BLUE REFLECTION

BLUE REFLECTION

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ActiveMovieWindow Crashes and Playing at 1080p: Nvidia Fixes
By Marionette
This guide details a potential fix to the crashes caused by the ActiveMovieWindow window for cutscenes.
   
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Why is my game constantly crashing at full screen?
If you're on Windows 10 and you're finding the game crashes while in full screen every time a cut scene tries to play, you're in a very common situation. The port of Blue Reflection is sadly, one of Koei Tecmo's lazier efforts, but this is the single most frustrating issue related to it. The culprit is ActiveMovieWindow and how it is integrated in the game.

ActiveMovieWindow is based on an older video streaming technology, and there's no current universal fix for this. The problem has manifested in titles as recent as Persona 4 Arena Ultimax on Steam in 2022, so don't expect it to go away.

That all being said, if you do use an Nvidia GPU, there is a way to get the game running at 1080p and at 60FPS (with some mild frame hitches). If you have an AMD GPU, I'm sad to say that I don't have a solution for you.

I spent the better part of two hours searching through threads on Steam and experimenting with set ups, but this one finally got things working well. I can't promise this will work, particularly if you start modifying the resolution options, but let's get things set up:
How do I get it working then?
TWEAKS IN NVIDIA CONTROL PANEL

The only way to stop these crashes from happening is to turn off Antialiasing in Nvidia Control Panel AND to edit a few settings in a game .ini file. Open up Nvidia Control Panel.

For the Nvidia Control Panel section, change the following settings for Blue Reflection:

Anisotropic Filtering: 4X
Antialiasing - FXAA: Off
Antialiasing - Gamma Correction: Off
Antialiasing - Mode: Off
Antialiasing - Setting: None (DO NOT TOUCH THIS, OR YOU WILL HAVE TO RE-DO THIS)

If you touch the last setting and you can't set it to None, go back to Antialiasing - Mode: and set this to 'Off' - this will fix the issue.


TWEAKS IN THE GAME INI

After that, go to \Documents\Koei Tecmo\BLUE REFLECTION\BR SETTING.INI and make sure the following settings are as follows:

AntiQuality=0
DepthOfField=0

CAN I DO ANYTHING ELSE?

There might still be a little cut scene stuttering, but the crashes at 1080p and full screen should stop. Once these settings are all changed, you can set the resolution to full screen and 1080p, and it should hopefully work.

An optional step is to go to this thread and download the 60FPS higher quality versions of the handful of the videos in the game.

https://gtm.steamproxy.vip/app/658260/discussions/0/1488861734097954535/
Any other issues I should be aware of?
This is an imperfect port, and there will still be some minor frame drops and stuttering. There might still be a few odd moments while cut scenes load, but I'm well into Chapter 4-5 and the crashes haven't repeated since.

This isn't the most broken of Koei Tecmo's PC ports, but this should hopefully get things working. If you've followed these settings to the letter, it SHOULD work.

A special shout out to JRPG Jungle on Youtube for convincing me to take the plunge with Blue Reflection, and good luck to you all.
7 Comments
Imipramine 9 Jul @ 2:33pm 
If the game crash in fullscrenn when the wmv movies/cutscenes start, i've found a solution : just frame-cap the game at 60 FPS.
White Rice 23 Jun @ 6:21pm 
These fixes did not work for me. Both nvidia control panel and brsetting.ini has been changed. I tried all the possible resolutions and fullscreen and they've all crashed at the opening.
I Am Groot 1 Oct, 2022 @ 7:59pm 
follow this guide and my game is still crashing, even with the 60fps videos.
It is funny that my old gaming ROG notebook doesn't crash but the framerate is stuck at around 25-30. Crashing only happens on newer GPU I guess.
What works: GTX950M
What doesn't work: RTX 3060
S.E.C. 31 Jul, 2022 @ 7:15am 
thats okay, figured id ask. Reinstalling on a different hard drive worked.
Marionette  [author] 30 Jul, 2022 @ 5:38pm 
Unfortunately, I didn't encounter the sound issues with the game. The crashes with the cut scenes and resolution issues were the main problem, and the fix is for that above. Sorry I can't help.
S.E.C. 30 Jul, 2022 @ 2:51pm 
its a nvidea problem and i dont see a fix.
S.E.C. 30 Jul, 2022 @ 2:51pm 
anything on the "No sound" problem?