Nightwatch Co-op 0.2.5 beta 3

Nightwatch Co-op 0.2.5 beta 3

Seamless co-op by visy (0.7.6), on Lantern Engine 0.9.37 by Awaken.

Everyone in a party must update together. Beta 3 has engine changes (VRAM, firewall warnings, a new cheat), so it
cannot join beta 2 or 0.2.4 parties and the other way round.

New since beta 2

• 4 GB graphics cards: 1-3 FPS fixed (again). On a GTX 1650 the game's data stayed at its highest VRAM
  pressure level for good, while the texture collector freed nothing, so 2-3 GB a frame went over PCIe from
  the first fight on. The game's VRAM level now follows the texture collector's own usage (less the free
  slots in the game's VRAM chunks). Please retest if beta 2 was slow on your card.
• Fix firewall issues (Co-op tab): one button that lets friends reach your party. It shows the
  PowerShell lines first, then runs them as administrator or copies them for you to paste. It adds inbound
  allow rules for the party port (TCP and UDP) and party discovery (UDP 9308) on every network type, and
  removes Windows Firewall rules that block the game (a cancelled Windows prompt leaves those behind, and
  a block rule wins over any allow rule). Running it twice is harmless. The in-game firewall, "no guests"
  and "not heard" warnings now point at this button.
• Logs menu (title bar): copies the last 2 logs (last and previous session) as files to the clipboard,
  with IP addresses and your Windows user folder hidden; paste them into Discord or a GitHub issue. A crash
  is often in the previous session's log, since the restart after a crash starts a new one.
• Co-op setup (the first time you open the Co-op tab; again with Co-op tab > Party rules > Run setup
  again): a few questions for the host's difficulty rules: guest health, scaling presets (Vanilla: the
  game's own numbers; Seamless: visy's numbers; Nightwatch, recommended: tougher bosses and
  enemies), rot on death, level sync, boss drops for guests.
• Launch splash: the launcher hides on Play and a small blood moon card shows until the game window
  appears (the launcher comes back if the game ends first; splash_off turns it off).
• Log page Copy takes the whole session log (not only what is on screen); it is off while the game runs.
• All 12 launcher languages are complete (German, French, Spanish, Italian, Japanese, Polish, Korean,
  Brazilian Portuguese, Russian, Turkish, Ukrainian, Traditional Chinese), as Simplified Chinese already was.
• Launcher robustness:
  • The launcher notices a game that is still running: save tools refuse to change saves under it, and
    Play offers to close a leftover game instead of failing with Windows error 1450.
  • Updates are safer: a failed package update puts every file back instead of leaving a half-new engine;
    Play is off while an update runs; the window no longer freezes while installing; a failed release
    check stops the update with a message instead of installing a mismatched launcher.
  • settings.json and bbport.ini are written safely: an interrupted save no longer resets your
    settings or remembered passwords, and a failed bbport.ini save no longer drops your changes.
  • Safe mode (after a crash) really turns the experimental options off, also when they were set in
    Windows' environment variables.
  • A game that exits right as a new one starts no longer confuses the launcher.
• Free stamina out of combat (Cheats page and in-game cheat menu): stamina costs nothing, except for
  8 seconds after you press R1, R2, L1 or L2 or lose health. Idea by Athites.
• More VRAM data in the log: the once-a-minute "GPU memory:" line now also shows the driver's VRAM
  usage and budget, and how much of the game's data the idle VRAM cleanup moved out of VRAM
  and back since the last line (and the time spent binding it back). This is for a report of stutter
  after long sessions: please send both logs if you see it.
• The package ships a map generator built from current sources.

Since the beta 1 tester build there were also beta 2's changes (Nightmare Frontier lift fix, Change
appearance and Rebirth on by default, a clear notice for a pre-patched game folder at every start and in
the launcher): see the beta 2 notes.

Not played live yet (please report)

The VRAM fix on the reporter's 4 GB card, a failed update rolling back, the game exit race and safe mode
with Windows-level variables are covered by tests and code review, not by a live run on that hardware.

Credits

Lantern Engine by Awaken (https://github.com/Awakenchan/LanternEngine; Awaken is not involved in this project). Seamless co-op by visy
(https://github.com/visy/bloodborne_pc_windows_port). Unofficial; not affiliated with FromSoftware or Sony.

