bbport Linux 0.51-linux.18

This release fixes effects, particles and models turning black under memory pressure on cards with 8 GB or less, adds the controller light bar colour and a players' guide, and brings fixes from LanternEngine, Mrsuss60's Windows port and Hunter's Atlas. It is based on bbport 0.51.

Requirements: your own decrypted dump of Bloodborne with update 1.09, any retail release (US,
Europe, UK, Japan, Asia, and the editions with The Old Hunters). No game files are included.
Linux x86-64 and a Vulkan 1.3 GPU.

Download

File	For
Bloodborne-bbport-x86_64.AppImage	Any x86-64 distribution and the Steam Deck

Make it executable, run it, choose your game folder and press Play. Saves and settings go
to ~/.local/share/bbport.

SHA-256: c50c28bc156a64d25c608d79cd464bba15435c813d380f3163ed5f91ea68eab2

New

• Players' guide: ayozetr.github.io/bloodborne_linux, with getting started, online play and seamless co-op, the Steam Deck, getting a log, troubleshooting and a FAQ. The launcher's About page links to it.
• Controller light bar colour (Controls, off by default): the colour of a DualShock 4 or DualSense light bar. Asked for in discussion #26.

Improved

• Online play in the documents starts with Seamless Hunt, the default server, and links read as words instead of file names.

Fixed

• Effects, particles and models turning black after a few reloads (#30), on cards with 8 GB or less, which are under memory pressure for most of a session. Textures the GPU had drawn came back black after the texture cache freed them, in three ways, all fixed: textures the CPU had maybe touched were freed as if it really had, losing what the GPU drew (mostly effects drawn by compute shaders); only the largest size of a texture was saved back to the game's memory, not its smaller versions (mipmaps); and such textures now stay in video memory until it is really full. Reported and tested by @Nahnahchi.
• Video memory blocks reused without clearing with the new memory model (AMD and the Steam Deck): a block given a VRAM copy kept the previous block's bytes outside what was uploaded, a possible cause of stretched polygons and flashing lights. From Awaken.
• Shaders compiled differently from one run to the next (the same shader could give a different result each time). From Awaken, after shadPS4.
• The game closed at start on a system without ~/.local/share. From Awaken.
• A read of a deleted texture in the texture cache. From Mrsuss60's Windows port.
• Hunter's Atlas keeps what the map covers when the window size changes. From Hunter's Atlas 3.0.

Upgrading

• From 0.51-linux.17: the launcher's About page installs this one.
• Your saves and settings in ~/.local/share/bbport stay as they are.

Known issues

• Stretched shapes can still appear in some places (#25), and a crash at guest offset 0x20859c7 followed them once. Under investigation.
• Amygdala's lasers could look black (#19); the fix for #30 likely covers them too, not yet confirmed.
• A crash at guest offset 0x263b8e7 can still happen on the Steam Deck (#27). If it happens often, setting Advanced → Performance → Two-stage GPU pipeline to Off should avoid it, at some cost in FPS.
• A strong blur can stay on screen after a lamp travel (#1). It only happens with Motion Blur on, so turning it off (Graphics → Game effects) avoids it.
• Local co-op runs a whole game per player: on a mid-range GPU at 1440p, two players get about 30 to 40 FPS each. It has been tested with two players.
• The ghosts' cloth in Cainhurst can glitch, and some AMD integrated GPUs show no snow there.
• On NVIDIA the new memory model is not the default yet: results vary by scene.
• Only the 1.09 executable is supported; other versions start and then crash.

Full changes: 0.51-linux.17...0.51-linux.18
Credits and licenses: https://github.com/ayozetr/bloodborne_linux#credits
Includes Lantern Engine by Awaken (https://github.com/Awakenchan/LanternEngine).