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BCD 0.1.634 (alpha)

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@thebcd69 thebcd69 released this 06 Nov 17:53
· 1 commit to main since this release
v0.1.634
e378a60

BCD is in alpha: an early stage of development, before beta. Many games run, many do not yet, and things can break between builds. When a game fails, please send a log.

This build brings everything since 0.1.630: OpenGL games, Steam Workshop and game versions, downloads from a PC on your network, an itch.io store, GOG and Epic improvements, an experimental EA store, the fixes for Rockstar's two Social Club updates of 3 and 4 November, Red Dead Redemption 2 with less memory, and new fixes from the logs you sent with Send Log.

Rockstar Social Club updates (3 and 4 November): after Rockstar updated Social Club (2.4.0.296, then 2.4.0.302), the Rockstar Games Launcher stayed a gray window and Red Dead Redemption 2, GTA V and GTA IV could not start. BCD supports both versions now. If your game still shows a gray launcher, use Reset to Recommended on its page (see below).

New

  • OpenGL games: a game that draws with OpenGL can now run. On the game's page, Direct3D › OpenGL chooses Desktop OpenGL (through Vulkan on Metal) or OpenGL ES; it is off unless chosen, and Settings › Graphics says where to find it. Recommended settings turn it on for The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth, Mewgenics, DOOM 3: BFG Edition, Darkest Dungeon, Battle Brothers, Jetboard Joust and Stardew Valley (Desktop OpenGL) and Balatro (OpenGL ES), and Auto-tune turns it on after the failures that need it (no OpenGL context, GameMaker's OpenGL runner, LÖVE games). LÖVE games get a LuaJIT that runs here. Compressed textures of desktop OpenGL games no longer draw black on devices whose graphics chip cannot read them directly.
  • Steam game versions: for a game with beta branches, Options › Version on its page lists the public build and the betas (a protected beta after its code is entered). The choice applies to the next download, update or repair, or at once.
  • Steam Workshop: Options › Steam › Steam Workshop on a game's page, and a Workshop button on the Library's Steam chip, show your subscribed items, Browse and search, and each item's card. Subscribing, unsubscribing and removing files ask first.
  • Downloads from a PC on your network: Settings › Accounts › Steam › Downloads from a PC on this network (off by default) takes a game from a PC signed in to the same Steam account on the same network first, and the rest from Steam's servers. Downloads says where the data comes from.
  • itch.io: sign in with your itch.io API key in Settings › Accounts › itch.io. BCD lists the games you bought or claimed, your collections and the free games you add with Find a game, and installs their Windows downloads (zip and 7z).
  • GOG:
    • DLC you own installs with the game;
    • an installed game's page offers Update when a newer build or missing DLC is found, and Repair, which checks every installed file against the build;
    • a game's redistributables (for example older Visual C++ runtimes) download with it and install once at its first start; Repair adds them to a game installed before;
    • a game's install script writes its registry values before the first start.
  • Epic cloud saves: on a game's page, Cloud saves › Turn on (it asks first). A newer cloud save comes down, after a backup of the local one; Sync now sends this device's newer saves up. Off until you turn it on for a game.
  • EA games (experimental, off): Settings › Accounts › EA games (experimental) › Use EA games in BCD signs in to your EA account, lists your PC games, downloads them and starts them without the EA app. Off, BCD never contacts EA.
  • Keep running in the background (off by default): Settings › Memory & performance › In the background sets how many minutes a game and a download keep running after BCD leaves the screen, and whether sound plays on.
  • 'Look like this GPU' has a GeForce GTX 1060 6GB.

Fixes and improvements

Tried one of these games on an earlier build? Reset its settings first. A game keeps the settings it had until you reset them, so without this it may start with the old ones that failed. On the game's page: Options › Recommended settings › Reset to Recommended, then check that Options › Auto-tune › Auto-tune this game is on, and start the game again.

Each fix targets the error a log showed; many could not be tested on a device yet, so a game may now get further and still stop at a later point. If it does, please send a new log: it names the next problem.

Games

  • Red Dead Redemption 2:
    • its recommended settings now give the game 4 GB of Helper memory and keep Social Club's browser out of it. In a 10-minute test on an iPhone with 12 GB of RAM the game loaded and played with a peak of 6.0 GB of its 8 GB limit (6.5 GB before) and wrote 1.7 GB to the swap file (4.1 GB before);
    • on iPads with 16 GB of RAM the game asked for 28 GB of address space, which no address map here can give, and showed its own error. Its recommended settings now report at most 8 GB of memory to it;
    • the Epic copy starts the Windows services the Rockstar Games Launcher needs.
  • Rockstar games (Red Dead Redemption 2, GTA V Legacy and Enhanced, GTA IV): the Social Club fix above. Also:
    • when Social Club's browser ended out of memory, its memory was never given back, so every restart of it failed at once ("The CEF browser ... could not restart"). That memory is given back now;
    • GTA V: each of the launcher's 200 and more threads held 8 MB of the emulator's memory area that nothing used, until the game's own threads could not start. GTA V's recommended settings now keep that area small;
    • GTA IV: Social Club's browser found no place for a block it needs on a 4 GB boundary and the launcher said "CEF browser crashed". GTA IV's recommended settings now keep such a place free for it.
  • Marvel's Spider-Man Remastered and Miles Morales: on A17 Pro, A18, M3 and M4 devices every pass was drawn in one colour. Fixed; nothing changes on newer graphics chips.
  • Games installed in a folder with non-English characters or a long path (Spider-Man Remastered among them) could not start. Fixed.
  • Terraria: "Failed to load asset". Fixed.
  • Call of Duty: Black Ops, Borderlands 2 and other copy-protected Steam games started through BCD Dock: BCD now starts Steam's client service first, asks again when Steam answers with error 55, and goes on when Steam has nothing to prepare. Black Ops, Borderlands 2, The Escapists 2 and Dark Souls: Remastered have new or updated recommended settings.
  • Far Cry 3: "Cannot find essential information in the registry": its install script's language entries are now read. Fixed.
  • The Witcher 2 (GOG): its launcher stopped on a missing Visual C++ runtime; the GOG redistributables above fix it (Repair adds them to an installed copy).
  • Stardew Valley and other .NET games: Auto-tune can keep an executable copy of their code write-protected, which .NET needs (an experiment); Stardew Valley's recommended settings also use OpenGL.
  • Counter-Strike: Source and No More Room in Hell: their recommended settings turn on a cache of folder listings for Windows' case-insensitive file lookups.
  • FINAL FANTASY TACTICS - The Ivalice Chronicles: its recommended settings turn on four new Direct3D 12 options (an experiment).
  • Geometry Dash: through BCD Dock the game ends on its own about 3 s after the Steam sign-in, before any window; Auto-tune names this stop (known stop) instead of trying other settings.
  • The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth: on the first online start of an install, the game's own Steam check can get no answer and show "Application load error 6"; the next start plays. Auto-tune says so.

