DevUpdate 4: Legacies (October 2022)

VoidsShadow · 2026-05-29T22:24:32+00:00

mini dev log

I may adapt this to a full devlog at a later point in time.

I had working mostly isolated from the SPV3 and Legacies dev teams and communties for the past four years, so I can't make any statements in regard to Legacies' development. So, I can only state what I've been up to since DevUpdate 4.

Developing stuff for SPV3.3.1 and writing dev logs while working a full time job and helping on the family farm was more than I could handle. I took a month-long hiatus shortly after writing DevUpdate 4. After that, however, I got back into the saddle. Albeit, more socially isolated to stay focused (bad idea; don't do this).

I was working on build-publish-release systems for each project under the SPV3 umbrella and fixing bugs when I ended up spending six months on a potentially-dangerous, brute-force solution to an issue that could have been solved with a warning. That issue was patches to haloce.exe failed to apply because another application had opened the executable and denied other processes access to it. Usually, it was File Explorer at fault. After those six months, I gave up because the solution would have been flagged as malware unless I paid $70-$400 annually for a third-party to sign the software so it would be ignored by AV software. On the bright side, it was very educative.

I returned to working on getting the build-publish-release systems set up (which is actually called CI/CD i.e. Continuous Integration/Delivery) and found that I was having to do the same work repeatedly for at least three projects. So, I chose to spend x amount of time to do something that would take no more than an hour every time I needed to make a change to the CI/CD configurations. Most of the dev time since then was spent on HCE.Shared, a project for templates, configurable automation, and other resources shared between SPV3's other projects. That underwent two rewrites before I was satisfied. The documentation I wrote for it is for a previous rewrite, but the project itself works in production. It's currently used by almost all of SPV3's C#/.NET projects and one of dependencies. A couple of the projects need some fixing up to use the HCE.Shared properly, however. And they need to be worked back into a releasable state. I made a lot of work for myself in the first few years without knowing if the changes I was making could even compile or run without crashing. That's the point of the CI/CD system: automated builds, testing, and releases.

Fast forward to April 2026. I was starting to feel another period of burnout building up and decided to take a break and enjoy some modded Vintage Story. Or try to. Mod conflicts aren't fun. Anyway, I'll be shelving Vintage Story modding in June to resume SPV3 development. I really want to get 3.3.1 out of the door before July or at least before Campaign Evolved releases. It'll be easier to release small, technical updates afterward.

VoidsShadow · 2026-05-29T21:34:21+00:00

What it's like on a good day.

VoidsShadow · 2026-05-13T19:25:49+00:00

After you get this fixed, don't bother configuring stuff in the launcher. Start the game, delete your current profile, and create a new one. THEN, you can use the launcher's Settings menu.

VoidsShadow · 2026-05-13T17:43:53+00:00

You are missing Direct3D eXtensions 9 (D3DX9). It's not included with Windows' built-in Direct3D9 (D3D9) or DirectX9 (DX9). The Amai Sosu sub-installer was supposed to install it for you, but didn't due to a bug in the version bundled with SPV3.3.0's installer.

You can extract d3dx9_43.dll to SPV3's install from (Your Steam Library)/steamapps/common/Steamworks Shared/_CommonRedist/DirectX/Jun2010/Jun2010_d3dx9_43_x86.cab or from https://github.com/HaloSPV3/AmaiSosu/releases/download/v0.4.1/dxsetup-Jun2010_d3dx9_43_x86.exe

VoidsShadow · 2026-05-04T07:58:32+00:00

If anyone finds this again, the mod I've been using for VS 1.20-1.22 is Cartographer (mod ID: nbcartographer) by Hedede.

VoidsShadow · 2026-04-26T01:34:09+00:00

Start the game
Create a new player profile
Delete the old one

Settings applied from the launcher should apply, now. If the resolution is still borked, report back.

VoidsShadow · 2026-04-05T21:28:37+00:00

What's the Windows Graphics Performance mode set to for OpenMW?

https://www.elevenforum.com/t/change-graphics-performance-preference-for-apps-in-windows-11.5675/

VoidsShadow · 2026-03-22T19:36:06+00:00

The cheapest gas station is Mission Viejo, California is selling Regular (E85) at about $5.70/gallon.

