MADFINGER Games has pushed Patch 0.3.5.0 for its hardcore tactical FPS extraction shooter, Grey Zone Warfare, and the headline change is an engine upgrade to Unreal Engine 5.5. The studio says the move brings parallel rendering, lower memory use, and a raft of performance and stability fixes aimed especially at mid and lower-end PCs.
“Upgrading to Unreal Engine 5.5 allowed us to greatly improve performance on weaker hardware and heavy in-game locations, doubling performance on an Intel i7-8700. Version 0.3.5.0 delivers four months of daily fixes and optimizations from the Gray Zone Warfare programming team, eliminating many shader compilation stutters, reducing remaining hitches, and continuing work with Epic and NVIDIA to resolve GPU crashes.”
The patch is not just an under-the-hood swap. Expect lower RAM and VRAM footprints, an internal benchmark tool that suggests settings, AMD FSR 4 support, an updated NVIDIA DLSS plugin, audio tweaks, new recoil and AI aiming systems, and a stack of bug fixes.
Video briefing from the developers:
Patch Notes – 0.3.5.0
- Updated to Unreal Engine 5.5, allowing us to parallelize rendering, significantly increasing performance on mid- and lower-end CPUs
- Reduced VRAM usage by about 400MB on all systems
- Reduced RAM usage by about 2GB on all systems
- Updated to AMD FSR 4
- Various performance, RAM, and VRAM optimizations
- Added an internal benchmark tool to suggest optimal settings based on the player’s hardware
- Focus on reducing hitching during gameplay
- Numerous crashes fixed
- AI aiming has been completely reworked to simulate human-like aiming behavior that adapts dynamically based on multiple conditions:
- AI difficulty level
- Distance to target and the weapon’s effective range
- Weather effects such as fog and rain intensity
- AI health status and suppression level
- Target movement
- Duration of target lock
- Several actions can now break or modify AI’s target lock, including:
- Target leaving line of sight
- AI switching to a new target
- AI reloading, getting hit, becoming suppressed, or stunned
- Several actions can now break or modify AI’s target lock, including:
- The result is more believable, less robotic AI behavior, with reactions and accuracy that depend on the situation, weapon, and environment.
- Shooting sound has been tweaked for all weapons, with improved directional perception of shooting enemies and realistic behavior of sonic crack and shot sounds for all weapons.
- Optimizing first-person movement animations in various ways:
- Reduced the impact of several animations on the first-person perspective to minimize excessive character movement and animation blending. First-person hand movement is now smoother and without glitches
- The weapon sway was adjusted, making it more responsive when the player moves.
- A completely new recoil formula has been implemented to simulate the behavior of real firearms more accurately.
- This system adds the need for precise player input, greater weapon balance flexibility, and a more authentic feel during weapon customization.
- Full-auto firearms now use unique recoil patterns tied to each weapon’s lower receiver.
- Recoil is now calculated using real physics and recoil energy computation.
- Introduced Gas Factor to simulate differences between weapon types and barrel lengths.
- Muzzle brakes, suppressors, and gas blocks now feature new efficiency behavior, reducing the impact of Gas Factor.
- Recoil control parts can further reduce remaining recoil.
- Aiming and movement states now affect recoil dynamically – ADS, crouch, and prone reduce recoil, while movement increases it based on speed.
- Added a new and improved death sequence from the first-person perspective. Upon death, the player’s view now turns toward the approximate direction of the incoming shot.
- Improved the bullet penetration through the skull and bones. Headshots are now more lethal, and the increased bone penetration reduces cases where AI NPCs absorb hits with their arms. Additionally, increased blood spatter makes non-vital hits more impactful, reflecting greater direct blood loss.
- Balanced rewards for Strike missions in Blue Lagoon, Ban Pa, Pha Lang Airfield, Sawmill, YBL-1, and Hunter’s Paradise to reflect the difference in the area difficulty.
- Added a new server region, Mainland China, aimed at improving network quality for players in the area. The initial results look promising, and the region will undergo an extended testing phase to evaluate the performance and viability for long-term deployment.