Graphics

  • Frame generation now follows only the largest window that presents; another window (a launcher, a browser helper) no longer makes it start over, which made the graphics driver stop some games with MetalFX upscaling.
  • Direct3D 9: state blocks keep the sampler and texture-stage states they did not record, and fixed-function lights are cleared before they are packed.

Launchers and stores

  • Steam:
    • the connection tries up to three Steam servers before it gives up, and the library is fetched again when you return to BCD (at most once a minute);
    • a disk error ends an install at once instead of fetching the same data again; a file two depots list comes from the later one; a file list Steam refused is asked for again with fresh authorization; file lists are kept on the device;
    • BCD Dock asks Steam about ownership half a second after the sign-in instead of after 5 s, so games start sooner;
    • launch arguments keep their dashes and quotes (the keyboard's smart punctuation turned them into other characters).
  • BCD Dock: Close now ends a session whose game's start program is still waiting.

Controllers and input

  • A controller that iOS gives a new identity while it stays connected is read through the new one; before, buttons worked and the sticks stayed at rest.
  • A game waiting for raw input is woken when input arrives.

Memory and the swap file

  • The swap file: when the swap file reached its size (swap-mb) with What can move set to Whole reservations, a game could stop: Red Dead Redemption 2 stayed on its loading screen. Memory a game adds inside space that is already in the swap file now stays in the file; only new space stays out of it once the size is reached. The file on the disk can therefore grow past swap-mb.
  • A program's code that a protector unpacks into the last page of its image is now what the emulator runs (before, that page could become a copy).
  • A rare crash when a thread ended is fixed, and a reused network connection slot is no longer taken for the connection it held before.

Auto-tune

  • New rules for the Rockstar games (the new Social Club versions, the launcher's browser memory, Red Dead Redemption 2's 28 GB request on iPads, Steam's error 113 trace), for Red Dead Redemption 2 on its loading screen when the swap file was full, for OpenGL games, GOG redistributables, copy-protected Steam games, Terraria and Far Cry 3.

Logs

  • Values that look like passwords or tokens are removed from the command lines BCD logs (the game still receives them), and the game's own log lines that BCD copies hide sign-in values.
  • New lines name the code and callers of a fatal fault, a 32-bit lock that hangs, what fills a 32-bit program's address window when a placement fails, and, for a Steam beta download, which depots the beta has its own files for.

Under the hood

  • New switches, off by default, for experiments: pso-async and pso-archive (Direct3D 12 pipelines built in the background and kept between starts), d3d12-list8, d3d12-hold-view-lists, d3d12-bc-decode, attachless-split, env.MADEIRA_D3D9_DIRECT_MAP, env.MADEIRA_SWP_LSE2 (Unity games on older devices), env.MADEIRA_DIRCACHE, env.MADEIRA_SMC_HOT_PAGE, env.MADEIRA_FEX_KEEP_DEAD_LOADS, env.MADEIRA_WOW_GUARD_INSIDE, env.MADEIRA_WOW_PRESSURE_RELEASE_MB, env.MADEIRA_WOW_HOLD_FOR, env.MADEIRA_JUMBO_ALIGNED, env.MADEIRA_FIRST_PROC_OWN_EXIT_FLAG, env.MADEIRA_FONT_KEYS_REPAIR, env.MADEIRA_SC_ALIGN1G, env.MADEIRA_FEX_CALLRET_RESERVE_KB.
  • Recommended settings can now set Helper memory (mempool-mb) for a game.
  • The x86 translator clears its lookup cache correctly under every cache size.
  • Every build now checks that its Windows library folders are complete.
  • New host checks for every change of this build.

Known issues:

  • Red Dead Redemption 2 needs about 9.5 GB of RAM in play. Devices with 8 GB of RAM cannot hold it yet.
  • GTA V and Red Dead Redemption 2 from Steam: the Rockstar Launcher sometimes says Steam is not running (error 113, "please reinstall") although it is. Fully close BCD and start the game again.
  • Very long GTA V and Red Dead Redemption 2 sessions through BCD Dock can stop when the emulator's address area is full. Fully close BCD (swipe it away) and start again.

Install help, game reports and ideas: join the BCD-Games Discord.

BCD.ipa: the unsigned IPA, for sideloading with SideStore, AltStore or LiveContainer. It needs iOS 18 or later and JIT; the README has the details.
BCD-source.tar.xz: the complete source of this build with all its submodules (GPL-3.0).

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