General Thoughts on the PC Version of The Enhanced GOTY

Borderlands General Discussion
#1

I’ve been having quite a blast playing Borderlands 1 again, I have to say. There’s some nice improvements all around, but the PC version still has quite a few issues that I feel could be addressed. I’ll be starting from the worst issues in my opinion to minor ones, then to the good parts of the remaster.

The main issues I’ve been having are quite annoying. The first being that I can’t play the game through LAN. Considering it’s Unreal Engine, this shouldn’t really be a problem and if you had full access to the command console it actually could be worked around. The main reason this is an issue is that my ping just seems to be absurd at times, it’ll barely be playable, and I have a wired ethernet connection. The online system seems to be the actual source of these ping issues, as I’ll keep a perfect connection to Discord and other services while playing. So tl;dr LAN multiplayer would be sweet.

The second main issue is actually the mouse options. By default, aim assist is on, which shouldn’t be on by default in a PC game, and the actual sensitivity options are absurdly sensitive. I have to turn down my mouse DPI while also having all of the sensitivity options at the minimum in order to be able to control the camera. Of all of the things that got improved, I’m not sure why this was something that wasn’t looked at, I recall various topics being posted around about how to work around the mouse sensitivity. A good way to approach this issue could be to just have a general “sensitivity multiplier” option that goes from values like 0.1-2.0 so that you could have a very easy time controlling your mouse sensitivity. For the Unreal devs out there, I found my preferred mouse sensitivity is actually 2.8 in engine.playerinput, so if that were possible under the custom mouse sensitivity system in BL1 that would be a very nice improvement.

The third and final main issue I have is just general framerate issues. I understand that it’s an old version of UE3, and still has all of the old PhysX components and overall less polish and optimization, but it is a little jarring. Some areas just seem to not do enough occlusion culling (Fyrestone comes to mind), and a good few other places in the game. Along with that, skag ragdolls in particular are tanking my framerate, oddly enough. At least 6-7 active ragdolls brought my framerate down into the 30s, not sure why. It isn’t an issue for bandits and the like so far so I’m not entirely sure what’s up.

And now onto the minor issues, this’ll be brief.
Not all settings are saving, such as voice chat being enabled, push to talk, off, etc, Anisotropic Filtering keeps resetting to zero, refresh rate seems to work but the setting in the settings menu doesn’t remember what it was set to the last run, and various other settings.

The prerendered videos have extremely compressed audio: Borderlands GOTY Enhanced - EXCESSIVE LOSSY COMPRESSION FOR AUDIO STREAMS IN BK2 VIDEO

Some of the textures don’t seem to have been redone or it’s the result of a texture streaming bug?

image
image.jpg1440×900 254 KB

The model is pretty hi-poly by the way so it just looks kinda funny with such a low-res texture lol.

And lastly the camera animations are still really jank, and I’ve still seen some complaints of people getting dizzy from them. Could be cool to have an option to disable camera animations and view bobbing for people that dislike/need them, but it may be a hard issue to approach depending on how they’re implemented.

Onto the pros of the remaster:
It’s 64bit and running in DirectX11, instead of the original’s 32bit DirectX9 release. This is great for performance on new systems.

The FOV slider is very, very welcome. 120 degrees seems a little small for people with Ultrawide monitors however so the limit should probably be increased.

Seeing an option to turn off dynamic shadows (a very common tweak for very low powered systems) was very welcome as well. I don’t have a system that would ever need to use this feature anymore, but I did actually do this in Borderlands 2 back in the day when I had a fairly bad computer that didn’t really put out a good framerate.

The texture and model edits are very nice looking. You can catch details like brushstrokes in many of the environment textures, it looks very nice. Were these the original textures in full resolution or were they all remade from scratch? I’m curious.

The general gameplay changes make playing the game a lot less awkward, I like the features that were backported from BL2, the game now feels pretty intuitive to play overall compared to the original release.

All in all, great improvement, just needs some more refinement and I think it’ll end up being a perfect fix for the original game’s flaws. Glad to be having more fun in Borderlands.

