Anyone who has been able to get Special K working on Batman Arkham Asylum? I’ve read on the PCgamingwiki compatibility list that using dgVoodoo 2 should help, but I’ve had no luck so far.
Looks like dgVoodoo 2 itself no longer works with the game, unless i’m missing something. I know it worked at some point.
The alternative is to try this older build of SK https://github.com/Kaldaien/SpecialK/releases/download/sk_0_8_17/SpecialK_0_8_43.7z
This one has a “chance” of working. Just rename SpecialK32.dll to D3D9.dll, and move the file next to the game executable.
Edit: I tracked the version of dgVoodoo that worked for me before, but now it’s broken. Might be a result of Windows updates. I’ve updated the compatibility list accordingly.
It kinda worked. I didn’t have 1 fps in Arkham Anymore, but the game constantly crashed when opening the SpecialK menu in-game.
Oh well. I was trying to see if I could get the HDR calibration working and fiddling with it. But that constant 1 fps with the latest version isn’t exactly ideal.
I’ll keep testing on my side, I hope anyone else also figures out something.
HDR is a D3D11 only feature, so you’d have to at least get a D3D9 to D3D11 wrapper working. I might look into it further, since i’ve been meaning to test out Asylum more for my own purposes.
Ah, got it. My bad. Didn’t know it was a D3D11 feature. I’m gonna try Arkham City next with the tool. A shame that Arkham Knight crashes with HDR on. Would love to tweak the HDR in that game.
Update: Arkham City works with Special K except for the HDR feature. Every time I enabled it and restart the game it boots but throws me to the desktop and when attempting to alt-tab in or click on it through the taskbar it throws me back out to the desktop.
Run Arkham City in windowed mode before enabling Special K’s global/manual injection. It’ll work fine after that.
Edit: You should be able to use the most recent SpecialK with an older DGVoodoo build from 2019. Make sure to set D3D9 renderers to false though, otherwise the 1FPS bug will come back.
Hmm, Unreal Engine (3 and 4) is basically one of the most annoying engines for SK to work with. I suggest opening SpecialK.ini - it’s located here if you’re using global injection: -\Documents\My Mods\SpecialK\Profiles\Batman Arkham City GOTY\
This is the section you’re looking for:
[SpecialK.HDR]
Look for this line and set it to True, and try the game again:
Promote8BitRTsTo16=true
If that doesn’t work, it might also help to enable 10 bit swapchain, but i’m not sure. A lot of tests to run but i’m not sure any will work, since it’s Unreal Engine.
I actually tested that quickly with Arkham Knight and managed to get in-game with the tool injected and managed to apply HDR for a little while. But it’s unstable and quickly crashed and when restarting, it just crashed completely without letting you get into the menu.
I have yet to try this on Arkham City.
Update: Does not work in Windowed mode either. Gives me the exact same problem that it just throws me out to desktop while the game is running in the background.
It’s a fix a lot of Unreal 3 games need. So long as you enable windowed or borderless mode before attempting to inject Special K it’ll be fine. With the exception of Arkham Knight.
So far no luck with Windowed mode or Borderless Fullscreen either. Screw those Unreal Engine 3 games sometimes.
Update: At least some kind of progress has been made. I can at least get Arkham City running now with Special K, but I’m unable to apply HDR. It just won’t switch over.
I deleted my config and I reset everything. I was able to fix HDR in Arkham City again. I’m not sure which tweak did it but here’s what I changed:
Display:
Windowed mode, force override, borderless
Window Management:
Borderless
Fullscreen borderless upscale
Force always on-top
Input/output behaviour:
Continue rendering
SpecialK.ini (4.8 KB)
Tested your ini file. Still exactly the same issue on my side.
I’m thinking about giving up trying to get it working on the Arkham games. Goddam Rocksteady for their weird Unreal Engine 3 coding.
I can only get it working in windowed mode. I can’t get proper borderless window, borderless fullscreen or exclusive fullscreen without the game going haywire and throwing me out to the desktop, essentially locking me out of the game completely. Arkham Knight also behaves similarly now.
Tried City and getting issues the same issues, can only get windowed and trying to force borderless from windowed means it doesn’t fill the screen, and fullscreen just keeps minimizing. Wastelander’s config did fill the screen for me the first time during the opening movies but then it shrunk again when it got to the menu, haven’t been able to get it to fill again since, even after redownloading the config.
I’ve had some issues with a few UE3 games in general that I tried recently, DX9 ones without dgVoodoo2 mostly run at about 8fps and with they just don’t run, sometimes saying out of memory, without SK both with and without dgVoodoo2 works
Yeah, that issue is basically the one documented below:
https://www.pcgamingwiki.com/wiki/Special_K#Less_than_1_FPS_in_some_Unreal_Engine_3_games
Wastelander121, Have you managed to play it in full screen mode in 3840*2160?
With the same options in display and windows management like you, the game doesn’t fill all the screen in width and height, for me, and ALT+ENTER make it worse
No matter which option I choose in the launcher (Full Screen Yes or No)
HDR works well, no problem with that
Wow, what display is that > 100% NTSC gamut. That is insane.
Though, I have to remind myself, that’s just coverage by relative volume size. I am all but certain your display’s native gamut is well to the other side of NTSC 
If you ever look at that gamut, it’s got a really wide blue primary and uses (if I recall, D50 white).
Isn’t the new Samsung and Asus displays from earlier this year supposed to have some pretty impressive specs?
Both of them from what I know though utilize curved displays and Samsung needed a bunch of firmware updates for their, Asus one is Ultra Wide too so that’d be 3440x1440 not 3840x2160
PG35VQ I think was what Asus called their and Samsung calls their the Odyssey(?) G9 I believe.
LG keeps working on a mix of TV and computer displays too I barely keep up at all with it.
Next year’s probably going to see more featuring HDMI 2.1 too in addition to the few models already on the market and what not.
EDIT: Suppose TV’s have the edge tech wise though, bit of a variance in computer displays even for the higher-end versions and costlier alternatives.
(HDR1000 seems to have some stricter specs though so that makes it a bit more streamlined knowing there’s a baseline quality level with that.)
Currently my HDR monitor is being lent to someone else and I haven’t tried it with virtual super resolution and HDR at the same time so I don’t know, sorry.