464 réponses à ce sujet

[Iron Spine]

Dayson_Dawn wrote...

...

I should've mentioned earlier today I adjusted the values as appropiate for corpses to say and it was a no go. but I have faith in your team :happy:

heh.. team = 1 ( /me waves ) I just created the project so everyone would have an easy time getting the tool. But I must say I do like the Bio project system as it has made providing this utility to the masses a real snap. And there are a number of users contributing to information they find by posting here so even though there is no official team I certainly appreciate all useful info posted by anyone because it helps us all better understand where stuff is located. So go go community team then!

Modifié par Iron Spine, 31 janvier 2010 - 07:55 .

[zBobG]

Link to post for previously mentioned Coalesced compiler at GameSpot.

I haven't tried it.

I have written a Word 2007 macro to fix-up the the Coalesced.ini file after editing. Edit the file in Word then run the macro to fix-up the hex indexes. It is not based on the stock file, you can edit a previously edited file as many times as you like. Add, change or remove as many items as you like, the hex indexes are entirely recomputed by the macro. Still testing today.

I would rather directly edit an ini file rather than rely on someone else's notion of what is important in the file. I would much rather have good documentation of any important entries in the file, then I can change whatever I want.

[Iron Spine]

zBobG wrote...

Link to post for previously mentioned Coalesced compiler at GameSpot.

I haven't tried it.

I have written a Word 2007 macro to fix-up the the Coalesced.ini file after editing. Edit the file in Word then run the macro to fix-up the hex indexes. It is not based on the stock file, you can edit a previously edited file as many times as you like. Add, change or remove as many items as you like, the hex indexes are entirely recomputed by the macro. Still testing today.

I would rather directly edit an ini file rather than rely on someone else's notion of what is important in the file. I would much rather have good documentation of any important entries in the file, then I can change whatever I want.

Yep I understand. However for those that are not as technically inclined to be able to do it that way directly, or simply want a GUI to navigate the giant sections, my coalesced editor was created. The reason it has limited section support is also simple. It was created to help folks with mouse tweaking. But it is quickly expanding, actually, and I won't be surpised if I wind up adding support to edit every thing in the entire file to the gui.

The reason it doesn't recompute the entire file at the moment is because it was created 2 days ago specifically just to help folks tweak their mouse but is now growing substantially into a more robust editor. So as I add new sections, such as the recently added BIOEngine, recalculation of that is added as well. It would be a simple matter to add as a general feature under the hood for recalculation of the entire file even for sections that I don't curruently provide editing for. I may add that after I finish the next release which adds a new Quick Jump Panel so users can create custom tweak categories for themselves and easily jump around the various settings instantly with a single click so they can repeatedly fine-tune their settings without having to keep refinding the same data over and over just to make a single change or a set of related changes.

Anyway thanks for the information it appears the community is having a great time exploring the data as well as coming up with ways to modify it. Good stuff!

Modifié par Iron Spine, 31 janvier 2010 - 09:04 .

[zBobG]

Iron Spine wrote...
snip...

Actually the two sections you've already done are probably the only ones I'd be likely to edit anyway.

It must be the way you've organized you program code, but the first thing I'd have done is by force recompute ALL the hex indexes regardless of whether the program itself made any changes in a particular section.

A suggestion: Pick one "dummy" entry in each section so that your program knows to check every section for edits thereby forcing fix-up of ALL the hex indexes.

My problem is that I might, outside of your program, change something in a currently non-supported section, load that ini file into your program, expect it to work then have it fail. I know it isn't your fault but still it is a fail to fix-up the indexes and it might appear to be a fail of your program.

Modifié par zBobG, 31 janvier 2010 - 10:09 .

[Iron Spine]

zBobG wrote...

Iron Spine wrote...
snip...

Actually the two sections you've already done are probably the only ones I'd be likely to edit anyway.

It must be the way you've organized you program code, but the first thing I'd have done is by force recompute ALL the hex indexes regardless of whether the program itself made any changes in a particular section.

A suggestion: Pick one "dummy" entry in each section so that your program knows to check every section for edits thereby forcing fix-up of ALL the hex indexes.

