“So I ported it over, and depending on the hardware and in-game scenario, some testers saw improvements of 25% in CPU limited scenarios. As such, it seems worth releasing publicly.” When in the center of Balduq with ultra draw distance enabled, CPU-limited performance was found to be about 28 frames higher than on patch 1.0.0.

Of course, players will need Direct3D feature level 11_1 and the degree to which performance will improve depends on “the specific in-game scene, settings, and your hardware GPU/CPU balance.” The patch also adjusts the refresh rate selection to more reliably choose one that’s closer to what you may want.

The executables have also been signed, which should prevent any false positives with some players’ antivirus software. Check out the full patch notes below. As always, anyone who faces any issues can return to previous versions via the public branches on Steam.

Ys 9: Monstrum Nox is currently available for PS4, PC, Nintendo Switch and Google Stadia.

Ys 9 1.1.3

• Improved CPU-bound performance. The degree to which you will notice this depends on the specific in-game scene, settings, and your hardware GPU/CPU balance.
• Adjust the refresh rate selection algorithm to more reliably pick the available refresh-rate closest to the one desired.
• The game executables are now signed. This should hopefully reduce the antivirus false positives that sometimes pop up for some players.
• Fixed the English item description of the Holy Sword’s Hilt accessory to correctly reflect its capabilities.

Perhaps the best part of this co-op mode is that, unlike Ys 8, the second player can do pretty much everything like starting conversations with NPCs, moving around the environment, using Gifts, discovering landmarks, triggering fights and much more. Both players can also switch to the third party member without interrupting each other. There are some limitations though like being unable to rebind controls for the second players.

Camera control is also shared and requires some readjusting, though the game does it’s best to have both players on screen at all times. Another feature of this patch is the addition of 16:10 aspect ratio support. While 2D elements like menus and map screens will be letterboxed, everything else should render in full resolution. This makes it especially good for playing on the upcoming Steam Deck.

Check out the full changelog below courtesy of PH3 Games. Ys 9: Monstrum Nox is available for PS4, PS5 and PC.

UPDATE NOTES:

New Features

• Local co-op support
• Support for narrow aspect ratios
• The “Equip Screen Supersampling” graphics setting now also applies to the “Ritual Relics” screen

Fixes and Improvements

• Make sure that traps behave functionally the same at high framerates (>>60 FPS) as they do at the default framerate
• Fix timing of fades after video playback before Grimwald battles
• Fix spikes at Dry Moat Ruins boss not being shown with some settings
• Fix crash on startup when no audio devices are available
• Fix UI animation speed of Grimwald result screen at high FPS
• Fix a long-standing bug causing NPCs to get stuck on some ceilings after wall run
• Fix some English spelling issues

But perhaps the biggest new addition is the “Lunatic” draw distance setting. This is intended to be even higher than Ultra and provides additional improvements to the visuals. However, the team warns that higher levels will have a higher impact on performance. No regressions are expected but in case of any, players are advised to return to previous versions by selecting the “version_*” branch in Steam properties.

As such, the “Lunatic” draw distance setting is only for very-high end systems and meant to provide some future proofing for the title. Ys 9: Monstrum Nox is now available for PS4, PC and Nintendo Switch along with an update that allows it to run in 4K resolution on PS5. Check out our review for the game here.

UPDATE NOTES:

Input/Controls

• added remapping of confirm and cancel actions
• added mouse wheel support for scrollable lists and journal when mouse menu navigation is off
• added mouse wheel support for message log
• fixed vibration only working for controller with ID 0
• improved save game menu navigation by disabling page-wise scrolling for left stick

Monitor/Display

• properly support Borderless mode on non-primary screens
• save used monitor for multi-display setups
• prevent screensaver from activating while the game is running

