Update 44 for cyubeVR is live! Engine update, improved settings, and more!

Hey everyone, Update 44 for cyubeVR is live!

This update brings an update to the latest Unreal Engine version, a lot of internal code refactoring, some new convenience features regarding inventory management, new graphics options and more!

Let's take a look at the list of changes first, and after that, let's get into more detail for some of the changes!

• Engine Update to latest Unreal Engine version (4.26.1)
  
• Some big internal refactoring of some code, fixing possible crashes and improving performance
  
• Added new "View Distance" setting in the ingame-settings of the game
  
• Added Free C Disk Space check and warning
  
• Added a new bloom setting, called "Best"
  
• Added some small new convenience features for inventory management
  
• Added a new graphics setting "Shadow Quality"
  
• Improved tree visuals in 8K screenshots
  
• Fixed LOD chunk not being visible if it contained invalid blocks
  
• Fixed custom blocks of different types directly next to each other being incorrectly displayed as only one type in LOD chunks
  
• Renamed "Default" bloom setting to "Crazy"
  
• Improved visuals of the particles of the torch you see in your hand
  
• Renamed "Medium" bloom setting to "High"
  
• Renamed "Distance Shadows" graphics setting to "Distant Tree Shadows"
  
• Optimized performance of "Distant Tree Shadows" a bit
  
• Fixed "Blocks Mined in 10 Minutes" stat not always working correctly
  
• If the view distance is set to be higher than 50, the game now automatically disables "Distant Tree Shadows"
  
• Various Optimizations
  
  

An engine update again! This is roughly half a year worth of changes from the hundreds of programmers working on UE4!

Engine updates always mean millions of lines of code changed under the hood, and hopefully lead to improved performance and better compatibility with new hardware and new features like DX12. DX12 works significantly better with cyubeVR now than before, DX11 is still the default though. If you want to run the game with DX12, simply add "-dx12" as a launch option in the properties of the game in your steam library.

This is also one step closer to raytracing support, DLSS support, Linux support, and OpenXR support!



With the last update, Update 43, a super awesome new view distance system was added to the game, making it possible to use near real-world view distances:

https://steamcommunity.com/games/619500/announcements/detail/2948135824505035085

To enable those, it was necessary to edit an INI file though. Now, there is a new "View Distance" setting in the ingame-settings of the game, allowing you to adjust the view distance directly on the fly in the game, instead of having to change values in the INI file and having to restart the game to apply them!

The new "View Distance" setting in the ingame-settings has 5 options:

20, 50, 100, 200, INI

The default value is 20. If you set it to "INI", it will use the ChunkViewDistance value from the Game.ini. Otherwise, the setting from the ingame settings will overwrite the value you set in your Game.ini.

There also is an "info" icon next to the name of this new setting, which displays a big "tooltip text" when hovered, explaining how the view distance system of the game works, and where to find the INI to enter custom values, if needed.

If you previously had a higher view distance in your INI set, you now have to make sure to set this new setting to "INI", otherwise your view distance will always just be the default of 20.



When adding a block to the inventory, while there's a fully empty block quick slot, the block is now automatically selected in that quick slot.

Also, when adding a tool to the inventory, while there's an empty tool quick slot, the tool is automatically moved to that quick slot.

These changes mean that, especially at the start of the game, you can collect blocks/tools and directly place/use them without ever having to open the briefcase.



Bloom is an interesting topic where the opinions of people hugely differ! So the only way to make everyone happy is to offer as many options as possible, so that everyone can pick the ideal option for themselves.

This update improves the names of the bloom settings, renaming "Default" to "Crazy", because "Default" has not actually been the default any more for years, so the name was just incorrect. It also renames "Medium" to "High", as "Medium" really was quite high already.

And most importantly, this update adds a new bloom option, called "Best". The existing bloom settings were all not perfect before. "High" and "Crazy" both are too strong for most people, as they made the image appear significantly less sharp, and you also noticed the low resolution they internally use for their calculation when you turned your head.
"Low" was also not perfect, as it only introduced very low-scale bloom, less than what physically accurate bloom would be, it still had too strong contrasts between dark and very-bright areas. What was missing was a very high quality, closer-to-physically-accurate bloom between "Low" and "Medium", and that is what "Best" now is!
It's the most performance intensive option out of all, as it's internally using a higher resolution to render than all the other options, but it's also, hopefully, what most people would consider "the best looking" one.



A new setting has been added for adjusting the shadow quality! You can choose between "High" and "Ultra". The default is "High".

This new setting allows you to significantly increase the shadow quality at medium distances, if you have performance to spare. This is especially useful if you use a high view distance and you want to have good looking shadows on trees at a medium distance. The "Tree Distant Shadows" become more expensive with a higher view distance, and quite slow once you try to use a view distance higher than ~50. The "Shadow Quality" at "Ultra" has the same cost no matter if you have a View Distance of 50, or 500, and additionally looks better than "Distant Tree Shadows" at a medium distance. So if you have a fast GPU, and use a high view distance, disable "Distant Tree Shadows" and put "Shadow Quality" at "Ultra" for the best experience.

Also, if the view distance is set to be higher than 50, the game now automatically disables "Distant Tree Shadows" and hides the setting for it, as it would not be worth the performance cost any more. In that case, the new "Ultra" shadow quality should be used instead.



It happened multiple times that people wondered why cyubeVR crashes after a few seconds, when the simple explanation was that there was 0 MB free space left on their C:/ drive, causing the game to crash when trying to save the world.

Now, the game automatically checks once every second how much free space you have on your C:/ drive, and displays a big red warning message if it detects there's less than 100 MB free space, as the game will likely soon crash then when trying to save the world. The game needs some free space on your C:/ drive, as your world data is stored in the AppData folder, which is on your C:/ drive.





A big thanks to everyone supporting the development of cyubeVR on Patreon! I'm working fulltime on cyubeVR, and it's quite hard to make a living purely off of the Steam sales of the game, so any Patreon Supporter is really worth a lot for the continued development of the game. Thanks so much to all the Patreon Supporters (list sorted by total lifetime donation):


Al Raw, Shanya / Sabrina, ChibiArcher, ErrorNull, @B4nH4mm3r on Discord, David O, texhnobees, Adrian Sawn, KroyVR, Algiz, SkgBlaze, Lucas van Leiden, Netshaman, DiamondHunter_, HeyMika,
SingingFluffyUK, Jackerino, gunair, WarChi1d


Patreon rewards are being mentioned in the list of patreon supporters in the main menu, getting a special colored name in the official cyubeVR Discord, and physical items like a sticker, mug, or t-shirt with cyubeVR designs.



As usual, thanks very much to our great beta testers in the official cyubeVR discord who tested this update as part of 22 separate beta builds! If you want to test new features earlier when they come out in the beta branch, make sure to join the discord and take a look at the #beta-build-patch-notes and #beta-build-discussion channel!

That's all for today! If you like the game, don't forget to tell other people about it and write a review on Steam if you haven't done that already, even if its just a few words. Writing a positive review and spreading the word is the easiest way you can support the game!
Thanks for caring about the game and as usual, make sure to report all issues you see and give me as much feedback as possible in the official forums or the official discord server, join it before its full ;) We're over 1450 people there already, come and join us! If you don't like something about the game, tell me there and I'll try to improve it! I'm available to chat with anyone in discord :)

There's also a cyubeVR subreddit available on Reddit, if you're active on Reddit, make sure to subscribe to it and maybe post some great screenshots there!

You can also follow the Stonebrick Studios account on Twitter.

And lastly, don't forget there's an official roadmap with voting features.

Looking forward to hearing what you think about the new update :)

Cheers!