My problem is that I might, outside of your program, change something in a currently non-supported section, load that ini file into your program, expect it to work then have it fail. I know it isn't your fault but still it is a fail to fix-up the indexes and it might appear to be a fail of your program.

Well I know that BIOGame and probably others are going to come into play pretty fast for some, like the fella that wants to extend or edit the length of time corpses stay on the ground which is in BIOGame.

And that is true about what I would have normally done too, but this wasn't a normal circumstance heh. I initially discovered a way we could override settings by using the GamerSettings file and not having to touch the Coalesced file at all. This got a lot of people excited especially those trying to hack up the mouse settings so they can play better. But of course it turned out only certain data is actually overriable in this manner, and mouse settings (BIOInput) wasn't one of them, so I was very annoyed by this and slammed out a fast way to edit BIOInput as fast as possible to address it.. and here we are now

Once I've finished this new quick-jump feature (I'm think it's going to be prett popular. I know I'm going to wind up using this feature a HUGE amount creating custom jumps for different types of tweaking goals) I will look into a total file recalculation.

[Lucas78]

 Awesome tool, thanks for the effort! 

I've been messing around with it for the last 15-20 minutes, so:

[Systems Settings]

* EnableHighPolyChars - Refers to faces and body poly count? Standard is false, changed it to "true", but haven't noticed any relevant difference ;

* MaxAnisotropy - The value was different from the one I set in the game configuration tool (set to 16 with the standard configuration tool, but the coalesced editor showed only "4") ;

*MaxMultisamples - Umm, refers to Anti-Aliasing? Tried to change the value to "8" but no difference;

* Tried to raise the Min and Max Shadow Resolution; from 32/512 to 512/1024; no difference, I think. Maybe there is another related settings that need to be changed?

* In-between, I also tried to turn on the "AllowD3D10" but the game wouldn't start, crashed immediately. Maybe it's because that settings conflicts with other ones;

[Iron Spine]

Lucas78 wrote...

 Awesome tool, thanks for the effort! 

Thanks it's a fun project to mess around with.

* EnableHighPolyChars - Refers to faces and body poly count? Standard is false, changed it to "true", but haven't noticed any relevant difference ;

No idea yet. To me it would indicate to the game to either use or not use very high poly versions of character models, if they even exist.

* MaxAnisotropy - The value was different from the one I set in the game configuration tool (set to 16 with the standard configuration tool, but the coalesced editor showed only "4") ;

Remember (or note if you didn't know) that GamerSettings overrides certain values from the SystemSetings in the Coalsesced file. In fact I discovered that while messing around a few days ago and the reason the initial thread came into existence in the 1st place but then it became clear only certain values can be overriden in that way so the tool was born.

But anyway that partiular setting gets updated / set when you run the game config tool, which puts an entry for that in GamerSettings, so when you launch the game, it will use that GamerSettings.SystemSettings.MaxAnisotrophy value overriding the default in Coalesced. If you deleted that setting from GamerSettings and didn' re-run game config I expect your changes in Coalesced would show up but i'm making an assumption there.

*MaxMultisamples - Umm, refers to Anti-Aliasing? Tried to change the value to "8" but no difference;

Probably, and if so it's probably overriden for the reason I just described.

* Tried to raise the Min and Max Shadow Resolution; from 32/512 to 512/1024; no difference, I think. Maybe there is another related settings that need to be changed?

No idea on that one yet.

* In-between, I also tried to turn on the "AllowD3D10" but the game wouldn't start, crashed immediately. Maybe it's because that settings conflicts with other ones;

Yeah that was actually the 1st settng I changed right after I got a working BIOEngine version heh. Same result here. The game crashes while trying to initialize itself using that. Guess that's why it is disabled. Maybe they hadn't figured out or properly coded / finished coding support for DX10 but had intended too?


Considering there is specifically an ISVHacks entry (ISV = Independent Service Provider, like a 3rd party company such as ATI, nVidia,a Microsoft Gold Certified Application Provider etc etc that type of thing) but anyway since it has that section it is clear that during development they ran into a number of issues and got 1 or more quick-fix techniques or code chunks so they (I assume) use those to enable or disable those using that section. My point on this one is that's probably why DX10 and who-knows what else either doesn't work yet or isn't finished. It's a massive game. I seriously doubt they actually finished everything they intended, or intend, to put into it due to time contraints / delivery deadlines / bean-counters at the top screaming in their ears "HEY! Damn it! This looks GREAT AS-IS! SHIP IT! SHP IT!" cha-ching cha-ching... that's all those types of folks care about usually.

