch GOLD Edition. I have been testing the new engine file and it does indeed perform significantly better than VTMB's original plain-vanilla version. And... it also fixes the issue of disappearing coronas and several other improperly rendered sprites within the game. For those who may not understand the lingo... the term "sprites" in this context refers to such things as shiny bits, glowing auras, certain types of decal textures and stuff of that nature, which are added by the engine to certain objects on your screen. For example, in the plain-vanilla version of Bloodlines, you can see a glowing corona or aura surrounding brightly lit objects... such as street lights and the hanging lights inside the clubs and so forth. But the next time you enter the same map... either by exiting and re-entering, or simply quick-saving and reloading... those glowing coronas are gone and they never return. Not until you completely restart the game... after which they will again appear ONCE, and then disappear on subsequent renderings.

When we were compiling version 5.04AT of the True Patch, we considered this particular issue to be minor. Therefore, we did not attempt to fix it in version 5.04AT. In retrospect, I think we should have given it more consideration than we did.

Well... all of that buggy bullshit will be fixed by the next True Patch. Sprites will now render properly and consistently. And there will be other updates to the engine.dll file, too... updates which should help the game to run more smoothly. This may indeed have the effect of slightly increasing your frame rates, depending upon your hardware (high-end video cards should already be running VTMB at its max FPS, hence they will not notice any performance increase).

Everybody is going to get better quality graphics and slightly better performance with the next True Patch... that's the bottom line.  


EDIT to add: Many, many thanks once again to Jordi, for his invaluable assistance with this issue.

[Tessera]

THE GOLD EDITION (BETA) OF THE TRUE PATCH HAS BEEN COMPILED.

BETA TESTING OF THE GOLD EDITION WILL BEGIN ON JUNE 25, 2010.

That is all.  


EDIT to add:

The download link has been sent to each of the beta testers via private message.
Please keep everything confidential. And many thanks.  

[Tessera]

Today is the official start of the beta testing... and our beta testers
have already submitted dozens of bug reports and game feedback.

You may be pleased to know that all of your names have been
added to the scrolling credits at the end of Bloodlines.  

From now on, whenever people play this game and they get to the
closing credits, all of our names will be there... tacked onto the end
of the credits (right after the sub-section for the licensed music).
We've worked hard -- and we've earned it. So be proud.

And I even used the same purty vampire fonts that the rest of the
credits are using. I think you'll like it.

[Tessera]

UPDATE:

The second revision of the beta patch has been distributed to our beta testers and so far, everything is proceeding on schedule.

I was initially nervous about some significant engine repairs that will be introduced with the True Patch Gold Edition, but aside from a minor glitch that I managed to quickly fix, the new and improved engine files are working splendidly. And nobody has reported any smoke billowing out of their test rigs yet, either... so I am going to stop worrying and just enjoy the improved performance.

Let's see... what else can I tell everyone without giving too much away... hmmm.

Well for starters, we've located and repaired more than 100 dialogue errors that were not fixed in version 5.04AT. I had already fixed about 70 or so of them prior to the beta testing and our test team has reported a few dozen more thus far. So far, so good.

Quite a few map bugs have been fixed by yours truly, including a few that always annoyed the hell out of me in the plain vanilla game. I'm not sure how we missed fixing them in version 5.04AT, except perhaps because we were simply overworked when we assembled that patch and quite a few things slipped through our fingers back then. I am hoping to mop up a lot of those loose ends with the forthcoming Gold Edition patch.

A significant number of audio and graphics errors will also be repaired by the Gold Edition. These are all legitimate bugs, too... particularly in the area of improper rendering flags within a number of VMT files. Many thanks to the Valve Developer Community web site, for giving me some excellent tips on how to optimize the way certain materials are handled by the Source engine.