Nightwatch Co-op 0.2.5 beta 2

Nightwatch Co-op 0.2.5 beta 2

Seamless co-op updated to visy's 0.7.6 (tag v0.7.6), on Lantern Engine 0.9.37 by Awaken.

Everyone in a party must update together. 0.2.5 cannot join 0.2.4 parties and the other way round. The Discord tester build (0.2.5 beta 1) can't
join beta 2 either.

New since the tester build (beta 2)

• Nightmare Frontier lift: at 60 FPS the game could carry you down faster than the moving car,
  you fell through it and died in the pit. The lift guard now follows the car's real height and puts
  you back on its floor. The cause in the 60 FPS patch itself is still being tracked down.
• Change appearance (the Dream's mirror) and Rebirth (Altar of Despair) are on by default, also for
  existing installs (once). Turn them off in the game's Options > Enhancements.
• Pre-patched eboot: a game folder whose eboot was already patched is named clearly at every start
  and in the launcher.

Co-op (visy)

• Short freezes no longer send guests home. A guest whose game hangs for 4-10 s stays in the
  session (room timeout 15 s -> 40 s, with an "unstable connection" notice). Guest pairs whose
  direct link keeps dropping talk through the host. Four-player joins behind NAT work more reliably.
• Connection warnings in game: a firewall blocking the game, a host the guest cannot reach, a
  wrong address. Launcher: My party > Connection warnings (on by default).
• Check my connection (Co-op tab, Host section): reads your last two session logs and says in
  plain words what went wrong (names and addresses hidden by default). Also seamless\net_doctor.bat.
• Chalice Dungeons in a party: guests gather in place when the host enters, landing checks;
  guests see bloodstain echoes and respawn in the dungeon; dungeon progress (lamps, doors, layer
  boss kills) comes home with the guest into its own copy of the dungeon; boss shop unlocks.
• Endings and NG+: a guest that accepts the ending plays the host's ending; a host no longer
  gets stuck in the prologue on NG+; one ending moves a save one cycle only.
• Headstones: a guest's lone trip from a Hunter's Dream headstone no longer uses up the host's
  headstone (the host's later pick did nothing).
• A guest's lamp stays shut while it talks to an NPC (and 1.5 s after).
• A VPN that is installed but not connected is no longer used (Radmin VPN, Hamachi, Tailscale,
  ZeroTier): Host over = Automatic used to pick its adapter anyway. The game and the launcher ask the
  VPN app for its status, else watch whether the adapter receives anything; the Co-op tab says when a
  VPN was skipped as offline.
• A lone guest's enemies run on its own game (split travel): no more frozen enemies for a guest
  exploring on its own; a boss waits while the host is dead.
• Rom's fog door: a guest may go through first.
• Caryll runes given by NPCs (Eileen, Patches) are shared with every member; a shared key given to
  one member is taken out of that member's copy of the host's world. Patches is solid for guests.
• A guest kicked back to its own world can use things there again.
• Saves played as a guest in older versions: leftover Uncanny/Lost weapon shop unlocks for weapons
  you never owned are cleared once, in your own world (one log line, "shop gate repair").
• Lamps after joining: a lamp the host has lit now goes fully into the guest's own save when the
  guest joins (all of its flags, saved at once, kept after leaving), and shows lit in the host's
  world. Before, a guest could get only the plain "lit" flag: the lamp still said "Light lamp",
  lighting it did nothing and its travel list stayed shut.
• Lecture Building door to the Nightmare Frontier: the party no longer falls through the floor
  while the "Travel with the party?" question is open. Every hunter is held in place until the load
  (at most 40 s). The same hold covers the Hemwick carriage, the Mensis door, the Amygdala grab and
  the DLC entry.
• Full health in PvP (new host rule, on by default; Launcher > My party, in game System > Party
  rules: PvP & lamps, party_pvp_full_hp): while friendly fire is on, joined hunters keep their full
  maximum health (no phantom cut). Switching keeps everyone's health at the same fraction.
• Cainhurst's wall of illusions opens for guests when the host's Crown of Illusions scene plays,
  without an area reload.
• Boss drops for guests (new host rule, on by default; Launcher > Party rules > Guests, in game
  System > Party rules: Rewards, party_boss_drops): the item a world boss drops for the host (Kin
  Coldblood from Rom, and so on) goes to each guest at the kill too.
• A lost Lunarium Key is given back: a save that missed the key from Byrgenwerth's lab counter
  gets it at the next catch-up.
• The Bath Messenger's Sinister Root Chalice in a host's Chalice Dungeon is on sale for a guest
  that has dungeon rituals of its own too.
• Yahar'gul: a guest whose last lamp is the Rom story warp's arrival spot gets up at the host's real
  lamp there.
• Lamps: the first lamp lit in an area becomes the party's respawn point, not the arrival spot.
• After leaving a party (kicked, host gone) your own Hunter's Dream no longer stays dead to you,
  offline too.
• Joining: the LAN code and LAN discovery carry the address the game really uses; a host and guest
  on a VPN (Radmin, Hamachi) keep talking over the VPN address. A guest summoned into a host at another
  New Game+ cycle is told so. Clearer network messages.
• Chalice Dungeons: after a party wipe in the host's dungeon the dead guests get up with the host;
  shop items unlocked by a Chalice boss unlock for every member.
• Bosses and endings: after a party wipe at Ludwig the host no longer lands alone in phase 2; a
  second ending in the same session (NG+) is shown to the party too.
• A shared key no longer stays on the ground for a guest after it was handed out.
• Gather the party no longer puts a member on a roof or above the ceiling, and works inside a
  Chalice Dungeon.
• A gather question that disappears without an answer counts as No, so the next gather is asked.
• Check my connection tells "the host's port does not answer the guest" from "the guest has no
  internet UDP", and no longer warns about a closed port when the host plays over a VPN.

