bloodborne-mac v0.8.3

Bloodborne for Apple Silicon 0.8.3

What's new:

• Mods and Patches pages work again: since 0.8.0 they kept loading, showed no folder and
  found no mods or patches. They list your folders' contents again (thanks to FraSharp).
• Character editing: change a character's attributes, Blood Echoes and Insight from the
  launcher's Saves page; the level follows, and the save set is backed up first.
• AMD FSR 4.1.1 on Metal (optional): AMD's neural upscaler, run on the Mac's GPU (thanks to
  Victor Scheideger, based on fsr4-native-macos by UzenUPoZiTiV4ik). It needs two files of AMD's
  model from your own copy of AMD's upscaler DLL.
• Trophy notices drawn by the game: unlocked trophies appear over the game itself, with a cup
  in the trophy's grade colour, below the FPS counter.
• Metal renderer: tessellated objects drawn several times at once are no longer skipped
  (whole trees were missing in some areas).

Mods and Patches

The launcher read its settings in a way that never answered on these two pages, so the list stayed
empty, the folder showed "—", the default folder was never created and Refresh kept spinning. The
pages now list the mods in ~/Library/Application Support/bloodborne_mac/mods (or the folder you
choose) and the patch files in its patches folder.

Character editing

On the Saves page, Edit character changes a character's six attributes, Blood Echoes and
Insight; Max all sets them to their maxima (level 544). The game must be stopped. The level
follows the attributes, and changing Vitality or Endurance also refills the saved health or
stamina. Confirming an edit backs up the complete save set first, then marks the edited save as
ineligible for new trophies; to continue from a clean save, restore a backup from before the
first edit.

AMD FSR 4.1.1 (Metal)

Choose it in Graphics → Upscaler. It costs more than FSR 3.1: on an M3 Pro at 1080p output
(Balanced), about 4.2–4.8 ms of GPU time a frame, a few FPS below FSR 3.1. It suits Macs with
frame-rate headroom, or a 30 FPS limit. It needs two files of AMD's model from your own
amd_fidelityfx_upscaler_dx12.dll (FSR 4.1.1, from OptiScaler or a game): in Graphics, AMD
FSR 4.1.1 files → Choose AMD DLL…. Nothing of AMD's is included. The option appears only
when this Mac can run it and the files are there.

Known issues

• After reloading a save, blood on already killed enemies can look pale with bright edges.

Good to know

• The Metal renderer, MetalFX and FSR 4.1.1 on Metal are experimental.
• The game's on-screen button icons are always PlayStation's, also with the keyboard or an Xbox
  pad.

Install or update

Download the Apple Silicon DMG and replace Bloodborne.app. Saves and settings remain in
~/Library/Application Support/bloodborne_mac. No game files are included: supply your own
Bloodborne dump with update 1.09. The app includes its runtime, bash, Python and libraries.

bloodborne-mac v0.8.2

Bloodborne for Apple Silicon 0.8.2

What's new:

• Character lighting at high render resolutions fixed: clothing no longer loses its
  highlights after the texture cache collects images. The fault was reproduced at native 1440p
  on Metal and MoltenVK, then checked on both renderers after the fix.

Character lighting

At high render resolutions, the texture cache could discard small images that the GPU had
written but could not safely copy back. Parts of the scene then lost lighting, making character
clothing look very dark. Those images are now kept until the game replaces their contents.
Other unused images can still be collected. Copied-save native 1440p tests showed the clothing
highlights again on Metal and MoltenVK; a native 1080p Metal test also completed.

Known issues

• After reloading a save, blood on already killed enemies can look pale with bright edges.

Good to know

• The Metal renderer and MetalFX are experimental.
• The game's on-screen button icons are always PlayStation's, also with the keyboard or an Xbox
  pad.

Install or update

Download the Apple Silicon DMG and replace Bloodborne.app. Saves and settings remain in
~/Library/Application Support/bloodborne_mac. No game files are included: supply your own
Bloodborne dump with update 1.09. The app includes its runtime, bash, Python and libraries.

bloodborne-mac v0.8.1

Bloodborne for Apple Silicon 0.8.1

This release focuses on addressing stability issues observed in 0.8.0, particularly crashes and shader cache problems, alongside improvements to the Metal renderer and the introduction of MetalFX upscaling.

