Firmament Patch 2.0
Hello, everyone! Firmament version 2.0 is here with some big stability updates, tech-adds, improvements, and more to make your experience playing Firmament even better.
This update is a beefy one, and we’ve tried to consolidate it as much as we could to make sure you all know what to expect. Let’s do this thing!
Engine Upgrade
First things first: We’ve upgraded Firmament from using Unreal Engine 4.27+ to Unreal Engine 5.3.2. Doing this has resolved a WIDE number of stability issues related to the game running on various platforms.
Visual changes/stability: The newer engine has resolved a lot of flickering texture issues we saw come up on lower-end hardware especially. There should also be some slight improvements in lighting, reflections, and more, despite not using all of the bells and whistles in UE5 (no Lumen, no Nanite here in Firmament… yet!).
HDR support changes: HDR has better support on all platforms now, including Steam Deck (when plugged into an HDR-capable screen if it’s a regular Steam Deck, or natively on an OLED Steam Deck), where previously the game would crash on startup if HDR had been enabled on an OLED Steam Deck.
RHI support changes:
- Windows: DX12 support is now a requirement for playing Firmament on Windows. Engine support on this RHI is much better here moving forward, and it enables us to get rid of most shader compilation hitches when you move around the game.
- Mac: Metal 3 RHI support has been added. This is enabled for the M3 family of chips on Mac.
Device support changes:
- Windows: Nothing is changing here, actually, other than adjusting our minimum specifications to require DX12 (see above).
- Mac: We are increasing our MacOS minimum requirement from MacOS 13.3 to MacOS 14.5.
VR:
- We’ve officially moved to using OpenXR in Firmament! This brings stability improvements, more generic launch options (see below), and a more flexible environment for our VR users.
- Were you tired of the trillion VR launch options we had? We were as well! There’s now a single launch option and it should work for all officially supported headsets in Firmament (and maybe even some unsupported ones, since it’s still using the OpenXR backend).
- In-line with Meta’s official support drops, we are dropping official support in Firmament for the original Rift and Rift S headsets. We are also dropping official support in Firmament for the original Vive headset, but rest-assured that we still have official support for the Vive Pro. This doesn’t mean that you CAN’T play Firmament with those headsets, it just means that we are unable to give official support for them anymore. This statement also applies to WMR headsets, especially because of Microsoft’s own announcements to deprecate this support on Windows. Note however that now that we have moved to OpenXR, it is very possible that folks will have an even easier time playing Firmament on unsupported HMDs.
- Performance changes: “Mileage may vary” based on your machine. We’ve seen areas have both increased performance on some hardware, and decreased performance on some hardware. We recommend toying with the existing & updated Supersampling options to see what works best for your machine and your preferred playstyle.
- Online Subsystem improvements: Some folks were reporting instability with achievements on Mac in particular (with the occasional instability on Windows as well, but that was much rarer). This should be resolved now that the engine is using an updated version of the Steamworks SDK. We have been unable to reproduce any issues related to this since updating the engine.
Content Changes
Ray Tracing Changes
This is a big one…
We’ve got two things to cover, the first being that ray traced reflections are now supported in Firmament! You can now experience higher quality, more realistic reflections around Firmament when you enable ray tracing in your graphics settings menu. Note that enabling ray tracing will have a performance impact on your machine based on your screen’s resolution and hardware capabilities.
Second, ray tracing isn’t just supported on Windows in Firmament – it is now available for the powerful M3 and M4 family of chips on Mac as well. We just recently released a patch for Myst that added the same support. It has been very hard to find out in any of our research if Myst or Firmament are, in-fact, one of the first titles with hardware ray tracing support for the M3 and M4 family of chips to be released (maybe they’re the first Unreal Engine title with this support?). Let us know if you know! We want another excuse to celebrate our hard work on this patch over here.
Updated Supersampling Options
- All Supersampling options have been updated to newer versions to bring you even better performance and visuals in Firmament based on your hardware’s needs.
- MetalFX is now the default Supersampling option on Mac.
- FSR has been removed as a Supersampling option on Mac.
- DLSS is now allowed to be used in VR if you have compatible hardware.
- DLSS is now the default Supersampling option on Windows if you’re running the game with compatible hardware, regardless of whether or not you are running the game in VR.
General Fixes
Global
- Fixed various instances of the crane getting stuck when placed in various positions
- Fixed an instance of the camelus stationing improperly, preventing the player from embarking
- Fixed various fallthroughs that could occur while saving and loading on the planter puzzle, as well as various fallthroughs that could occur while rotating the planters while standing on them
- Fixed the player being able to adjust the track junction in Juleston while a sulfur cart is on it, causing the cart to be unable to move
- Fixed various instances of the adjunct getting stuck in an upgrade machine
- Fixed player potentially getting stuck if they solve a dive suit puzzle, then re-enter the dive area
- Fixed missing localization for “Shutters Opening”
- Fixed menu being inaccessible if you open the menu while the adjunct is locked into a socket, while also listening to the mentor speak to you
- Fixed missing localized image for the irrigation diagram on the camelus
- Fixed some cases of mouse input not working after reaching the end-game
- Fixed being able to stand on the edge of the omniwheel
- Fixed some elements of the end-game missing if you save and load your game while in the area
- Fixed the sulfur carts losing collision on save/load in some circumstances
- Fixed a particular mentor speech not playing on an omniwheel ride
- Fixed adjunct UI scale option tooltip not displaying any information
- Player movement is now locked down while adjunct upgrade stations are moving to prevent the player from getting stuck in boundary collision
VR Only
- Fixed shadow flickering in the right eye in various areas of the game
- Fixed issues with cycling through individual quality settings
- Fixed flickering in menus when resolution scale is set to 100%
- Adjusted the VR bindings in some circumstances so that the menu can be opened on non-system reserved buttons
Support & Future Update Questions
“I’m running into new issues in this new patch that I never used to run into. How do I report these?” Please see our pinned post in the Steam discussion forums here for our to properly report a problem to our support team: https://steamcommunity.com/app/754890/discussions/0/3826415752024788425/
Looking for more adventures?
If you haven’t already, check out our latest release from this year, Riven, which is the sequel to Myst, which also received a remake treatment a few years ago... It launched in June to absolutely rave reviews by press and fans alike! If you already own Myst, you get a special discount on Riven by buying it as a part of a bundle here.