We’re happy to announce that Fusion Fix 4.0 is finally available! This is the biggest update for the project yet, bringing in a slew of fixes, graphical upgrades, more control options, and reworked previous code to make sure this release is up to scratch, easy to install and ready for you!
We know the wait has been long. Outside of wanting to perfect this update there have also been real life situations for some of the team, to which we’d also like to express a huge thanks to all of you out there who have donated to the emergency fundraiser which has gone towards helping out ThirteenAG continue and maintain this project.
Now for the main part, we’ve launched a new website for Fusion Fix where you can read about certain features in much more detail, as well as created an installer (both online and offline variants) to make the process even simpler for those that need it.
To end things off we’ve collaborated with the brilliant YouTuber TJGM who has done a video covering the main parts of this update and overall what Fusion Fix does graphics wise, as well as making a nice trailer for the project, be sure to check these out.
We’d like to thank all of you out there who have been waiting for this update, those of you who have contributed to the project and of course all of you who have been using Fusion Fix already and gave us much valued feedback! We hope this update will make all of you take on a new appreciation of Liberty City and that you’ll enjoy the various fixes and QoL changes to bring the PC port of Grand Theft Auto IV into the running as the best version to play!
New in-game options
- Added a new fog shader option in the graphics section. It's radial, height based and exponential, it hides the edges of the world, is affected by the sun, and is fully customizable for every weather and time of day.
- Added a tone mapping option in the graphics section to make highlights less harsh. Operators are applied as LUTs in stipple.wtd and can be easily swapped. More examples are available here. Big thanks to Musa for advice.
- Added a setting called "Extended Sunlight Reach" in the graphics section that allows sunlight to reach surfaces that it couldn't before. It also adds slightly more shading to the clouds.
- _AG's centered vehicle and on foot camera mods are now integrated as options in the controls section.
- Project2DFX is now integrated as an option in the display section under "Distant Lights".
- Restored the language switch option in the display tab from older versions.
- Added an option in the graphics section to switch the graphics API between DirectX 9 and Vulkan (through DXVK). Changing this requires a game restart.
- Added a toggle in the controls section for the camera shake when moving.
- Added an option in the controls section that allows the player to move while aiming through sniper scopes.
- Added an option in the controls section that allows aiming with a sniper rifle without using the scope. You can toggle this by pressing the jump key while aiming.
- Added an option in the controls section that makes bullet tracers appear on every shot, like the older games.
- Added an option in the game section that makes the map screen background transparent. It also features a subtle blur effect.
- Added an option also in the controls section that allows the player to use turning signals in their car, like the NPCs do. Hazard lights are also activated when flying through the windshield after a crash.
- Added a toggle for the implemented seasonal events in the game section.
- Added an option in the audio section to toggle the cutscene jitter tweak in case audio desynchronization is encountered. This can also be toggled in real time during a cutscene by pressing the up key or d-pad up.
- Added two new cheat codes: one to restore Niko's unused gloves, and another one to restore his old hairstyle. They can be found hidden in relevant locations, or you may cheat by peeking at the source code.
Fixes and improvements
- The depth of field "dark haloing" effect around focused objects was significantly reduced. Bokeh shapes should now be more visible too, especially at high resolutions.
- Fixed particles flickering. This would sometimes happen when moving from a zone with directional lighting enabled to one with it disabled (e.g. Star Junction at night and most interiors).
- Fixed the aspect ratio of the phone camera. Now it properly reflects the actual game, and stays consistent with any monitor aspect ratio as well. Its resolution was also increased.
- Fixed the camera shake effect being barely visible above 30 FPS. Now it should look consistent at any frame rate.
- All light volumes are now smooth. Previously, some of them had visible hard edges, like the one in kitchen of the first apartment.
- Night shadows now use appropriate bias values for each quality setting. This improves small details on Very High and fixes shadow acne on Medium. The console softness level was also restored.
- Fixed dark lines or seams that were sometimes visible under shadow casting lights. This was mostly visible on Very High.
- Fixed water reflections being slightly offset. This was mostly noticeable on lower settings. Their aspect ratio was also adjusted to provide better effective quality at the same resolution, like on the PS3.
- Coronas in reflections now fade like other objects. This remedies instances where coronas would inexplicably be reflected through objects from very far away. This replaces the old "CoronaReflectionMultiplier" setting.
- Vehicle reflections should now look significantly less blocky. This is due to adjustments to the normal map encoding and comes with no performance penalty.
- Fixed a bug that caused the TLAD phone buttons to clip through its plastic cover. This is also present on the PS3 and only looked correct on the X360. The button positions from the X360 were also restored.
- Fixed bullet tracers spawning behind the guns in TBOGT. Now they look consistent across all episodes.
- Fixed the auto sniper position when aiming and the TLAD auto shotgun moving downwards when firing, and reduced the excessive TLAD sawn off shotgun fire delay.
- Added a workaround that prevents streetlights and motion blur from flickering intermittently when the player is drunk.
- Fixed helicopter searchlights flickering violently when more than one helicopter was present.
- Fixed gates, garage doors, lifts and some other scripted animations being sped up at high frame rates.
- Added frame rate limits to certain minigames that tend to break at high frame rates.
- Some vehicle parts that didn't cast shadows before now do, such as taxi signs and engine blocks.
- Pressing the minimap zoom out button will now make it stay zoomed out for a few seconds instead of zooming back in instantly.
