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Aemony

Member
Nov 6, 2017
28
1. When I try to copy the special k .Dll file over to the installation directory for Xbox app nier installation folder initially it said I didn't have permission. I took ownership of the folder and all sub folders and files. Now when I try to copy it over it says I am out of space but I have 25 GB available. I have verified my user account had full permissions to the folder. What are the installation instructions?

Ah, never take Full Control of the WindowsApps folders -- you're more likely to break something than anything else and even with access to them you'll be unable to manipulate the contents of the game install folder.

Special K can only be injected through global injection, so basically:

1. Install the global injector of Special K.

2. Join the Discord server and download the latest SpecialK.7z and SKIF.exe from the #release channel.

3. Extract the 7z archive and move the SKIF.exe to the Documents\My Mods\SpecialK folder, overwriting existing files in the process.

4. Launch SKIF.exe and open the Options tab. In the Whitelist area, type in NieRAutomataPC and then click on the Save Changes button at the bottom.

5. Next click on the Global Injection tab and click on Start Service to start the global injector.

6. Launch the game. If everything works properly Special K's GUI should appear and you can hit Ctrl+Shift+Backspace to access its in-game control panel.


Also if you play any multiplayer games it's important that you stop the injection service before launching any such game. See this section for more details as to why: The global injector and multiplayer games.


2. If I turn on AA and AO I get a black screen and have to force the app closed. Is this normal? If I have to choose between the two which should I choose?

Just use AO. It includes a post-processing AA filter.
 

hlhbk

Member
Oct 25, 2017
2,205
Ah, never take Full Control of the WindowsApps folders -- you're more likely to break something than anything else and even with access to them you'll be unable to manipulate the contents of the game install folder.

Special K can only be injected through global injection, so basically:

1. Install the global injector of Special K.

2. Join the Discord server and download the latest SpecialK.7z and SKIF.exe from the #release channel.

3. Extract the 7z archive and move the SKIF.exe to the Documents\My Mods\SpecialK folder, overwriting existing files in the process.

4. Launch SKIF.exe and open the Options tab. In the Whitelist area, type in NieRAutomataPC and then click on the Save Changes button at the bottom.

5. Next click on the Global Injection tab and click on Start Service to start the global injector.

6. Launch the game. If everything works properly Special K's GUI should appear and you can hit Ctrl+Shift+Backspace to access its in-game control panel.


Also if you play any multiplayer games it's important that you stop the injection service before launching any such game. See this section for more details as to why: The global injector and multiplayer games.




Just use AO. It includes a post-processing AA filter.

Thanks for the info! Should I delete the game and re-download it to revert the permission changes I made?
 

strudelkuchen

Member
Oct 25, 2017
5,851
[...]
You can -- Special K injected through the global injector stores its injected textures in the Documents folder -- within the profile folder of the game.

Just open Special K's control panel, hit File > Initialize texture mods, and then click on File > Browse Texture Assets > Injectable Textures to open the texture folder that modded textures should be put into.

As long as the textures haven't been changed, they should work fine in this version as well.

Here's GPUnity's NieR: Automata texture pack injected into the Microsoft Store version.
[...]
That's awesome!

PS: nice to see you post here 👍
 

gifyku

Member
Aug 17, 2020
1,318
Anyone on PC not able to launch the game/ mine won’t launch, saying some permission issue as per the crash dumps. At a loss how to fix it

just in case someone has this issue, the culprit for me was nzxt cam which has a setting called game hook. I didn’t even know that it did something like that. Turned it off and now everything’s great
 

Jaded Alyx

Member
Oct 25, 2017
28,555
just in case someone has this issue, the culprit for me was nzxt cam which has a setting called game hook. I didn’t even know that it did something like that. Turned it off and now everything’s great
It almost always is some other program running in the background that causes issues like this. I've had similar problems due to afterburner. It makes it so difficult to help others when they encounter startup trouble.
 
Apr 4, 2018
3,372
Vancouver, BC
Heads-up people:
- Don't change your anti-aliasing settings if you are using a Radeon 6800 (or likely any 6000 series GPU)
- This caused my game to immediately switch to a completely unrecoverable black screen. Even after shutting down the game, rebooting, deleting the game and rebooting, it's still completely broken. The game launches, I see the boot logos, then it immediately goes back to the same unrecoverable black screen.

* If anyone knows how to delete the video settings save file for the game on Game Pass PC, please let me know. I still can't play it.

I'm not too sad since I also own it on Steam and have been playing the very nice and smooth Xbox version, but was curious to see if this version was even better.
 