Modifié par Iron Spine, 01 février 2010 - 01:07 .

[Lucas78]

When trying to change values, also refer to the EXCELLENT Mass Effect 1 guide that was postd on tweakguides.net, here:

http://www.tweakguides.com/ME_7.html

In there, you can read the following paragraph (bold is mine):

- Some settings appear under multiple sections - change only the setting under the relevant section shown below. For example, DepthBias appears under both the [Engine.Engine] and [Engine.GameEngine] sections of BIOEngine.in; however changing it under [Engine.Engine] has absolutely no impact on the game, the setting under [Engine.GameEngine] is the one which should be changed. Therefore pay close attention to which section of the .ini file you are changing a setting under, otherwise it won't work.

- Many areas of the .ini files do not have any impact on the PC version of Mass Effect - they are unused sections of the Unreal Engine, generic sections designed as templates for other areas, or are for debugging or for the Unreal Editor and hence are excluded (e.g. the [Texture Streaming] or [Editor.EditorEngine] sections have no impact).


So the same could be applied to Mass Effect 2.

Infact, in the Coalesced Editor, if you click on "All BIOEngineData", the "Engine Settings" tab will now show the infamous [Engine.Engine] section, with a LOT of tempting settings the majority of which probably don't work, I dunno
----

In Mass Effect 1 there was a VERY cool .ini setting in order to allow friendly fire (ME2 doesn't allow it, does it? Sorry but I'm in the VERY early stages of the game and haven't thought about trying it out):

http://www.tweakguides.com/ME_9.html

(AllowFriendlyCollateral=) But I haven't noticed something similar so far in the ME2 settings.

Modifié par Lucas78, 01 février 2010 - 01:36 .

[Iron Spine]

Nice info Lucas. I'm new to the Mass Effect series and have barely scratched (barely) played this thing yet. Was doing pretty good and having a blast when this utility took over a couple days ago. But this is also fun and I'm looking forward to getting it to a more finished state before I actually worry about 'playing' the game again.



There are -most definitely- some very interesting settings spread around. One of them (haven't implemented support for the section yet) appears to control how much fuel we carry, how effecient fuel usage is, the number of probes we can store at any given time etc etc. Those types of settings could be very useful either to modding attempts, or just folks looking to boost (or cheat) a bit guess depends on how you look at it.

[zBobG]

Don't know where to post this...

Bindings=( Name="F2", Command="AdjustCredits 10000" )

Works same as in ME(1), adds to credits, not like initCredits which sets credits to the given value.
[EDIT] This command does not work as expected. It works about two times then reduces to adding only +1 credit no matter what value it is set to, don't know why.

@IronSpine:
How are you going to handle a user's bindings?
Will you enumerate the bindings in the ini file and list them in a section in your program? Or is that too much to ask for?
[EDIT] Just ran CE v1.2b - question answered. My added bindings do show up in the editor.

I'm guessing it's not yet possible to add a new entry while in your editor, like adding a new binding for example. Will that ever be implemented?

Update: I have finished testing my Word 2007 macro for fixing the Coalesced.ini file after editing. It works perfectly except for being slightly slow because it's a Word macro. The only advantage to using a macro is that I can edit the file and fix the file in one place using one application. If anyone is interested I can post the macro.

Modifié par zBobG, 03 février 2010 - 07:26 .

[Dayson_Dawn]

been fooling around with it some more..... Still trying to find a way to get those damn corpses to stay lol

[Iron Spine]

zBobG wrote...

Don't know where to post this...

Bindings=( Name="F2", Command="AdjustCredits 10000" )

Works same as in ME(1), adds to credits, not like initCredits which sets credits to the given value.

@IronSpine:
How are you going to handle a user's bindings?
Will you enumerate the bindings in the ini file and list them in a section in your program? Or is that too much to ask for?
[EDIT] Just ran CE v1.2b - question answered. My added bindings do show up in the editor.

