Performance and graphic changes:
- Upgraded the game engine to run on DirectX 11 (was DirectX 9). The upgrade gives about a 20% performance boost!
- However, some skins on workshop will now look wrong due to some of the game's older .shader files not being compiled in a dx11-compatible way. Please let me know about skins you find that no longer look right and I'll work with the skin's author to fix them.
- Note: it's still possible to run the game in DX9 mode by adding the launch option "-force-d3d9" (without the quotes)
- Added Ultra quality setting, so there's now 4 quality levels available in the game options. Most skins run with the exact same settings whether High or Ultra is selected.
- The stadium skin on High quality now runs about twice as fast and looks a bit less detailed.
- The stadium skin on Ultra quality now looks even better than it used to look on High quality and also runs faster.
- Added ability for skins to use post-processing shader effects. See the updated Classic skin for an example.
- Classic skin updated with new effects and promoted to a "main" skin.
Mode changes:
- Vegas nerfed. The vegas mode is fun to play, but was scoring too many points. This change reduced all points earned evenly, so vegas still plays the same.
- Pointman buffed. Pointman can now scoop powerups (except multipliers) to use later.
- Pointman now has 7 puzzle rows (was 6).
- Wakeboard grid mode now requires holding a trick button to enable jumping. It now also allows you to start tricks that don't have enough air time to finish - so you'll crash long tricks done at the wrong time unless you downgrade them with a quick trick before landing.
More:
- URLs to popular video sites found in scoreboard comments are automatically turned into clickable links.
- Added more transparency to the UI.
- Song of the day art is now displayed on the title screen at startup.
- Skin UI graphics are now loaded at game startup.
- Skin selection screen now loads quickly with no stuttering.