BBFSS beta release 11/07v2

BBFSS beta release 11/07v2 — Windows x64

A beta build of the beta branch with the newest lighting work: GGX lighting for point/spot lights and probe reflections, specular anti-aliasing, a 40 FPS option, screen-space probe GI, glossy probe reflections with wet ground, the GT7 tonemapper, a sun virtual shadow map, full-resolution HQ GTAO, inverse-square point-light fog and the latest Lantern Engine changes.

Download and run

Download bbfss beta release 11/07v2 (bbfss-beta-release-11-07v2.zip), extract the complete BBFSS folder to a writable location and run BBFSS.exe. Select your own legally obtained, decrypted Bloodborne 1.09 game folder. Requires Windows 10/11 x64 and a Vulkan GPU with current drivers. Keep the whole package together. The launcher is unsigned and may trigger SmartScreen.

This is a manual download: the tag is not a version number, so the in-launcher updater does not offer it. Install it into a new folder rather than over an existing BBFSS install.

New since beta release 11/07

GGX in the game's own shaders

These are applied when shaders compile. Each has its own checkbox under Game effects (restart required), and all are on by default.

• Point/spot light GGX (graphics_local_ggx) replaces the game's Phong highlight from point and spot lights with width-matched GGX. The highlight keeps its size and peak brightness, with a softer, natural falloff.
• Specular anti-aliasing (graphics_specular_aa) widens glossy highlights where the surface curves faster than a pixel (Kaplanyan/Tokuyoshi). This reduces sparkle and shimmer while preserving energy.
• Environment reflection GGX tails (graphics_env_ggx_tails) blend a blurrier mip into the game's environment reflections to add the soft halo of a GGX lobe.

GGX probe reflections, always on

• Probe specular now uses the GGX dominant direction and GGX-shaped lobes.
• Multiscatter energy compensation: rough metals keep the brightness that single-bounce GGX loses.
• Specular occlusion: reflections darken correctly in occluded creases and corners.

Other additions

• Smooth normals toggle (graphics_smooth_normals, off by default): smoothed normals for GTAO and indirect light, to compare against detailed normal-mapped shading.
• 40 FPS frame-rate option in the launcher, for 120 Hz or VRR displays.

Also in this beta

Screen-space radiance probe GI

• New GI probes option (graphics_gi_probes) replaces the SSGI gather with screen-space radiance probes: one 8×8 octahedral probe per 16×16 tile, traced against the depth buffer, with temporal probe history and L1 SH.
• Adds diffuse bounce light plus rough specular from the probes, using the G-buffer smoothness and specular colour. Resolved lighting is accumulated per pixel with depth-checked reprojection so it stays stable in motion.

Glossy probe reflections and wet ground

• Reflections (graphics_gi_reflections): glossy surfaces trace a GGX-sampled screen-space reflection ray per 2×2 pixels, or per pixel with Full resolution (graphics_gi_reflections_full_res). Rays are denoised spatially and over frames with virtual-image reprojection and replace the probe specular where they hit.
• Near-mirror surfaces (puddles, wet stone) trace a deterministic mirror ray with hit-weighted history, so reflections stay sharp and stable while the camera moves instead of sparkling.
• Reflection strength slider, 0 (off) to 1 (full).
• Wet ground slider (0–1): lowers the roughness of upward-facing surfaces for sharper, puddle-like reflections.

GT7 tonemapper

• New Tonemapper drop-down (Original / GT7) with a GT7 exposure slider, switchable live. A port of the Gran Turismo 7 tonemapper (aletschfirn/gt7tonemapper, MIT) into the game's own composite shaders.

Sun virtual shadow map and ray-traced shadow options

• Page-cached sun virtual shadow map (graphics_sun_vsm) fed by world-space shadow casters, with per-caster bounds tracking and dirty-page invalidation. Casters the game culled stay cached so distant shadows don't pop.
• Optional ray-traced point-light shadows (graphics_rt_point_shadows) and ray-traced bounce light (graphics_rt_bounce), both off by default. VSM-only mode skips BLAS builds.

Ambient occlusion and fog

• HQ GTAO (graphics_ao_quality=1): three visibility-bitmask GTAO directions with a depth/normal-aware denoiser, recomputed at full internal resolution after the game's upscale (follows DLSS/FSR scaling). Applied at restart; Regular stays the default.
• Point-light and lamp fog now use an inverse-square falloff with a bright core, so lamps glow at the source instead of lighting the surrounding air. Adds an on/off toggle and a Glow size slider.