What's new

• GX worker crash fixed: Changing dynamic shadows while playing could crash the game during loading or camera movement on both Metal and MoltenVK. The reproducible crash has been fixed.
• Shader cache fixed: A rejected tessellation pipeline could trigger a shader cache rebuild on every launch and brief FPS dips when affected pipelines were compiled again. The corrected shaders rebuild once after updating, then are reused normally.
• MetalFX upscaling: Apple's native upscaler is now available with Quality, Balanced and other presets, supporting both Metal and MoltenVK on compatible Macs.
• Improved FPS counter: The expanded FPS display now shows the active upscaler, internal render resolution and output resolution.
• Metal stability improvements: Improved GPU resource lifetime management prevents shaders and pipelines from being released while queued draws still depend on them.

Stability fixes

GX worker crash

Changing dynamic shadows during gameplay could re-enable shadows in a secondary rendering context without a valid shadow target, causing its worker to crash.

The fix preserves live shadow switching in normal scenes while ensuring shadows remain disabled in contexts that cannot support them.

The crash was reproduced using a copied save on both Metal and MoltenVK before the fix. Both renderers passed subsequent tests, including a five-minute Metal session involving repeated camera turns.

Metal also now retains shader and pipeline objects until their queued GPU operations complete.

Shader cache

A tessellation shader could assign the same output location twice, causing MoltenVK to reject the resulting pipeline. This rejection could incorrectly mark the shader cache as damaged, forcing unnecessary rebuilds on subsequent launches.

The shader has been corrected, and rejected pipelines are no longer persisted.

After updating: The shader cache will rebuild once to replace older generated shaders. Subsequent launches should reuse the cache normally, avoiding the brief FPS dips caused by repeated compilation of those pipelines.

MetalFX upscaling

Apple's native MetalFX upscaler is now available as an experimental alternative to FSR 3.1.

Select Graphics → Upscaling → MetalFX (Apple) in the launcher or in-game settings.

MetalFX works with either renderer on supported Macs and offers the same Quality, Balanced and other presets.

Performance comparison

In a copied-save scene on an M3 Pro at 1080p Balanced:

Upscaler	Median frame time	P90 frame time
FSR 3.1	21.3 ms	~28–29 ms
MetalFX	23.9 ms	~28–29 ms

These measurements represent a single test scene, not a comprehensive benchmark. Performance and image quality may vary depending on the scene, hardware and settings.

FSR 3.1 remains the default. Choose whichever provides your preferred balance of image quality and performance.

MetalFX is experimental. Please report visual artifacts, unexpected stalls or other rendering problems, preferably with the game log attached.

Known issues

• Black character rendering at high resolutions: Characters may appear black when the internal render resolution exceeds approximately 3.5 million pixels. Lower the render resolution or choose a lighter upscaling preset if this occurs.
• Rare GPU and shutdown faults: Sampler/GPU assertions and movie shutdown faults observed in earlier development runs remain under investigation.

Good to know

• Experimental features: The Metal renderer and MetalFX upscaling are still experimental.
• Controller prompts: On-screen button icons currently use PlayStation symbols, including when playing with a keyboard or Xbox controller.

Install or update

Download the Apple Silicon DMG and replace your existing Bloodborne.app.

Your saves and settings are preserved at:

~/Library/Application Support/bloodborne_mac

The shader cache will rebuild once after updating.

Requirements and included components:

• An Apple Silicon Mac.
• Your own Bloodborne game dump with update 1.09.
• No game files are distributed with the application.
• The app bundles its required runtime, bash, Python and supporting libraries.

---

Built on bbport by deadinside28 and shadPS4.