Launcher

• Logs button in the header, next to Update: Copy last 5 logs puts your five newest session
  logs on the clipboard as files (paste into Discord and they attach), Copy last crash report puts
  the last crash's report there as text. IP addresses are hidden in both (public ones replaced, VPN and
  LAN ones cut to their first number) and so is your Windows user folder. Player names stay.
• Eldritch theme, on by default for Halloween: a painted gothic city under a blood moon, drifting fog,
  and every minute or so something passes by. Original art made for this launcher, nothing taken from the
  game. The old look is Launcher > Appearance > Theme > Classic (or any colour); the first update after
  Halloween switches the default back to Classic, and Eldritch stays in the Theme list.
• There may be something if you click the Co-op tab a few times.
• Network receive gap log (co-op outages) (Engine > Diagnostics, off by default,
  BB_NET_RXGAP_LOG): for "connection unstable" reports, logs whether a quiet player was really quiet or
  this PC's receive thread ran late.
• Co-op tab, tidier: each mode shows what it needs first; party rules, network settings and the rest are folded.

Fixes

• Rebirth without the Yharnam Stone: the Altar of Despair offers Rebirth even when the save has no
  Yharnam Stone (the refund limit and the undo stay).

• 4 GB graphics cards no longer drop to 1-3 FPS: textures and the game's data share one VRAM budget
  taken from the driver, and textures leave first (seen on a GTX 1650). BB_VRAM_PRESSURE_PERCENT=N keeps the old rule.

• "The map could not be made: Unsupported executable fingerprint" is gone. The map generator
  accepted only one particular dump of the 1.09 eboot.bin; a correct 1.09 game dumped with another
  tool was refused. The game is now recognised by its code, not by the file, the same way the game
  start already checks it. The map is made again at the next start; no need to redump. The party's
  version check uses the same rule, so two players with different dumps of 1.09 can play together.

• Processors with AVX but no AVX2 can start the game: no part of the engine needs AVX2 (checked on
  this build's bb-probe.exe).

Not in this build

visy 0.7.6's Legacy CPU translation (AMD FX, Intel 2nd/3rd gen Core) runs in his Python boot-image
linker; Nightwatch builds the boot image natively, so it comes in a later version. Those CPUs still get
the "missing instructions" message at start.