Also it’s seriously a nice treat that this was a free upgrade to those that owned the original. Thanks for that.

5 Likes
#2

Yeah, this has always been a thing, thought it would go away in the remaster with the jump to 64 bit, but apparently not. Only ever used to notice on borderlands 2 in the areas with lots of stuff, but getting a to 144hz monitor really brought it out in both games for me. The most frustrating thing is that it’s fixed in the handsome collection. I heard somewhere that it was a very simple fix as well. Just 1 tweak to the code, and boom, 2 player split screen, killing loaders in overlook at a steady 60fps with no lag/latency.

1 Like
#3

Totally with you on LAN play. The original had a LAN option so I’m scratching my head wondering why it was removed. My wife and I play games together on our LAN and well, it’s kind of a bummer we have to go through a bunch of outside connections and servers miles away when we’re just a few feet away from each other lol.

4 Likes
#4

Yeah, high refresh rates will do that to you, haha. Even at just 75hz I’m feeling that. It doesn’t help that DirectX9 games are cursed for me as well, so modern games run like a dream but a lot of games from only half a decade ago run really bad. Honestly I’m just blaming Windows 10 on that, need to clean install it sometime.

Yeah, the XBone version is actually running as a 64bit DirectX11 game because developers aren’t allowed to use anything older. What frustrates me a bit more on that front is that Unreal engine will automatically recompile shaders for all of their supported renderers (Yes, UE3 will) so we didn’t have a 64bit DX11 version of BL2 for essentially no good reason. And TPS by extension. I was hoping to have gotten a proper upgrade on that front like the Enhanced Goty but I’m a bit disappointed.

Honestly was doubting myself whether or not it had LAN before but that just confuses me too haha. Just trying to play with family members less than ten feet from each other and it feels like I’m connecting to someone all the way across the world.

4 Likes
#5

I’d really have loved if they had shared the 4-player (just 2 would be nice) split-screen console love with us PC’ers.
sigh
Broke the bank buying MY gaming notebook, can’t afford to get the wife one too.
We’re replaying the non-enhanced on 360 atm.
The mini-map would have made my life so much easier as she is navigationally challenged.

1 Like
#6

I don’t know if you can do it on the enhanced GOTY, but there was a method I used to use with my older brother when I was younger to do splitscreen on PC in Borderlands 2, involving a few silly tricks to get multiple games to open, and gratuitous abuse of the borderless windowed feature in the command line. You can have one keyboard and mouse user, and one controller user, or both as controller users this way. Since you’re doing 2 player, I personally recommend setting the resolution to a 4:3 ratio and dealing with a little bit of blank space, which is what I did back in the day. The HUD doesn’t really like to scale that well to funky ratios iirc.

You could try following one of the tutorials for this like on this youtube video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DndNP8i8h80

there’s even more command lines you can use to make this more convenient, if I remember correctly the command lines I used in addition to this were these:
-windowedborderless -resx (width) -resy (height) -posx (x position of top left window corner) -posy (y position of top left window corner)

Just enter in what you want in these parameters for the respective game if it ends up working, used to do this all the time and surprisingly performance was really good with this method.

2 Likes
#7

Thanks Omega59, I hadn’t even thought to try that. Before the player slider mod was released I used to have 3 extra instances of the game running in 640x480 with different characters with the class mods I wanted the bonuses from for a little extra difficulty and perks.

A few years ago Valve turned off running multiple instances of BL1 Original. That’s why I own BLTrilogy on PS3, So my wife and I could play on our TV. When my PS3 went kaput, bought it again for 360.

Just checked and trying to run from .exe pops up saying an instance is already running. And, without LAN play you can’t do that anyhow :sob:

Guess I’ll just have to convince her to let me buy an XBox One X and all four games next March after our tax refund. :grin:

I wonder sometimes if Sony and Microsoft don’t pay developers to eviscerate splitscreen from PC versions of their games just so people will have to buy a console to play couch co-op.

