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Thread: Visible Upgrade: Unofficial patch for Deus Ex 2

  1. #1
    Sneaky Upgrader
    Registered: May 2007

    Visible Upgrade: Unofficial patch for Deus Ex 2

    The patch contains various bugfixes and game improvements such as widescreen support, and provides a few tweaks. It optionally bundles the Unified Texture Pack. It works with the GOG and Steam versions of the game.

    Original game bugs and issues that have been fixed or improved:

    • Multicore fix. Can be switched off for better performance (when it works)
    • Some speed-up of level loading, especially with vsync on
    • Fix for the desktop being visible during level loading on Vista and up. (Fullscreen only)
    • Fix for the mouse freezing or becoming invisible when using large font size settings in Windows

    Game improvements:

    • All resolutions reported by the system, plus an optional custom display mode, are available from the options screen. The aspect ratio is shown as well
    • Easy switching between fullscreen and windowed mode
    • Field of view adjustment for widescreen is automatic - the horizontal view is extended instead of cropping off the top and bottom. This includes conversations and binocular/scope zoom
    • In addition the FOV can be adjusted to the user's preference
    • The HUD and menus are shown correctly, regardless of resolution and aspect ratio. In 3-monitor modes, the HUD is constricted to the middle monitor by default
    • Loading screens are shown correctly, at 4:3 aspect
    • The intro and cutscenes, which are letterboxed, are allowed to crop to fit the monitor (up to 16:9, a bit less when subtitles are on)
    • The fullscreen game can run on a display other than the primary. (Experimental)

    Additionally some optional tweaks have been incorporated:

    • Minor HUD and GUI tweaks: Alternative reticles, disable the HUD or only the compass, symmetrically letterboxed conversations, disable the short intro movies
    • Walk by default, hold the qualifier key to run
    • Mouse sensitivity, which is normally stored in savegames, can be overridden using a central value
    • 'No Target' cheat: Make the NPCs ignore you

    All tweaks are disabled by default.

    Download:

    The full edition includes the mod the Unified Texture Pack (a.k.a. John P). Please see the included readme file for more information. The update edition only includes the VU patch and the VisibleTweaker tool. It provides a much smaller download in cases where no mods have been changed or added since the last release.

    Current release 1.2.0: Full (mirror) - Update (mirror) - readme

    Beta with borderless windowed mode is here.

    Installation:

    • It's recommended to reboot before installation, especially for the full edition
    • It's also recommended to disable the virus checker during installation
    • Steam users should read Additional notes below
    • After installation, run the game once and select your preferred resolution in the Options screen. (The patched game uses a private setting for the resolution)
    • Run the VisibleTweaker tool for setting up tweaks and the UTP. Screenshot showing the various UTP options can be found here

    The installer will set up a start menu group with shortcuts to the readmes, the options folder etc. By default it will also create two icons on your desktop: A light blue icon for the patched game and a red version for the VisibleTweaker tool.

    The patch has its own configuration file, VisibleOptions.ini. Normally this should be changed only through the tweak tool, but for advanced options manual editing is necessary. In that case it can be found through the Visible Upgrade start menu group (in Local Folders).

    Additional notes:

    The patch expects an original game installation, the original DX2UI.ini in particular. Existing tweaks may or may not be compatible. If a legacy FOV tool has been used, undo the changes or reinstall. If in doubt - reinstall.

    For the US retail version the official 1.2 patch should be installed before installing the VU.

    If you can start to the menu but loading a savegame or starting a new game hangs with a black screen or other weirdness, try disabling antivirus and, if you're using GeForce Experience, Shadowplay. Other apps which may be the cause of this issue are Logitech Gaming Software and Razer Synapse Service Process.

    Steam users should leave the "keep the unpatched game available" option unchecked, to keep the overlay working. After installation, disable updates for the game and refrain from doing game cache validation, because it would remove the patch. Be sure to run the game once prior to installation, otherwise the game's registry values may not be set.

    There are a few known issues - nothing major, though. There is a list in the readme. Hopefully they will be fixed in a future version.

    Acknowledgements:

    Tester hall of fame: lowenz, Stingm. Thanks to Vorob for the name and to mensch and Thirith for additional naming suggestions.

    This patch builds on fixes and ideas etc. from the following sources: tolsen64, NotCarolKaye, Lolwutman, swaaye and le Corbeau.

    Screenshots:

    Video options - all available resolutions, with aspect ratio.



    Various aspect ratios: 4:3, 16:9, 48:9. The game's FOV settings are adjusted to match.



    Same thing, during a third-person conversation. With the symmetric letterboxing tweak it looks nicer and you see more of the scene, at the expense of having only two subtitle lines. The FOVFactor setting is ignored during these conversations to avoid messing them up.



    Example FOV settings: 0.8, 1.0 (the default) and 1.2.



