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Blade RunnerHow to get the best experience with restored content(11 posts)(11 posts)
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This is my favourite topic
Posted June 14, 2023
Hi there

Played it before but thought meh play it again sometimes soon.

I was wondering which version to download (bought the enhanced version as comes with both games and was a fiver so.)

Then can someone please guide me to best way to get the restored content so i can play with something ive never found in the game before which should be nice considering its age and dunno how they restored it, was it on the original cds back then just locked out?, also which scummvm if needed and which version and which settings is best for the best visuals tho i dont want smear textures if poss but i would like to try get the characters ingame looking smoother on its edges i.e anything to get rid of the vox i think it was called models low poly look, even its just the edges of the model like how aa would smooth it out.

Cheers.

I had hoped nightdive might have fixed the models but nah they just upres the videos and make it sound like its hd etc lol. They shoulda imo just removed the vox things or whatever there called and just made fresh 3d models for the game. Unless ai upscaling coulda been done on the vox images/models, could have improved em but dunno if they were ever accessible to modify.
Post edited June 14, 2023 by SkeeterUK
Posted June 14, 2023
avatar
SkeeterUK: Hi there

Played it before but thought meh play it again sometimes soon.

I was wondering which version to download (bought the enhanced version as comes with both games and was a fiver so.)

Then can someone please guide me to best way to get the restored content so i can play with something ive never found in the game before which should be nice considering its age and dunno how they restored it, was it on the original cds back then just locked out?, also which scummvm if needed and which version and which settings is best for the best visuals tho i dont want smear textures if poss but i would like to try get the characters ingame looking smoother on its edges i.e anything to get rid of the vox i think it was called models low poly look, even its just the edges of the model like how aa would smooth it out.
Hello,

The restored content mode is specific to the ScummVM implementation of the Blade Runner engine. So you have to launch the game with ScummVM to play this mode. The newest official release of ScummVM is recommended (currently that is 2.7.0 and 2.7.0.5 on Android).

First, I should note that I'm working on this restored content mode and it's still work in progress (because it's something I can only do on my leisure time and thus it is progressing slowly). The mode is playable to the end, but more content will be restored in the future. Any feedback and reports of bugs are welcome ofcourse.

GOG bundles the game with ScummVM 2.1 (iirc) which resides in the "scummvm" folder of the (original, ie. not the Enhanced Edition) game's installation so you will need to replace that with the latest ScummVM release (to still be able to use the GOG shortcuts), or you could install ScummVM properly on your system so that you can have a central ScummVM installation.

If you replace the GOG ScummVM folder with the folder of a newer ScummVM, the GOG shortcuts for launching the game will still work and you can follow this guide (there already exists a shortcut to run the game in restored content mode: https://support.gog.com/hc/en-us/articles/360004386378-Blade-Runner-instructions-how-to-launch-with-Restored-Content-?product=gog

Note that in general the saved games are not cross-compatible between restored content mode and original mode (you could technically force a mode to load saved games from the other mode, but that could result in some unexpected behavior).

If you install ScummVM centrally, you will need to do an "Add Game..." and point ScummVM to the folder where Blade Runner is installed (again classic version), and then choose the "Restored Content Mode" when prompted. You may repeat the process again to add the game in its vanilla mode (aka the non -restored content mode) and also for any other ScummVM supported games you may have installed. From then on, you should launch the game through this ScummVM launcher. The GOG shortcuts will still use the bundled (old) ScummVM version.

Then, you can play around with the Game settings, by selecting the game title from the list in the ScummVM launcher and choose "Game Options...". The default settings should be ok I think. I don't typically change graphical settings unless I want to check out a shader for fun. A few of our community members prefer the "Filtered Graphics" checked, but personally I do not. You can toggle between filtered graphics and non-filtered with the Ctrl+Alt+F shortcut in-game.

In recent ScummVM versions you can also remap the hotkeys for the game using the "Keymap" tab (again from the "Game Options..." screen).