Draw Distance/LoD

• added “Lunatic” draw distance setting (higher than Ultra, see notes below)
• made draw distance setting apply to sub-map level of detail selection (see notes below)
• make draw distance setting apply to more object types (see notes below)
• fix calculation of draw distance applied to objects when changing the setting in the menu
• fix distance fadeout of objects being closer towards the center of the screen than at an angle

Miscellaneous

• fix specific boulders not starting to move in some situations at framerates ~>100 FPS
• updated credits

Even for those who finished the game on PS4, it may be worth looking into the PC version. Porting work has been done by PH3 Games with CTO Peter “Durante” Thoman breaking down its features. There’s full support for mouse and keyboard controls with options for double bindings of each action. While the console version was designed to run at 60 FPS, the PC version is capable of supporting up to 144 FPS.

Support for ultrawide aspect ratio monitors is also included along with up to 8K resolution, an option to adjust camera FOV, sub-sampling and super-sampling, shadow filtering and shadow resolution options, post-processing and HBAO+ ambient occlusion. There are even filters for color blindness. For more details on the game itself, check out our review here.

NIS America announced recently that The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel 3 would be coming to PC. Though it ran well on PS4, there were still concerns as to how the PC port could fare, especially given how poorly optimized Ys 8: Lacrimosa of Dana was at launch. Thankfully, the publisher announced that PH3 Games, whose co-founder Durante created the renowned DSfix for Dark Souls on PC, would be collaborating on the port.

Not only that but PH3 Games has also worked on a major new PC update for Ys 8 that’s available now. The update improves the PC version’s performance and addresses several bugs. It also adds a new local co-op mode, which is currently in the experimental phase. Among the many improvements include better frame-pacing and animation sync accuracy across all frame rates.

Monitors with high-refresh rates are also supported and the previous anti-aliasing solution has been replaced with a high-quality screenspace anti-aliasing. Video memory leaks, crashes, etc. have also been fixed. Check out some of the patch notes below. Ys 8: Lacrimosa of Dana is currently 50 percent off on Steam so if you’ve been putting off playing it, now is finally the time.

Graphics and Performance

• Arbitrary main rendering resolution enabled.
• Improved frame-pacing and animation sync accuracy at all frame rates.
• Improved menu opening / closing behavior.
• Character and enemy animations now correctly timed at 100-plus frames per second.
• Support for high-refresh monitors and over 60 Hz V-sync
• Replaced ineffective anti-aliasing blur filter with high-quality screenspace anti-aliasing.
• Bloom, refraction, and glare post-processing effects now scale with resolution.
• Minimap rendering resolution now adapts to rendering resolution, preventing pixelated map at high resolution.
• Greatly improved quality of menu backgrounds (replacing low-res screen capture).
• Improved standard shadow filtering without performance loss, plus two new, higher quality filter options.
• Added option for rendering additional environment shadows.
• Added supersampling / subsampling option (which also affects secondary 3D rendering).
• Improved shadow rendering performance by preventing unnecessary memory traffic.
• Fixed animation speed of HUD elements at over 30 frames per second (e.g. full health bar).
• Improved the quality of volumetric lighting.
• Implemented HBAO+ ambient occlusion as alternative higher-quality SSAO option.
• Added a draw distance setting which applies to grass / clutter, monsters and NPCs.
• Implemented anisotropic filtering setting.
• Added high-quality texture pack (generated from original sources, partially with AI upsampling, and full mipmaps).
• Character poses in the equip menu now update at over 30 FPS.

Input and User Interface

• Improved camera mouse controls, replacing joystick emulation with direct 1:1 control.
• Movement keys are now individually bindable.
• Added keybinding for walking (slow movement) with keyboard / mouse controls.
• Changed default bindings to fit common usage by PC gamers.

Stability

• Fixed multiple video memory leaks.
• Fixed potential crash when switching between languages.
• Switched to 64-bit build to prevent address space fragmentation issues in long sessions.
• Improved render thread synchronization to prevent specific types of race condition crashes.
• Removed superfluous asset encryption.