BlastZone 2 News

A new update has been released for BlastZone 2! (v1.32.3.3) This makes a few improvements to the particle system, including a fix for occasional explosion particle flickers. Also, the maximum CPU cores/threads supported by the particle system has been raised from 16 to 128. This allows the particle system to take full advantage of any consumer CPU available. The previous cap was set to prevent bugs before the big particle system upgrade in the v1.32.0.0 release. Extra time for testing was taken since then to ensure stability before increasing the cap.

This update also makes improvements to the texture loader, now supporting full texture format autodetection. For more details, here are the full release notes for v1.32.3.3:

• Fixed occasional flickering explosion particles
  
• Increased the particle system CPU core/thread limit from 16 to 128
  -The particle system now fully scales to 64 core, 128 thread cpus if available
  -Older versions had bugs with using more than 16 threads, but improvements from v1.32.0.0 fixed them
  -Extra time was taken to test high thread counts to ensure stability
  
• Added support for automatic compressed texture format detection
  -Allows for swapping out compressed textures of different formats without needing to update the game executable
  

As usual, to make sure you have the latest update, launch the game and check the lower left corner for “v1.32.3.3” or higher. Enjoy!

A new update has been released for BlastZone 2! (v1.32.3.2) This is a smaller update that improves enemy bullet rendering and a few other adjustments. Occasional Z clipping issues for background enemy bullets have been fixed, and the front of bullets have been made more prominent.

This update also improves the final player death red screen fade. For more details, here are the full release notes for v1.32.3.2:

• Fixed occasional Z clipping issues for enemy bullets in the background
  
• Made the front of enemy bullets more prominent than the tail to improve visibility
  
• Fixed the final player death red screen fade not affecting enemy bullets, particles, or the HUD
  

As usual, to make sure you have the latest update, launch the game and check the lower left corner for “v1.32.3.2” or higher. Enjoy!

A new update has been released for BlastZone 2! (v1.32.3.1) This is a smaller update that makes a few improvements to the player ship booster. The way the booster is rendered has been improved to both fix occasional Z clipping artifacts and slightly improve performance.

Here are the full release notes for v1.32.3.1:

• Fixed occasional Z clipping artifacts for the player ship booster
  
• Slightly optimized player ship booster rendering
  

As usual, to make sure you have the latest update, launch the game and check the lower left corner for “v1.32.3.1” or higher. Enjoy!

A new update has been released for BlastZone 2! (v1.32.3.0) This adds a new “Desktop” resolution option to the game, supporting any resolution not previously listed as a discrete option. This is done by matching the current desktop resolution and automatically adding black bars for any non-16:9 aspect ratio. This also allows support for vertically oriented displays while in fullscreen mode.

This update also changes the default resolution to “Desktop”, making the first time running the game more seamless. All the performance optimizations made over the years should make the game run well at the desktop resolution for the vast majority of systems.

Here are the full release notes for v1.32.3.0:

• Added a new "Desktop" resolution option
  -This auto detects the resolution to run the game at depending on what the current desktop resolution is
  -This allows for running the game at any resolution not previously supported as a discrete option
  -This also allows for running the game in fullscreen mode for vertically oriented displays
  -Any resolution that doesn't use a 16:9 aspect ratio will automatically have black bars applied to it
  
• Changed the default resolution option to "Desktop"
  -This provides the best display compatibility by default when first starting the game after a fresh install
  
• Updated the external configuration program to include the new "Desktop" resolution option
  

As usual, to make sure you have the latest update, launch the game and check the lower left corner for “v1.32.3.0” or higher. Enjoy!

A new update has been released for BlastZone 2! (v1.32.2.0) This adds support for monitor switching for multiple monitor setups. In previous versions, the only way to start the game on a different monitor was to change the primary monitor in the Windows settings. Now, the monitor used to start the game on can be switched using the options menu in-game, or the external configuration program. The default value is “Primary”, which uses the same behavior as previous versions.

Monitor switching also has a hidden “MonitorSwitchCompatibility” option in the game config file. This is enabled by default, and it ensures monitor switching works with all systems. The drawback is that monitors other than the primary one will be limited to 60fps when vsync is enabled for high refresh rate displays. Disabling this option fixes this issue and ensures the framerate on every monitor correctly matches vsync. However, disabling this option also causes the game to hang on startup for some NVidia Optimus laptops when using a secondary monitor.

Here are the full release notes for v1.32.2.0:

• Added support for selecting the monitor to display the game on for multimonitor setups
  -Previous versions only displayed the game on the primary monitor
  --Running the game windowed could be moved to another monitor, but would always start on the primary monitor
  -To change monitors, adjust the "Monitor" option in the game's Options menu and press "Apply"
  -Allows for running the game fullscreen on a secondary monitor without workarounds
  -The default value is "Primary", which always selects the main monitor, no matter which monitor number it is
  -There is a hidden "MonitorSwitchCompatibility" setting in the config file
  --The default setting is "Yes"
  ---This ensures monitor switching works correctly on all system configurations
  ---However, all monitors other than the primary monitor will be limited to 60fps when vsync is enabled
  ----The primary monitor will still work okay at over 60fps with vsync enabled for high refresh rate displays
  --If this is set to "No", all monitors with refresh rates over 60hz with vsync on can achieve frame rates above 60fps, but has compatibility issues with some systems
  ---One test laptop using NVidia optimus graphics with Intel integrated graphics has a startup hang when running the game on the non-primary monitor
  --This should be left as default for most users
  
• Built entirely new code to handle changing the monitor resolution when running in fullscreen code
  
• Added a new monitor selection box to the external configuration program
  
• Fixed potential compatibility issues with a theoretical future OpenGL 5.X release
  -This ensures that the maximum version used is OpenGL 4.6
  -If a newer version of OpenGL beyond 4.6 is released, BlastZone 2 will need to be updated with explicit support for it to be used
  

Enjoy the added convenience for multiple monitor setups!