You can find more on ScummVM here aboud adding a game (follow the rest of the index links to the left for info on other ScummVM features): https://docs.scummvm.org/en/v2.7.0/use_scummvm/add_play_games.html

And you can always ask any pertinent questions here, or on the ScummVM forums or on the ScummVM discord.

About the restored content:
The restored content is sort of a personal project after noticing that not only there was unused content in the game data files on the released CDs but there were also fragments of unfinished or untriggered code that indicated *where* some of the used resources would be used. So it is kind of a fan made project, with "informed guesswork", trying to stay as close to the spirit of the original game as possible. I fondly think of it as game archeology.

Restored content includes unused sound clips, entire cut conversations between characters, one cut VK test session, a few video cutscenes, more interactions with the surroundings, more options for action in certain situations, more items and clues to find and so on. A while ago I made a list on the ScummVM wiki page, which is certainly not comprehensive but it should be a good indication -- warning! it is also quite full of spoilers for the game (I tried to make most of them as vague as possible, but in some cases there's not much you can do to avoid the spoiler):
https://wiki.scummvm.org/index.php?title=Blade_Runner#Improvements

As a final note, the restored content mode is tied to the ScummVM engine code so future content restoration will be included in upcoming versions of ScummVM -- it cannot be retro-actively available in older ScummVM versions.
Post edited June 14, 2023 by PraetorianWolfie
Posted June 16, 2023
Thank you for the detailed post.

I have had issues starting the game with the latest daily build. When starting it i have sound effects but no music and no speech. If i dont use the latest but default launch exe it works and that used i think the latest daily build too but when i moved and replaced the files that were in BR/scummvm to update it from 2.1.0 default version or whatever it was.

I uninstalled scumm and the game and tried again fresh so put br on, then scumm daily build then added game click restored content and no changing of settings and then ran it but still just some ambient sound effects, not normal sfx or music or voice or subs.

Any advice would be nice. Im gona in the mean time try mess with scummvm audio section see if i can get it work somehow.

Also which shaders if i choose to try would look very nice in the game as theres a lot of choices like 100 or whatever lol. Just want the jaggies on the char models to look a bit nicer like AA has been applied even tho u cant use that as there not true 3d models.

Edit - I managed to get sound working by using Creative music emulation option, dunno if thats the best or not :/

Btw i dont suppose theres any way to get rid of low color depth i.e more colors somehow or blended pixels between more color choices or something (mainly lookin at bystanders at first scene on the left, the green and stuff look blocky, any way to smooth the thing so it looks a bit nicer than see squares of color on their clothes etc. Probs cant do it with shaders etc cos of the way its made i just wondered if a color blend option might have helped or somit somehow.
Post edited June 16, 2023 by SkeeterUK
Posted June 16, 2023
avatar
SkeeterUK: I have had issues starting the game with the latest daily build. When starting it i have sound effects but no music and no speech. If i dont use the latest but default launch exe it works and that used i think the latest daily build too but when i moved and replaced the files that were in BR/scummvm to update it from 2.1.0 default version or whatever it was.

I uninstalled scumm and the game and tried again fresh so put br on, then scumm daily build then added game click restored content and no changing of settings and then ran it but still just some ambient sound effects, not normal sfx or music or voice or subs.
Hello, this is not an issue I am aware of. Blade Runner should not be affected by the choice of Audio Device under ScummVM setting (unless the Sound Device is "No Music" in which case there would be no music). It's pretty straight forward how it plays back sound and it's does not need any audio device emulation. But, there might be some audio setting that forces something that the Blade Runner engine does not agree with. Please go with "Default" there. Selecting "Creative Sound System Emulation" is not by itself interacting with the Blade Runner engine in any way.

In general Blade Runner does not need anything from the Audio section, other than the setting for Speech and Subtitles, but that can be set in-game too (if you have the subtitles file inside your Blade Runner folder before launching the game, see below).

Could you clarify which version you've tried and on what platform? I am testing today with the daily build (ScummVM 2.8.0git5452-gca6165b562d (Jun 16 2023 04:03:04)) on Windows 10 with a clean slate (no existing configuration file), and I pointed it to the Blade Runner folder (as installed by GOG installer) and it works as it should without any sound issues.