There are still a few glitches here and there which I doubt could be fixed without performing a few major hacks upon the engine, and that is something that I am simply not willing to do. Not in the True Patch, anyway. There's a fine line between a "patch" and a "mod" sometimes, and I have always tried to ensure that the True Patch is worthy of its "patch" nomenclature. Hence there are always going to be a few warts in Bloodlines that will simply have to remain as they are. But hey... that's what mods are for, right..? And the True Patch is an excellent base for modders to work from, since it makes almost no arbitrary changes whatsoever to the game. Speaking as someone who has had some reasonable degree of success as a modder for various games, I feel that the best mods are those which are as self-contained as possible -- not mods which are dependent upon someone else's mod... which may in turn be dependent upon yet another person's mod... etc. etc. Start with a good, solid and basic foundation and then develop your mod from there. Otherwise, you will forever be facing the possibility that whatever mods you based YOUR mod upon might be changed so much in future releases that your own work ends up being compromised... or perhaps even rendered incompatible. Not worth the headache, in my opinion... but hey, what the hell do I know about modding.  

Lots more stuff is in the works for the Gold Edition and at this point, it looks like my prospective release date of July 7th should be pretty close to the mark. Barring any unforeseen developments, of course.

Stay tuned.

[KTC]

And I do agree that this is an important issue, because it affects quite a few aspects of the game's graphics.

So I decided to look into it a bit more, and I discovered that there was a beta version of Half-Life 2 stolen by German and Russian hackers back in 2004, which had a somewhat different version of the engine.dll file that the early HL2 Source engine used. Many thanks to Jordi for steering me in the right direction.

Anyway, that file is not suitable in and of itself for use with Bloodlines, due to quite a few coding differences that are specific to Half-Life 2. However... and this is the good part... I did manage to do a hex comparison between the Bloodlines engine.dll and the beta HL2 beta engine.dll files. And in the course of my searching, I have discovered the sprite rendering fix that was written by Valve in that unreleased (stolen) version of the early beta engine.dll file.

 
 

I hope this will fix the blurry screen elements on my pc........ 

[Tessera]

It should, so long as all of your other settings are correct.

[KTC]

What settings are you referring to ?

BTW my PC is running Win 7 Ultimate x64 with latest patches, 12 GB ram, NVidia GTX295 and DirectX Jun 2010 redist.............

[Tessera]

What settings are you referring to ?

In many cases, the reason your display may look blurry is because your screen resolution is not set properly and it is suffering from scaling issues.

If you install the updated DLL files that I will be including within the Gold Edition patch, and you STILL have blurry elements on your screen, then in all likelihood your game has not been properly patched for widescreen. First, make sure that you patch the engine properly for YOUR monitor's native resolution, using the VTMB  Respatcher utility. There are two different sets of widescreen resolutions available for this game: 16x9 (typical HDTV scaling) and 16x10 (typical for many hi-res LCD monitors). If you do not select the correct scaling options when you patch the engine, then your in-game display will not be scaled properly for your monitor and the result will be stretching and blurring of many textures. Also... and a lot of people forget this step... make sure that you edit your config.cfg file and change the line "r_anamorphic" to a value of "1" or else EVERYTHING is gonna look like crap on a widescreen display.

The very best setup for VTMB is to make sure that the game is running at exactly the same resolution as your Windows desktop. So if your desktop is set at 1920x1080 pixel resolution, for example, then that is what VTMB should be running at, too. You will experience a lot less graphical glitches that way... especially on things like in-game fonts and HUD elements.

[KTC]

In many cases, the reason your display may look blurry is because your screen resolution is not set properly and it is suffering from scaling issues.

It's a problem common with all LCD monitors.......... all resolutions non native have that problem unless the monitor have the 1:1 non rescaling option.

[Tessera]

*** TRUE PATCH GOLD EDITION -- BETA TESTING COMPLETED ***

It's a done deal, folks. The two-week beta testing of the upcoming True Patch Gold Edition has been completed.

During the course of our tests, we uncovered literally dozens and dozens of legitimate bugs and glitches that the previous versions of the True Patch did not fix. And we've also found ways to fix several very important bugs that the previous True Patch was unable to fix. Many thanks to those of you who brought those critical repairs to my attention (you know who you are).

After I have compiled the final version of the True Patch Gold Edition, I will promptly release it to the public. It will be announced on the main page of this web site and made available for download on our Downloads page.


ESTIMATED RELEASE DATE: July 8 -- July 10, 2010.

[Tessera]

*** THIS PATCH HAS BEEN RELEASED ***


Please refer to the official True Patch Gold Edition thread for any further info, inquiries and support.


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