Grand Theft Auto V For PC

UPDATE 4:Officially coming this fall

UPDATE 3: It’s now missing from both the profiles .blb and the dx10+ .dlls in the 14.1 mantle beta. Not that it appeared to be needed in the first place as ‘HighPerfGPUAffinity’ doesn’t sound like it’s doing much.

UPDATE 2: It’s in the driver .dll files now. Hex edit atidxx32.dll from 13.11 beta 6 and go to 0x69ae34.

UPDATE: In the new 13.11 Beta 3 leak, hex edit the .blb file, go to 0x192a8, GTA5 is there again (was missing in beta 1).

Well I never looked very closely at the CAP file for 13.10 beta 2, but I just noticed some interesting things.

<application Title="Grand Theft Auto V" File="GTA5.exe">
	<use Area="PXDynamic">HighPerfGPUAffinity</use>
</application>

Want to prove it yourself? You don’t even need to convert the .blb to .xml, just hex edit the blb and go to 0x19130 and 0x19b88 locations.

And the usual games coming soon…

<application Title="Assassin's Creed 4" File="AC4BFSP.exe">
	<use Area="PXDynamic">HighPerfGPUAffinity</use>
</application>
<application Title="Assassin's Creed 4 MP" File="AC4BFMP.exe">
	<use Area="PXDynamic">HighPerfGPUAffinity</use>
</application>
<application Title="Batman: Arkham Origins" File="BatmanOrigins.exe">
	<use Area="PXDynamic">HighPerfGPUAffinity</use>
</application>
<application Title="Call of Duty: Ghosts" File="iw6sp64_ship.exe">
	<use Area="PXDynamic">HighPerfGPUAffinity</use>
</application>
<application Title="Planetary Annhilation (32bit)" File="PA.exe">
	<use Area="PXDynamic">HighPerfGPUAffinity</use>
</application>
<application Title="Planetary Annhilation (64bit)" File="PA32.exe">
	<use Area="PXDynamic">HighPerfGPUAffinity</use>
</application>
<application Title="Need for Speed sequel" File="Race.Main_Win64_Release.exe">
	<use Area="PXDynamic">HighPerfGPUAffinity</use>
</application>
<application Title="Watch Dogs Demo" File="DuniaDemoLaunch_PC_r64.exe">
	<use Area="PXDynamic">HighPerfGPUAffinity</use>
</application>
<application Title="Watch Dogs" File="Watch_Dogs.exe">
	<use Area="PXDynamic">HighPerfGPUAffinity</use>
</application>
<application Title="Wolfenstein: The New Order" File="WolfNewOrder_x64.exe">
	<use Area="PXDynamic">HighPerfGPUAffinity</use>
</application>

Looks like more 64-bit games are coming outside of Battlefield 4? Don’t think this suddenly means GTA5 magically comes out real soon, developers/porters also need working drivers for their games. I’m still expecting the usual +200 days after console launch.

(Guru3d backup post in case the site explodes, but it held up fine during Halo 3)

Halo 3 For PC

UPDATE: Want proof? Just look at the .blb file from the driver, or use the atiapfxx.exe tool to create the XML yourself. Try these locations of the .blb in a hex editor: 15a74 or 250b6.

Sup. From the CAP of the 13.3 Catalyst beta driver. Another point of interest after the steam app ID that showed up last month.

<profile Area="UDX" Usage="Halo3" Notes="Halo3">
	<value Property="Version">1</value>
	<value Property="MTShaderCompile">False</value>
</profile>
 
<application Title="Halo3" File="halo3*.exe">
	<use Area="UDX">Halo3</use>
</application>

Not that this can fully confirm anything, we still have ‘BF1943Game.exe’ that never came out. You heard it here first… probably.

(Here is my guru3d post in case something happens from all this site traffic, consider it a mirror.)

Fix For Poor Killing Floor Performance On Catalyst 11.10

UPDATE: 11.11 has fixed both Killing Floor and Red Orchestra. This fix is not needed anymore.

Looks like Catalyst 11.10 has extremely high gpu usage in Killing Floor, so it struggles to maintain a solid framerate when there’s any action on screen.

No problem, put 11.9’s atiumdag.dll into your ‘\steamapps\common\killingfloor\System‘ folder.

The original Red Orchestra is in the same situation.