For subtitles we maintain the file on the ScummVM website so you need to download the latest version from there and extract it into the folder where Blade Runner is installed. As of yet, only one file is needed, ie. "SUBTITLES.MIX". Please re-launch the game after you copied the file, so that the game can "pick it up".
[url=https://www.scummvm.org/games/#addons-bladerunner:bladerunner]https://www.scummvm.org/games/#addons-bladerunner:bladerunner[/url]

Did you try the filter graphics option (or Ctrl+Alt+F to toggle it in-game)?

As for shaders, I am not aware of any in particular that could improve the visuals. For fun I usually try one of the CRT ones, to get the retro look, but for normal gameplay I prefer playing without any shader. Once or twice I also tested with one of the VHS ones, which is very distorting and distracting. Again only for fun.

The blocky characters to the left in the first scene (outside Runciter's) is unfortunately part of compressed video loop, and not something that can be easily improved (maybe with AI upscales, but you know, more efficiently than whatever the Enhanced Edition did). This is currently out of scope for the ScummVM engine though. Also, the compression on the voxel(-lite) models cannot be improved either. This is how the game shipped, with some models getting more severly compressed than others (Louis Castle has talked about this issue a few times, and has said that if they had more time this is one of the first issues they'd work on to get better results -- but sadly that opportunity and time has long passed).
Posted June 17, 2023
Hi there and thanks for the reply. ;)

The daily build was 16th of this month.

So when i got sound working i just played for a bit, but then the time came to save and it wouldnt save i was on the save screen typing my save name and enter or the button wasn't working. I thought hmm darn, so i went to scummvm and saw the save path didn't have anything in or was wrong i dunno which, after i edited to the BR/saves/rc folder (wasn't sure about rc folder) but saving worked after.

Then after reading ur post saying shouldn't matter about the sound, i just tried taking the emulated sound option to default and its working now without needing that been changed to creative.. Its on default now and works. So im guessing with the save path not set or somit it wasnt playing most audio except ambiet sounds. Weird.

Filtered yeah i do the key combo i dont notice much diff.

I tried aa_x4 and seems to smooth alot of jaggies in the game nicely, tho not the characters but almost everything else. FXAA also worked, 3dfx one i found brightened up the game and wasnt too bad either, but for now im sticking to the aa_shader 4 level 2, with HQx3, and tho i dont think affects it game renderer at the bottom set to AA - 4x which as said probs doesnt do much so i might take that off and just use the shader and hqx3 boxes left on.

Btw, if ur a dev, would it be cheeky to ask if its at all possible to introduce a left or right or middle click to skip dialogue option as when i play games like point and click games and most is done with the mouse i kinda wana just skip dialogue with a mouse click not a keyboard press like space or enter, it means i gotta go out of lazy mode and do somit else with me hand lol. :p If not np if maybe then cool. Just used to pressing mouse click to skip dialogue in games like this. I think the EE does mouse click skipping when i had a little go of it (installed both from gog as bought it recently as it said get both versions for just a fiver. (still got the boxed version of the game somewhere btw :) )

Btw i noticed a key combo says try ctrl and alt and 1-8 but i tried and it didnt do anything i could see, i thought it might have gone through some diff filters or something i dunno what i was expecting but it didnt work as in visually see anything change. I thought it was for changing some filter gfx on the fly so i could see the changes real time instead of having to start and look then relaunch all the time for diff shaders to see what they looked like, or was the hope anyhow.

Btw - do most ppl play with directors cut ticked or not, i used to tick it all the time when i last played it, think ive completed it twice (i still got same ending roughly even tho years apart lol which i guess im no good with finding all these 13 endings lol with just trying to be a good blade runner but never seeing the option of being a rep and follow that or other paths). I think it just adds a few more dialogue choices but wasnt sure.

Edit - hmm trying to play but i think ive got a bug. I read a walkthrough document and watched a youtube vid to confirm the same should happen but its not happening to me.