Not played live yet (please report)

Chalice progress carry-over, the guest-pair relay through the host, the ending flow, the lone
guest's enemy AI, the story-warp hold on the Hemwick carriage / Mensis door / Amygdala grab (only the
Lecture Building door was run), parties above 2 players at that door, and Full health in PvP are covered by tests and visy's own smoke runs, not by a two-PC playthrough on this build.

Credits

Lantern Engine by Awaken (https://github.com/Awakenchan/LanternEngine; Awaken is not involved in this project). Seamless co-op by visy
(https://github.com/visy/bloodborne_pc_windows_port). Unofficial; not affiliated with FromSoftware or Sony.

Nightwatch Co-op 0.2.4 beta 1

Nightwatch Co-op 0.2.4 beta 1

Seamless co-op updated to visy's 0.7.5, plus an interactive map with fast travel.

Important changes to how co-op plays

• Guests have 70 % health again, as in the game (new host rule Phantom health cut, on by
  default). Until now guests always had full health. The host can turn it off in Party rules.
• Level sync (new host rule, on by default): a hunter far above the host's level is scaled down
  in the host's world, as in the game's own co-op, and gets a blue mark by their name. Off: everyone
  keeps full stats.
• Party items share key items and unique items only. Vials, bullets and materials are no longer
  copied, so joining a party no longer drips items at you for minutes.
• Co-op now needs a party password, for the host and every guest (the same one). Set it on the
  Co-op tab; Play in Host or Join mode without one says so. Join in the party list asks for the
  host's password and remembers it for that host, apart from your own hosting password.
• The host's rules and your own settings are split. Everything that decides how the session
  plays is the host's. A few start-up rules (guest lamps, Hunter's Mark, full rewards, Insight,
  party start) must match the host's: when they don't, the launcher takes the host's values by
  itself and restarts the game to join.

Added

• Interactive map, stable now and on by default (also for players who had it off: switch it
  off again under Display > Map). The first start makes the map from your game files in the
  background (a few minutes; play on meanwhile, it turns on by itself when ready). Pointer,
  pan and zoom by pad or mouse, browse every area and floor, L1/R1 to cycle lit lamps, and fast travel to a selected lamp (select, then press again).
  In a party it asks "Travel with the party?" exactly like a lamp. No travel in a boss fight, a
  cutscene, a Chalice Dungeon, while dead or loading. Party members show as dots with names, also a
  faded "(own world)" dot for a member on the same map in their own world. Launcher: Display > Map >
  Map travel.
• Hosting over a VPN (Radmin VPN, Hamachi, ZeroTier, Tailscale): the launcher shows the route and
  copies the right address with the port.
• Party discovery: friends on your LAN, Radmin VPN, Hamachi or ZeroTier see your party in the Join
  tab ("Show my party to friends"). Windows Firewall may ask once for the launcher on first Join.
• Skip the prologue (host rule): a new character starts at the first lamp, ready for the party.
• Each companion's ping in the party list.
• A launcher checkbox for the online memory watch (a diagnostic for "out of memory" crashes in the
  game's network memory).

Fixed

• Key and quest items the host picks up reach every player.
• A guest's messenger shop no longer lists every Uncanny and Lost weapon.
• Guests can hit friendly NPCs again, and their hits turn NPCs hostile.
• Lamps keep working for the host after a guest used them, and the other way round.
• Riding a lift no longer launches you into the air.
• No more death loop after a fall; no more endless gray loading after a guest leaves the host's
  Chalice Dungeon.
• Party PvP: the host is no longer unhittable after dying; one red health bar over a party opponent.
• Two players with the same home network address no longer see a frozen copy of each other.
• An enemy that took a fallen guest's Blood Echoes keeps them until it is killed.
• A rare error while preparing drawing work in the background no longer closes the game.
• The 120 FPS preset falls back to 60 FPS++ when its 90 FPS++ patch is refused by the 1.09 check.
• A host on Hamachi or Radmin VPN with another network up (a phone tether, say) gives out a LAN
  code and party listing with the address the game really uses, and a guest on the VPN keeps the
  VPN path (visy).

