Added Ultra-Wide 21:9 resolution support for BlastZone 2 (v1.29.4.3)
A new update has been released for BlastZone 2, (v1.29.4.3) adding ultra-wide 21:9 resolution support to the game. However, using these resolutions has no effect on gameplay or field of view. Black bars are used on the left and right sides to fill the space outside the standard 16:9 viewport. The main purpose of adding these resolutions is to allow 21:9 monitors to run at their native resolution without scaling or letterboxing.
Here are the full release notes for v1.29.4.3:
Added 3 new ultra-wide 21:9 resolutions
-2560x1080
-3440x1440
-5120x2160
-Black bars are added to the left and right sides when these resolutions are used
-Gameplay and field of view are not affected by these resolutions
Updated the config menu to use a "(4:3)" or "(5:4)" suffix for resolutions that are 4:3 or 5:4, such as 1024x768
Updated the configuration program to support the new 21:9 resolutions
As usual, to make sure you have the latest update, launch the game and check the lower left corner of the title screen for “v1.29.4.3” or above. Enjoy!
A few hotfix updates released for BlastZone 2 v1.29.4.2
Two small hotfix updates have been released for the PC/Steam version of BlastZone 2. The first one fixes a startup crash issue when attempting to use the “Very High” or “Extreme” detail terrain without downloading the free DLC first.
The second hotfix update makes a few changes. This includes an improvement to framepacing when framerate caps are used. This fixes frame hitches when there are quick changes in the rendering workload, such as when many enemies explode at once.
Also, a new useGameUpdateMultithreading option has been exposed but is only accessible by manually editing the config file. This option is enabled by default to maximize performance, but can be disabled to reduce latency at a performance cost. Also, this update is built using the new Visual Studio 2019, bringing with it various optimizations and improvements, but doesn’t require any new runtime installs to work correctly.
Enjoy the new updates!
Fixed occasional shutdown crash and improved startup loader (v1.29.4.2)
A new update has been released for BlastZone 2! The primary purpose of this release is to fix an occasional crash that would occur when closing the game. This was a multithreading issue, the chances of it occurring being higher for higher core/thread count CPUs, and more rare for 1 or 2 core CPUs.
This update also includes an improved startup loader. It now adapts better to system performance, loading faster on higher end CPUs, and better preserving system responsiveness for slower/older CPUs. The bar filling animation is smoother now as well, making it easier to observe progress. Memory usage has been reduced during the loading screen as well.
Several areas of code have been refactored in this update as well, making the game more robust in general and quicker to develop for.
Here are the full release notes for v1.29.4.2:
Fixed a crash bug that would occasionally occur when closing the game
-This was a multithreading-related bug that would occur more often on higher core count machines
Improved the startup loader
-Reduced loading time when starting the game
-Reduced memory usage during the loading screen
-Smoothed out the loading bar fill animation to make it easier to follow
-Improved system responsiveness for slower or low core count CPUs
Refactored several areas of code to prevent bugs and speed up development time in the future
Slightly reduced VRAM usage
HotFix* Fixed a game startup crash when attempting to use the "VeryHigh" or "Extreme" detail terrain packs without downloading the DLC
As usual, to make sure you have the latest update, launch the game and check the lower left corner of the title screen for “v1.29.4.2” or above. Enjoy!
Startup sound bug fixed, migrated to VS2017 and new system requirements (v1.29.4.1)
A new update has been released for BlastZone 2! This update fixes a bug that would start the game with sound and music volume at 0. The workaround for this was to manually raise the sound and music volume after starting the game each time, but this was not ideal. I apologize for the inconvenience, this has now been fixed. The sound code has also been optimized and reduces frame hitching.
Also for this update, the development environment migrated from Visual Studio 2010 up to Visual Studio 2017. This brings all the latest optimizations, fixes, and security improvements from compiler advancements over the years. Also, the configuration program has migrated from .NET 3.5 up to 4.5, bringing a similar advancement there as well and eliminating the need for an older .NET runtime install.