Aemony

Member
Nov 6, 2017
28
Should I delete the game and re-download it to revert the permission changes I made?

No, usually the whole WindowsApps folder needs to be recreated, which can be cumbersome and require even more headache.

Continue on as you have and basically hope that the folder isn’t completely broken. if you ever have issues in the future with installing or uninstalling apps/games to that folder then the change of permissions might be at fault.

* If anyone knows how to delete the video settings save file for the game on Game Pass PC, please let me know. I still can't play it.

Documents\My Games\NieR_AutomataPC\SystemData.dat (stores video settings) and Graphics.ini (stores GPU and monitor settings).

Removing SystemData.dat should do the trick.

GameData.dat stores general game settings and stuff like the main menu background, so don’t remove that one.
 

Kaldaien

Developer of Special K
Verified
Aug 8, 2020
298
That probably had to do with AMD FidelityFX CAS available in the MS Store version -- that's a sharpening effect after all that sharpens textures and the like. If that feature was enabled during the comparison, the textures of the MS Store version would appear sharper in comparison to the Steam version.
No, I think there's actually a negative LOD bias being applied to everything. QLOC has a history of sharpening textures by omitting mipmap LODs, using negative LOD biases and upscaling already compressed textures then re-compressing them and boasting about the increase in texture resolution they achieved. It's obnoxious :)
 

LunaSerena

Member
Oct 25, 2017
3,441
I played the intro of the new port on a 8300H / 1050 laptop. 1080p resolution, medium settings, 2x antialiasing, minor stutters and keeping reasonable temps. Night and day from the Steam version where even with the FAR mod with global illumination, the game couldn't keep a stable framerate at 900p with low settings and dangerously high temps even for a laptop (90+ °C).

Figured some people would like some input about how it runs on a low-end machine. Glad we finally got a good port for this game.
A bit late, but thank you for this! It motivated me to try it out on my 7700HQ/1050 laptop, and it actually runs! I hit around 30 FPS on 1080p and have to go down to 720p to get stable 60 FPS, but it’s a big difference from when it was in Steam and I didn’t even want to try it out with how I optimized it was.
 

Zombegoast

Member
Oct 30, 2017
11,461
Is HDR better or worse than the Xbox counterpart?

I also get a black screen when trying to enable AA and briefly when I get an achievement.
 

thepenguin55

Member
Oct 28, 2017
8,354
I wonder what the reasoning for this was? I feel like there would be more to it than just “the Steam version is buggy so let’s make a new version”? Because honestly I don’t know that either SE or MS would care about that. Maybe something about the Steam version just didn’t play nice with UWP so MS just paid Qloc to do a port of the Xbox version and with the way all of that stuff works it was probably pretty easy?
 

Laver

Member
Mar 30, 2018
2,629
I wonder what the reasoning for this was? I feel like there would be more to it than just “the Steam version is buggy so let’s make a new version”? Because honestly I don’t know that either SE or MS would care about that.
Why wouldn't Microsoft care? Why would they want to pay a lot of $$$ for a broken product?
 

thepenguin55

Member
Oct 28, 2017
8,354
Why wouldn't Microsoft care? Why would they want to pay a lot of $$$ for a broken product?

Because if they cared then the Windows store and the process of downloading/installing games from there wouldn’t be such a shitshow. As long as the game runs that’s really all they care about, even then just Google “Windows 10 Gears won’t launch” and you’ll find a significant number of people who straight up can’t launch a 1st party MS game.

MS would absolutely care more about how a game plays nice or not with their system than they would squashing bugs for a game they don’t own. And that’s not me dunking on MS as I would believe that to be true of most companies in this position. As long as it passes whatever the cert process is for the Windows Store they would be fine with some bugs which leads me to believe that the Steam version didn’t pass their cert (which perhaps could be because of certain bugs) and SE & MS wanted to have the game on GamePass in time for the new game so the solution was this new version. My point is that I highly doubt that there was someone at MS who just decided the Steam version couldn’t be used on principal of it being buggy. There had to be a technical reason for why they couldn’t use the Steam version because if they could’ve used it they almost certainly would have.
 

