Feral Heart

Since a week back there's been some cleaning and changes of boards. Mostly trying to get less amounts of non used child boards laying around giving the forum a more slim look.

The question is if you, the users here on the forum would be fine with if the 2 child boards,

Game Opinions & Comments
&
Game Ideas

Become one board together, "Game Opinions & Ideas".

Fire your votes ahead! (You're meant to see results after vote btw)

The staff says hello and welcome to the forum!

Hewwo Guise!

I thought I'd make myself use of this section, I'm rather certain that at least 50% of those who play FH will find use of this tutorial. So it wouldn't hurt reading this! Just as a note, You need to take your time reading this and understanding it.

We all can have problems with FeralHeart at some point, it could be for various things, but one thing that's very common is that the game might crash when tabbing out, crashing from just playing in a crowded area etc.

Now, what I'm about to tell you might make your game run more stable and maybe even faster if you're lucky, and I'll explain why, and how to do it just now.

How it works
One thing that FeralHeart uses a lot on a computer is the processor. When running this game it wouldn't be surprising if you got around 90% load by running just the game. Thing is that many if not most computers today got a Processeor(CPU) with more than just 1 core. There's Dual core processors and Quad Core, etc. These processors doesn't just have 1 core that the computer can use. It's still just one processor, but there's more cores inside of it doing the work.

Here's the kicker.. FeralHeart can just use "1" Of these cores at a time. If you got more cores the game wont be able to utilize it anyway.

Now imagine yourself playing the game, but also multitasking doing other things such as talking on IM programs, having another game running, browsing the web. The first core will always be working really hard with Feralheart. But not all applications know how to take use of the other cores and this might make your computer slower than it should be.

Most applications started in windows are assigned to the first core in the processor, and FH is a good example of this. Now imagine if your could set so the processor ONLY works with Feralheart on 1 core, and that core isn't even the first one. This will make the first one free from the game, and it are more free to process/work with things such as browsing the web and talking to others.

Not only will this make your computer able to handle other things smoother, but it will also make the game run more stable, and maybe even faster! The only thing you really need for this to work, is that you got a processor with more than 1 core.

Finding out if this works with your computer
Now what we want to do before we even start editing things around, is that we look if you got a processor with more than 1 core inside of this.

How to do this is rather simple.
Go to your desktop and click the start button(The Windows flag). If you have Windows vista, or Windows7. You will have a search bar right on top of it after you pressed the start icon. And will be able to use that one. If you got Windows XP. You're able to find the program called "Run". It should be inside the start menu as well.

Now, what you want to do, is to write in "dxdiag" and press enter.

  
This will bring you to the DirectX Diagnostics window. And it's what we will use to find out how many cores you have!

Now find the row for the  Processor: field. Like on the picture below.


In most cases you can figure out that your processor got more than 1 core by just reading the name, examples of this are "Dual core, Core 2 duo, Quad core,  Core 2 Quad, Athlon II, Phenom II, Opteron", etc. But sometimes it doesn't show up that obvious, but in that case, it should show up like on the picture above saying "(6 CPUs)". Anything above 1 CPU will be enough for this thing to work. If it doesn't say anything about amount of cores. You probably just got 1. But for the rest that found more than 1. Lets keep on going!

How to do it!
You can now close down the dxdiag window and get work on how to change which core the game should use.

What I want you to do now, is that right click on the "FeralHeart" paw icon on your desktop. Look at the bottom of the list and click "Properties"

This will give you a new window with lots of interesting stuff in it, and it's what we will use to set the "Affinity" to the processor=Which cores it's allowed to use.

Click the Shortcut tab inside of the new window and it should look like this


What we want to do now is to change the text inside the "Target:" field.

Now to make this really simple There's text for you to copy here and paste inside the target field.

Copy and Paste this text if you have 2 cores.
C:\Windows\System32\cmd.exe /C START "FeralHeart" /d "C:\Feralheart" /high /affinity 2 "C:\FeralHeart\FeralHeart.exe"

Copy and Paste this text if you have more than 2 cores.
C:\Windows\System32\cmd.exe /C START "FeralHeart" /d "C:\Feralheart" /high /affinity 4 "C:\FeralHeart\FeralHeart.exe"

Make the field blank, and then paste in one of these above.

Click the apply button, and then ok.