I'm guessing it's not yet possible to add a new entry while in your editor, like adding a new binding for example. Will that ever be implemented?

Update: I have finished testing my Word 2007 macro for fixing the Coalesced.ini file after editing. It works perfectly except for being slightly slow because it's a Word macro. The only advantage to using a macro is that I can edit the file and fix the file in one place using one application. If anyone is interested I can post the macro.

I am finally finishing up a new important feature that me, you, and I wager a lot of others, will find a use for. It's a way to create custom tweak categories with entries in it. Ir provides a way to describe the category and each entry.Basically a descrition of the category and the entries in that category. Then you click o an entry and it take you instantly to the setting to modify it. I believe this will do a lot of things. It will dramatically increase the speed with which anyone can repeatedly make changes / fine tune the same settings. More generally speaking it will provide people that are heavily examining the data, such as yourself, a way to describe these things.

It will be able to import and export these things, so those with less knowledge can immediately gain the benefit of those with more knowledge by importing something those people exported and then they'll have readable text describing what the stuff does etc etc.

It's just a thought but I think it may work. There are just so many settings I thought we needed some kind of method to try ad organize or identify the stuff so that's why I'm doing it. Once I get the import / export finished I will post thenext release.

We should be able to use the files section in my project for these types of files too. I think all you need is to be a member of my project group and then you can post files to the project.

As far as creating bindings go that's the 3rd or 4th time it's been requested so I will look into providing a way to add a new binding I just have to finish this 1st.

[sticks435]

Iron Spine wrote...

Lucas78 wrote...

*MaxMultisamples - Umm, refers to Anti-Aliasing? Tried to change the value to "8" but no difference;

Probably, and if so it's probably overriden for the reason I just described.

No idea on that one yet.

* In-between, I also tried to turn on the "AllowD3D10" but the game wouldn't start, crashed immediately. Maybe it's because that settings conflicts with other ones;

Yeah that was actually the 1st settng I changed right after I got a working BIOEngine version heh. Same result here. The game crashes while trying to initialize itself using that. Guess that's why it is disabled. Maybe they hadn't figured out or properly coded / finished coding support for DX10 but had intended too?

I'm guessing thre reason that "MaxMultisamples" doesn't work is because it's tied to the "AllowD3D10", which also doesn't work. Directx 10 will allow for AA using UE3, but DX9 doesn't, which I think is why they were trying to use DX10, as a lot of PC players complained about not having AA supported in game.

Modifié par sticks435, 01 février 2010 - 07:06 .

[Kriss_T0ff]

 Using notepad++, I was able to see several LensFlare parameters. Any idea how they work ?

 I know that turning off LensFlare (by setting =False) just breaks the ability to interact with many objects (terminal, quest objects, galaxy map, etc...)

 thanks

[Iron Spine]

Kriss_T0ff wrote...

 ...turning off LensFlare (by setting =False) just breaks the ability to interact with many objects (terminal, quest objects, galaxy map, etc...)

Yeah I saw that the other day while fiddling with the tool and was shocked about it frankly. There are many times where a games implementation of LensFlare is simply annoying instead of 'fun' to have so turning that off is pretty common. So to have it implemented in a way that is actually not -only- directly tied to simulated flares in the tradional sense is a bit wonky but I guess it was handy.

Luckily from what I've seen so far the outdoor flares are nowhere near as irritating as many other games so leaving it on doesn't become too much of an issue.

[sticks435]

Iron Spine wrote...

Kriss_T0ff wrote...

 ...turning off LensFlare (by setting =False) just breaks the ability to interact with many objects (terminal, quest objects, galaxy map, etc...)

Luckily from what I've seen so far the outdoor flares are nowhere near as irritating as many other games so leaving it on doesn't become too much of an issue.

I happen to think that the outdoor lens flair is very well done in ME2. I was on a certain planet, and it was during sunset/sunrise, and if you turned towards the sun, you were pretty much blinded by it, and had trouble seeing anything/enemies. Seemed very realistic to me.

[Iron Spine]

sticks435 wrote...

...