Laver

Member
Mar 30, 2018
2,629
Because if they cared then the Windows store and the process of downloading/installing games from there wouldn’t be such a shitshow. As long as the game runs that’s really all they care about, even then just Google “Windows 10 Gears won’t launch” and you’ll find a significant number of people who straight up can’t launch a 1st party MS game
Game Pass uses an egregious DRM solution, one that doesn't allow any user troubleshooting whatsoever. Still, Gears 5 was not a broken game, far from it - it was a very polished game even at release. MS wouldn't want to release broken games on top of their hostile DRM.
 

ryushe

Member
Oct 27, 2017
4,344
Heads-up people:
- Don't change your anti-aliasing settings if you are using a Radeon 6800 (or likely any 6000 series GPU)
- This caused my game to immediately switch to a completely unrecoverable black screen. Even after shutting down the game, rebooting, deleting the game and rebooting, it's still completely broken. The game launches, I see the boot logos, then it immediately goes back to the same unrecoverable black screen.
That's interesting. I have a 6900xt and have changed the AA a number of times.
 

Isamu

Member
Dec 18, 2017
987
Downtown Rave City
Man, to think I came so close to buying the steam version after having it on my wishlist for soooooo long. Glad I read this thread, now I know which version I'm buying :)
 

hlhbk

Member
Oct 25, 2017
2,205
EDIT:

Nevermind I figured it out. Once I put the files in the right location I just had to restart the game. Thanks again for all your help!


Aemony

First of all I wanted to say I followed your guide to get special K working in Nier and it worked great thanks for that!

Secondly I downloaded the GPUnity's Texture Pack V0.75 from nexus mods. I put in the following path:

\Documents\My Mods\SpecialK\Profiles\NieRAutomata.exe\GPUnity's Texture Pack V0.75

I followed the steps and you posted and browsed out to the folder and then closed it and it's still showing 0 injectable textures in special K? I also copied the GPUnity's Texture Pack V0.75 folder to the \Documents\My Mods\SpecialK\Profiles\NieRAutomata.exe\SK_Res\inject\textures folder and same thing. What am I doing wrong?
 
Oct 25, 2017
6,086
So what are the overall opinions, is this the new version to get if you don't already own the game, or is FAR-patched Steam version still ideal?
 

gifyku

Member
Aug 17, 2020
1,318
So started playing on my PC and while its great, i wouldhave really liked Quick Resume on this game. Lol
 

Wowzors

The Wise Ones
Member
Oct 27, 2017
1,248
I transferred my save from my specialK steam version to the windowsapp version. Windows store version feels way better. The frame pacing or something seems better and just generally more responsive without having to have special K injected.
 

Dreathlock

Member
Nov 3, 2017
421
Centered hud and non stretched fmv?

Steam version is ok in game but hud and fmvs are an issue.

Looks good to me. Took a few screenshots:
i8iNS9H.png

C7xq2Pc.jpg

CwJFCt2.png
 

Madjoki

Member
Oct 25, 2017
6,405
Game Pass uses an egregious DRM solution, one that doesn't allow any user troubleshooting whatsoever. Still, Gears 5 was not a broken game, far from it - it was a very polished game even at release. MS wouldn't want to release broken games on top of their hostile DRM.

Gears 1&4 are very problemous.
4 in particular has very high chance of crashing in every cutscene.
Almost unplayable.
 

Deleted member 17184

User-requested account closure
Banned
Oct 27, 2017
5,240
Gears 1&4 are very problemous.
4 in particular has very high chance of crashing in every cutscene.
Almost unplayable.
If you're using an Nvidia GPU, that is likely the reason. From what I remember, they changed something in their drivers that broke the game. Reverting to a previous driver version fixed it. The Coalition confirmed the problem back then and said they were trying to work it out with Nvidia but I guess it's still there.
 

saci

Member
Oct 25, 2017
5,372
No, I think there's actually a negative LOD bias being applied to everything. QLOC has a history of sharpening textures by omitting mipmap LODs, using negative LOD biases and upscaling already compressed textures then re-compressing them and boasting about the increase in texture resolution they achieved. It's obnoxious :)
Thanks for your work!
 

gifyku

Member
Aug 17, 2020
1,318
EDIT:

I also copied the GPUnity's Texture Pack V0.75 folder to the \Documents\My Mods\SpecialK\Profiles\NieRAutomata.exe\SK_Res\inject\textures folder and same thing. What am I doing wrong?

Aemony
Sorry but I am new to SpecialK so thought you might know the answer. If i see the injectable textures as xxxx mb in the specialK UI, does that mean the gpunity textures are already injected or do I need to do something else?
 

hlhbk

Member
Oct 25, 2017
2,205
The windows store version definitely feels better. Two questions:

1. The AO anti aliasing solution is definitely not as good as the actual AA. Is there a way to force AA via the driver control panel for Nvidia?

2. Is there any way via mods to remove subtitles?
 

CrichtonKicks

Member
Oct 25, 2017
7,133
Aemony
Sorry but I am new to SpecialK so thought you might know the answer. If i see the injectable textures as xxxx mb in the specialK UI, does that mean the gpunity textures are already injected or do I need to do something else?

