HiFi XI v0.57

Unzip into your Ashita folder. HiFi XI now brings its own d3d8.dll: if your launcher puts dgVoodoo in bootloader itself, switch that off (Phoenix's launcher: Settings -> Graphics -> My own wrapper).

New since v0.54

• Its own Direct3D 8 translator (bootloader\d3d8.dll) in dgVoodoo's place: the game's drawing goes straight to Direct3D 12 through HiFi XI's own code, which tells HiFi XI where each part of the frame begins and ends instead of HiFi XI guessing. Its shaders ship compiled (bootloader\d3d8-shader-cache\).
• More of the frame drawn by HiFi XI:
  • spell and ability effects (meshes, sprites, rings, distortions, specular pieces), weapon trails, battle numbers, lens flares, the summons' aura rings and the glow spells cast on the ground;
  • the sky dome, names (sharp at the screen's size after upscaling), and the Mog House layout grid;
  • cloth (outpost banners, Gigas, Treants) and the glows and shimmers over characters (two-hours, songs, warping out);
  • ships, airships, Mog House furniture and garden plants;
  • the interface at the screen's own size after upscaling: off by default while it's new, /hifi ui on.
• Character detail ([chars] detail, off by default): relief, metal's shine and cavities worked out from each character texture.
• Sun shadows in open-air zones the server counts as dungeons: Giddeus, Davoi, Beadeaux, Castle Oztroja, the Ghelsbas and outdoor arenas.
• /hifi status writes its full report to logs\hifixi-status.txt and puts two lines in the chat; /hifi status <word> shows only the lines with that word. HiFi XI's long chat lines are broken up, so they can't upset the chat log.
• bootloader\d3d8.log notes any frame that took more than a quarter of a second, and where the time went. bootloader\d3d8.ini (optional) [d3d8] AsyncReadback=1 answers the game's own visibility tests from a frame or so before instead of waiting for the GPU.

Fixed

• Sun shadows no longer come and go with the camera.