    Unified Texture Pack disabled and enabled:

    Last edited by snobel; 7th Jun 2024 at 09:43.
    Widescreen and tweaks patches: The Sneaky Upgrade for Thief 3, the Visible Upgrade for Deus Ex 2

  2. #2
    Member
    Registered: Sep 2002
    Location: Texas
    The links go to virus alerts and then once you by pass the page is not available.

  3. #3
    Sneaky Upgrader
    Registered: May 2007
    Really?! That's weird, I have no trouble downloading. Could it be a virus checker thing? Have you had trouble getting any of the alpha/beta versions?

  4. #4
    Member
    Registered: Dec 2006
    Location: Berghem Haven
    Sent an email to RPS, I hope you got the visibility you deserve

  5. #5
    Sneaky Upgrader
    Registered: May 2007
    Thanks. Let's hope they make it past the virus alerts.

  6. #6

  7. #7
    Sneaky Upgrader
    Registered: May 2007
    Thanks - that certainly whipped up some interest... You'll notice the screenshots in the first post are gone - that means the 20 GB daily download quota on Dropbox was exceeded.

    Good thing I'm getting it set up on Mod DB as well. lowenz, if you don't mind, could you post a comment on RPS pointing there? Edit: Never mind - I've added Mod DB as mirrors, should be enough.
    Last edited by snobel; 19th Jan 2017 at 12:47.

  8. #8

  9. #9
    Member
    Registered: Dec 2006
    Location: Berghem Haven
    AH, snobel, when you'll got some time to do this research: is it possible to decouple ALAudio.ALAudioSubsystem from the hardwired dsound device? (DXIW and TDS use OpenAL but welded with the default DSound device).
    Last edited by lowenz; 19th Jan 2017 at 19:41.

  10. #10
    Member
    Registered: Nov 2003
    Location: The Plateaux Of Mirror
    Sweet, now we just need a Goggles update for Project Snowblind.

  11. #11
    Sneaky Upgrader
    Registered: May 2007
    Quote Originally Posted by lowenz View Post
    AH, snobel, when you'll got some time to do this research: is it possible to decouple ALAudio.ALAudioSubsystem from the hardwired dsound device? (DXIW and TDS use OpenAL but welded with the default DSound device).
    Are you sure it's in use and not just an artefact from vanilla Unreal? At least in the case of T3, it looks like the game isn't reading those settings - setting the log level to Spam will log all the .ini file reads that I know of and there's no access to the AudioDevice setting or the ALAudio.ALAudioSubsystem section.

    But if OpenAL is in use, what would be the benefit of decoupling it? (Which I'm sure would be quite hard. )

  12. #12
    Member
    Registered: Dec 2006
    Location: Berghem Haven
    Benefit: use Soft OpenAL ( http://kcat.strangesoft.net/openal.html ) instead the hardwired DSound device.

  13. #13
    Sneaky Upgrader
    Registered: May 2007
    I'd like to use that for T3, with EFX replacing EAX. Would DX2 benefit? In any case it's major work and not happening soon.

  14. #14
    Member
    Registered: Nov 2006
    Location: Moscow
    Quote Originally Posted by snobel View Post
    Not that I know of - but the suggestion comes up once in a while. What I'd like to do is to set up a parallel project for DXIW with the most important patches and then hope for a technically inclined DXIW fan to pick it up. It's not happening any time soon, unfortunately.

    Not having played DXIW, what would be a good name for such a project? It has to be "The <something> Upgrade".
    Looks like you've finally managed to do this

    One quick question, for some reason, both Thief SU and Deus Ex loose my display calibration. I think this has smth with several screen flashed while game transition from menu to gameplay. What do you think? I'm already using utility that will force calibration to stay in its place, and it works in all games, but its helpless for Thief and Deus 2

  15. #15
    Member
    Registered: Dec 2006
    Location: Berghem Haven
    Are you using dgVoodoo2 too or not?

  16. #16
    Sneaky Upgrader
    Registered: May 2007
    Quote Originally Posted by vorob View Post
    One quick question, for some reason, both Thief SU and Deus Ex loose my display calibration. I think this has smth with several screen flashed while game transition from menu to gameplay. What do you think? I'm already using utility that will force calibration to stay in its place, and it works in all games, but its helpless for Thief and Deus 2
    There's apparently something iffy with the resolution switching. If you can reproduce that issue easily, the following tests would be very interesting. (Better stick to the VU for now as it's much simpler.)

    • Does it occur with the original game, without the VU installed?
    • Does it occur with the original game with the VU installed?
    • Does it occur with the patched game when set to run in one of the original resolutions?

    Use the same resolution in all three cases. For the second item, if you have the Steam version of the game, you may have to reinstall the VU with the 'keep the unpatched game available' option checked. (Find the shortcut to the unpatched game in the start menu.)