Fix For Enemy Territory Quake Wars atikmpag BSOD On Recent Catalyst Drivers

UPDATE: 11.12 seems to work fine, this should be good for 6 series cards that can’t use old dlls.

Not sure how widespread this is, but on my 4870×2, ETQW will freeze after a few seconds of playing and then BSOD with “Attempt to reset the display driver and recover from timeout failed.” The STOP code is 0x00000116 with atikmpag.sys as the faulting module.

This happens on… let’s say recent drivers. I can successfully play without issue using the handy 10.4 atioglxx.dll, which is the latest most stable driver for older OpenGL versions or games. I also used atigktxx.dll just in case. Simply place them into the main ETQW folder.

I’m also seeing that Doom 3 has a driver reset after a minute of play or when vsync is enabled, so the 10.4 files fix that as well.

Fix For Poor Crossfire Performance In Borderlands After Catalyst 11.7

After installing AMD Catalyst 11.8 drivers, I noticed Borderlands was not performing properly on my 4870×2. 11.9 or 11.10p do not appear to have fixed it.

No problem, just drop 11.7’s atiumdag.dll into the ‘Borderlands\Binaries‘ folder. Simple problem, simple solution.

Unlocking BRINK’s Framerate In Singleplayer

You may have noticed how awful Brink feels and looks in motion when playing the campaign or challenge modes, totally different from what your framerate counter displays. Here is how to get around that nonsense. The main idea is 1-you will run a local dedicated server, 2-you set what campaign or challenge to load, 3-you connect to it.

First, install the dedicated server in the tools section of Steam. While that’s downloading, go to the launch options of Brink in your games list and add ‘+set win_allowMultipleInstances 1‘ so that Brink’s executable can run more than once at the same time. (Otherwise you wind up having to launch the game first, then alt-tab to launch the server second.)

Once installed, check the ‘\Steam\steamapps\common\brink dedicated server‘ folder and you should see example .bat files. Edit an existing one, or copy into a new file, adjusting the server name and ports as you want them. Everytime you want to launch the server, just run the .bat file. Push the quit button or type in ‘quit’ in the console for the server to shutdown.

Now it’s time to tell the server what campaign and maps to load. Instead of memorizing server console commands or map names, I would make a .cfg file for every map of each campaign so that it’s very simple to quickly start playing on the mission that you left off in your campaign. Every .cfg file will look like this:

si_rules sdGameRulesCampaign
applyServerConfig Standard
campaign set campaign_#TEAMNAME#
si_playMode 1
si_onlineMode 2
si_needpass 1
g_password #YOURPASSWORD#
si_maxRank 4
si_botDifficulty #NUMBER#
net_serverAllowHijacking 0
spawnServer mp/#MAPNAME#.entities

Replace #TEXT# as necessary. You can have spaces in your password, quotes don’t seem to be needed (eg: ‘g_password hello world‘). Change the campaign team name to ‘resistance‘ or ‘security‘. To play the Agents of Change DLC maps, add ‘_dlc1‘ to the end of the campaign line (eg: ‘campaign set campaign_security_dlc1‘).

Bot Difficulty: any: -1, easy: 0, normal: 1, hard: 2

Resistance map names (in order of campaign): aqarium, seetow, terminal, resort, ccity, refuel, shipyard, reactor

Security map names (in order of campaign): aqarium, terminal, ccity, sectow, shipyard, reactor, resort, refuel

Agents of Change DLC map names (in order): lab, founders

Challenges: enable server hijacking then selecting a challenge as 2 player and public should join your server, or any other for that matter (source)

OR I think I managed to make a .cfg that works:

si_rules sdGameRulesChallenge
applyServerConfig ChallengesCoop#NUMBER#
campaign set campaign_challenges
si_playMode 1
si_onlineMode 2
si_needpass 1
g_password #YOURPASSWORD#
si_maxRank 4
net_serverAllowHijacking 0
spawnServer sp/challenge_#NUMBER#.entities

Set your coop player amount to a number between 2 and 4 (eg. ‘applyServerConfig ChallengesCoop2‘ for a 2-player game). Change your password just like a campaign server, and then change the challenge map number to the challenge you want: Be More Objective: 06, Parkour This: 05, Escort Duty: 01, Tower Defense: 03 (eg. to have a Parkour This challenge, the last line would be ‘spawnServer sp/challenge_05.entities‘)