2 Likes
#8

I used to chat with one of the BL2 devs, the reason we don’t have splitscreen is because Steam doesn’t support multiple accounts being logged in at the same time. A bit frustrating but at least it was a legitimate reason.

#9

Only gripe I have is for some reason it is frying my GPU, the cooling fans go nuts when I play this one.

#10

Maybe some canned air on the heatsink fins? You may have dust-bunny problems.

#11

I feel like this may not get quite enough love in your post. Despite a couple of issues, two minutes into the game I’m already loving the amazing job that’s been done on a completely free upgrade to a game that’s been out for nearly a decade.

I’ve been wanting to replay BL1 for a while, but I just had trouble bringing myself to deal with all the little quirks, like having to manually reset FoV every time I get out of a vehicle, or the blah inventory system. I think I’ll finally actually get some of my other characters through PT1 (at least) with all the new shiny.

On the issue of quirks (some of these are in the base game, but if we’re going to complain, might as well complain about all the things):

  1. I got like 25 achievements just for logging into my imported character (the import feature is awesome, by the way). But it was odd how many achievements I didn’t get, even though they are clearly tied to data in my save file. Like equipping a class mod, discovering Skag Gully, completing 5 missions in Arid Badlands, or killing Crawmerax.¹

    Fortunately, among the achievements properly imported were those horrid Claptrap farming achieves, so yay.

  2. Would be nice if teleporting to a vehicle automatically faced forward.

  3. I’d like an option to make crouch a hold button instead of a toggle button.

  4. A Claptrap stash (with more than 4 slots?) would be nice.

  5. The rotating minimap would feel better if it rotated instantly, instead of lagging a bit. (This is much worse in vehicle mode. I think it’s because it tracks the vehicle instead of the camera.)

  6. Would be nice if hitting spacebar at the main menu would select Start Game, and hitting it again would select Play Game. Would also be nice if the game would remember which playthrough I was on. Together, these would allow spamming spacebar to restart the game when farming. (Really, a “restart game” option would do wonders here.)

  7. Similarly, the ability to use the wasd keys (customizable for esdf players?) to select menu options would make quitting and so forth better (BL2 could benefit from this as well).

  8. Would be nice if rotating the mouse slightly while strafing wouldn’t kill sprint mode.

  9. The BL2 highlights and effective levels on the skill tree would be great.

  10. The level requirement display bug due to weapon proficiencies could stand to be fixed.

¹ Getting some missing achieves.
  • The “discovered xxx” achieves can be easily gotten by simply using the waypoint system to teleport; you don’t have to do a full playthrough.
  • “Kill 25 enemies with xxx” are achieved by doing it just once (including the vehicle kills).
  • The class mod achieve is earned by just unequipping and reequiping.
  • I got the Ned dlc achieves for teleporting to Moxxi’s Underdome.
  • Somehow, my save game glitched (before GOTY, I think, and definitely before I imported into the Enhanced edition) so I had three incomplete quests on PT1. The first was a quest to turn on a valve, which I completed and got the two Rust Commons achieves. The second is Keep Your Insides Inside, which I can’t complete because Zed isn’t there. The third is Talk To Tannis, which can’t be completed because Tannis isn’t there. (Can’t talk to them elsewhere to turn the quests in, either.) But since I got both the “all missions” and “five missions” achieves from the one quest, it seems that the game isn’t even trying to check mission progress when you load a character; only when completing a mission.
  • The Rakk Hive achieve works without the mission, so just go back on any character and kill it again.
2 Likes
#12

Hm. I didn’t bother with importing because I lost my saves from years upon years ago, so it’s good you pointed it out so other people don’t get surprised. Achievements are handled by the Steam API though, and the in-game checks probably aren’t set to check immediately if you’ve already gotten it, rather than meeting the requirements.