Best way to see if injected textures are working is to look at the metal bin by the Transporter in the Resistance Camp. It's the go-to before/after for the texture improvements from the mod.

The windows store version definitely feels better. Two questions:

1. The AO anti aliasing solution is definitely not as good as the actual AA. Is there a way to force AA via the driver control panel for Nvidia?

2. Is there any way via mods to remove subtitles?

1. Downsampling is probably your best bet. You can override the resolution in FAR to something higher than your desktop but you will need the horsepower to still hold 60.

2. I don't believe so. I've never seen a mod for it.
 

ThatNerdGUI

Prophet of Truth
Member
Mar 19, 2020
2,297
Ah, never take Full Control of the WindowsApps folders -- you're more likely to break something than anything else and even with access to them you'll be unable to manipulate the contents of the game install folder.

Special K can only be injected through global injection, so basically:

1. Install the global injector of Special K.

2. Join the Discord server and download the latest SpecialK.7z and SKIF.exe from the #release channel.

3. Extract the 7z archive and move the SKIF.exe to the Documents\My Mods\SpecialK folder, overwriting existing files in the process.

4. Launch SKIF.exe and open the Options tab. In the Whitelist area, type in NieRAutomataPC and then click on the Save Changes button at the bottom.

5. Next click on the Global Injection tab and click on Start Service to start the global injector.

6. Launch the game. If everything works properly Special K's GUI should appear and you can hit Ctrl+Shift+Backspace to access its in-game control panel.


Also if you play any multiplayer games it's important that you stop the injection service before launching any such game. See this section for more details as to why: The global injector and multiplayer games.




Just use AO. It includes a post-processing AA filter.
Just tried this but the game just closes.
 

Hadxmen

Member
Oct 31, 2017
39
Is there any way to import Steam save game to gamepass version?
  • Save at least once in the target slot of the version that the save should be transferred to, as otherwise the slot may appear as unused in-game after the transfer.
Step 1 - Locate the appropriate Microsoft Store slot file
  1. Browse to the save folder of the Microsoft Store version:
    • %LOCALAPPDATA%\Packages\39EA002F.NieRAutomataPC_n746a19ndrrjg\SystemAppData\wgs\
  2. Open the subfolder with the name of a bunch of digits and numbers.
  3. Each subfolder within this folder corresponds to an in-game save slot, so if all three save slots have been used there will be three subfolders. Within each subfolder there exists a 231 KB sized file which corresponds to the SlotData_#.dat of the Steam version.
  4. Locate the appropriate 231 KB sized save slot file by going by the Date modified timestamp on it -- the timestamp should match up with the minute the save slot was last saved on in-game.
Step 2 - Locate the appropriate Steam slot file
  1. Browse to the save folder of the Steam version:
  2. Each SaveSlot_#.dat file within this folder corresponds to an in-game save slot, so if all three save slots have been used there will be three such files.
  3. Locate the appropriate save slot file by going by its ID:
    • SlotData_0.dat corresponds to the top save slot.
    • SlotData_1.dat corresponds to the middle save slot.
    • SlotData_2.dat corresponds to the bottom save slot.
Step 3 - Transfer the save
  1. Copy the source slot file (the save you transfer from) over to the folder of the target slot file (the folder of the save you transfer the save to).
  2. Backup the target slot file by adding _bak to the end of its filename.
  3. Rename the source slot file to the name of the target slot file (but without the _bakat the end).
    • Note that when transferring from Steam to Microsoft Store the .dat file extension needs to be removed from the filename.
  4. By now the copied source slot file should have the same name as the target slot file had initially. Now the file just needs to be modified to load properly in the game.
Step 4 - Modify the transferred save
  1. Open both the renamed source slot file and the backed up original target file in a hex editor such as HxD.
  2. The first 52 (0x34) bytes of data needs to be copied over from the backed up original target file to the renamed source file, as this is the internal identifier that determines whether the game can load a save slot or not. This block of data is easily located as it is everything from the start up until just before the in-game Player Nameof the save slot.
    • If moving from the Steam version to the Microsoft Store version this means copying the 52 first bytes of the original Microsoft Store save slot file over to the renamed Steam save slot file, and then save the file.
  3. After this the save slot should be able to be loaded within the target game version.
Step 5 - Load the transferred save and update its in-game details
  1. Launch the target game version.
  2. The save slot will appear as it originally did, with the old player name and statistics, but it should be loadable despite this.
  3. Load the transferred save slot.
    • If it loads, then it was transferred successfully.
    • If it fails to load (nothing happens when trying to load it), then it is corrupt and not transferred successfully.
  4. After the save slot have been loaded, save it again to update the save slot details such as the player name, screenshot, and unlocked endings.