So once you make your .cfg files (or use mine), place them in the ‘\Steam\steamapps\common\brink dedicated server\base‘ folder. Launch your server with your .bat file from earlier and type ‘exec security3‘ if you want to play the 3rd mission of the security campaign and your .cfg file for that mission is named security3.cfg. Then launch the game and go to Freeplay, search for LAN servers, and you should see your local server ready for you to join. If your router’s ports are open, you can have your friends join your server as well. There is a handy script to open and close the ports via UPnP, so that you don’t need to bother opening your router admin settings as long as UPnP is enabled.

Now you can play Brink the way it’s supposed to be! It may seem complicated, but once all this is set, you just exec the .cfg you want from the server console window, nice and simple.

Source for original .cfg file and discussion: Steam Forums
More information on some of the commands, or using additional ones: BrinkBase.de
You can also type commands in the console window and sometimes the values and what they mean will be displayed (eg. typing ‘si_botDifficulty‘ in the server console).

Fix For CityEngine Startup Crash

Here’s a similar situation to the Cities In Motion issue, this particular CAD software also has a problem running on ATI/AMD drivers newer than Catalyst 10.4, or at least 10.4 looks reliable enough to function properly. After launching, amdkmdap has a driver reset when the 3d rendering panel appears, crashing the application.

The fix is nice and simple, just place the appropriate OpenGL driver into the program’s folder where CityEngine.exe is.

If you have any other OpenGL game or application that is crashing after 10.4, try this fix or the Cities in Motion one.

For 32-bit: atioglxx.dll
For 64-bit: atio6axx.dll

Your card should support 10.4 drivers in the first place, I have no idea what you would do if you’re using one of the latest Radeons or if you’re using an nVidia card.

BFBC2 Missing Effects When AA Is Enabled On Catalyst 11.3

UPDATE: 11.4 is out, grab it from AMD. The 2 dlls are exactly the same as the preview dlls dated February 27, so it’s not an issue anymore.

If you dared to install Catalyst 11.3 WHQL over the 11.4 Previews, then you might run into this in Battlefield Bad Company 2. In DirectX 10 or 11 mode, enabling anti-aliasing causes various effects to disappear, mostly transparent ones.

Luckily there’s a simple fix. Just place aticfx32.dll and atidxx32.dll from either 11.2 or 11.4p into the game folder and everything is back to normal.

Divinity 2 Stutter Fix

Apparently, Divinity 2 has some kind of stuttering going on, making things look much worse than the actual framerate. This is not part of the game like the poor choice to lock the main menu at 30fps (which then unlocks once you’re in game, just like Enemy Territory Quake Wars).

Luckily, there’s a simple fix. If you haven’t seen this posted around, what you do is go to the compatibility tab in the properties window of the game’s exe and check on ‘disable desktop composition‘. I don’t think ‘run as administrator’ is needed, but you can check that on in addition to the desktop composition toggle.

No idea how widespread this is, if it’s just for Windows 7/Vista, or if it includes Nvidia cards, or if it’s tied to specific generations or drivers.

Cities in Motion (and possibly other OpenGL games) Startup Crash Fix For ATI/AMD Cards

UPDATE: I was curious as to what this FAQ item was for Atom Zombie Smasher, so I tried the demo. Nothing appears, just the exe starts up. Seems the same atigktxx.dll trick does the job for this game as well, it loads up just fine now.

Looks like Cities in Motion is an OpenGL game with the exact same issue that The Polynomial had for a few months. On drivers after Catalyst 10.4, it appears crossfire is breaking the game from working, and there is no way to disable it on a 4870×2 like myself. Some single gpu cards may be affected, so you might as well try this, too.

The simple fix should be placing 10.4’s atigktxx.dll into the game folder. Here’s an alternative fix that may or may not work for you if you have tried this atigktxx trick.

Do note that the file is from the 64-bit Vista/7 drivers, I’m not sure what the effect will be on 32-bit, XP, or on the latest 6 series cards. If you have crashes or freezes that happen after the game menu has loaded, then you might have a different problem unrelated to this. The beta, demo, and final release all should act the same. If the demo worked before (on drivers after 10.4) while the final does not, then you probably have a different issue.