COGBox 0.3.0 (pre-release)
Why we're moving to pre-release
First off, thank you. Seriously. The response to COGBox has been way bigger than I expected, and every bug report, log, screenshot and "hey, this version works for me" has made it better. A lot of this release exists because one of you took the time to send a log.
That same feedback has made something clear, though: COGBox isn't quite at "stable" yet. It's now four games on one renderer, plus DLSS, FSR, Vulkan, SteamOS and a ton of settings, and there are still rough spots (SteamOS textures, ghosting with DLSS/FSR, stutter while shaders build). So starting with this release, COGBox is labelled pre-release, and 0.2.5 is too. (The in-app updater still offers it as usual.) Nothing's going away; it's just a more honest label for where things are.
Some of those rough spots go deeper than a quick patch, and there's bigger work happening behind the scenes to tackle them properly. More on that when there's something to show.
Keep the reports coming. The Help tab's problem report gives me everything I need. Thanks for playing, testing and sticking with it.
- Shagg
New
- Gears of War (the first game) - preview. Needs your disc plus Title Update 5. DirectX 12 with SMAA is the recommended setup; expect rough edges.
- Ultrawide for any screen shape in Gears 2, Gears 3 and Judgment - 21:9, 32:9 and everything in between (#60)
- AMD FSR updated to SDK 2.4
- "SMAA (recommended)" in the anti-aliasing list
- More title updates recognised as working (#51, #56, #57, #61, #64)
Fixes
- Judgment: Monroe Commons and other chapter changes could stay on the loading screen - loading screens now run at 30 fps (#54)
- Gears 2: Prepare all shaders now uses the game's own shader folder, which should let it finish (#58)
- Shader building no longer drags the frame rate down as much while you play; it runs at full speed on loading screens and menus
- Gears 1 with DLSS: menu flicker fixed
- SDK patches are now in the source repository, with notes on how to apply them (#53)
Known issues
- DLSS and FSR are still experimental: moving characters can look see-through (ghosting)
- SteamOS: some textures and text can look wrong (#59)
- Gears 3: sudden death after a checkpoint reload (#55) is being investigated
- Gears 3: mouse sensitivity is inconsistent (#52)
Updating
- Use the UPDATE TO 0.3.0 button in COGBox, or unzip over your old folder (keep the folders). Your games, saves and settings are kept.