- description

Bound by flame a third person rpg lite by spiders the same
devs that would later create greedfall.
It's a bit chunky in all aspects, gameplay, level design
and narrative structure but still enjoyable.

Typical for games released in that time there is a lot of
bloom, fog, godrays and excessive contrast which, rather
obscure much detail in the game so to resurrect some of this detail
this package contains some tweaks realized with helix
(a precursor to 3dmigoto, works exclusively with dx9) and sweetfx.

Also added are some optional game tweaks which are:
library_camera.sli                - modifies the camera to more over the shoulder
game_components_pla.sli - makes combat much easier

Helix tweaks contain:
- reduce bloom, vigenette and white clipping
- reduce hdr
- reduce excessive glow lamps and mist banks
- reduce fog brightness in distance
- reduce halo sky
- reduce vignette
- reduce overbright sky

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

Also added smaa (so disable in game AA) and bumped up the saturation.

- install

Copy the contents of the zip file to the install folder of
Bound by flame, the folder which contains BoundByFlame.exe
with exception of the folder 'original' and 'datalocal'.

The folder 'datalocal' contains a camera mod and and a gamplay mod
if you want simply copy the folder 'datalocal' to the install dir
of bound by flame. (see further tweaking for more info)

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

download helix from
http://helixmod.blogspot.com/
and place following file in the install dir of Bound by flame
d3d9.dll

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 sweetfx from
https://www.guru3d.com/files-details/sweetfx-shader-suite-download.html
rename d3d9.dll to d3d9sfx2.dll and copy it to the Bound by flame
folder, then copy shaderoverride and sweetfx folders from the zip file to
the same dir aka folder plus the files SweetFX_preset.txt and SweetFX_settings.txt.

Note:
dx9settings.ini of helix contains the name of the linked proxy dll
(in this case sweetfx d3d9sfx2.dll).

- 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.

To test the sweetfx settings open sweetfx/shaders/main.h with
a text editor and modify the lines:

//#include "Splitscreen.h"
//FinalColor = SplitscreenPass(FinalColor,tex);
to
#include "Splitscreen.h"
FinalColor = SplitscreenPass(FinalColor,tex);

save the file and run the game you should see an vertical
splitscreen (left side unmodified, right side modified)

- tested

Tested with version 1.0.0 of Bound by flame on win 7 / nvidia 1050gtx ti
Note: this is a combination of sweetfx and helix (last versions,
both are no longer in development)

- performance

sweetfx / helix / usage 1080p@50fps*
without - clock 1000Mhz gpu usage ~98%
with    - clock 1392Mhz gpu usage ~98%
approximately 8% increase (1050gtx ti on win 7)
max gpu: 1772Mhz gpu usage 100%
*) vsync forced off framerate capped at 51.2 fps

- further tweaking

The folder 'original' contains the original .sli files
of the game if you like you can compare them to the files
library_camera.sli                - modifies the camera to more over the shoulder
game_components_pla.sli - makes combat much easier
contained in the folder 'datalocal' of this package to tweak
if wanted.

By deleting the files in datalocal the mods can be switched of,
normaly datalocal is empty the modding of files is very similar
to greedfall, see the nexus page of greedfall if you would like to
know more.

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:
http://helixmod.blogspot.com/2010/12/how-to-guides.html

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