I'm guessing thre reason that "MaxMultisamples" doesn't work is because it's tied to the "AllowD3D10", which also doesn't work. Directx 10 will allow for AA using UE3, but DX9 doesn't, which I think is why they were trying to use DX10, as a lot of PC players complained about not having AA supported in game.

Ahh interesting that may shed some light on another issue which is of course the fact there is no native AA support, but we are able to force the issue using nHancer and a tweaked profile. But is also an issue with that for some folks including me. If you have SLI + AA + Dynamic Shadows you can experience a dramatic (cut inhalf) performance hit. This is not true for all with this configuration, but is true for some including me.

For those with this particular issue if you turn off DS you can obtain excellent SLI + AA performance. But you lose the added ambience of dynamic shadows and only get the static shadows, which still look great, but the world seems lacking when DS is gone.

[Iron Spine]

sticks435 wrote...

I happen to think that the outdoor lens flair is very well done in ME2. . ..Seemed very realistic to me.

Totally agree with that.

[zBobG]

Lens flare is a camera effect, the eye does not experience lens flare. So, if my point of view is my player then there shouldn't be any lens flare. On the other hand, since the game uses an over the shoulder view, should we assume then that we see the game via a camera lens that is floating behind the player?

I object to lens flare any time it is used except when it is clear that I am viewing the scene through a camera lens.

In this game, even with the third person view, I don't think that lens flare should be used. I prefer to think of viewing the player through a "God's eye view" - with no lens flare.

And before you start complaining, bloom and HDR are not lens flare effects. Lens flare is a refractive effect caused by lenses like the circular colored light artifacts seen in photography.

Modifié par zBobG, 01 février 2010 - 08:39 .

[Iron Spine]

heh who would complain? We're all entitled to our opinions, and yours is as valid as anyone else. If someone actually started to flame in here about that or anything else they will quickly be un-welcome...

Btw the new version is posted. Adds custom categories for much faster fine tuning / re-finding settings or sets of settings. Needs heavily tested and reported on.

Modifié par Iron Spine, 01 février 2010 - 09:22 .

[sticks435]

Maybe it's just me, but it seems ME2 does a fairly good job of combining lens flair with actual environmental lighting. Sometimes it stands out, such as the bars of light you'll see sometimes, but I think that may be by dev design, as it seems to mimic the "light flash" from the scene at the end of most of the vids and the "press start to begin" screen.

[Dayson_Dawn]

Hey Iron Spine thanks for releasing a new version when I go home I'll give it a try

[Iron Spine]

Ok sounds good let me know your thoughts on the new category system. It has a few glitches that need to be isolated and hammered out, but I think it's a good start. I just need to go through it and try to repeatedly break it in various ways until it becomes 100% or close.

[Dekesh]

Thanks for the editor Iron Spine! I'm kind of new to all of this, so something easy to navigate like your program is really helpful. I'm mostly trying to figure out how to add the option of using the F1,F2,F3,F4,F5 keys to switch weapons instead of mousewheel/shift-menu. I've run into some issues, however. I keep getting this message: "Unable to cast object of type 'System.Windows.Forms.TextBox' to type 'System.Windows.Forms.RichTextBox'." when I try to change the values of anything. Is this a bug or am I doing something wrong?

[Iron Spine]

Dekesh wrote...

Thanks for the editor Iron Spine! I'm kind of new to all of this, so something easy to navigate like your program is really helpful. I'm mostly trying to figure out how to add the option of using the F1,F2,F3,F4,F5 keys to switch weapons instead of mousewheel/shift-menu. I've run into some issues, however. I keep getting this message: "Unable to cast object of type 'System.Windows.Forms.TextBox' to type 'System.Windows.Forms.RichTextBox'." when I try to change the values of anything. Is this a bug or am I doing something wrong?

Hmm I blew away the text boxes for the category editor in favor of rtb for a few reasons but I may have missed   casting call somewhere that is causing that. I'll try and locate it. I assume this is happening (and only happening) in v1.0.0.5B right?

Duh... I didn't miss one, I incorrectly changed one that shouldn'thave been. Thanks for pointing this out I'll fix immediately.

Modifié par Iron Spine, 02 février 2010 - 12:21 .