It looks like it updates at the same rate as the compass, which is really slow and somewhat disorienting. Just making it update at a minimum of 30FPS, or even better, matching your framerate would do absolute wonders to it. That said, the minimap doesn’t rotate if you’re the gunner of a vehicle, no matter if you’re the host or not, so it just seems to be a bit of a janky implementation right now.

Yeah it’s pretty jank and a little annoying to have to take corners wide just to keep speed up, or just hold W.

But while we’re on the subject of dashing mechanics, you can jump, fire your weapon/melee/etc in the air and still continue dashing, unlike BL2. It adds an interesting bit of skillful complexity when it comes to dealing damage and still being mobile, I’m almost addicted to this specific gimmick. It combines really well with slower fire rate guns where you might only get one or two shots off in the time it takes you to jump and land. It’s a dream come true for someone in love with snipers and revolvers/mashers.

#13

…haha, yeah that would explain why it only happens with this game and not others. :eyes:

#14

This. The achievement checks are done whenever you complete one of the required things (like ‘discovering’ a map location or completing a side quest). You’ll get bunches of them unlocking at different times seemingly at random on characters that have unfinished quests still.

Had the same thing happen with both BL2 and TPS remasters when I migrated saves from 360 to XB1. There will always be the odd one or two that don’t seem to trigger for some reason, but you should be able to get quite a few at least.

1 Like
#15

i never played borderlands 1 until weeks ago when i got on steam the GOTY enhanced version package.

i have played borderlands 2 with 4 DLCs on my PC, playable with no internet.

things i really like about borderlands GOTY enhanced right away over BL2

  • bank, insanely way easier to use and SIMPLE!
  • 3 bag slot add unlock quests
  • increase bank slots thru vendor for gold
  • able to unlock add more ammo carrying thru ammo machines…for gold, making the game less gated
  • weapons carry you for longer periods, i got a level 7 epic pistol, was still rocking at level 21, would not get away with that in BL2

things i miss from BL2 playing BL1 redone

  • clap trap bank
  • corrosive weapons of quality
  • weapon appearances, of course BL1 has a few good looking weapons, but most are rather generic, yes i understand it is a decade old game.
2 Likes
#16

Just found out today the vengeance exploit was fixed. Why? I get that it was a problem, but Mordecai still has broken COMs 10 years later. Why did fixing an exploit in a non competitive game take priority over busted gear? How many customers have complained about busted COMs vs the vengeance giving you a cool effect? Idk, every time I see some exploit fixed when there are legitimate issues that effort could have gone to, it just puts a bad taste in my mouth.

3 Likes
#17

I’m going to take a guess that the bugfixing came first because this game mostly seemed to be handled by texture/model artists and programmers. Usually there’ll be designers and stuff in charge of weapon balancing and all that, which means it’s likely a lot of that got ignored in favor of getting the remaster in a state it could be shipped in. Here’s to hoping they bring in some nice patches on that end.

Personally the only weapon type I think has a nicer form is definitely the revolvers. The BL2 revolver models look a little too Nerf Maverick-y for my tastes, and these look like proper revolvers in BL1. Also just have to say I wish Mashers were in BL2 (except the Maggie being on its lonesome as the only one), absolutely loving them here. They’re so fun.

Tangentally related, you have the console version right? Did the remaster have an FOV slider like the console Handsome Collection did?

#18

This, so much this. Never liked that in the original BL1, it was fixed in BL2. Ooooh how I wish it was also fixed in the Enhanced version.

#19

Yes, and it’s pretty generous with the range too.

#20

Very nice. When I told my console friends about it, back when the HC came out they really ended up enjoying it. Wish more console games gave you that choice, 50-75 degrees on average can lead to a lot of motion sickness issues and this is a very easy fix.

That said, I found out why Borderlands looks funky. It’s using a Vertical- FOV scaling system, rather than the typical Horizontal+ FOV scaling you’d normally see. There’s a fix I was sent to put the game into Horizontal+ and it’s a lot more comfortable to play. Hopefully that gets noticed and patched, either as the default FOV scaling or as an option or something. UE3 as I recall is supposed to have an ini option to control it.