Please report issues in this project's GitHub repository or Discord community rather than contacting the upstream projects.

bloodborne-mac v0.8.0

Bloodborne for Apple Silicon 0.8.0

What's new:

• Crash with motion vectors fixed: character motion vectors no longer end the game with a GPU
  "Invalid Resource" error. They make the image much sharper on moving characters for a small
  cost, so they are worth turning on again.
• One set of settings: the launcher and the in-game menu now share every setting, and a change
  in one shows up in the other while you play.
• A new in-game menu in the launcher's look, with its tabs and every graphics setting, and an
  on-screen keyboard for the controller.
• Outputs above 1080p start again (1440p and 4K stopped at the loading screen on 18 GB Macs).
• Metal renderer (experimental): a new option draws the game with Apple's Metal directly
  instead of through MoltenVK, usually faster.
• FPS counter in two sizes and six positions, and a memory estimate for your settings.
• Trophy notifications show only over the game and no longer take its focus.
• Aspect ratios: 16:10 (MacBook screens), 21:9, 32:9 and 4:3 without stretching, the HUD at
  the screen's edges (Graphics → Aspect ratio).
• Keyboard and mouse in Dark Souls III's PC layout; the mouse turns the camera directly and
  points and clicks in the game's menus; mouse buttons can be assigned in the launcher.
• From bbport 0.6: a frame rate that keeps physics right at any speed, with a live limit and
  F3 for 30 FPS; effects that switch without a restart (and a new Bloom switch);
  Laurence's cinematic fixed above 30 FPS; fewer single black or grey frames.

Motion vectors

With character motion vectors on, the game could stop with a GPU "Invalid Resource" error
(reported as VK_ERROR_OUT_OF_DEVICE_MEMORY), for example in a boss fight. Metal's own checks
named the cause: GPU objects were freed while the GPU still needed them, in three places (memory
taken out of the resident set, texture deletions ahead of the draws that still used them, and
large staging buffers MoltenVK still referred to). Each is now released only after the work that
uses it has finished. The boss fight from a backup that crashed was won with them on, and a
20-minute session ran without a crash.

Settings and the in-game menu

• The launcher keeps the settings in its database, shared by all profiles. While the game runs,
  a change in the launcher reaches the game, and a change in the in-game menu reaches the launcher.
• The menu (F1, or L3 + R3 on a controller) has the launcher's look and its tabs:
  Graphics, Game and Advanced, with every graphics setting the launcher has, including
  fullscreen, monitor, frame presentation, frame-rate mode and limit, and the performance
  options. Fullscreen switches at once; settings that need a restart say so, and Restart
  applies them.
• L1/R1 switch tabs and Circle closes the menu. Choices too long for their row become
  steppers.
• On-screen keyboard: typing the character name with a controller (D-pad or stick to move,
  Cross types, Square deletes, Triangle adds a space, R1 shift, L1 symbols).
• FPS counter: small (frame rate and frame time) or big (also what draws and runs the game,
  the upscaler, the resolutions and a frame-time graph), in any corner or edge center (Graphics →
  Frame rate). Its number no longer moves as it changes.
• Memory estimate on the Graphics page and in the menu: what the game will use with your
  settings, against your Mac's memory, in amber above three quarters of it.
• Metal performance HUD (Graphics → Frame rate): Apple's statistics overlay.

Above 1080p

1440p and 4K outputs stopped at the loading screen on an 18 GB Mac: the GPU device was lost. The
game was given 9 GB of memory for any output above 1080p, and the GPU saw it twice, about 17 GB
in all. Now the GPU sees the memory once, in overlapping pieces, and the game gets only what its
picture needs (5–6 GB with an upscaler preset). With FSR, every output stays under 8 GB.

Metal renderer (experimental)

Advanced → Performance → Renderer → Metal (experimental) draws the game through Apple's Metal
directly instead of translating Vulkan through MoltenVK. In two alternating pairs in the Hunter's
Dream (Apple M3 Pro, 1080p, FSR Balanced) it ran at 65.5 and 61.7 FPS, against 58.0 and 58.1 on
MoltenVK, with steadier frame times, and a full play session on it was stable. MoltenVK stays the
default; switch back if anything looks wrong, and please report it. The Metal renderer is adapted
from Wooloomooloo2/bloodborne_mac_port
(itself partly from Huax-1839/bloodborne-macos); see the
native renderer notes.

From bbport 0.6

These come from bbport 0.6 by deadinside28,
ported to this Mac version.