- The Moon is now visible at night in "SUNNY" weather in all episodes.
- Added an option in the ini to prevent the bloom threshold from causing wild color shifts. This is enabled by default when tone mapping is enabled.
- Recreated the functionality of "rain.defaultlight" in visualsettings.dat from consoles. Previously, this parameter did nothing, but now it makes the rain more visible at night in certain weathers.
- Restored the console rain streak count. Although there were fewer of them, they were a lot more visible and arguably more appealing.
- Fixed an issue where the game would detect an insufficient amount of video memory on specific system configurations. This eliminates the need to use the "availablevidmem" launch argument, and commandline.txt in general.
- Removed unnecessary delays when pausing and unpausing the game. Tab transitions were also sped up to match consoles.
Updated features
- The "Console Gamma" setting now uses the actual curve from the X360 and comes enabled by default.
- The "Motion Blur" setting now provides five different intensity levels (Very High is vanilla).
- Contact hardening shadows (CHSS) now have different softness levels depending on the weather and time of day.
- Fixed various minor bugs related to the sun shafts, and improved their quality and performance.
- Anti-aliasing should now look better and perform significantly better as well, especially SMAA.
- Improved the shape of the bloom at very high resolutions. It more closely resembles what it originally looked like on consoles.
- Added a better fix for the "cutscene zoom bug". Now it doesn't rely on frame rate or FOV limits. This also takes care of a few other frame rate related bugs.
- Improved the "PC+" tree lighting setting. It should now be a better middle point between "PC" and "Console", and is highly recommended with PC tree models.
- Added an intermediary "PC+" tree alpha option. It's the same value as every other object and works quite well with the console tree models too.
- Added a new tree LOD atlas based on the PC trees. The old atlas shipped by FusionFix was moved to Console Visuals.
- Enabled shadow casting for a few more objects when using ExtraDynamicShadows, such as fire escapes.
- Fixed various issues related to the old "VehicleNightShadows" ini setting. It now comes enabled by default. Some limitations still apply, however.
- Moved the "FixAutoExposure" ini setting to the menu as "Console Auto Exposure". It controls how strong the auto exposure (eye adaptation) effect is, and significantly changes how the game looks at times, most notably in TBOGT.
- Replaced the "Lamppost Shadows" setting with "Extra Night Shadows" in the game section, which also affects headlights. Note that these original PC-exclusive "features" are extremely broken and not recommended.
- Added a better workaround that allows procedural objects (mainly grass) to fade at high draw distance settings. Pop-in may still be observed in certain locations with too many of them, however.
- The "FpsLimit" ini setting now accepts negative values. They are subtracted from the current refresh rate (e.g. -2 at 60 Hz yields a 58 FPS lock). This may be useful with VRR monitors to reduce input lag with VSync enabled.
- The seasonal timecycles were reworked, and some issues with them in lightning weather were fixed.
- Fixed a rare texture bug that would happen with some custom models if FixRainDrops was enabled.
- Fixed a rare bug that would cause visual corruption in the graphics menu.
- Fixed some minor issues related to the logarithmic depth implementation. It should perform better under specific conditions as well.
- Fixed missing footstep sounds when sprinting with a rifle in TBOGT due to an improper anim conversion.
- Removed an edited vehicle model that would cause a consistent crash in the TLAD benchmark sequence.
- Made various other minor adjustments and improvements.
v4.0.1 changelog:
- Fixed some issues that caused the "Graphics API" option to not work correctly.
- Fixed an issue that would cause taxi pathing to break when the "Turn Indicators" option was enabled.
- Fixed a black screen issue on some Linux setups when anti aliasing is enabled.
- Fixed the flickering windows in Tony's apartment in TBOGT.
- Added a crosshair to the first person view on the Annihilator when using gamepads. Previously it was only visible when playing with keyboard and mouse.
- Increased more limits for the "ExtendedLimits" feature.
- Adjusted LUT encoding/decoding. The LUT library was also updated for this change. Thanks to Pumbo for the heads up.
- Placed the halloween event cheat in a hidden spot in the game world.
- Added a cheat code for TLAD to restore Johnny's unused black pants (not in the game world yet).
- Latest version of DXVK was replaced with v2.6.2 for broader compatibility with older hardware (e.g. AMD Polaris and Vega GPUs)
v4.0.2 changelog:
- Fixed a menu issue when Centering Delay bar covered up Gamepad Icons selection
- Added a cheat code for TLAD to restore Johnny's unused black pants in the game world
- Updated Spanish translation
- Improved a VRAM detection fix
- Snow mode improvements
v4.0.3 changelog:
- Improved vehicle camera movement at high fps
- Minor stability improvements
v4.0.4 changelog:
- Fixed motion blur affecting props attached to the player, such as guns and parachutes
- Camera centering delay can now be adjusted for on foot and in vehicle cameras separately (previously only worked for on foot camera)
- Right rear reverse light fix for Stratum
v4.0.5 changelog:
- Reduced water flickering (only when extra night shadows are turned off)
- Added sliders to control vehicle camera turning speed
- Adjusted Handbrake Cam behavior on keyboard and mouse
- Fixed the Stratum LOD reverse light
- Adjusted some lights and emissive materials
- Improved volumetric lights behavior during the snow event
- Fixed a crash in TLAD when making a phone call
- Fixed a script bug that prevented a call from Ilyena from happening