From Lantern Engine (merged up to 0.9.39 beta 31)

• Intel XeSS Super Resolution (upscaler=xess).
• Fixes for lamp fog flicker and lingering lamp fog, plus a Steady lamp fog switch.
• Fix for volumetric sunlight flickering to another colour, plus a steady sunlight fog switch.
• Smoother 4K menus (filtering and mipmaps), full-width ultrawide menu backgrounds and a native Brazilian Portuguese game language.
• Online: peer address lookups run alongside the game instead of stalling its frame.

Package defaults

The package keeps BBFSS's conservative defaults but turns on the new features: GTAO, indirect lighting with GI probes, glossy reflections at full resolution (strength 1.0, wet ground 0.6), the GT7 tonemapper (exposure 1.0), directional GGX and native skin SSS. Point/spot light GGX, specular anti-aliasing and environment reflection GGX tails are on by default; smooth normals is off. Everything can be changed in the in-game menu or the launcher.

Known limits

• Probe GI and reflections are screen-space: anything off-screen or hidden can't be reflected or bounce light, and newly revealed areas take a few frames to settle.
• The probe GI and reflection passes have a GPU cost. Turn off Full resolution reflections first if performance drops.
• A single crash was seen once when travelling to the Hunter's Dream: a game heap panic (DLRegularHeap) that does not point at the new rendering. Please report it with your logs if it happens to you.

Integrity, source and credits

SHA256SUMS.txt verifies the downloaded ZIP. Inside are per-file checksums, the corresponding source in BBFSS-source.zip, LICENSE, NOTICE and dependency notices. No Bloodborne game data, DLC, saves, accounts, captures, generated game shaders or personal settings are included.

Based on Lantern Engine by Awaken. Unofficial; not affiliated with Sony Interactive Entertainment or FromSoftware. GPL-3.0-or-later; third-party terms still apply.

Source commit: 9385bd5 (beta branch)

BBFSS beta release 11/07

BBFSS beta release 11/07 — Windows x64

A beta build of the beta branch with the newest lighting work: screen-space probe GI, glossy probe reflections with wet ground, the GT7 tonemapper, a sun virtual shadow map, full-resolution HQ GTAO, inverse-square point-light fog and the latest Lantern Engine changes.

Download and run

Download bbfss beta release 11/07 (bbfss-beta-release-11-07.zip), extract the complete BBFSS folder to a writable location and run BBFSS.exe. Select your own legally obtained, decrypted Bloodborne 1.09 game folder. Requires Windows 10/11 x64 and a Vulkan GPU with current drivers. Keep the whole package together. The launcher is unsigned and may trigger SmartScreen.

This is a manual download: the tag is not a version number, so the in-launcher updater does not offer it. Install it into a new folder rather than over an existing BBFSS install.

New in this beta

Screen-space radiance probe GI

• New GI probes option (graphics_gi_probes) replaces the SSGI gather with screen-space radiance probes: one 8×8 octahedral probe per 16×16 tile, traced against the depth buffer, with temporal probe history and L1 SH.
• Adds diffuse bounce light plus rough specular from the probes, using the G-buffer smoothness and specular colour. Resolved lighting is accumulated per pixel with depth-checked reprojection so it stays stable in motion.

Glossy probe reflections and wet ground

• Reflections (graphics_gi_reflections): glossy surfaces trace a GGX-sampled screen-space reflection ray per 2×2 pixels, or per pixel with Full resolution (graphics_gi_reflections_full_res). Rays are denoised spatially and over frames with virtual-image reprojection and replace the probe specular where they hit.
• Near-mirror surfaces (puddles, wet stone) trace a deterministic mirror ray with hit-weighted history, so reflections stay sharp and stable while the camera moves instead of sparkling.
• Reflection strength slider, 0 (off) to 1 (full).
• Wet ground slider (0–1): lowers the roughness of upward-facing surfaces for sharper, puddle-like reflections.

GT7 tonemapper

• New Tonemapper drop-down (Original / GT7) with a GT7 exposure slider, switchable live. A port of the Gran Turismo 7 tonemapper (aletschfirn/gt7tonemapper, MIT) into the game's own composite shaders.

Sun virtual shadow map and ray-traced shadow options

• Page-cached sun virtual shadow map (graphics_sun_vsm) fed by world-space shadow casters, with per-caster bounds tracking and dirty-page invalidation. Casters the game culled stay cached so distant shadows don't pop.
• Optional ray-traced point-light shadows (graphics_rt_point_shadows) and ray-traced bounce light (graphics_rt_bounce), both off by default. VSM-only mode skips BLAS builds.