I talked to and got all the clues at the animal shop, i then talked to cop outside about 2 witnesses, then i go to the cop station 3rd floor but the guy wont talk to me about anything. At first i went to chinatown like i used to do in past playthroughs due to the chinatown wrapper at anima shop (i always presume u go there first cos of that clue and u see the map after the animal shop) but reading a walkthrough and watched a vid i tried going to cop station after loosing the guy at chinatown, nothing, so i loaded up a save before i moved from anima shop at start and went to cop station like guide said and go to 3rd floor but he says nothing and come back later. Is it a bug or normal?

Edit 2 - Ok i tried the default (non restored) version by launching the exe in the br folder so uses stock scummvm, that one worked but things ive not noticed in that was lack of testing animal shop owner if hes a rep, the audio saying about hit and run when i got to the cop station and a missing sound option slider in menus (btw wheres the brightness slider it used to be in the boxed version but missing from the stock and latest scummvm daily versions with restored playing) Anyhow so i believe the daily scummvm build has a bug the stock version or the non restored content version hasnt got where if u go to the cop station after the start he wont say anything apart from come back later. Hope its a easy fix tho as id like to get that working then continue to play restored one on the latest scumm version.
Post edited June 17, 2023 by SkeeterUK
Posted June 17, 2023
Hmm seems that its been changed so you have to go to the office and upload the evidence as in the original it skips that requirement. So now i know (read a diff post futher down about restored content and u listed the change.
Posted June 17, 2023
avatar
SkeeterUK: Hi there and thanks for the reply. ;)

The daily build was 16th of this month.

So when i got sound working i just played for a bit, but then the time came to save and it wouldnt save i was on the save screen typing my save name and enter or the button wasn't working. I thought hmm darn, so i went to scummvm and saw the save path didn't have anything in or was wrong i dunno which, after i edited to the BR/saves/rc folder (wasn't sure about rc folder) but saving worked after.

Then after reading ur post saying shouldn't matter about the sound, i just tried taking the emulated sound option to default and its working now without needing that been changed to creative.. Its on default now and works. So im guessing with the save path not set or somit it wasnt playing most audio except ambiet sounds. Weird.

Filtered yeah i do the key combo i dont notice much diff.

I tried aa_x4 and seems to smooth alot of jaggies in the game nicely, tho not the characters but almost everything else. FXAA also worked, 3dfx one i found brightened up the game and wasnt too bad either, but for now im sticking to the aa_shader 4 level 2, with HQx3, and tho i dont think affects it game renderer at the bottom set to AA - 4x which as said probs doesnt do much so i might take that off and just use the shader and hqx3 boxes left on.

Btw, if ur a dev, would it be cheeky to ask if its at all possible to introduce a left or right or middle click to skip dialogue option as when i play games like point and click games and most is done with the mouse i kinda wana just skip dialogue with a mouse click not a keyboard press like space or enter, it means i gotta go out of lazy mode and do somit else with me hand lol. :p If not np if maybe then cool. Just used to pressing mouse click to skip dialogue in games like this. I think the EE does mouse click skipping when i had a little go of it (installed both from gog as bought it recently as it said get both versions for just a fiver. (still got the boxed version of the game somewhere btw :) )

Btw i noticed a key combo says try ctrl and alt and 1-8 but i tried and it didnt do anything i could see, i thought it might have gone through some diff filters or something i dunno what i was expecting but it didnt work as in visually see anything change. I thought it was for changing some filter gfx on the fly so i could see the changes real time instead of having to start and look then relaunch all the time for diff shaders to see what they looked like, or was the hope anyhow.

Btw - do most ppl play with directors cut ticked or not, i used to tick it all the time when i last played it, think ive completed it twice (i still got same ending roughly even tho years apart lol which i guess im no good with finding all these 13 endings lol with just trying to be a good blade runner but never seeing the option of being a rep and follow that or other paths). I think it just adds a few more dialogue choices but wasnt sure.

Edit - hmm trying to play but i think ive got a bug. I read a walkthrough document and watched a youtube vid to confirm the same should happen but its not happening to me.

I talked to and got all the clues at the animal shop, i then talked to cop outside about 2 witnesses, then i go to the cop station 3rd floor but the guy wont talk to me about anything. At first i went to chinatown like i used to do in past playthroughs due to the chinatown wrapper at anima shop (i always presume u go there first cos of that clue and u see the map after the animal shop) but reading a walkthrough and watched a vid i tried going to cop station after loosing the guy at chinatown, nothing, so i loaded up a save before i moved from anima shop at start and went to cop station like guide said and go to 3rd floor but he says nothing and come back later. Is it a bug or normal?

Edit 2 - Ok i tried the default (non restored) version by launching the exe in the br folder so uses stock scummvm, that one worked but things ive not noticed in that was lack of testing animal shop owner if hes a rep, the audio saying about hit and run when i got to the cop station and a missing sound option slider in menus (btw wheres the brightness slider it used to be in the boxed version but missing from the stock and latest scummvm daily versions with restored playing) Anyhow so i believe the daily scummvm build has a bug the stock version or the non restored content version hasnt got where if u go to the cop station after the start he wont say anything apart from come back later. Hope its a easy fix tho as id like to get that working then continue to play restored one on the latest scumm version.
I'm happy you've found the answer about Dino and his lab results. Yeah, it's intentional; I've changed it to match what the game manual says, which is to upload the clues to Mainframe first and he'll respond for those uploaded.

The save game issue is indeed weird. I don't get this bug when installing a fresh ScummVM version (portable or proper central installation) -- ScummVM will by default use a folder where it puts its logs and configuration file, but I think I've seen a game stream a few years ago where the streamer got this issue. Maybe it's related to the OS version or particular PC configuration. We'd need a proper bug report for it to be filed on our bug tracker (https://bugs.scummvm.org) to look into this properly.

About "Designers' Cut". Don't enable it on first playthroughs, and I would not recommend enabling it in general. It unintuitevely removes dialogues from the game. It was supposed to be an option for "quicker" playthroughs after you've fully experienced the game once. It mostly removes some of McCoy's inner dialogue in Act 1 and then does little. I think there's 1 or 2 cases where it does something different in a later Act but I can't remember off-hand and those may have been a leftover debug cases rather than intentional. "Luckily" as you can tell it's also a feature that they didn't implement fully so you won't really miss out much, but if you know about a dialogue McCoy is supposed to say but doesn't, this checkbox is the culprit.

About "Ctrl+Alt+1" to "Ctrl+Alt+8". I am not sure what's going on there. It's not working for me either so we may have dropped the shortcut and forgot to update the documentation or it's some bug we should fix.

If you are in "SDL Surface" graphics mode (you can select "Graphics Mode" from the launcher's "Graphics" Tab (under Global Options or specifically for a game with "Game Options") then "Ctrl+Alt+9" and "Ctrl+Alt+0" work for cycling through graphic scalers while in-game. This does not work for OpenGL graphics mode (which is the default on Windows), and I am not sure why as of yet.

Basically, these kind of shortcuts will also show a small popup prompt on-screen to indicate that a change has happened. Shortcuts that I've tested and work for me are:
Ctrl+Alt+F: To toggle the filtered graphics. There's some noticeable change with jagged edges in the graphics and the cursor. It's smoother but a bit blurrier and I tend to have it off.
Ctrl+Alt+A: Toggles aspect ratio correction, but it does not affect Blade Runner (it only has a purpose on classic Sierra or Lucas Arts games of low resolutions (...)).
Ctrl+Alt+D: Opens the game debugger. You exit it with Esc or writing exit to the command prompt.
Ctrl+Alt+S: Cycles through available "stretch" modes (eg. Fit to window, Stretch to window, Pixel Perfect, Centered, etc)
Ctrl+Alt+9 or Ctrl+Atl+0: Cycles backwards or forwards on available graphic scalers. Currently only works in SDL Surface graphics mode.
Alt+S: grabs a screenshot.
Ctrl+F5: brings up the ScummVM in-game menu.

There maybe others but those above work.

