You can always sort of clean room things using the SteamPipeDLL=… line in Special K 
Leave the real steam_api DLL untouched, and load in this thing from some other directory.
The game won’t be using the illegitimate SteamAPI for anything, but it’ll go through the general DLL initialization procedure at startup when the DLL is attached, which is the only possible legitimate thing the DLL could do. It does not need to sit in place and actually intercept SteamAPI.
Huh, that’s a good tip — I am going to test that out later.
Ideally none of this would be necessary. I don’t know what kind of doofus modifies games without releasing source code? 
But it happens all the time, Nexus Mods is full of mods I would never use because they don’t include src. I do not support binary-only modification on principle, which is kinda why I license my software GPL
From where I can download the latest specialk64.dll?
And some dxgi.ini tweaks?
I think that’s post 314
EDIT: Should be a few days newer than the included SpecialK64.dll from the main Download button next to the wiki, tutorials, search and user panel up in the top corner there.
God damnit… Apparently it doesn’t like being called by another name. Luckily though steam_api.dll worked fine.
Steam API Base
---------------------------
Dll name must be steam_api.dll or steam_api64.dll!
---------------------------
OK
---------------------------
Called from a full path “C:\Something\Steam_Api.dll” either name should work since it could be off in a separate sub folder or wherever although this way since the app in question has to be either 32 or 64 bit it shouldn’t be too problematic.
Didn’t know that error would happen if it was named something else though.
EDIT: So even with a game sometimes shipping both files it should be possible to avoid dll name issues or having to replace files by just using a subfolder or such.
The whole thing is frankly ridiculous.
Valve got all upset at me when I mentioned in my legalcopy section that I do not offer support if people are using a modified SteamAPI DLL, as if I were the one modifying SteamAPI. They kinda stopped talking to me in a civilized way after reading that
I don’t like it any more than Valve does that there are people modifying games by substituting SteamAPI.
Ahahaha, what? Was that what they took issue with? What the hell…
Please help. The game runs windowed even though i’m in exclusive fullscreen mode. Here’s my config
Can someone tell if there’s anything wrong with my config ? [API.Hook]LastKnown=128d3d9=falsed3d9ex=falsed3d11=falseOpenGL=false - Pastebin.com
Borderless works just fine but it looks like as if the game has lower resolution.
There’s a lot of less than optimal things in your config, refer to the section discussing waitable swapchains for a much better configuration.
Finished the main story yesterday, using SpecialK in Bordeless mode has been a almost fluid experience for me. Got some texture popping, Bad AF. And one crash here and there.
This game really deserves a proper port … because only looses to the Witcher3 in terms of open world experience in my opinion.
Zelda: Breath of the Wild gets my vote for best open world experience This is an honorable mention, but nothing compares to BotW. Shame Nintendo doesn’t publish on PC
Yes! Breath Of The Wild by freaking far. It’s the only “alive” world I’ve played. Every other open world I’ve played boils down to simple design choices with nothing to surprise you after the first few hours - aka short side mission story here+there, collectible orbs here+there, easter eggs here+there etc. Some are still great, with a lot of effort put in, but BOTW is marginally ahead of anything I’ve played. That feeling of exploration and adventure still exist a hundred hours later.
Earlier games tried it but then it became almost formulaic like the Ubisoft design for games although many of them do differentiate themselves somewhat.
Even if the option is given most of these games can’t even be properly played without some of the more intrusive UI elements active.
Earlier games were hindered often by tech newer games don’t really put said tech to this purpose.
Witcher 3 has one of the most impressively crafted game worlds I’ve seen and it still holds up against most newer open world games in how detailed it is and the effort put into even smaller elements and areas but it is still very difficult to go through the game outside of the compass and other HUD elements and the helper vision mode.
Reactivity and AI wise Watch_Dogs 2 is a example I use often but it is scripted and relies on the err 3 minute rule I believe it kinda varies but scripted events basically. 
In short something awesome must happen every X seconds or minutes which generally it’s a spawn-in and has been used since games like Oblivion, Far Cry 2 and others so 2006 - 2007
Focus testing and player boredom plus achievements as a metric and analytical tool for what gets done and how much of the game is done on average and such things, huge charts a few months after release detailing things like number of bullets fired or steps taken shows just how much is actually tracked in modern games.
Far as environmental interaction and it actually meaning something I believe that’s mainly indie games until BOTW incorporated it as a primary gameplay mechanic from just about everything even stuff like the wind and water despite the Switch and the WiiU hardware limitations which is really impressive in how much is calculated and how players should they want to can actually utilize this for a number of different setups like the shield surfing.
EDIT: More and more rumors about a new Switch console being unveiled by Nintendo too, unsure if it’ll be like a “Pro” model or what the idea is I think it’s speculative so it might be various things besides just more powerful hardware.
(Although the sequel for Breath of the Wild is already happening and it’s like the first numbered sequel since Zelda 2 - the slightly odd and somewhat different one. - unless they change it’s name when the reveal comes.)
As for Horizon Zero Dawn I do hope the sequel is ported eventually but I expect it to be PS5 exclusive for a while, hopefully one can also expect a better initial port quality but I personally expect the first year or two to be a bit rough for PC as usual but we’ll see.
Btw you can play BOTW on PC with Cemu (Wii U emulator), if you’re okay with 30fps. Technically, you can unlock the frame rate, but it hurts the gamespeed so i don’t suggest doing that. Can’t speak for Yuzu (Switch emulator) as i haven’t tried BOTW with that. I’m sticking to Cemu anyway due to mod support and because i know it actually works. There’s actually a really annoying issue with Cemu though, it always triggers SDR mode when you fullscreen a game, and then when you exit fullscreen, it’s like you’re tonemapping HDR onto SDR, or something? You basically have to disable then re-enable HDR in your Windows settings whenever you’re done using Cemu.
I think i shared in the old Steam thread, i expect a Switch Pro to happen early next year. It makes sense to happen after next gen releases. Can’t steal the spotlight before they release, but can gain a lot of attention after PS5 and Series X are out.
It looks as though most of the crashes in HZD are due to the shader cache.
In addition to the cached D3D12 PSOs (Pipeline State Object) somehow including sampler state (Anisotropy=0), they also need to be re-built if you change a graphics setting in-game…
Suggested workaround:
Horizon Zero Dawn\LocalCacheDX12\PSOCache.bin
This will recompile shaders and re-build the pipeline state objects w/ texture anisotropy enabled and build the correct PSO for your graphics settings.
After doing this, the game has not crashed a single time for me in the past 10 hours. Prior, it would crash every 30 minutes.
But settings changes should re-cache shaders to match those shouldn’t it or the initial cache account for low, medium, high type of shader differences I presume?
Possibly also texture filtering including anisotropic from off to 16x so that sounds like something that needs a fix even if the compile time gets a bit lengthier in turn.
Suppose a secondary cache overriding the default one isn’t ideal either better to get it right even if it means longer wait times when the game updates or after a display driver update too.
EDIT: Argh well so much for understandable English, short of it being that game changes should force a redo of the shader cache either in part or full but it doesn’t from how it sounds like.