ZabaZu
Member
- Gender
- Male
The Problem
Since this game has a non-alt tab friendly exclusive fullscreen mode, this means that we sacrifice low latency, smooth framepacing, the ability to play without vsync, and/or the ability to play with VRR (variable refresh rate) by playing in windowed mode or a borderless window mode. Luckily, these are all solvable problems on Windows 10 systems.
The Solution
dgVoodoo2 is a useful wrapper that, in this case, redirects this game's DX8 calls to a newer API of your choosing. Really though, it's a swiss army knife of wrappers that can make old games more compatible on modern systems. If you use this tool to wrap the game's DX8 calls to DX12, you get 2 main benefits baked into that API: enforced DXGI flip model (read: bypassing windows buffering to allow tearing/game managed vsync and VRR support) and hardware scaling at non-native resolutions in a borderless window (limited utility in a game like this, admittedly). DXGI Flip Model isn't only useful for VRR users either, it will ensure smooth framepacing with vsync on screens running at 60/120/240hz etc, which is not a guarantee of the traditional window mode. Basically, this mode gives you the benefits of exclusive fullscreen AND the benefits of borderless window mode, no compromises.
The Installation
This software can be a tiny bit confusing at first, so I'll provide a simple install process as well as some info on configuring it yourself.
Easy Install
1.) Download the latest stable version of dgVoodoo2
2.) Open the zip file, navigate to /MS/x86/, then copy D3D8.dll and paste it in your PSOBB install directory.
3.) Download my config files
4.) Open the zip file and figure out which config you'd like based on the folder names.*
5.) Inside the folder of the config file you'd like to use, copy the dgVoodoo.conf file and paste it in the PSOBB install directory.
6.) Start the game like normal and enjoy.
* Anisotropic Filtering Example | MSAA Example | Note that MSAA causes problems with Reshade and should be avoided if you use that mod.
To Uninstall
1.) Delete D3D8.dll and dgVoodoo.conf from the PSOBB install directory.
You can skip this paragraph if you did the easy install, but if you want to create a configuration file yourself, you launch the configuration tool, then you must add the PSOBB installation directory as a config folder. Once you've done that, you can customize a good number of options (you can ignore the Glide tab for this game, that doesn't apply to games that were originally DirectX). For PSOBB, I recommend checking the box in the DirectX tab for "Fast video memory access". With a heavy reshade preset, this meaningfully increased performance without any drawbacks, but on a modern system there shouldn't be a difference either way unless you go out of your way to really push things. Other than that, it'll come down to preferences, and it wouldn't hurt to take a look at the documentation for some stuff.
I hope others find this tool useful.
Since this game has a non-alt tab friendly exclusive fullscreen mode, this means that we sacrifice low latency, smooth framepacing, the ability to play without vsync, and/or the ability to play with VRR (variable refresh rate) by playing in windowed mode or a borderless window mode. Luckily, these are all solvable problems on Windows 10 systems.
The Solution
dgVoodoo2 is a useful wrapper that, in this case, redirects this game's DX8 calls to a newer API of your choosing. Really though, it's a swiss army knife of wrappers that can make old games more compatible on modern systems. If you use this tool to wrap the game's DX8 calls to DX12, you get 2 main benefits baked into that API: enforced DXGI flip model (read: bypassing windows buffering to allow tearing/game managed vsync and VRR support) and hardware scaling at non-native resolutions in a borderless window (limited utility in a game like this, admittedly). DXGI Flip Model isn't only useful for VRR users either, it will ensure smooth framepacing with vsync on screens running at 60/120/240hz etc, which is not a guarantee of the traditional window mode. Basically, this mode gives you the benefits of exclusive fullscreen AND the benefits of borderless window mode, no compromises.
The Installation
This software can be a tiny bit confusing at first, so I'll provide a simple install process as well as some info on configuring it yourself.
Easy Install
1.) Download the latest stable version of dgVoodoo2
2.) Open the zip file, navigate to /MS/x86/, then copy D3D8.dll and paste it in your PSOBB install directory.
3.) Download my config files
4.) Open the zip file and figure out which config you'd like based on the folder names.*
5.) Inside the folder of the config file you'd like to use, copy the dgVoodoo.conf file and paste it in the PSOBB install directory.
6.) Start the game like normal and enjoy.
* Anisotropic Filtering Example | MSAA Example | Note that MSAA causes problems with Reshade and should be avoided if you use that mod.
To Uninstall
1.) Delete D3D8.dll and dgVoodoo.conf from the PSOBB install directory.
You can skip this paragraph if you did the easy install, but if you want to create a configuration file yourself, you launch the configuration tool, then you must add the PSOBB installation directory as a config folder. Once you've done that, you can customize a good number of options (you can ignore the Glide tab for this game, that doesn't apply to games that were originally DirectX). For PSOBB, I recommend checking the box in the DirectX tab for "Fast video memory access". With a heavy reshade preset, this meaningfully increased performance without any drawbacks, but on a modern system there shouldn't be a difference either way unless you go out of your way to really push things. Other than that, it'll come down to preferences, and it wouldn't hurt to take a look at the documentation for some stuff.
I hope others find this tool useful.
Last edited:
