Classic Graphics Update has Arrived!

This patch adds the Classic Graphics to Classic Mode, as well as a lot of other improvements/changes listed below. The next set of patches will be smaller and fix minor bugs/issues.

• Added Classic Graphics to Classic Mode. You have the option using a Checkbox, as well as pressing “Ctrl” at any point while in Classic Mode. Performance and gameplay should be identical. The only difference are the graphics. You may get a hiccup in fps while switching between the 2 because of the resource/texture swap.

• Added system to my game for swapping resources. This was required to get Classic Graphics into the game.

• Created new images for Classic Mode that were never in the 2006 version. They are stylized just as the 2006 images were. I reused many other images that were already in the 2006 version.

• I benchmarked the game using various settings and improved performance by 17.2%. This was mostly due to changing SleepMargin from 1 to 15. I also tried going from 25 texture pages with an average file size of 3.2MB, to 2 texture pages with the average file size of about 40MB. Having less texture pages reduced the number of texture page swaps, but I discovered that the performance was actually still very good with more texture pages, as long as they were somewhat organized. On my personal computer, the larger texture pages showed some issues such as a white screen on startup if Steam was also running. So, I decided to keep the old texture pages because of the white screen bug.

• Added Options.ini file, located in the game’s folder with herakles.exe. It allows you to alter some further settings for the game to increase compatibility and sometimes improve performance. These settings are listed below.

• Ragdolls is now the default setting

• Celestrial background (glower/sun) is now the default setting

• Skip intro is now the default setting. Older computers would show a black screen for 5+ seconds before starting the game for the first time.

Options.ini Settings:

1. CreatureTexturesOnDemand 0 = Default/Off 1 = On. Helpful if your graphics card can not utilize the built-in texture pages properly. Turning this setting on will reduce performance, however. Should only be used if you can’t start the game without it.

2. AlternateSyncMethod 0 = Default/Vsync 1 = A Windows Only alternate method to V-Sync. May result in more consistent performance. This sync method will disable frameskip options in Settings because it is not compatible with it.

3. VertexBufferMethod 0 = Default. This is the default method and is the one recommended by Nvidia - it should give the highest performance. 1 = This is a deprecated method, poorer performance on newer machines 2 = This is a legacy method, performance is poorer than the other two, but it should be compatible with almost any machine.

4. SleepMargin 15 = Default (Most optimal performance) 1 = Previous value. Not recommended. Decreased performance. Other values: 5, 10, 20.