I just found the fix :)

EDIT:
"The first 52 (0x34) bytes of data needs to be copied over from the backed up original target file to the renamed source file"
I don't know how to do it.
 
Last edited:

cnrm

Member
Oct 25, 2017
201
what is QLOC?...is that a developer?
A Polish company that specializes in porting, localization, and QA services. Notably has a record of porting Japanese games to different platforms, but also Western games. They're responsible for Dragon's Dogma: Dark Arisen (PC/PS4/Xbox One/Switch), Yakuza Kiwami 2 (PC), The Yakuza Remastered Collection (PC), DmC (PC, PS4/Xbox One), Dead Rising (PC/PS4/Xbox One), Ni no Kuni Remastered (PC/PS4), Mortal Kombat 11 (PC, Stadia), Tales of Vesperia: Definitive Edition, Dark Souls Remastered (excl. Switch) and many more.
 
Apr 25, 2020
2,984
So pissed they left the Steam version broken. Classic Square Enix. Tempted not to give them another dime until the Steam version is updated.
 

Kalik

Member
Nov 1, 2017
3,372
A Polish company that specializes in porting, localization, and QA services. Notably has a record of porting Japanese games to different platforms, but also Western games. They're responsible for Dragon's Dogma: Dark Arisen (PC/PS4/Xbox One/Switch), Yakuza Kiwami 2 (PC), The Yakuza Remastered Collection (PC), DmC (PC, PS4/Xbox One), Dead Rising (PC/PS4/Xbox One), Ni no Kuni Remastered (PC/PS4), Mortal Kombat 11 (PC, Stadia), Tales of Vesperia: Definitive Edition, Dark Souls Remastered (excl. Switch) and many more.

they seem to have a good track record- Dark Souls Remastered and Dragon's Dogma on PC were solid ports...
 

stoke1863

Member
Oct 29, 2017
383
Probably a stupid question judging by the steam ports quality, bit does this game support ultra wide? I have a 32:10 monitor and own the steam game, but never actually got around to playing it.
 

hlhbk

Member
Oct 25, 2017
2,205
Best way to see if injected textures are working is to look at the metal bin by the Transporter in the Resistance Camp. It's the go-to before/after for the texture improvements from the mod.



1. Downsampling is probably your best bet. You can override the resolution in FAR to something higher than your desktop but you will need the horsepower to still hold 60.

2. I don't believe so. I've never seen a mod for it.

You can down sample in FAR on the Windows store version?
 

Aemony

Member
Nov 6, 2017
28
I followed the steps and you posted and browsed out to the folder and then closed it and it's still showing 0 injectable textures in special K? I also copied the GPUnity's Texture Pack V0.75 folder to the \Documents\My Mods\SpecialK\Profiles\NieRAutomata.exe\SK_Res\inject\textures folder and same thing. What am I doing wrong?

This is how the folder should look like:

explorer_2021-03-23_07-22-13.png


Also ensure that the "Inject" parameter below [Textures.D3D11] in SpecialK.ini is set to true:

Code:
[Textures.D3D11]
Cache=true
PreciseHash=false
Inject=true
InjectionKeepsFormat=false
GenerateMipmaps=false


Sorry but I am new to SpecialK so thought you might know the answer. If i see the injectable textures as xxxx mb in the specialK UI, does that mean the gpunity textures are already injected or do I need to do something else?

Yes, it means that SK recognizes the textures and will inject them if it detects a texture with a checksum that matches one of the injected textures filenames.

The container to the left of the save point in the Resistance Camp is a good place to confirm if textures are being replaced.


Just tried this but the game just closes.

Special K/FAR have had some really really annoying bug that caused the game to crash on launch when SK was being injected, which only some of us experienced (myself included). Kaldaien posted a potential fix for this over on the Discord server (though not in #releases yet) that's still waiting for confirmation. In my testing it, after I had reset my SpecialK.ini file for the game, solved the crash-on-launch issue entirely for me.


EDIT:
"The first 52 (0x34) bytes of data needs to be copied over from the backed up original target file to the renamed source file"
I don't know how to do it.

It's talking about the area selected in the below screenshot. Just select it from the original MS Store file, copy it, then paste it over to the newly renamed Steam file, so that the MS Store values overwrite whatever values are written in the Steam file.


HxD64_2021-03-23_07-16-22.png