  17. #17
    Member
    Registered: Nov 2006
    Location: Moscow
    Well, borderless window solved my issue with colour reset. But i've got new problem, when you turn your head fast, screen black flickers.

    Also i cant set brightness in borderless mod.

  18. #18
    Sneaky Upgrader
    Registered: May 2007
    But i've got new problem, when you turn your head fast, screen black flickers.
    Graphical glitches are most likely engine and/or driver issues.

    Also i cant set brightness in borderless mod.
    That's a D3D 'feature'. It only works in fullscreen, probably because it's using a hardware function that will affect the screen as a whole.

  19. #19
    Member
    Registered: Dec 2006
    Location: Berghem Haven
    Remember to set to 100% the dynamic resolution of viewport (yes, UE 1.x has this feature ) in DEFAULT.ini

    StaticVPScale=100
    DynVPScale=100
    DynVPMinRotationRate=100

  20. #20
    Sneaky Upgrader
    Registered: May 2007
    I've added a 'no rotation blur' tweak to the to-do list. Setting DynVPScale=100 should be enough, then DynVPMinRotationRate will have no effect?

  21. #21
    Member
    Registered: Dec 2006
    Location: Berghem Haven
    It should have no effect.
    Maybe it's a good thing to add the option to Sneaky Upgrade too, decoupling it from the mouse tweaks.
    Last edited by lowenz; 1st Mar 2017 at 14:08.

  22. #22
    Sneaky Upgrader
    Registered: May 2007
    Yes, that would be better.

  23. #23
    New Member
    Registered: Feb 2017

    congratulations and report

    Hi. First timer here on the forums, so I hope I'm not doing anything outlandish on my first crack at this. I mainly just wanted too do say two things.

    First, congratulations on making this horribly temperamental piece of software slightly less so. I know it must have taken a lot of effort and time, so know that I appreciate being able to break this game over my knee with less annoyance than before.

    Second and last, I have a report after playing the whole game with the mod in it's current version (1.2.0). Before I found this patch, I normally used the (I think) well know utility patch to make the game widescreen. I say this just in case that somehow makes the game more stable or something, because my problem occurred after hours of playing the game in a row. See, I love this broken game as a challenge of my patience, so that coupled with my need to finish things makes me try and get it over with as fast as possible. From my last save (which was outside the mag rail facility or whatever), I went through the game in one long day of slashing people in the face. However, the game got very, very mad at me after I took the elevator up from the crappy neighborhood to the last trip to that big airport place (the trip where a billion annoying Templars are occupying it).

    The game suddenly started dropping frames. HARD. It started just being a thing that happened at the level loads, but slowly infected every moment I played. It got so bad it was stopping every few seconds. I was to persistent however, so the game just uped and killed itself after I started the battle to get Paul. I read about you wanting bug reports, so I got the dump file and will put a link to my dropbox where it is for your professional opinion. I don't know if it was due to a random bug, as I never had that problem before I used this, or it the game was just nice to me every other time and now wanted me to feel pain.

    In any case, I hope this helps you, and that I didn't screw up to badly with my first post.

    (DropBox Link) (https://www.dropbox.com/s/8md3v5il2e...level.zip?dl=0)

    PS. More info in the options menu would be nice. I switched to dump file mode because I assume that's better than info mode, so if that was wrong sorry.

    PSS. I was able to finish the game and the bug didn't happen a second time. I don't know if it was because I loaded from a new save after the crashed or what.
    Last edited by Lobo the Hobo; 27th Feb 2017 at 22:21.

  24. #24
    Sneaky Upgrader
    Registered: May 2007
    An engine or driver bug is probably the most likely cause. I don't remember seeing something like you describe in this game, but with the similar Thief 3 patch I've had similar weirdness - which went away after a proper reboot. That said, did you have the texture pack installed, and did you change your FOV to match the widescreen display mode, when you played the game previously?

    Unfortunately logging is WIP, one of the corners I had to cut to get the patch released. So there's not much information there and not much difference between the Info and Dump settings.

    If you can reproduce the bug from an earlier save then please upload it. Otherwise there's not much I can do, I'm afraid.

  25. #25
    New Member
    Registered: Feb 2017

    Update on Report

    I tired to use old save files to make the problem reappear. While I did crash for some reason while going up an elevator, I didn't experience the same problems as before. Maybe the game is temperamental and doesn't like to be played for hours on end or something. In any case, I've got a dropbox link to my settings for you. Never know if someone else will have the same problem and be able to compare them and all that jazz. Sorry I couldn't have helped more. Maybe when I have the strength to play the game again I'll keep up bandicam just in case something messy happens.

    Dropbox link (Setting pictures): (https://www.dropbox.com/s/ilr9ilf90x...grade.zip?dl=0)

    PS. I'll keep the saves and give them to you if you want (though you'd have to tell me where they are for that).

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