• Frame rate. Above 30 FPS the game now steps by each frame's real time instead of using the
  community frame-rate patches: physics timers, cloth, damping and running speed stay right at any
  frame rate. The frame-rate limit applies while you play, and F3 switches a 30 FPS limit on
  and off. In our tests it ran as fast as the patches.
• Effects without a restart: chromatic aberration, depth of field, motion blur, ambient
  occlusion, the game's anti-aliasing, shadows from dynamic lights and the new Bloom switch
  change at once, in the launcher or the in-game menu. Screen-space reflections still need a
  restart. Ambient occlusion is no longer forced where the game turned it off (a crash after
  selecting an item).
• Aspect ratios. Graphics → Aspect ratio: 16:9 (the game's own, the default), 4:3, 16:10,
  21:9, 32:9 or Auto (the monitor's). On a wider screen the game shows more to the sides, on a
  taller one more above and below, instead of black bars; the HUD sits at the screen's edges,
  markers over enemies stay on them, and menus dim the whole screen.
• Keyboard and mouse in Dark Souls III's PC layout (WASD, Space dodge, Shift run, mouse
  attacks); the mouse turns the camera directly and points and clicks in the game's menus. Mouse
  buttons, the wheel and combinations (Shift + click) can be assigned on the Controls tab. Your
  own bindings are kept.
• Laurence's cinematic no longer hangs or loses models above 30 FPS.
• Fewer single black or grey frames: the picture waits for its frame to be finished before
  it is shown.
• Rare crashes now logged and skipped instead: a blur-kernel check, a full per-frame GPU command
  heap, stale texture formats, damaged GPU commands, missing vertex buffers.

Trophy notifications

Notifications now show only while the game's window is in front, so they no longer appear over
other apps, and they no longer wait for the game to take focus. If the notification helper ever
becomes the active app, it hands focus straight back to the game.

Known issues

• Characters drawn black at very high render sizes: when the game renders more than about 3.5
  million pixels (1440p without an upscaler or with Native AA, 4K with Quality), characters are
  drawn black. Use an upscaler preset that renders less (1440p Balanced, 4K Balanced). The cause
  is still being investigated.
• The Metal renderer is experimental.
• The game's on-screen button icons are always PlayStation's, also with the keyboard or an Xbox
  pad.
• Offline play on macOS. Online integration is not included.
• Rare sampler/GPU assertions and movie shutdown faults seen in earlier development runs remain
  on the watch list.
• The save editor is still in development.

Install or update

Download the Apple Silicon DMG and replace Bloodborne.app. Saves and settings remain in
~/Library/Application Support/bloodborne_mac; the launcher imports your existing settings
on its first start. No game files are included: supply your own Bloodborne dump with update 1.09.
The app includes its runtime, bash, Python and libraries.

bloodborne-mac v0.7.0

Bloodborne for Apple Silicon 0.7.0

What's new:

• Graphics fixed: no more stretched geometry (vertex explosions), missing walls, black sky
  or objects popping in after playing for a while.
• Trophies: unlocks are recorded per profile, with a Trophies page for Bloodborne and The
  Old Hunters (grades, requirements, unlock dates) and names in 15 languages.
• Trophy notifications: unlocks pop up over the game (on by default), and the launcher's
  list updates the moment a trophy unlocks.
• Edited saves cannot earn new trophies; earned trophies survive backups and restores.
• Profiles: each profile has its own Saves · Backups and Trophies sections.
• Runtime fixes: file reads that hit a temporary memory fault retry from the right
  position, and cached pipelines keep their vertex fetch shader.

Stretched geometry fixed

After visiting a few areas, scenery could appear stretched across the screen, walls and
objects could go missing or pop in, and the sky behind some Yharnam gates could turn black with
streaks, until the game was restarted. The cause was the Vulkan driver used
on macOS (MoltenVK). The port gives the GPU the game's whole memory (about 6 GB) as one large
buffer. MoltenVK drew data stored past the first 4 GB of that buffer wrongly. Early in a
session everything is stored lower down, so the game looked fine. Areas loaded later can land
past 4 GB, and their objects came out stretched or invisible. Reloading from the title screen
reused the same memory, so only a restart helped.

The upper part of the game's memory is now given to the GPU a second time, as its own buffer,
so MoltenVK never reads that far into a buffer. There is no extra work per frame.

How it was found and checked:

• The game's data was intact. Meshes were byte-for-byte identical in clean and broken frames.
  The broken frame read about 50 draws from past 4 GB.
• On the same memory setup, the KosmicKrisp driver drew everything correctly. MoltenVK
  stretched, even at 5 FPS, so it was not a timing problem.
• The Iosefka's Clinic route that broke reliably stayed clean with the fix. With the fix
  switched off (BB_POOL_SPLIT=0), the stretching came back there.