I am not sure about the Mouse Right Click being used to skip a conversation. I've put quite a bit of effort to implement all the hotkeys for the game (documented in its manual and non-documented) but I also did implement game specific support for the keymapper so you could try to set it there (from ScummVM launcher, Game Options, "Keymaps" tab or from in-game, with Ctrl+F5 and then Options and then "keymaps"). Since right click is already used for toggling drawing McCoy's weapon I expect there could be some conflict there. Or it could work fine -- you could test and report back :)

Finally, about the "Gamma" setting in KIA. It got very low priority in implementation and we ended up never implementing it. I believe the justification was that the user could adjust their screen brightness with an external control (from their OS graphic settings, gpu options, or monitor settings). I looked into it again about a year back but it still has low priority, way below all the other features I want to add first :).
Post edited June 17, 2023 by PraetorianWolfie
Posted June 17, 2023
Thank you for the reply.

I think what might have happened is i havent used scummvm in ahwile, i mean i had a reinstall os awhile ago cos of corrupt bios and me messing up windows through msconfig (set to normal instead of leaving it selective startup *dunno why its selective lol). Anyhow after that i copied a old c:/user stuff and my doc to new install of os and i think it brought over old scummvm settings, i dunno how to reset them all to default as when i uninstall scumm and installed fresh it was still knowing stuff it shouldnt. I probs can find out where the file is and delete but ah well games more or less working ok now so ill leave it but that might explain the paths stuff i dunno.
Posted June 18, 2023
Hey again.

About the ScumVM key shortcut to scroll through available graphical scalers, I pushed a fix yesterday for it so now it should also work for the OpenGL graphics mode -- which is the default for many platforms (including Windows and Android).

Today's daily (labeled "b625def0") or newer should now contain this change.

So now Ctrl+Alt+9 or Ctrl+Alt+0 can be used to cycle through (forwards or backwards respectively) available graphical scalers. (This is what got fixed for OpenGL mode). Try these in-game, because they won't change much (or anything) in the ScummVM launcher)

And Ctrl+Alt and + or - can be used to increase or descrease (respectively) the scaling factor. (This was already working).

I believe the documented Ctrl+Alt+1-8 is a depracted version for the same thing, back when the available graphical scalers were fewer, and it's now replaced by the above shortcuts.
Post edited June 18, 2023 by PraetorianWolfie
Posted April 09, 2024
Hey!

There's a high quality game score available in stereo (in fact I've grabbed all the mp3-s from Frank's site 20 years ago, including the unused tracks). Is there a way to replace the poor sounding over-compressed in-game tracks with these better ones?

I've uploaded the files for you: https://dropmefiles.com/6qnmR
Post edited April 09, 2024 by Valet2
Posted April 11, 2024
avatar
Valet2: Hey!

There's a high quality game score available in stereo (in fact I've grabbed all the mp3-s from Frank's site 20 years ago, including the unused tracks). Is there a way to replace the poor sounding over-compressed in-game tracks with these better ones?
Hello,

I have *something like this* noted as a potential task for the future, but have not yet started implementing it. Of course code submissions/ Pull Requests for the ScummVM engine are always welcome.

The game's OST was never officially released and, as far as I know, there are no plans for this despite the re-release of the game. It would be ideal if we'd see such release, so that we'd have an official, complete, and of high quality release of these tracks to reference.

As is, Frank Klepacki is awesome for making the OST he worked on publicly available on his website, and I believe it's an intended restriction that one is able to listen to it from that page, but with no UI option to download it.

However, what we do have officially released is the Blade Runner (movie) soundtrack on CD. So the scope of the task remains to be able to replace the in-game music with external high quality mp3/flac tracks like it was recently done for the Loom soundtrack and the tracks from the Swan Lake Orchestral release(s). The plan is also to then write instructions for this on the ScummVM wiki page for the Blade Runner engine.

As always, I can not promise or speculate on when this will be done. I can only confirm that I'm still working on the restoration and a few additional tasks for the ScummVM Blade Runner engine.
Post edited April 11, 2024 by PraetorianWolfie
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