Overview
I’m normally a vanilla person (it’s my favorite flavor), but I absolutely think this is fantastic work. Recently in the past few months (from March 2019 at least), active development with a few remaining people of Massassi began on a relatively large scale–considering this is a two-decade old game–project which includes multiple smaller-scale projects. These projects update the look of Jedi Knight to be slightly more modern. It will make this 1998 game look like a mid-2000s game along with technical improvements along the way.
Features
- Textures upscaled using artificial intelligence
- Better graphics: all-new 32-bit color, gamma correction, bloom, ambient occlusion, parallax mapping
- Improved performance for certain scenarios
- Textures that have lights in them now emit lights (e.g. walls with lights on them, Star Wars buttons, Katrassii Space Port lights, etc.)
- SSAO to bring out some world details
- Lightsaber actually looks like a lightsaber and glows
- No more dgVoodoo2 required–which doesn’t even work for some people–no more running in compatibility mode, no more screen resizing, etc.
- Weapons actually fire glowy Star Wars projectiles like in the films
- Launch from Steam, Steam overlay works, even when using a community-made patch for fixes
- HUD scaling
- Gets rid of the mode switching, i.e. black screens, when going from game to menus and vice versa
- Have a problem running Jedi Knight: Mysteries of the Sith? Try JKGFXMod, I’m sure it will work
Three Mods of One Project to Make MotS Look Great
The first is JKGFXMod[github.com]. This is a new injector/patch that allows JK/MotS to run better and can enable emissive textures (e.g. textures that have light emission actually emit lights). If you just want the technical improvements–such as not having to rely on dgVoodoo, not having to use compatibility mode, SSAO, no more screen mode switching between gameplay & menus, and HUD scaling–you can just install this one alone without the other two. Using this, you can launch MotS through Steam with a working Steam overlay.
The second is the Mysteries of the Sith Neural Upscale Texture Packs (MOTS). These are AI-upscaled textures that are injected into the game with JKGFXMOD. This modernizes the look with sharper and detailed gameplay. Additionally, light sources actually provide light with these packs.
The third is Enhancement Mod for Jedi Knight – MotS Edition (EMSith), which is a compilation of other high resolution model & texture packs (JKE, darthbabe96’s models and conversions, the FGR/SMLiberator-made saber + emissive explosion effects, etc.) This mod is hosted in the JK Neural Upscale page and requires JKGFXMod in this list.
Automatic Installation
An all-in-one installer is provided by GeneralTantor. Click here to visit the installer’s MODDB page.
I recommend to NOT install the FOV or Mipmap patches if that’s offered, as they hard freeze your computer in a few spots in the game.
Manual Installation
Please note that steps which include instructions on renaming must be adhered to strictly in this guide, and cannot be named anything else:
- Install Jedi Knight: Mysteries of the Sith via Steam. I highly recommend starting with a clean install (uninstall through Steam, then in Steamsteamappscommon delete the Jedi Knight Mysteries of the Sith folder) since it only takes a few minutes to do anyway.
- Obtain Jedi Knight: Mysteries of the Sith’s Unofficial Patch[community.pcgamingwiki.com] version of the game by placing jkm.exe from the zip file into SteamsteamappscommonJedi Knight Mysteries of the Sith
- Install JKGFXMod[github.com] by placing contents of JKGFXMOD.zip into SteamsteamappscommonJedi Knight Mysteries of the Sith
- Open jkgm.json with a text editor like Notepad or Notepad++, set the screen resolution to your own and change “jk.exe” to “jkmoriginal.exe” in the command row
- Rename jkm.exe to jkmoriginal.exe
- Rename inject.exe to JediKnightM.exe
- Run Jedi Knight: Mysteries of the Sith from Steam
- Enable 3D hardware acceleration in the display options before starting a new game. The only resolution you should find is the one you set in jkgm.json. Your game should run JKGFXMod and look like this.
- (Optional) Install Mysteries of the Sith Neural Upscale Texture Packs (MOTS) as a lot of new MOTS textures aren’t upscaled in JKNUP. Place the contents of materials.7z into SteamsteamappscommonJedi Knight Mysteries of the Sithjkgmmaterials
- (Optional) Install FastGamerr’s Enhancement Mod for JKGFXMod – MotS Edition (EMSith) by placing the contents of EMSITHv040.7z into your MotS directory. Your game should now look like this.
Troubleshooting
For any problem with Jedi Knight: Mysteries of the Sith and these mods, there’s a few things to keep in mind/try.
- Go to Setup and Display, make sure 3D Acceleration is enabled (only your resolution should be displayed), then click OK.
- Click on New Game to load up the game on Level 1. Jedi Knight nor MotS never works well with previous states, e.g. vanilla -> modded, or modded -> modded.
- Any “Could Not Load Level” error is mostly because you’re using the wrong version of Jedi Knight. You need to try to use the unofficial patch linked in the guides above.
- If you have laggy menus, it’s because of Gsync or Freesync. Disable them for the game only if you experience issues.
- If you have double HUD text at the top, that’s because EMJK’s attempt to make the text larger. You can disable this by downloading ConMan, opening up ResourcesEnhancementMod.gob, and deleting everything in the UI category if it’s too much for you.
- A odd muzzle flash when firing weapons is caused by the user setting’s brightness to not be at 0. Press F11 in game until you reach brightness level of 0.
- Some users report issues related to 1440p. If a widescreen issue should appear, right click on inject.exe, or JediKnight.exe if you renamed it this during installation, go to Properties, then Compatibility. Click on Change High DPI Settings and override the scaling behavior.
- If you experience hard crashes, it’s because of a FOV/Mipmap patch you made. I recommend against using them in MOTS as there are 2-3 places in the game where the FOV/Mipmap patch freezes your machine, most noticeably whenever there’s lightning effects, like on the collapsing bridge in Level 9: A New Republic Escort Ship.
The Massassi Discord[discord.gg]
PCGamingWiki[www.pcgamingwiki.com]
The Massassi Temple[www.massassi.net]