Ambient occlusion and fog

• HQ GTAO (graphics_ao_quality=1): three visibility-bitmask GTAO directions with a depth/normal-aware denoiser, recomputed at full internal resolution after the game's upscale (follows DLSS/FSR scaling). Applied at restart; Regular stays the default.
• Point-light and lamp fog now use an inverse-square falloff with a bright core, so lamps glow at the source instead of lighting the surrounding air. Adds an on/off toggle and a Glow size slider.

From Lantern Engine (merged up to 0.9.39 beta 31)

• Intel XeSS Super Resolution (upscaler=xess).
• Fixes for lamp fog flicker and lingering lamp fog, plus a Steady lamp fog switch.
• Fix for volumetric sunlight flickering to another colour, plus a steady sunlight fog switch.
• Smoother 4K menus (filtering and mipmaps), full-width ultrawide menu backgrounds and a native Brazilian Portuguese game language.
• Online: peer address lookups run alongside the game instead of stalling its frame.

Package defaults

The package keeps BBFSS's conservative defaults but turns on the new features: GTAO, indirect lighting with GI probes, glossy reflections at full resolution (strength 1.0, wet ground 0.6), the GT7 tonemapper (exposure 1.0), directional GGX and native skin SSS. Everything can be changed in the in-game menu or the launcher.

Known limits

• Probe GI and reflections are screen-space: anything off-screen or hidden can't be reflected or bounce light, and newly revealed areas take a few frames to settle.
• The probe GI and reflection passes have a GPU cost. Turn off Full resolution reflections first if performance drops.
• A single crash was seen once when travelling to the Hunter's Dream: a game heap panic (DLRegularHeap) that does not point at the new rendering. Please report it with your logs if it happens to you.

Integrity, source and credits

SHA256SUMS.txt verifies the downloaded ZIP. Inside are per-file checksums, the corresponding source in BBFSS-source.zip, LICENSE, NOTICE and dependency notices. No Bloodborne game data, DLC, saves, accounts, captures, generated game shaders or personal settings are included.

Based on Lantern Engine by Awaken. Unofficial; not affiliated with Sony Interactive Entertainment or FromSoftware. GPL-3.0-or-later; third-party terms still apply.

Source commit: 93770b2 (beta branch)

BBFSS 0.9.9 Preview 2 — Native-anchored GGX, SSS and sky fixes

Superseded for updater compatibility by BBFSS 0.9.10 Preview 2. Preview 1 users should select the beta channel and check for that release.

BBFSS 0.9.9 Preview 2 — Windows x64

Release associated with #1. Includes all four commits since Preview 1: native skin SSS, Hunter's Dream sky seam/zenith changes, POM bracket/cache corrections and native-anchored directional GGX.

Download and run

Download BBFSS-0.9.9-Preview2-windows-x64.zip, extract the complete BBFSS folder to a writable location, and run BBFSS.exe. Select your own legally obtained decrypted Bloodborne 1.09 game folder. Requires Windows 10/11 x64 and a compatible Vulkan GPU with current drivers. The self-contained launcher needs no .NET SDK, Python or development toolchain. Keep the whole package together. The launcher is unsigned and may trigger SmartScreen.

New since Preview 1

• Native-anchored directional GGX: optional softer specular tails with native-reference normalization. Enable Directional GGX under Game effects and restart Bloodborne. Default-off. Diffuse, local lights and environment/SSR remain native. Persistent shader binaries stay native so disabling and restarting restores original specular.
• Native skin SSS: optional live material-profile scattering, default-off, with resource/status checks.
• Hunter's Dream sky: seam correction enabled by default; opt-in zenith gradient correction.
• POM first-hit correction: repair the dithered first-hit bracket and version affected cached shaders, preserving unrelated variants.
• Exact compiled-module/pipeline capture, strict native replay, material/angular controls, runtime-emitter regressions and paired GPU timestamp tools. Authored billboard diagnostics remain research-only; no billboard replacement is enabled.

Evidence and limits

The Windows engine and distribution launcher were rebuilt. Runtime dependency closure, package/source checksums, conservative defaults and forbidden-file exclusions were verified. The bundled GPU-capability executable runs with a minimal PATH.

Both captured native packed targets reproduce exactly. Runtime GGX matches the offline candidate byte-for-byte on two scenes and 16 material / 58 angular rows, preserving diffuse and specular alpha. Focused regressions, settings checks and SPIR-V/GPU validation passed. A local in-game GGX comparison received positive visual feedback, not broad GPU/map certification.

