v30 (beta) released with support for Dec 2023 game update!

This is a beta since I'm not fully sure if all Arise-SDK features are working properly, the main ones like resolution fixes / dev console / NPC distances should be working fine though, but if you run into any issues please let me know.

(I don't own the DLC so haven't been able to test with that neither, only the base game, but afaik it should work fine)

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Arise-SDK is a small DLL mod that helps fix some of the games graphical issues, and allows improving graphics beyond the in-game settings, while also giving modders access to engine internals (thanks to UnrealFinderTool's SDK dumper):

• Allows changing the NPC fadeout/despawn distance, letting NPCs stay visible for much further, along with changing the LOD distances of them!
• Can increase the distance that enemies spawn at / are visible for, allowing much more enemies to be visible at once, without fading out early!
• Resizes skits/cutscenes to render at (or above) the same resolution as the game, greatly reducing aliasing and improving quality of them (comparison thanks to Kite: https://imgsli.com/NzMwNDA - the reduced aliasing is even more apparent in motion)
• Makes cutscenes & animations run at your native refresh rate instead of being locked to 30/60FPS, via UE4's subframe interpolation feature
• Dev-console will now automatically be unlocked at game startup (needs 1 INI change to work, see "Troubleshooting" section below), Cheat/ReadOnly-flagged cvars can also be modified without errors
• Can prevent the game from switching to fullscreen 720p every launch, so the game will no longer break DPI aware apps in the background like Steam & others (see README for how to set this up)
• Fixes the DPI issue (common in many UE4 games) where the render resolution would be scaled incorrectly, resulting in blur/aliasing when playing in borderless mode.
• Allows game to load in loose, cooked files without needing to pak them first (allows hot-swapping files without needing to restart game, should be most useful for modders testing out their changes!)
• Skips the launch intro logos automatically
• Lets you specify your own custom r.Shadow.MaxCSMResolution & r.ScreenPercentage values, without the game overwriting them in memory
• Can prevent the chromatic aberration effect from being applied to the game
• Fixes the r.TemporalAA.Upsampling cvar, letting you enable "TAAU" upsampling via Engine.ini or the dev-console (can also slightly improve TAA's visuals)
• Exposes new CVars for various things (list below), letting you change things like the custom Sharpen filters added by ToA (https://imgsli.com/NzIwMzY / https://imgsli.com/NzIwMzc)
• Removes limit from r.Shadow.DistanceScale, so it can be set beyond 2x (increasing this will let the shadows render out further, but will decrease the quality of them unless MaxCSMResolution is also increased)
• Adds ~708 CVars for modifying various FPostProcessSettings values (can be modified at runtime, and through Engine.ini - see my workflow guide for the best way to handle these)
  

I'm not sure if this might have a performance hit for some - didn't notice much on my end at least, but if it does you can try adjusting the MinimumNPCDistance setting inside Arise-SDK.ini

Source code & TODO list can be found at https://github.com/emoose/Arise-SDK

I've posted my custom Engine.ini in the Optional Files section for anyone interested too (~53 cvars changed, all used by the game in some way, and should all be an improvement over vanilla - these have been tested & tweaked with help from the ToA Steam forums)

Also made a dump of mostly all the games cvars/console-commands, you can find that in the Miscellaneous files section!

Check out my DQXIS-SDK project too, which is a similar mod for Dragon Quest XI S!
I've also recently been working on improvements for NieR Automata: https://www.nexusmods.com/nierautomata/mods/165

Install
To install just extract the xinput1_3.dll & Arise-SDK.ini file into your "Tales of Arise\Arise\Binaries\Win64" folder (next to "Tales of Arise.exe"), then open up Arise-SDK.ini in a text editor and tweak it however you want, and with that the mod should be installed!

To make sure it's being activated properly you can set up your Input.ini file as described in Troubleshooting section below, then next time you run the game you should be able to open the dev-console with the key you chose.

This has only been developed & tested against both the initial release of the game & the first patch (from 7th Oct 2021), though as of v27 all patches/hooks now use signature-scanning, so hopefully it might work fine with later versions too - if you get any "aborting load" messages please let me know about them!

If it doesn't seem to have any effect on your game, try renaming xinput1_3.dll to X3DAudio1_7.dll or dxgi.dll instead, hopefully one of those should let it be loaded in - if it still doesn't work, maybe try installing the vc_redist.x64.exe from this page: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-US/cpp/windows/latest-supported-vc-redist

(btw for anyone wondering, achievements aren't affected by this mod :)

New CVars
Arise-SDK also adds new CVars to the game to allow customizing some extra things, these can be set through Arise-SDK.ini, through the dev-console, or via Engine.ini tweaking:

• sdk.CharaSharpenFilterStrength - adjust sharpen filter applied to characters
• sdk.StageSharpenFilterStrength - adjust sharpen filter applied to the game world
• sdk.MinStageEdgeBaseDistance - allows increasing the distance that cel-shading is applied for
• sdk.DisableCutsceneCA - whether to prevent chromatic aberration from being applied (this setting affects the whole game, not just cutscenes)
• sdk.CutsceneRenderFix - enable/disable skit cutscene resolution scaling
• sdk.CutsceneScreenPercentage - allows setting a cutscene-only ScreenPercentage value, will only apply to skits, the main game will be unaffected
• sdk.CutsceneAllowSubframes - whether or not UE4's subframe interpolation will be applied to cutscenes (allowing 30/60FPS cutscenes to run at your screens refresh rate instead)
• sdk.TAAJitterScale - adjust jittering applied to the games TAA (game default has this set to 0, doesn't really seem to work that well, was probably disabled for a reason...)
• sdk.TAASharpness - adjust sharpening effect applied to TAA
• sdk.CharaLODMultiplier - allows multiplying character/monster LOD distances
• sdk.MonsterDistanceMultiplier - allows changing the distance that enemies spawn & despawn at
• sdk.CharaDisableCull - allows disabling the culling system for characters, fixing the issue with character sounds being muted depending on camera angle - sadly this can have quite a performance hit though, so isn't really recommended
• sdk.UseUE4TAA - forces the game to use UE4's TAA implementation, instead of the custom one used by the game - this might allow the AA to affect more things, as some of the UE4 code specifically only checks for this
• r.ForceLOD - normally only part of UE4 debug builds; allows forcing static mesh LOD level, instead of needing to use r.StaticMeshLODDistanceScale
  

The games default values for the above can be found inside Arise-SDK.ini.

~708 CVars have also been added to let you modify the games FPostProcessSettings struct, you can find a guide about changing them here: https://steamcommunity.com/app/740130/discussions/0/3042733612667703000/?ctp=36#c2959418287750476855
The pp.CopyValuesToCVars CVar can be used to overwrite the ~708 CVars with the current value being used by the game, letting you get an idea of how those CVars are used.

All of these added CVars (including the ~708) can be set inside your Engine.ini and should take effect automatically - if any modders want to experiment with them & release a custom Engine.ini that changes them please feel free!

Support
If you'd like to support future updates & game mods such as this I have a ko-fi page here, any help would be greatly appreciated!

Troubleshooting
This should unlock the dev-console automatically for you, but if it doesn't appear when pressing ~/`/Tilde, you'll need to close down the game & open up your Input.ini file (usually inside %LOCALAPPDATA%\BANDAI NAMCO Entertainment\Tales of Arise\Config\WindowsNoEditor\), and add in the following:

[/Script/Engine.InputSettings]
ConsoleKey=F2

Now save the file, run the game, and hopefully hitting F2 should bring up the console (press once for mini-console, twice to bring up the full thing)