Changed

• Join tab: the party list comes first. Each listed party shows its level, players and area, and a Join button that fills in the host's address and party size
  (Full and Update needed when you can't join). The code, password and party size for joining by
  hand are folded under Join by code or address. Your connection is shown to the host only.
• Join joins and plays: Join on a listed party asks for the host's password (filled in with the
  one you last used for that host), fills in the address and party size and starts
  the game (with every check Play makes). With the game already running it asks you to restart.
• Host over: Automatic / VPN / Internet (party code) replaces the VPN list; Automatic says
  which network it picked. Port forwarding is only needed for a strict NAT.
• The game reserves its memory and commits it as it is used, so Windows sets aside less up front
  (BB_GUEST_COMMIT_ON_MAP=0 in Extra variables restores the old behaviour).
• Every co-op line in the game log starts with [coop].

Known issues

• Some players see the game drop to 30 FPS for a while mid-game with frame generation on. It is not
  tied to loading screens; we are still looking.
• A modified game executable (a dump with its frame rate code changed) stays at 30 FPS: the FPS
  patch is left out, and the log says so. Use an unmodified 1.09 dump.
• Carried from visy 0.7.5: a guest clipping off a lift's edge, one boss running slow in co-op, and the
  PvP name-tags-off case are not reproduced yet.

Nightwatch Co-op 0.2.3 beta 3

Forbidden Woods crash fix

Nightwatch Co-op is a modified version of Lantern Engine by Awaken (https://github.com/Awakenchan/LanternEngine), with visy's seamless co-op. It is not an official Lantern Engine release, and Awaken is not involved in it.

Everyone in a party needs 0.2.3 beta 3: it can't play together with older versions.

Not yet tested live: the Forbidden Woods fix, the corpse physics change and the frame generation changes passed the automated checks but have not been confirmed in play. Please report if any of them still misbehaves.

Crash fix

• A crash on loading into parts of the Forbidden Woods (later saves, 1440p or larger screens): the game ran out of graphics memory and then used a texture it had failed to create. A UI above 1920x1080 (sharp UI, on by default in betas) now gets the larger graphics heaps, as a scene above 1080p already did. Players on beta 2 can get the same with BB_GAME_HEAPS=1 in More > Engine > Diagnostics > Extra variables.

Party

• Corpse physics patches no longer need to match. "DS1-like physics" and "Lower object/corpse physics" only change how bodies move, so a guest can now keep them on or off whatever the host chose.
• Frame generation: the screen-hold used when a guest starts a first fight no longer runs with frame generation on, and quitting with DLSS Frame Generation on no longer logs a misleading "Async present failed" error.

Launcher

• Every row of My party and Party rules now explains itself when you hover over it. A reference page for the My party settings (docs/party/my_party_settings.md) is linked from the README.

Map (still experimental)

• The map reads the 1.09 update when it sits beside a 1.0 game.
• Party members are shown in their party list colour, with our arrow.

Thank you to the player who sent the save and logs, and to visy (https://github.com/visy/bloodborne_pc_windows_port) for checking it on their build.

No game files are included: you need your own Bloodborne dump (CUSA03173 or another retail release) with update 1.09.

Nightwatch Co-op 0.2.3 beta 2

Texture cache and memory fixes

Nightwatch Co-op is a modified version of Lantern Engine by Awaken (https://github.com/Awakenchan/LanternEngine), with visy's seamless co-op. It is not an official Lantern Engine release, and Awaken is not involved in it.

Everyone in a party needs 0.2.3 beta 2: it can't play together with older versions.

Graphics memory

• New texture cache collector, from visy's work (bloodborne_pc_windows_port 90a18103, a816985a): its limits come from the card's VRAM budget, the oldest textures are evicted a few per frame, there are no write-back stalls, and idle depth targets are freed. It is aimed at stutter, flicker and "Stall during rendering" on 4-8 GB cards.
• When VRAM is full, buffers may go past the budget, as images already did (visy 4c4bb35a), and a new image that the driver refuses frees unused textures and retries instead of crashing (visy f4dafbcc).

System memory

• If Windows refuses to commit the game's memory at once (small page file, little free memory), the game now reserves it and commits as it goes instead of failing to start (visy 47cc3e1c).
• Released game memory is discarded instead of zero-filled (the idea of visy's win_mem_punch).

Map (still experimental)

• When boss reveal hides all of an area, the map now says why the area is blank.
• The map bake uses the same worker count as the map generator.

