Blades of Time care package file

- description

Blades of time a darksiders look a like, in so much ways
you could be forgiven to think that you have come across a
spin off of that franchise, how ever not quite as polished.

In most aspects this game is a nice example of everything
'dialed up to eleven' visually meaning copious amounts of bloom,
blur and other effects plus a curious palette which tends
toward pink / purple.

The tweaks try to address this by...

Helix tweaks contains:
- reduce hdr overlay and lut
- reduce gold and red fx when rewinding time
- increase color sky and background
- reduce glow hanging orchids
- reduce glow godrays

Further a reshade tone map re-balances brightness plus removes a slight
yellow tint and a 'poor mans form of tessellation' gives the assets
(environment, etc) a bit of relief and more definition.

Also added smaa (so disable in game AA) and some slight desaturation.

An optional settings.blk is included see install for more detail.
Specifically handy is the setting:
godmode:b=yes
because as I said in this game everything is dialed up to eleven...

Note(s):
All screenshots are with forced AO must say the AO works rather so-so,
and is quite expensive gpu wise hbao flag(0x0000002C).

Just in case you are wondering why I am using the ultimate asi loader
in this case without it the game crashes on startup, due to reshade
and a attempt with sweetfx causes the game to crash on shut down.

The ultimate asi loader allows reshade to function without a hitch.

- install

Set bladesoftime.exe to 'win xp sp3' compatible for helix when using windows 7
With windows 10 do not set bladesoftime.exe to a compatibility mode.

Copy the contents of the zip file to the install folder of
blades of time, the folder which contains bladesoftime.exe
with exception of the folder optional.

If you like you can either compare or copy the
settings.blk (in the folder optional) to:
C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Local\BladesOfTime
Note make a backup of your original settings.blk !!

- optional install

The following instructions are only needed
if you do not like using unverified dll's you can:

download helix from
Helixmod.blogspot.com
and place following file in the install dir of blades of time
d3d9.dll

Then copy the folders dumps and shaderoverride, plus dx9settings.ini
to the install dir of blades of time.

Note:
This package contains a 'd3d9.dll.hxdb' this is the debug version
which allows shaders to be found in game, usage rename d3d9.dll to
d3d9.dll.o then rename d3d9.dll.hxdb to d3d9.dll and in some cases
set UseEndScene = false to UseEndScene = true in the dx9settings.ini

download the 'ultimate asi loader' (32bits) from:
Github.com

then copy the dinput8.dll 32bits version to the install dir
of blades of time.

download reshade from
Reshade.me (preferably version 4.3)

Note:
Because this package uses the 'ultimate asi loader' take care and
first rename the existing d3d9.dll (helix) to d3d9.dll.hx then
install *only* d3d9.dll (32bits) to the install dir aka folder
of blades of time.

Rename:
d3d9.dll
to:
reshade.asi

Rename:
d3d9.dll.hx
to:
d3d9.dll

Then copy the reshade folder plus ReShade.ini and reshadep.ini
contained in this package to the install dir of blades of time.

Note:
dx9settings.ini of helix contains the name of the linked proxy dll
in this case leave it empty ultimate asi loader chains reshade.

- verify

To test the shaderfixes you will have to start and the restart
the game without the d3d9.dll example rename it to d3d9.dll.o
and restart the game.

- tested

Tested with version 1.0.0 (with dlc dismal swamp) of blades of time
on win 7 / nvidia 1050gtx ti

- performance

reshade / helix / ual / forced ao usage 1080p@60fps*
without - clock 974Mhz gpu usage ~64%
with - clock 974Mhz gpu usage ~84%
approximately 20% increase (1050gtx ti on win 7)**
max gpu: 1772Mhz gpu usage 100%
*) Game is capped to 60.7 with fast sync through nvidia inpsector
hbao flag 0x0000002C forced ao adds roughly 30%
*) Ultimate asi loader (ual) does not seem to have an averse effect
on performance.
**)unusual high gpu usage for reshade might have to do with
setting the exe to xp sp3 compatibility.

- further tweaking

If you like you can compare the modified shader(s), Dumps contains
the original shader, to alter values. The folder 'shaderoverride'
contains the modified versions.
Note helix works differently then 3dmigoto please search for a
tutorial or start looking here:
Helixmod.blogspot.com

Specific shaders can be disabled by simply removing them
from the sub folders contained in 'shaderoverride'.