Details: stability notes.

Launcher

• Trophies. The game's trophy unlocks are recorded per profile, locally. Each profile has
  a Trophies page listing Bloodborne and The Old Hunters separately, with locked entries, grades,
  short requirements and unlock dates. Home and Profiles show the recorded count. Local
  platinum needs the 33 other base-game trophies. Names are translated in 15 languages, with
  English as the fallback. Tracking starts with this version; earlier unlocks are not imported.
  No PSN synchronization.
• Trophy notifications: unlocks pop up over the game, on by default. Turn them off in
  Advanced → Launcher → Trophy notifications to save about 2 FPS (one measured pair). The
  trophy list in the launcher updates the moment a trophy unlocks, even while the launcher is
  hidden in the menu bar.
• Edited saves. A save marked as edited cannot record new trophies; restoring a clean
  backup restores eligibility. Earned trophies survive restores.
• Profiles layout. Saves · Backups and Trophies are sections of each profile (Profiles →
  profile name). Opening a profile does not change the one Play uses. New profile is in the page
  header.

Runtime

• File reads retried after an EFAULT now restart from the right file position.
• Cached pipelines with a geometry stage keep their vertex fetch shader (from bbport 0.6-pre1).

Known issues

• With character motion vectors on, the game can crash with a GPU "Invalid Resource" error
  (shown as VK_ERROR_OUT_OF_DEVICE_MEMORY), for example during a boss fight. Turn them off
  if it happens. Motion vectors improve image quality a lot for a small cost, so this is the
  next fix we are working on.
• Offline play on macOS. Online integration is not included.
• Rare sampler/GPU assertions and movie shutdown faults seen in earlier development runs
  remain on the watch list.
• The save editor is still in development.

Install or update

Download the Apple Silicon DMG and replace Bloodborne.app. Saves/settings remain in
~/Library/Application Support/bloodborne_mac. No game files are included: supply your own
Bloodborne dump with update 1.09. The app includes its runtime, bash, Python and libraries.

The app is signed ad hoc, without an Apple Developer ID. On first launch use macOS's Open /
Privacy & Security approval flow as described in Installation.

Based on bbport and shadPS4; additional contributors and licenses are listed in
Credits.
Our app version follows this project's releases independently of upstream bbport versions.

bloodborne-mac v0.6.0

Bloodborne for Apple Silicon 0.6.0

This release introduces the independent Bloodborne launcher with profiles, save management
and GitHub release notifications, plus opening-video and renderer fixes.

Launcher

• First-profile setup adopts existing saves on upgrade. Additional profiles start with new
  saves. Create, rename, select or delete profiles; deletion requires confirmation and removes
  that profile's saves and backups.
• Back up and restore save sets from the Saves tab. Profile ownership and recovery use SQLite
  with transactional migrations; shader caches are shared between profiles.
• The active profile is visible on Home. Trophy collection and save editing are marked as
  in development; they are not available in this release.
• The launcher can hide to the menu bar while playing and return when the game exits. Turn
  this off in Advanced to follow logs. The tray menu can show the launcher or stop the game.
• Stable app releases are checked automatically, with a changelog modal and GitHub release
  link. Advanced includes manual checks and an automatic-check preference. Installation is manual.
• Settings are grouped by Graphics, Game, Profiles, Saves and Advanced. The launcher supports
  all 20 game languages.

Runtime

• Shared movie/render state is guarded across updates and draws, addressing the captured
  opening-video null-read race.
• Video queue access and frame ownership are synchronized. Audio/video clock state is locked
  and uses steady time.
• Condition-variable retirement handles the movie-thread destroy/signaling race; NV12 frame
  invalidation covers the padded copy size. Credit: Bloodborne-Android bf1e6cf.
• The portable SRT interpreter is the arm64 default, removing translated SRT code from the
  renderer. BB_SRT_INTERP=0 remains the fallback. Credit: ARM_bloodborne_pc 3d56243 and
  Bloodborne-Android bf1e6cf for its 0.51 adaptation and cache handling.
• Deferred clears are enabled by default, folding eligible clears into attachment load actions.
  BB_DEFER_CLEARS=0 remains the off switch. Experimental renderer migration stays opt-in.

