Rose

RAGE 2 ultrawide and wider solution

Added 2023-03-01 08:27:01 +0000 UTC

My first look into this game was in 2020, when I found a way to remove the black bars from the cutscenes but only along with the rest of the UI. I even began playing through the game and just toggled the fix manually for each cutscene. I didn't like the game, so I abandoned it, which was out of character!

Fast forward to just days ago, and there was a request for a fix for the cutscenes. I downloaded the game and this time started my research from scratch. Interestingly, I landed in the very same spot, which was a sign of being on the right track.

As I continued digging through the code and looking for a solution, my first idea was to just find some code that is only active during the cutscenes and tie my fix to that, but the outcome was not very fruitful.

After many hours on the code, I managed to find what looked like the right code specific to the cutscenes, however, I still had to figure out a way to actually remove the cutscenes without touching the UI, as both were essentially UI elements in this game. The answer came from comparing the 16:9 behavior to that at the wider resolutions, and then after some assembly coding, I had the fix ready.

I could make it into a DLL injection, but I don't believe it could be as reliable through updates as a trainer, so I made it into a trainer.

All in all, the solution was another milestone in that it is a Vulkan game on an untamed engine with the black bars coded in a way that wouldn't allow them to be found via the aspect ratio or the resolution, making the whole task much more complicated. As I sometimes say, a challenge requiring an unparalleled approach can be quite rewarding when the job is done, with a lot of frustration on the way, of course.

In other news, I recently looked into Shady Part of Me (which I know at least one of my patrons wanted to play in ultrawide!), though the couple of hours I spent on it didn't produce anything promising. I'll keep trying from time to time to see where it can go without investing too much time and effort. No promises at this time!