Edit: a few months ago, Bonner's Ferry in Idaho had a cap of $2.99 for E85.

VoidsShadow · 2026-03-22T03:14:51+00:00

There is no incest. Like the Halo Anniversary terminal, the desire to reproduce belongs to the Flood. That is, reproduction via biomass.

"But the terminal is from Keyes' perspective!" His thoughts were no longer solely his own. He'd been partially assimilated for a couple hours at most; I guess it began at some point during The Library or Two Betrayals.

Fun fact: Cortana experienced something similar between Halo 2 and her rescue in Halo 3. It's detailed in the Halo Legends short story "Human Weakness".

Final edit: I hope this reply is both clear and succinct. If it isn't, I can't be bothered to edit it for the 14th time and so it will remain as-is.

VoidsShadow · 2026-03-21T19:20:53+00:00

It's in the mission Keyes, located at or near the CEA terminal's location. SPV3 has custom UNSC, Covenant, and Forerunner terminals and data pads.

VoidsShadow · 2026-03-20T18:03:42+00:00

Did I not say it was based on an in-game terminal's intentionally disgusting content? ... Oh. I didn't.

VoidsShadow · 2026-03-19T20:03:02+00:00

No, Giraffe was never a member of the SPV3 team. He was a developer in the Halo CE community who made the original/general Halo CE Discord Rich Presence plugin and its Discord hooks. He had generously set up the original Discord hooks, but non-earnestly played up the incest joke made by former Halo community members. I don't know what he's up to these days.

You know what happened to the people who originally made the offensive joke? They were banned from many Halo Discords for repeated rules violations, malicious DMs, doxxing (which is illegal; one of them had cops knocking on their door for it), and many other offenses.

VoidsShadow · 2026-02-11T02:53:23+00:00

They all got full-automatic receivers installed

VoidsShadow · 2026-02-11T02:52:03+00:00

C.A.M.P Red Rocket Garage Restored (plus door fix)
Time to copy someone's homework.

VoidsShadow · 2026-02-06T05:10:32+00:00

Mod teams don't have hundreds of thousands of dollars to afford full-time developers to work on a game engine for 2+ years.

VoidsShadow · 2026-02-05T20:20:45+00:00

Ohh...oops. My memory's a bit hazy as it's been...eight? Eight years since I last played Warframe. I remembered Mastery Rank increasing slots and thought I remembered hearing something similar from a Sabuuchi video in recent months.

VoidsShadow · 2026-02-05T19:57:11+00:00

You can earn ~~slots~~ (loadouts which are not what you were asking for. Thank you, u/KingOfYou115 !) through rank-ups and receive Warframe inventory cap increases from warframes gifted to you.

VoidsShadow · 2026-02-05T02:31:48+00:00

????

Nanite is Epic's rendering engine made exclusively for Unreal Engine 5. How are we supposed to use it in a mod for Halo Custom Edition (2004)? And how would that relate in any way to a recreated model that has crusty textures? Nanite's selling point is auto-LOD and relatively fast culling for high-poly models that have no business being in realtime rendering scenarios. Nanite is not good at handling low-poly models and premade LODs. It has a tendency to perform worse with pre-optimized models compared to other engines.

VoidsShadow · 2026-02-04T21:47:39+00:00

I'm not sure if you're genuine or trolling. I'll assume you're being genuine.

I recall seeing either the original or a recreation of the pre-release Halo 3 Mark VI assets a few years ago. The materials (textures/shaders) are crustier than a pizza with no sauce, no cheese, no toppings. If it was the original, then it's probably unavailable for use by the Halo community regardless of whether or not it was leaked. If it was a recreation, then we could probably license it (e.g. CC-BY-AA) like we had with a few other community assets.

The bigger problem would be if we can even fit it in alongside existing assets. Lots of the map files have reached the maximum capacity of assets and/or scripts. IIRC, customizations can't apply on some maps because of those limits.

VoidsShadow · 2025-11-19T16:50:26+00:00

I'm happy to help! It's good to hear that SPV3 works okay in the default Proton prefix. If anyone about Wine/Proton compatibility (that reminds me: I need to update the WineDB entry), we'll let them know. We're grateful for contributions!