With the above two migrations and following Steam’s recent changes, this version eliminates Windows XP support. All users with Windows XP no longer have access to BlastZone 2 on Steam anyway, so this was done to better target modern hardware.
The above changes have increased the minimum and recommended system requirements, but they are still very low for modern standards. Here they are:
Minimum requirements:
OS: Windows 7, 8.1, 10 32bit or 64bit
CPU: Any SSE2 CPU (Pentium 4 or Athlon 64 or higher)
Graphics: Radeon HD 2400 128mb, Geforce 8400 128mb, Intel HD 2000 or higher supporting atleast OpenGL 1.5
Recommended for running at high detail:
OS: Windows 7, 8.1, 10 32bit or 64bit
CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo, AMD Athlon X2 at 2.4ghz, or Intel Core 2 Quad, AMD Athlon X4 at 1.8ghz or higher (can utilize >4 cores if available)
Graphics: Radeon R7 250 1gb, Geforce 750 1gb, Intel HD graphics 4600 or above supporting OpenGL 3.0 or higher
Here are the full release notes for v1.29.4.1:
The BlastZone 2 executable is now built using Visual Studio 2017
-Takes advantage of the latest compiler optimizations and improvements
-Eliminates support for Windows XP
Migrated the Configuration program to Visual Studio 2017 and .NET Framework 4.5
Fixed a bug that would save out the Sound and Music volume as 0 when closing the game
Greatly improved music processing distribution over time
-Would previously have a 3-4ms processing spike every second or two
-This would cause hitches on some systems
-Now uses a consistent 0.2-0.3ms processing time every frame without spikes
-Significantly improves frame pacing
Turning off music now completely eliminates music processing
-Improves performance for low end systems when music is disabled
Fixed enemy bullets appearing the incorrect color when only tracking the player in Z space
As usual, to make sure you have the latest update, launch the game and check the lower left corner of the title screen for “v1.29.4.1” or above. Enjoy!
Refactored engine components, fixes and improvements (v1.29.4.0)
A new update has been released for BlastZone 2! (v1.29.4.0) A big part of this update is refactoring several components of the underlying tech and engine of the game. This was done to find and fix existing bugs, reduce the likelihood of new bugs, and speed up development of new features.
There are several bug fixes and improvements in this update as well. Most notably, load times for the outer space background have been greatly improved. This makes the biggest difference when using the “VeryHigh” or “Extreme” terrain detail packs. Other environments still have the ~1-2 second load time in this case, but loading the outer space environment is nearly instantaneous.
This update also includes frame pacing improvements, netcode improvements, graphical tweaks, optimizations, bug fixes, and more.
Here are the full release notes for v1.29.4.0:
Refactored several components of the engine, including the camera system, light system, background switching, window initialization, menu system, text system, and more
-Makes the codebase more robust and reduces the chances of bugs occuring in the future
Improved frame pacing when vSync is off or the frame rate is below the refresh rate
Fixed some rare inconsistent timescale update values (improves frame pacing)
Greatly improved the outer space background load time
-This makes the biggest difference when using VeryHigh or Extreme terrain detail settings
Improved netcode packet loss tolerance for the following scenarios:
-The client pauses the game
-The client returns to the lobby
-Sending text messages by the client or server
Renamed the in-game "Vertical Sync" option to "vSync" to maintain naming consistency with the configuration application
Optimized cpu usage of all text rendering
Applied a small optimization to background terrain rendering
Improved multithreading concurrency for background terrain, water, and clouds
Fixed brief graphical corruption when switching between the OpenGL 1.5 and 3.0 renderers
Fixed the player ship aura animation playing too fast in some situations
Fixed some particle effects appearing differently depending on the current frame rate
As usual, to make sure you have the latest update, launch the game and check the lower left corner of the title screen for “v1.29.4.0” or above. Enjoy!