Other

• Cheats stay available in a party.
• The package keeps the DLSS frame generation and Reflex DLLs.

Thank you to visy (https://github.com/visy/bloodborne_pc_windows_port) for the memory and texture work.

No game files are included: you need your own Bloodborne dump (CUSA03173 or another retail release) with update 1.09.

Nightwatch Co-op 0.2.3 beta 1

Lantern Engine 0.9.37, visy's co-op 0.7.4, an experimental map

Nightwatch Co-op is a modified version of Lantern Engine by Awaken (https://github.com/Awakenchan/LanternEngine), with visy's seamless co-op. It is not an official Lantern Engine release, and Awaken is not involved in it.

Everyone in a party needs 0.2.3 beta 1: it can't play together with older versions.

Engine: Lantern Engine 0.9.37 (stable)

• Slopes and running jumps at the game's speed at any frame rate, steadier cloth.
• Menu fixes for mouse hover and WASD, character creation by mouse.
• Save backups while playing.
• The built-in game patches are now Lantern Engine's own (the co-op patches stay as before).
• The engine's programs show as Nightwatch Co-op in Task Manager and firewall prompts.
• Lantern Engine's licence now has additional terms (GPL-3.0 section 7): its credit is in the launcher's Engine › About, the README and the NOTICE file in the game's folder.

Co-op: visy's seamless co-op 0.7.4

• A notice when a party member goes on into another area, or stays behind when you move on ("… is here again" when you meet).
• A boss keeps fighting the guests after the host dies in the fight.
• The host no longer watches its own corpse after the last guest leaves a boss fight (by Mark, lamp, death or Leave): it counts as a wipe and everyone respawns together.
• A guest is no longer sent home while it stands beside the host after crossing between two areas (Forbidden Woods ↔ Hemwick cave).
• A guest left in the host's world after the host walked into another area can use lamps and items again.
• A guest rejoining the host in an area with no lit lamp arrives beside the host, not in the Hunter's Dream.
• The Doll's Channel the Blood Echoes works for guests after every loading screen.
• The host can go to the Hunter's Dream again after a guest's trip. A party member's lamp no longer uses up your lamp's warp, on host and guest alike.
• For bug reports: co-op log lines now start with [coop], every log starts with the build it comes from (version, co-op version, engine, commit), and BB_HEAP_WATCH_LOG=1 traces the game's heap use (visy's diagnostic for out-of-memory crashes).

New and experimental: the map (off by default)

• Turn it on in the launcher: Display › Map › In-game map (experimental). The first time, the launcher makes the maps from your own game files in the background (a few minutes, progress on the Play page). No maps are downloaded, and you can play meanwhile: the map switches on by itself, no restart.
• In the game, hold Options / Start (a tap still opens the game's menu) or press M. It shows the place you're in, where you stand and which way you face, lit lamps, ladders, gates, the NPCs that are there now and your party.
• Pan with the right stick or by dragging, zoom with L2 / R2 or the wheel, L1 / R1 (Q / E) jumps between your lit lamps in every area, Triangle (C) back to you, Square (H) height shading. Optional pickups and boss reveal under Display › Map. No fast travel, and Chalice Dungeons have no map.
• The map comes from Hunter's Atlas by MikeTat1988 (its generator, drawing, art and controls). Thank you!

Launcher

• Party settings changed in the game now stay changed. Twelve co-op switches, the guests' Insight for bosses and "Find via public DHT" were reset to the launcher's values at every start; your current choices are now kept.
• Older game logs are kept: each start saves the previous session to logs\sessions (the last 10). The Log page has an Open button for that folder.
• No more "game data file is damaged" warning after a session you quit at the title screen.
• "Host public address" explains when to fill it in (a VPN address, or a port you forwarded yourself).
• The scroll bar on the right is twice as wide.

No game files are included: you need your own Bloodborne dump (CUSA03173 or another retail release) with update 1.09. The zip is 269 MB.

Nightwatch Co-op v0.2.2 beta 1

Co-op 0.7.3 on Lantern Engine 0.9.37 beta 9

Everyone in a party needs 0.2.2 beta 1: 0.2.1 players can't join a 0.2.2 host or the other way round.