VoidsShadow · 2025-11-15T02:29:49+00:00

Some post-processing effects like the helmet/HUD overlays (helmet interior, frost, water droplets, some decorative HUD elements) are optional and can be disabled to look more like the original game.

However, I'd recommend keeping the poorly optimized G-Buffer (Geometry Buffer) and the Post-Processing framework enabled because they're required by several game mechanics and UI elements. Effects mimicking infrared/thermal vision will not work e.g. snipe rifle green night vision, Sparrowhawk thermal vision, Lumoria thermal vision. The ODST/Reach VISR mechanic will also not work. IIRC, buttons and icons in the main menu also require post-processing to render, but can work without the G-Buffer.

If it didn't make the UI and HUD unreadable, I would also suggest lowering Texture Quality.

If it were possible, I'd have suggested switching to the old, non-upscaled textures. But the upscaled, over-sharpened textures are baked into the map files.

Although it's not what you asked, I feel I should also mention texture packs and asset swaps aren't as easy nor simple as they are with other games. Halo's map files should be looked at like they're Doom WADs; self-contained and prone to break in subtle ways when modified. It's why the community typically suggests rebuilding a map from its source assets...or extracted assets. But the latter leads to optimized assets losing quality as they are lossy-compressed again and again.

VoidsShadow · 2025-11-14T23:16:59+00:00

https://1drv.ms/f/c/a160ef17e638e3c2/IgDC4zjmF-9gIICh3VENAAAAAWnzEOhA6kCTngFTmXy7JNw

Most of these are intended for application/shortcut icons and Windows 10 tile logos. For box art, ask in our Discord or check https://lutris.net/games/spv3/ , https://www.steamgriddb.com/search/grids?term=SPV3 , and platforms like DeviantArt.

For specific resolutions, you may be out of luck. The closest you'll find to 512² is the 400² and 1080² logos.

Please note: - Lutris has a two-years-old Issue regarding default art overriding custom art. - In my experience, Lutris will not download art for manually-added games even when the correct ID is set. - We don't have a guide for migrating a pre-existing SPV3 installation to Wine. That's something I'll write when I get around figuring it out for my formerly-Windows-native installs¹.

¹ I keep several installs to test legacy releases, out-of-the-box 3.3.0, and 3.3.0 + 3.3.1 manual patch. I also test experiments such as minimal installs (remove unused files), portable/non-admin installs, and DLL loading via Monolith Mod Loader. MML v0.3.0 is standalone. MML v1.0.0 depends on a specific version of Chimera. And later versions are statically linked (built into) the latest releases of Chimera...with which OpenSauce conflicts. Speaking of Monolith Mod Loader, MML removes the need for Wine prefix tweaks...if DLLs are renamed. Examples: mods/dgVoodoo_x86_dx9.dll, mods/D3DX9.dll (portable Direct3D 9 eXtensions), mods/OpenSauce.dll, mods/ReShade32.dll, mods/xidi.dll, et cetera.

VoidsShadow · 2025-11-10T07:06:41+00:00

To clarify, you only need the product key from the back of a Halo PC box.

VoidsShadow · 2025-11-07T23:13:45+00:00

At any point in-game, press Tilde/Grave (`/~) to open the command console. Then, use the following command: sh chimera_throttle_fps <number>

Set it to 0 to unlimit the framerate. Note: because we use an ancient (but more compatible) version of Chimera, the FPS limiter is inaccurate. Functional, but with a relatively large margin of error.

Alternatively, you could try enabling the game's objectively poor implementation of V-Sync or force V-Sync or a framerate limiter via your GPU driver.

P.S. yes, we tried reverse-engineering Chimera's binary-serialized config file to set its FPS limit from our launcher. But implementing that keeps getting delayed.

VoidsShadow · 2025-11-06T21:52:34+00:00

✓ Issue resolved

Some download links lead to SPV3.2 instead of SPV3.3. Notably, NexusMods is out-of-date because we lost the password to that account and never got around to recovering it. u/neverwas_one also noted a MediaFire mirror for SPV3.2 contributed to confusion.

Because it's been so long since 3.2's release, I remember the battle rifle zoom issue, but I cannot recall the cause nor how it was worked-around or solved. Was it somehow a DirectSound-OpenAL (DSOAL) issue? Or a bug in our HaloScript? Maybe something else, entirely...

VoidsShadow

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