Improved player and enemy bullet trails and other updates (v1.29.3.4)
A new update has been released for BlastZone 2! (v1.29.3.4) This is a smaller update that makes a few improvements to enemy bullet tails, including a more consistent animation and improved performance. Previous versions would look just fine at 60fps, but would get distorted when running a framerate above or below that. Now, they look perfectly consistent across any framerate. Also, particular care was put into how the animation works for high refresh rate displays (144+ hz) to make it look as smooth as possible. Optimizations have also been made to significantly reduce the CPU load when many enemy bullets are on screen. This was done by increasing the amount of reused data from previous frames, thus eliminating a significant amount of redundant calculations. Player bullet trails have been improved as well, but the biggest difference there is better particle distribution when running a framerate below 60fps.
Here are the full release notes for v1.29.3.4:
Greatly improved enemy bullet trail animation consistency across all framerates
-Used to look best at 60fps, but have distortions above and below 60fps
Added 1 more enemy bullet trail shadow to improve animation smoothness for high refresh rate displays
-Updated enemy bullet trail detail scaling to maintain the same performance of previous versions
Optimized enemy bullet trail matrix calculations by reusing more temporal data from previous frames
Evened out the player bullet trail particle distribution for framerates above and below 60 fps
-Makes the biggest difference below 60fps
-Makes player bullet trails look the same for all framerates
Another hotfix update was recently released to fix a few smaller bugs and issues. Here are the hotfix release notes:
Fixed a bug that wouldn't reset the LevelSelect state when playing an online multiplayer game after previously playing a level select game
Changed the default online multiplayer GameOver menu option for the client player to "Return to lobby", instead of "Disconnect"
As usual, to make sure you have the latest update, launch the game and check the lower left corner of the title screen for “v1.29.3.4” or above. Enjoy!
Leaderboard score submissions fixed
This is an announcement that BlastZone 2 leaderboard score submissions are now working again. I apologize for the inconvenience, but leaderboard score submissions were broken for a while, stalling at the "Getting info from the server" message in game. Reading leaderboard scores never had any issues, both on the website or in game, but submitting new scores has now been fixed. This is an immediately available server side fix and doesn't require any client side updates.
Improved specular highlights, difficulty balancing, crash fix, hitching fix, and more (v1.29.3.3)
A new update has been released for BlastZone 2! (v1.29.3.3) This is mostly a maintenance release, but fixes and improves a few significant areas. Specular highlights have been improved for numerous objects in the game, being more accurate and better performing than before. Objects affected include enemies, bosses, and player ships. However, the biggest specular lighting improvement is in the cave background, showing much more depth and detail.
This update includes greatly reducing Boss hull damage on the player. This was previously too harsh, so the damage was cut in half to balance difficulty better. Animation hitching has been greatly reduced as well, making gameplay much smoother than before. This was a thread timing issue that affected some CPUs more than others. Also, a particle-related crash issue has been fixed; apologies to anyone affected by this.
Here are the full release notes for v1.29.3.3:
Improved specular highlight accuracy and performance in the shaders for all enemies, bosses, player ships, and the cave background
-Only affects the OpenGL 2.0/3.0 renderer
-The cave background has the greatest improvement, adding more depth and detail to the lighting
Reduced Boss hull damage from 50 to 25
Reduced hitching from thread timing improvements
Increased the framerate cap to 60fps when running in the background
Increased ambient light for the OpenGL 1.5 renderer to match the OpenGL 2.0/3.0 renderer
Fixed an occasional crash when a large number of particles are on screen
As usual, to make sure you have the latest version, launch the game and check the lower left corner of the title screen for “v1.29.3.3” or higher. Enjoy!
Rebalanced Training Mission mode and other adjustments (v1.29.3.2)
A new update has been released for BlastZone 2! (v1.29.3.2) The main focus of this update is on rebalancing Training Mission mode to make it more fun to play. This is the first impression many players have of the game, so it is a very important element to improve. Damage output for all ships have been greatly increased to make enemies easier to destroy, addressing an issue many new players have. This also makes each section of a level quicker to take down, putting a greater emphasis on “popcorn” enemies generated between each section as the player gains experience. To counterbalance this and keep overall difficulty the same, this mode starts with fewer lives and fewer bonus lives are awarded during play. This also helps serve as a better training environment to help new players transition to higher difficulties.
