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v1.6.1 — Vandal Hearts PC Port

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@HalmyLyseas HalmyLyseas released this 04 Aug 00:39
v1.6.1
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Vandal Hearts — PC Port v1.6.1

A native PC port of Vandal Hearts (US, SLUS_004.47). You must supply your own
legally-owned disc image (.bin); the download does nothing without it.

A maintenance and polish release. No gameplay changes; normal mode remains byte-for-byte the retail
game.

Fixed (both modes)

  • Battle fast-forward now holds the full 2× at every graphics setting. A frame-pacing flaw made
    battles at high INTERNAL RES sleep away part of each fast-forwarded frame (about 53 of the
    targeted 60 ticks/sec at ×4). The pacing now spends the whole frame budget; measured 60/60 with
    headroom on a worst-case battle scene.
  • HD pack scene loads no longer dip the frame rate. HD backgrounds decode on a background
    thread; the brief 60→55 fps dip on entering a scene is gone (worst case validated at fullscreen
    ×4).

Changed

  • The HD pack format is now v2 — re-download the pack. The pack manifest now declares the FMVs
    too; the game verifies the pack's contents at startup (a missing movie is reported instead of
    silently playing the original), and the HD PACK option explains itself when a pack can't be used
    (NO PACK / OUTDATED PACK / WRONG GAME). The 1.6.0 pack download is withdrawn; this
    release's pack (same art, current manifest) is the supported one.
  • The Linux AppImage shrank from 65 MB to 14 MB (the movie decoder is now built into the
    executable instead of bundling a system multimedia stack — same approach as Windows).

Added

  • A Player Manual (PDF) ships with each release: setup on Windows and Linux, controls, every
    feature illustrated, and a quick problem table.
  • Reorganized documentation: the feature guide is now organized by feature with current
    screenshots, plus new troubleshooting and
    performance pages.
  • Quality-of-life for diagnostics: the per-second FPS meter is now opt-in (VH_FPS_LOG, settable
    in the ini), joined by frame-budget and display-path meters (VH_FRAME_TIME,
    VH_PRESENT_TIME) — the first stops for any performance report.
  • Developer-facing: an in-repo regression harness (a 7-second headless boot test and a byte-exact
    rasterizer golden-image check), a build-system parity guard, warning-clean builds on all
    targets, a release checklist, and contributor/issue templates.

Downloads

Platform File How to run
Windows 10/11 VandalHearts-v1.6.1-windows-x64.zip Unzip; put your disc in a game\ folder next to vandalhearts_pc.exe; run it.
Linux (glibc ≥ 2.34) VandalHearts-v1.6.1-linux-x86_64.AppImage + vandalhearts.ini Put both together; put your disc in a game/ folder beside the .AppImage; chmod +x and run. Needs FUSE2.
Any VandalHearts-v1.6.1-Manual.pdf The Player Manual: setup, controls, features, troubleshooting.

Config: edit vandalhearts.ini next to the executable (window scale, audio, etc.).

Note on contents

A release binary embeds a portion of game-derived data (the executable's static
data segment, a small BIOS-derived font, reconstructed tables) so the port can
run — © Konami / © Sony, no ownership claimed. It is a fraction of the game; the
bulk loads from your own disc at runtime. See NOTICE/DISCLAIMER.

Verify downloads against SHA256SUMS.txt.

Optional HD pack

VandalHearts-v1.6.1-hdpack.zip — higher-resolution backgrounds + re-encoded FMV
movies. Optional; the game runs identically without it. Unzip so hdpacks/
sits next to the executable, then enable HD PACK in the Select+Start options
(see docs/hd-pack.md). This is upscaled derivative art (© Konami), provided for
convenience and also buildable from your own disc — see NOTICE / DISCLAIMER.

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