Verification and known issues

Seven accepted pre-release opening-video trials completed and were observed as successful,
including two self-contained downloaded-package runs and one empty project-cache check.
Packaged copied-save gameplay passed a 90-second hold on an M3 Pro: 47.3 FPS and 22.9 ms p90
at 1920×1080 output / 1130×636 scene. These are short acceptance checks, not a guarantee that
rare faults are eliminated. See stability results.

• Offline play on macOS. Online integration is not included.
• Black sky and object popping in some Yharnam areas remain under investigation.
• Rare sampler/GPU assertions and movie shutdown faults seen in earlier development runs
  remain on the watch list; none appeared in this acceptance batch.
• Packaged first-profile setup and Home were verified with synthetic data on this Mac.
  Full clean-machine/Gatekeeper behavior has not been verified on another Mac.

Install or update

Download the Apple Silicon DMG and replace Bloodborne.app. Saves/settings remain in
~/Library/Application Support/bloodborne_mac. No game files are included: supply your own
Bloodborne dump with update 1.09. The app includes its runtime, bash, Python and libraries.

The app is signed ad hoc, without an Apple Developer ID. On first launch use macOS's Open /
Privacy & Security approval flow as described in Installation.

Based on bbport and shadPS4; additional contributors and licenses are listed in
Credits.
Our app version follows this project's releases independently of upstream bbport versions.

bloodborne-mac v0.5.1

What changed

• Fixed: the crash while loading — after a save loads, after travelling by lantern to the Hunter's Dream, or after dying ("Unimplemented PM4 type 0"). It happened on most loads with the game in Brazilian Portuguese and now and then in other languages: two of the game's threads wrote to the same GPU command list at once. If you still see it, please open an issue with your log.
• Launcher: the window can be dragged again, and Graphics → Monitor picks the screen the game opens on (the window and fullscreen).
• From bbport 0.51: every retail release of Bloodborne with update 1.09 is recognized; an eboot.bin with a built-in 60 FPS patch is reported (it crashes the gestures menu; this port has its own 60 FPS); the in-game menu (F1 or L3+R3) has Quit game.
• Not on macOS yet: bbport 0.51's online play (shadNet). The game plays offline, as before.

Known issue: in Yharnam the sky behind some gates can be black, with streaks, and some objects pop in.

Bloodborne for Apple Silicon: open the DMG and drag Bloodborne to Applications.
Nothing else to install. No game files are included: you need your own dump of
Bloodborne with the 1.09 update: see
Game files.

The app is not signed with an Apple Developer ID: the first time, right-click it and
choose Open (or System Settings → Privacy & Security → Open Anyway). See
First start.txt in the DMG.

Full Changelog: https://github.com/bloodborne-native/bloodborne-mac/commits/v0.5.1

bloodborne_mac v0.5.0

Bloodborne for Apple Silicon: open the DMG and drag Bloodborne to Applications.
Nothing else to install. No game files are included: you need your own dump of
Bloodborne with the 1.09 update: see
Game files.

The app is not signed with an Apple Developer ID: the first time, right-click it and
choose Open (or System Settings → Privacy & Security → Open Anyway). See
First start.txt in the DMG.

Full Changelog: v0.4.1...v0.5.0

bloodborne_mac v0.4.1

Bloodborne for Apple Silicon: open the DMG and drag Bloodborne to Applications.
Nothing else to install. No game files are included: you need your own dump of
Bloodborne with the 1.09 update: see
Game files.

The app is not signed with an Apple Developer ID: the first time, right-click it and
choose Open (or System Settings → Privacy & Security → Open Anyway). See
First start.txt in the DMG.

Full Changelog: v0.4.0...v0.4.1

bloodborne_mac v0.4.0

Bloodborne for Apple Silicon: open the DMG and drag Bloodborne to Applications.
Nothing else to install. No game files are included: you need your own dump of
Bloodborne with the 1.09 update: see
Game files.

The app is not signed with an Apple Developer ID: the first time, right-click it and
choose Open (or System Settings → Privacy & Security → Open Anyway). See
First start.txt in the DMG.

Full Changelog: v0.3.1...v0.4.0