General improvements to the Mission Area 1 design have been made for all difficulty levels, as well as many other fixes and improvements. Here are the full release notes:
Rebalanced Training Mission mode to be more fun to play
-Greatly increased weapon damage for all ships in this mode to make enemies easier to destroy
-Also makes boss battles complete faster
-Many level sections can be completed faster now, putting a greater emphasis on generated "popcorn" enemies
-Reduced the number of starting lives and bonus lives to counter balance to the easier to kill enemies
Increased the Z range when enemies can be hit by player bullets
-Makes enemies moving quickly in Z space easier to hit
Added hand placed Health and Points item drops for fast moving Z space enemies in Mission Area 2 and 3
-Converts these enemies to "bonus enemies" with rewards for destroying them
Adjusted several enemy spawn positions for Mission Area 1 to prevent them from moving outside the gameplay space
Updated emissive lighting for bosses and enemies to be completely uniform, regardless of external lighting
Added a "Try another game mode" gameover screen option when using Kiosk mode
Removed the "Quit Game" menu options from the Pause and GameOver screens
-The only "Quit Game" menu option left is in the main menu
Added a new "Ship Selection" menu option to the GameOver screen
Removed the "Disconnect" menu option from the Online Multiplayer pause screen
-This makes it more difficult to quit/disconnect from an online game accidentally
Added a hidden "useParticleHelperThreads" option to the config file
-This is enabled by default
-Disabling this still uses multithreading for the particle system, but limits particle updates to a single thread
-Enabling this uses existing functionality from previous versions, allowing dynamic particle thread scaling up to 16 CPU cores
-This option was created for debugging purposes; it fixes a rare crash issue when multiple instances of the game are running on the same system
-It is still recommended to keep this option enabled, as the crash issue doesn't affect running a single instance of the game
As usual, to make sure you have the latest version, launch the game and check the lower left corner of the title screen for “v1.29.3.2” or higher. Enjoy!
Bug fixes, tweaks and adjustments based on AVGC feedback (v1.29.3.1)
A new update has been released for BlastZone 2! (v1.29.3.1) This one is focused on making several changes based on feedback and observations from the AVGC BlastZone 2 was shown at. This includes difficulty balancing, streamlining menus, screen wipes, improving ingame text, bug fixes, and more. This is a relatively small update, but it addresses many small things to improve the experience as a whole. Thanks a lot to everyone who dropped by our booth and helped contribute to making the game better!
Also, UAC access requests have been removed from the game, which may fix antivirus false-positives and administrator requirements. BlastZone 2 never made use of UAC access, but the access request is a compiler option that was never supposed to be enabled. Another long running bug that has finally been fixed is the 4k render scale issue. People running 4k monitors or high DPI scaling will now display the game properly. Any feedback on how well these fixes work for you is welcome.
Here are the full release notes for v1.29.3.1:
Increased hyper power usage for the OmegaCannon from 200 to 250
Increased all ship damage for Mission Training mode to make enemies easier to kill
Player 2 exploder shots are now easier to see
Changed the wave intermission weapon unlock text to be more exciting
Increased starting stat levels for a few level select options
Removed screen wipe animations during the level select screen
Removed the Local/Online selection menu when playing a multiplayer Kiosk game
Fixed incorrect game render scaling when Windows is set to a high DPI render scale above 100%
-This fixes rendering issues with many 4k displays
Removed UAC access requests
-This fixes administrator requirement issues with some systems
-This fixes some antivirus false-positives
-UAC access was never used in BlastZone 2 and the access request in the executable manifest was left in by accident
As usual, to make sure you have the latest version, launch the game and check the lower left corner of the title screen for “v1.29.3.1” or higher. Enjoy!