GGX is an authored compatibility response, not full PBR. Sampled mean directional specular rises about 48%; rough grazing peaks can reach 1.93x native. Offline RTX 4060 Ti timestamps suggest about +8% median cost for this captured pass (~0.004 ms), with noisy tails; no whole-game FPS claim. Native SSS depends on available resources. Screen-space/disocclusion limitations remain. Exposure/DOF, displacement follow-up and billboard integration remain parked.

Integrity, source and credits

SHA256SUMS.txt verifies the downloadable ZIP. Inside are per-file checksums, corresponding source in BBFSS-source.zip, LICENSE, NOTICE and dependency notices. No Bloodborne game data, DLC, saves, accounts, captures, generated experimental game shaders or personal settings are shipped. Tracked redistributable FSR shader assets remain in the dependency source.

Based on Lantern Engine by Awaken. Unofficial; not affiliated with Sony Interactive Entertainment or FromSoftware. Combined project GPL-3.0-or-later; third-party terms remain applicable.

Published as a preview prerelease. The associated PR remains open.

Source commit: 0fbcf1e

BBFSS 0.9.9 Preview 1 — Windows x64

BBFSS 0.9.9 Preview 1 — Windows x64

The first public Windows preview of BBFSS (BloodborneFSS), powered by Lantern Engine.

Based on Lantern Engine by Awaken, with the fork's rendering enhancements and conservative occlusion-culling repair.

Download and run

1. Download BBFSS-0.9.9-Preview1-windows-x64.zip below.
2. Extract the entire BBFSS folder to a writable location. Keep all files together; do not distribute or move only BBFSS.exe.
3. Run BBFSS.exe and select your own legally obtained, decrypted Bloodborne game folder. The supported target is Bloodborne 1.09 (CUSA03173).
4. Press Insert or L3+R3 for the in-game graphics menu.

Requires Windows 10/11 x64, an x86-64 CPU, and a compatible Vulkan GPU with current drivers. The launcher includes .NET; recipients do not need the .NET SDK or the development toolchain. The launcher is unsigned, so Windows SmartScreen may display a reputation warning.

No Bloodborne game files, DLC, saves, account data, or personal settings are included. Linux and macOS binaries are not included; this preview has only been built and validated on Windows.

Included changes

• GTAO-style ambient occlusion replacing SSAO.
• Screen-space GI with history reprojection and spatial denoising.
• Revised SSR tracing, upsampling and temporal accumulation.
• Adjustable directional and point-light volumetric scattering.
• Contact shadows, PCSS filtering improvements and selectable directional/local shadow resolution.
• POM cavity shading and optional native motion-blur quality improvements.
• Conservative occlusion-query visibility: partially visible geometry stays visible; empty, incomplete or stale queries cannot hide objects.
• Native auto-exposure repairs and opt-in controls, plus presentation-timing diagnostics.
• Portable packaging with runtime dependencies, license notices, checksums and corresponding source.

Portable defaults use FSR 3.1, not a hardware-specific DLSS selection. Volumetric fog intensity is 0.20 and point-light fog intensity is 0.16. Native auto exposure and experimental lightshaft elevation are off by default. Occlusion culling remains opt-in in the launcher and takes effect after a game restart.

Known limitations

This is a preview, not an exhaustive compatibility certification across all GPUs or maps.

• DOF: Native depth of field remains the default. The fork's alternative DOF path has known foliage artifacts; disable Depth of field if artifacts occur. DOF follow-up work is deferred.
• Auto exposure: The repaired native path is default-off. Meter readback and baseline-lifecycle fixes are included, but the automatic visual response remains unresolved and development is paused.
• Lightshaft elevation: The optional experimental offset uses approximate shadow-map warping and can distort occlusion or separate shafts from surface shadows.
• Screen-space effects: GI, reflections and AO retain depth-buffer, history and disocclusion limitations.
• Occlusion: A reproduced missing-building case was corrected and checked during view changes. Real hidden-query answers remain; performance gains and all-map correctness have not been established.
• Frame delivery: Fixed 60 FPS can look uneven on a 165 Hz display without working VRR. In a measured comparison, 120 Hz improved displayed-frame cadence substantially. Use an integer-multiple refresh such as 120 Hz or verify VRR operation; this is not a guarantee against other sources of stutter.

Integrity, source and credits

SHA256SUMS.txt in the release assets verifies the downloadable ZIP. Inside the package, another SHA256SUMS.txt verifies its individual files.