Co-op (visy 0.7.3)

• NPC hunters fight the whole party, covenant outcomes are per player, and anyone can be abducted (each a Party rules switch).
• Travel votes (optional): the party votes before a lamp trip.
• Items that matter early reach every player; Blood Echoes are no longer paid twice.
• Chalice Dungeon fixes.
• A guest's save keeps its own world's state, so save editors can read it (Co-op tab: Export for save editor / Import from save editor).
• The party HUD and notices make room for boss health bars.
• In the game menu, Party rules (the host's, for the whole party) and My party (your own) are separate pages; the launcher's Co-op tab is split the same way.

Co-op fixes

• Guests can fight NPC hunters that turn hostile. Eileen after the host attacks her, Alfred, and the other hostile hunters used to be untouchable for guests (no lock-on, no damage).
• A guest travelling away alone no longer reloads the host. Going to the Hunter's Dream (or another lamp) from a lamp with NO used to give the host a loading screen where it stood. Only a lamp in the party's own area still resets the world.

Engine (Lantern Engine 0.9.37 beta 9)

• Fixes the start crash on AMD cards and the GPU crash in Ebrietas's second phase.
• Ebrietas' rock attacks no longer pile up thousands of rocks (FPS no longer drops from 90 to 40 in her fight).
• The 30 FPS of the loading screen no longer sticks after travel.
• Frames are timed to your screen's refreshes; frame generation works with HDR.
• An optional "Building shaders" note while the game builds shaders for a new place (Display → FPS counter).
• Far fewer stutters, steadier frame pacing.
• A setup guide on first start, a save vault and 12 more launcher languages.

Crashes on 8 GB graphics cards

• The game uses the PS4's memory heaps unless you play above 1080p, with Highest model detail or with SSR: much less video memory, the likely cause of the crashes after a few minutes of co-op.
• When Windows refuses memory for a moment, the game waits and retries instead of crashing, and a restart after a crash starts with fresh memory.
• The log now names the crash and records the GPU memory once a minute, so remaining crashes can be found.

Launcher

• Tidier pages. Choices are drop-downs; "Auto" reads "Automatic".
• Co-op tab: Single player shows only the party saves; Join hides the host's settings and Host hides the guest's.
• Controls: with PC controls off, the keyboard and mouse rows are hidden. Trophies: with Show in game off, the notification rows are hidden. HDR settings only show while HDR output is on.
• Settings is now the Launcher tab (look, files, sharing, updates). The engine folder, how the game starts, the GPU pipeline, sound output and the log switches are under More → Engine.
• Mods: built-in patches and the patches you add yourself are in separate sections.
• Cheats are off while hosting or joining a party (they still work in single player).
• One Display mode choice (Windowed / Borderless / Fullscreen); the Old Hunters DLC always loads when it's there.
• Model detail Highest is back as an opt-in (it can make far objects vanish).
• V only pings when nothing else is bound to Ping.
• Fixed a crash when closing the launcher.
• Game language: Portuguese (Brazil) (subtitles and voices, from your own game files).
• Windows-style window buttons only. Removed: the Classic layout, the macOS window buttons and their settings.

Known issue

• After a guest travels from the Hunter's Dream back to your area, the host may not be able to go to the Dream from that lamp. Travel to another area (or quit to the title and continue), then it works again.

Thanks

Thank you to yorochi, Mal1216, Zarok, Banana U Pidžami and visy for playtesting, and to Zarok for helping make the video.

No game files are included: you need your own Bloodborne dump (CUSA03173 or another retail release) with update 1.09.

Nightwatch Co-op v0.2.1 beta 1

Co-op 0.7.2

Everyone in a party needs 0.2.1 beta 1: beta 10 / 10.1 players can't join a 0.2.1 host or the other way round.

Lifts

• The Research Hall lifts no longer leave while you're stepping off, so you don't fall into the pit.
• Lifts end in the same place for everyone and stay in step (Cainhurst Castle's too); every ride reaches the host's world.
• A long lift ride is no longer mistaken for a fall.

