Did you create a empty file called SpecialK.dxgi in the folder with the HorizonZeroDawn.exe? I did it and after that the MyMods folder was created.
That’s a good point… that’s the other way of whitelisting games 
That will treat all executables in the directory as using DXGI and being whitelisted. I forgot about that, and I wrote the software. This software’s too complicated for one person 
Ughh… even I did not think about that approach…
Too much focus on whitelist.ini nowadays.
Just tried SpecialK.dxgi, also didn’t work unfortunately.
The ■■■■? Are you running the game as an administrator or something? That’s like the only reason left that I can imagine might prevent Special K’s global injection from actually being injected into it.
None the less, just copy/paste the SpecialK64.dll file from the Special K folder into the game folder and rename it to dxgi.dll and that should do it as well – although the config file and all logs will be stored in the game folder itself.
Good to know I’m not the only one not getting it to work at all
I’m using a non-steam version of the game and tried copying SpecialK64.dll into the game folder and renaming it to dxgi.dll , also tried creating an empty SpecialK.dxgi file there, also tried manually creating the My Mods/SpecialK/Profiles/HorizonZeroDawn.exe/SpecialK.ini, running both the game & SpecialK as admin (and all combinations), and nothing seems to work.
The whitelist ini never gets created, the OSD doesn’t work (that’s beacause of DX12 right?)
If it’s not doing anything when naming it dxgi.dll, then you’re probably missing the Visual C++ 2019 runtime.
When this was a Steam store exclusive product, all the dependencies were installed automatically. So SKIF does not even have checks for this.
yes borderless mode. but special k mod crashing on startup
special k mod crashing on startup
video
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1uNDKI9IljVkCB4ao1yIxVqXUH-GbR28p/view?usp=sharing
Ah that did the trick, I guess the day I stop having issues with c++ runtimes / redistributables is the day I stop playing videogames haha
Sadly though performance seemed to suffer, from 59 average fps down to 51 in the benchmark, I’ll play for a few minutes see how it behaves there
Edit: So far so good, buttery smooth, impressive
Skip using SKIF and just use SpecialK64.dll renamed to dxgi.dll and put in the game folder instead.
Happened to me as well. Changing the in-game Display Mode to Windowed instead of Borderless fixed this for me.
edit: my bad, somehow vsync is accidentally turned on when I made this change, I didn’t notice any significant performance drop compared to turning vsync off, though it does causes the sound to stutter along the frames if any stutter occurs.
You actually want to turn on vsync so that if low fps happens it will smooth out the frames and not have too many issues.
You want to turn on VSYNC so there’s no tearing, no other reason than that
SK supports tearing in windowed mode, most D3D11/D3D12 software does not support that. So VSYNC in windowed mode usually has no affect one way or the other. The setting “AllowTearingInDWM” is what enables tearing, and it’s turned on here. So if you turn VSYNC off, it actually turns VSYNC off.
D:\\Games\\Horizon Zero Dawn\\ I used this for my manual path but the .ini dont get created on startup 
someone can help me ?
More than likely you do not have the Visual C++ 2019 runtime.
haha Okay, I’m blind. Thank you. 
nope did not help still no .ini
Just copy SpecialK64.dll over to the game folder and rename it to dxgi.dll and the config file will get created in the game folder instead.
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Hello im new here, i downloaded SKIF, i installed the last vc redist all-in-one, i open SKIF, but its says INJECTION STRATEGY = UNKNOWN, the same with the dll file and the ini too, also “My mods” folder does not genereate, not even when i start up HZD (i dont know if theres another kind of process for the pirate version) please help me