BBFSS-source.zip inside the package contains the corresponding source, including the BBFSS distribution configuration. Source is also available at the release tag.

Built from commit 42bbde5 on the bbfss branch.

Keep LICENSE, NOTICE, and engine/licenses with the distribution. This combined project is distributed under GPL-3.0-or-later, with third-party components retaining their respective terms. Credits and notices cover Lantern Engine, shadPS4, bbport, Bloodborne PC and the retained dependencies.

This is an unofficial project, not affiliated with Sony Interactive Entertainment or FromSoftware.

BBFSS 0.9.10 Preview 2 — Updater-compatible GGX release

BBFSS 0.9.10 Preview 2 — Windows x64

Release associated with #1. Includes all four commits since Preview 1: native skin SSS, Hunter's Dream sky seam/zenith changes, POM bracket/cache corrections and native-anchored directional GGX.

Download and run

Download BBFSS-0.9.10-Preview2-windows-x64.zip, extract the complete BBFSS folder to a writable location, and run BBFSS.exe. Select your own legally obtained decrypted Bloodborne 1.09 game folder. Requires Windows 10/11 x64 and a compatible Vulkan GPU with current drivers. The self-contained launcher needs no .NET SDK, Python or development toolchain. Keep the whole package together. The launcher is unsigned and may trigger SmartScreen.

New since Preview 1

• Native-anchored directional GGX: optional softer specular tails with native-reference normalization. Enable Directional GGX under Game effects and restart Bloodborne. Default-off. Diffuse, local lights and environment/SSR remain native. Persistent shader binaries stay native so disabling and restarting restores original specular.
• Native skin SSS: optional live material-profile scattering, default-off, with resource/status checks.
• Hunter's Dream sky: seam correction enabled by default; opt-in zenith gradient correction.
• POM first-hit correction: repair the dithered first-hit bracket and version affected cached shaders, preserving unrelated variants.
• Exact compiled-module/pipeline capture, strict native replay, material/angular controls, runtime-emitter regressions and paired GPU timestamp tools. Authored billboard diagnostics remain research-only; no billboard replacement is enabled.

Evidence and limits

The Windows engine and distribution launcher were rebuilt. Runtime dependency closure, package/source checksums, conservative defaults and forbidden-file exclusions were verified. The bundled GPU-capability executable runs with a minimal PATH.

Both captured native packed targets reproduce exactly. Runtime GGX matches the offline candidate byte-for-byte on two scenes and 16 material / 58 angular rows, preserving diffuse and specular alpha. Focused regressions, settings checks and SPIR-V/GPU validation passed. A local in-game GGX comparison received positive visual feedback, not broad GPU/map certification.

GGX is an authored compatibility response, not full PBR. Sampled mean directional specular rises about 48%; rough grazing peaks can reach 1.93x native. Offline RTX 4060 Ti timestamps suggest about +8% median cost for this captured pass (~0.004 ms), with noisy tails; no whole-game FPS claim. Native SSS depends on available resources. Screen-space/disocclusion limitations remain. Exposure/DOF, displacement follow-up and billboard integration remain parked.

Integrity, source and credits

SHA256SUMS.txt verifies the downloadable ZIP. Inside are per-file checksums, corresponding source in BBFSS-source.zip, LICENSE, NOTICE and dependency notices. No Bloodborne game data, DLC, saves, accounts, captures, generated experimental game shaders or personal settings are shipped. Tracked redistributable FSR shader assets remain in the dependency source.

Based on Lantern Engine by Awaken. Unofficial; not affiliated with Sony Interactive Entertainment or FromSoftware. Combined project GPL-3.0-or-later; third-party terms remain applicable.

Published as a preview prerelease. The associated PR remains open.

Source commit: b1ed44f

Preview 1 upgrade compatibility

This release uses v0.9.10-beta.2, which Preview 1's existing version parser recognizes as newer than v0.9.9-bbfss.1. The included launcher is stamped 0.9.10-beta.2 and the package manifest agrees. Separate BBFSS.exe and package.json assets allow the existing updater to identify and install the full engine package rather than attempt a launcher-only update.

In Preview 1, select the beta update channel in Settings and check for updates. BBFSS distribution builds disable automatic startup checks by default; users must check manually or enable them. Stable-channel users do not receive this prerelease. All updates remain on fromsoftserve/BBFSS, not upstream Lantern Engine.

This supersedes the earlier 0.9.9 Preview 2 release for updater compatibility. Rendering changes are the same; this revision corrects release/version packaging. The associated PR remains open.