If we use the first text as an exmaple.
What this text does is that it starts the command prompt before it starts the game, and tells the computer to run the game with high priority and to use the 2nd core only. The other example works the same, but instead it sets it to the 3rd core in the processor(This is hexa language, hence the numbers).

This will as mentioned before in this post, leave your first core free to do other things, while FH use one core only as it should be, and more free to use it as well. This should solve crashes for some, but also make the game run a lil bit smoother in general(Also has a lot with how good your processor is).

I've used this for 3 days now and not a single crash. Someone else also tried it and to them the game seemed to run better as well. *happyface*

Other good sturf
When you do this the icon on the desktop will change from a yellow pawprint to a black box instead. But this doesn't affect the game at all, and you can actually set it back to the feralheart icon if you feel like it. Just go back into the shortcut properties by right clicking the icon. Enter the shortcut tab. Then click the "Change Icon" text. And browse for the Feralheart.exe in the feralheart folder. And it's all back to normal.

Also take note that it will only run on the given core if you use the desktop icon. If you run the game via an icon you didn't edit. Or from the game directory. The game will still be launched on the first core.

If the game doesn't work from the desktop or the game is messing around, just set the text back to normal in the target field.
C:\FeralHeart\FeralHeart.exe

Please post your feedback if you've tried this as well! And I hope you find just as much use of this as I did!

//The Big Help Thread//

If you got a problem with the game or the forum, checking here before you post a help thread is always good.

Read the list below to find something related to your issue.

Game Related, Post 2-7
How Do I play the game?

Unable to log on/go online.

I keep getting bad tokens, failed to connect to map server or timing out while playing.

Game is not starting/or having graphical issues/glitches.

The game is running slowly or you want it to look sharper.

The rules of the game, the mods and how to report.

Forum Related, Post 9-14
Issues with downloading the game or logging in

I need a quick guide on how to play.

Forum rules and the forum mods

How to use and modify your forum profile

I need assistance with something game/forum related.

I want to learn how to download/make maps/presets or other customizations for FH.

If you still have unanswered questions, feel free to post help threads or contact an online mod.

~FeralHeart Staff

The Magical Fixer!:
Uninstall the game completely
Re-download New installers
Install the game with the new installers!

50% Success rate since the launch of FH! :D

Hello there, thought I'd use this section a lil.

Many people out there wants to make their game look "purdy". Could be in many different ways.

I saw someone adding a mod like this to fh on youtube and was actually impressed. Later on I bumped into another video showing this "enb mod". And I'm rather certain it was the same thing they used, so I had to get it and try it myself.

So what is this ENB mod?
The ENB series MOD is a mod created by the russian modder by the name Vorontsov Boris. It's meant to be a graphic enhancer that you place into the game directory that holds the .exe and it will automatically add visual effects to the game even though the game doesn't have the functions itself.


How does it work?
You add a .dll file and an ini file into the game directory. The next time you run the game, you're able to press sift + f12 and the mod will switch on/off itself(On as default works aswell). This means you're able to choose when to use it, and when not to. The mod also includes an ini file which you can config yourself after personal taste.

The development of this is actually to an halt right now, and to fully use all of the functions for this mod, the mod itself needs to be modified to work fully with all it's functions. But some functions in it still works for ANY game that use Direct3D rendering.

Things like bloom, saturation and motion blur still works. I took the liberty to download this mod and modify it some so it works really well with FeralHeart. Things like Distant landscapes, sunsets and glow effects look really pretty. Here's some screens showing it(You might have to view the image in a separate window in order to see well).





It's not much, but it gives the whole game some more colours, and a slight touch of bloom(Had to reduce this because it was too much from the start).

How to get it!
It's easily installed, just to download the zip I made here.
http://www.mediafire.com/?xtsqvg57e8x59a1

Unzip/extract the folder and paste those files into your FeralHeart directory containing the .exe for the game. (On standard this should be C:\FeralHeart).

Run the game, and press shift +  F12. This will switch it on.

Keep in Mind
If it doesn't work, it could be because you have the rendering in the game set to OpenGL. In that case, change it to Direct3D9 if it works for you and then try to relaunch the game.

The mod can bring a performance drop to some computers, so if the game gets really slow to play, don't be surprised. Just turn it off in that case.

Note that I myself did not make this mod, I just modified the .ini file so it works with FH.

Enjoy!