Bully: Scholarship Edition

Bully: Scholarship Edition

706 ratings
How to Play the Damn Game
By ^6RE^8Fl^3e^8x
Setup the game to not crash and not bug out, get some decent graphics and enjoy this masterpiece
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Introduction
This guide is meant for people with up to date computers who want to enjoy this old classic without their eyes bleeding or game crashes getting to their sanity. Let us begin
Get the latest SilentPatch
Below you can find the latest version of SilentPatch for Bully: Scholarship Edition.

This patch mainly aims to make the game stable and smooth on PC. You can get more information about the project from the Github link.

Github Link[github.com]
Direct Download Link[github.com]

After downloading the latest release for the game, copy the zip file contents into the game folder.

SKIP TO GRAPHICAL TWEAKING IF YOU INSTALLED THIS. DO NOT USE THE UNCAPPED EXECUTABLE TOGETHER WITH THE PATCH.

Increase the FPS Cap (Optional)

You can bump up the FPS cap in SilentPatchBully.ini to 60, which should be pretty safe to do. You may still run into some bugs, at which point you should revert this change to at least get past that point in the game.

Change:
FPSLimit=30
to
FPSLimit=60

Windows 11 Crash Fix (Optional)

In case the game is crashing in Windows 11, it may help to enable the custom memory allocator. I cannot confirm whether this works or not, I don't have Windows 11 to test with.

Change:
CustomMemoryMgr=0
to
CustomMemoryMgr=1
Get the Working Uncapped Executable(Alternative)
SKIP TO GRAPHICAL TWEAKING IF YOU INSTALLED SILENTPATCH. DO NOT USE THE UNCAPPED EXECUTABLE TOGETHER WITH THE PATCH.

**NOT SUGGESTED ANYMORE**

Removing the FPS cap on this terrible console port will introduce game-breaking bugs that will bug out at least 3 missions, making them unpassable. Also it will introduce many many many animation glitches and physics bugs. NOT RECOMMENDED



This part is quite straightforward.

Get the exe from here[community.pcgamingwiki.com].

The exe is to be put where your original game executable is. For most people this will be in

"C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Bully Scholarship Edition".


Rename the original to something else and drop this one in there.


Onto compatibility..
Compatibility Help
Now we get to the dirty part. Some compatibility settings applied here may be obsolete or unneeded. Feel free to play around with them to find whatever works best for you.



Match these settings as a baseline and you can experiment with the rest.

Window Resize Fix (Optional)

I have 2 monitors with different DPI settings and the patch did not scale properly, making the game window much bigger than the monitor resolution.

To fix this, right click Bully.exe, under compatibility, click High DPI Settings. Check the checkbox for Override high DPI Scaling Behaviour and select Application. This will make sure the window displays correctly.

Graphics Tweaking - Latency
These settings can help reduce the input lag, completely optional.

Customise the 3D application profile for Bully.exe in you GPU vendor's graphics control panel (Nvidia Control Panel, AMD Radeon Control Panel, Intel Graphics Command Center). The options I am referring to are for Nvidia, but very likely that they apply to AMD and Intel as well.



  • Threaded Optimization -> Off
  • Low Latency Mode -> Ultra

We go to the eyecandy..
Graphics Tweaking - Eyecandy
This part is for people with beefy rigs mostly. It makes a perceptible difference, but can be costly in game smoothness if your PC can't keep up.

As we are in the control panel, lets tick a few more boxes
  • Anistropic filtering -> 16x
  • Antialiasing - Mode -> Enhance the application setting
  • Antialiasing - Transparency -> 2x (supersample)
Mine ends up looking like this



This part really depends on what you have under the hood and what you expect on visual quality. I consider AA injectors and reshades to be worthless sidegrades that ruin visual fidelity, but that is subjective. Pushing these settings *may* toll your GPU or CPU since they give small improvements at exponentially increasing cost.

Off we start the game
Ingame Settings
Set up the in-game settings to match your resolution and the rest according to the following picture

If you have low fps in-game, disable shadows. It is a major performance hog



Save the settings and restart the game if you enabled shadows
Play the Damn Game
We are done tweaking this old man. Now get playing and beat gary to a pulp:)
162 Comments
metal 23 Aug @ 3:25pm 
normally, I just download and play. However, with your guide; I still just downloaded and played
Eredin 20 Apr @ 2:29pm 
TYSM I LOVE YOU MAN
^6RE^8Fl^3e^8x  [author] 22 Feb @ 4:46am 
There was a bit of dated information in the guide, did a sweeping update. Any feedback or suggested additions are welcome.
Iggy 16 Feb @ 5:58pm 
a lot of this guide is gonna make the game crash MORE, even the "essentials." if you want the game to not crash, install silentpatch, enable vsync (if you need to), disabled threaded optimization, and set bully.exe to windows xp service pack 3 compatibility mode. that's all you need.
^6RE^8Fl^3e^8x  [author] 24 Jan @ 3:56pm 
When I made this guide, I had a GTX 980 so I think RX 580 will be completely fine. Supersampling and forced anisotropy should be somewhere within AMD's new control center in per-app graphics settings.
Techno 24 Jan @ 2:34pm 
Hey does anyone have a way to improve graphics like in this gude with a AMD graphics card I have a RTX 580 (I know old) and dont know much about ninvida so translate it into AMD can i just use the AMD software and tweek things there
exojjl2 25 Oct, 2024 @ 1:39am 
How do I jump?
^6RE^8Fl^3e^8x  [author] 10 Oct, 2024 @ 12:40pm 
Thank you for your detailed input! I will look into updating the guide with your comments in mind when I have the chance.
nixkiez 4 Oct, 2024 @ 10:36am 
5. Personally, i don't mess with any of the Nvidia stuff, so i can't say much, but it can help and is not bad at all.

6. I'm not sure about the Core Affinity stuff, as really, i've never had any issues along with anyone else, but if the game still crashes, it's worth trying it.

Overall, while this guide is not perfect, it does give alot of good pointers, Personally, i'd say you should absolutely use this guide to help fix the game, but you should keep my problems with it in mind.

8.5/10 Guide!
nixkiez 4 Oct, 2024 @ 10:36am 
3. I would not recommend the old Uncapped .exe, as it is pretty old, and is packed with UGX (i think is the name, i forget) which does mean you just can't use it with SilentPatch or other modifications. But that exe does stutter a fair bit more than usual, and SilentPatch has the FPS cap anyways so it's best to stick with it.

4. I'm not a big fan of you recommending Compatibility mode for people, as it was proven to be a placebo fix. It doesn't do anything and you should just use SilentPatch, as it fixes the issues at the core, which is in the audio code.