Bosses and cutscenes

• Laurence's, Ebrietas's and Lady Maria's rooms stay open to the whole party until the host really starts the fight. A guest is no longer shut in behind the fog.
• The fog at the back of Ludwig's arena goes away when he dies.
• After a party wipe near a boss fog, the boss no longer restarts its fight at the lamp.
• A guest next to the host sees the host's boss intro once, together with the host. A guest a few steps behind sees the host's cutscenes too (the Cathedral Ward door).
• No "Waiting: the host is watching a cutscene" notice over a scene you're watching together.

Lamps and travel

• The host's world keeps its own lamps: a high-level guest no longer lights every lamp of its own world there. Anyone can still light a lamp in the host's world. Hosts who want the old way: Guests bring their lamps (off by default).
• Guests can light lamps the host hasn't lit yet again (broken in 0.7.1).
• Joining from another area no longer lights a lamp in the host's world.
• A guest left in the Hunter's Dream when the host leaves can use the headstones, the Doll and the workbench again.

Deaths

• After a deadly fall the camera comes back behind you (it could stay pointed at the sky).
• After dying on a ladder you walk normally again.

Rot

• Rot is now off by default, also if your settings had it on: turn it back on under System → Rot or the launcher's Co-op tab.
• With rot on, it's also cleansed by killing a boss, by killing the enemy that killed you, and by picking up your Blood Echoes.

Looks

• Companions no longer have the blue phantom glow (setting, on by default).
• Model detail: Highest and Lowest are gone. Highest made corpses and other objects vanish further than 10-15 m away; Lowest dropped some floors (the Lecture Building). A saved Highest now uses the game's own detail and Lowest uses Lower.

Engine base unchanged: Lantern Engine 0.9.36.

No game files are included: you need your own Bloodborne dump (CUSA03173 or another retail release) with update 1.09.

Nightwatch Co-op v0.2.0 beta 10.1

⚠️ Close and restart the launcher before you press Update

The launcher you have now can fail this update with "The process cannot access the file ...\engine\out\libiconv-2.dll because it is being used by another process" if you opened the Controls tab before updating.

To update cleanly:

1. Close the game and the launcher.
2. Start the launcher again.
3. Go straight to Update (don't open Controls first).

If you already got that error on beta 10, do the same: this update replaces the whole package and repairs it.

Only needed this once: from 10.1 on, updates work whether you opened Controls or not.

Fixes

• Updates no longer fail on libiconv-2.dll. The Controls tab kept two engine files open, so the update couldn't replace them. The launcher now lets go of them before it updates.
• A failed update can't leave a half-updated install anymore. The launcher and its version file are now replaced last, so if anything goes wrong the update is simply offered again.
• Clearer error if an update is still blocked (by an antivirus, for example).

Same engine and co-op as beta 10 (visy co-op 0.7.1, Lantern Engine 0.9.36 base), so beta 10 and 10.1 players can play together.

No game files are included: you need your own Bloodborne dump (CUSA03173 or another retail release) with update 1.09.

Nightwatch Co-op v0.2.0 beta 9.2

Beta 9.2 is a fresh download for everyone. The launcher's update button can't install it: download the zip below and move your saves and settings over (takes a minute). Beta 9.2 plays together with 9.1.

Moving to 9.2

1. Close the game and the launcher.
2. Extract NightwatchCoop-v0.2.0-beta.9.2-win64.zip to a new folder (for example C:\Games\NightwatchCoop-9.2). Not Program Files or OneDrive.
3. From your old NightwatchCoop folder, copy these into the new one (replace when asked):
   • the user folder: your saves (single player and party), save backups, party code and identity
   • the Mods folder, if you have one
   • bbport.ini: your graphics, controls and game settings
4. Start the new Nightwatch Co-op.exe. The launcher's own settings (game folder, co-op mode, name) carry over by themselves.
5. Once your character loads fine, delete the old folder.

Fixes

• The update button no longer fails with "Access to the path ... Nightwatch Co-op.exe.old is denied".
• When a future version needs a fresh download again, the launcher says so and opens the download page instead of failing.
• The package no longer carries the old Lantern Engine.exe helper (it was only there for updating from beta 7).

Everything from beta 9.1 is included: Chalice Dungeon fixes, the guest crash fix after long loading screens, a controller button for Ping.

No game files are included: you need your own Bloodborne dump (CUSA03173 or another retail release) with update 1.09.