- Fixes and adjustments requested by the community, including:
- Fixed a bug that caused the key drop frequency in Fort Narith to be incorrectly low
- Fixed an issue where the sonic crack sound could play after the actual gunshot
- Fixed an issue causing very dark nights with the global illumination set to medium or higher
- Fixed an issue causing black borders on the bottom half of the screen when using NVGs
- Fixed an issue where FSR frame generation was disabled on RX 580 graphics cards
- Fixed an issue where lasers were not working correctly in specific locations, such as YBL-1 and parts of Midnight Sapphire
- Fixed an issue where players were unable to hand in task items in COPs
- Fixed a rare issue where blood regeneration would stop after healing all wounds
- Fixed an issue that caused audio to cut out in the Tiger Bay Mall
- Fixed ambient noise transmission in some parts of YBL-1
- Improved scope visibility under specific weather conditions where the image appeared overly dark
- Improved collision detection on the ground to help prevent players from falling through the ground after getting revived
- Unreal Engine and rendering specific fixes and optimizations:
- Fixed an issue in Unreal Engine’s pre-caching system that caused frequent shader compilation hitches
- Fixed numerous hitches caused by the missing pre-caching of specific shaders
- Fixed periodic hitches caused by cloud and reflection rendering calculations
- Customized Unreal’s graphic resources allocator to significantly reduce hitches caused by resource allocation
- Optimized asset streaming to reduce CPU load when traveling to new locations
- Fixed hitches caused by a character spawned by the network
- Fixed periodic hitches caused by updating the Sun/Moon lights in the day/night/weather cycle
- Fixed hitches caused by loot spawned by the network
- Fixed hitches caused by bullets traveling over long distances
- Fixed hitches when certain environmental particles spawned
- Fixed hitches that occurred when capturing a COP
- Fixed hitches occurring when vending machines were streamed in
- Optimized the VFX for barrel fire, campfire, explosive grenades, flashbang grenades, and mortar explosions to improve performance
- Optimized muzzle particle effects on all weapons to improve the framerate during full-auto fire
- Various other under-the-hood optimizations
- Gameplay and item fixes:
- Fixed an issue where players always died if they got into a coma while in a helicopter
- Fixed an issue where using the splint did not prioritize the most damaged bone
- Fixed an issue where the player’s weapon can become invisible after examining another player with a grenade in hand
- Fixed the RIS II 12 Handguard setup to correctly prevent its use with shorter barrels
- Fixed an issue that allowed players to remove a scope from the SVD while loading the magazine into the weapon
- Fixed a minor animation glitch when starting to run with a knife while in dynamic crouch
- Fixed an issue where AI NPCs sometimes did not turn on their flashlights at night
- Fixed a very rare issue where an AI NPC would keep the player as a target indefinitely
- Fixed an issue that caused players to be unable to scope zoom while slow walking
- Fixed an issue where footsteps sounds disappeared when the player turned their back to a moving character
- Reduced the visual range of flashlights on AI NPCs
- Added the missing FDE AK Handguard to the military firearms box loot table
- Added the missing HP Bunker key to the Hunter’s Paradise Boss loot table
- Adjusted the extraction range for the Squad Strike mission ‘Fragile Goods’ from 2.5 m to 25 m
- Level and collision fixes – several locations where players could get stuck were fixed, including specific coordinates in Tiger Bay Wrecking Yard, Fanny Paradise, Sabai Lake Restaurant, Inthavong Farm, Sawmill, and outside the Nomad COP.
- Fixed the rooftop of the Crusader COP not being recognized as part of the COP area
- Fixed a missing collision on a wall near the Tiger Bay Central Southeast entrance
- Fixed an incorrect collision around fountains in Midnight Sapphire that caused grenades to bounce off
- Fixed a visual discrepancy between the sky and the environment during specific weather conditions on low settings
- Fixed the position of the interaction box for the laptop in the Shepherd COP
- Disabled lights that were unintentionally active during the daytime
- Adjusted terrain and objects in the Spielberk COP to prevent players from climbing onto the roof
- Removed an unused interaction option from a light switch in YBL-1
- UI and network fixes and polish:
- Fixed an incorrect ‘joined squad’ notification when a player was promoted to squad leader
- Fixed a missing notification that the squad had been disbanded after the squad leader, who created the squad, left
- Fixed an issue where a messenger channel would get stuck in the pinned section after unpinning
- Fixed an issue where the messenger window would fail to display when sending a message through the player interaction panel
- Fixed the incorrect text wrapping in the feedback form window
- Fixed an issue causing the weather forecast in the main menu to be out of sync with the in-game one
- Fixed an issue where the tracking tag icon disappeared from the map if the tracked item was looted from a player’s body and then placed back
- Fixed an issue where the cursor did not appear after pressing Alt+F4 outside of the friendly area
- Fixed an issue where pressing Backspace when inputting a safe code did not delete the numbers
- Fixed an issue where the conflict zone detail text did not update when changing the game language
- Fixed the incorrect size of the maintenance notification widget in the main menu and unified its position across various resolutions and screen sizes
- Fixed an issue where the character level was displayed as 0 instead of 1 after a wipe
- Fixed incorrect text on the End Deployment button when outside of friendly areas
- Fixed a missing icon in the hair selection section of the character creation screen
- Fixed the incorrect DLC message wrapping in the Czech localization
- Fixed the conflict zone detail text in the Spanish localization
- Changing settings now lists each changed setting item, along with the original value. Players can revert each of the changed settings
- Removed the option to invite offline friends to a squad from the friends list
- When reporting a player for a faction kill, the reason is now pre-selected in the report window
- Custom server and multiplayer fixes, including player list labels, nickname display for first-time custom server joiners, crashes on custom servers, and gamepad support for free cam on custom servers.
- Visual fixes and balance:
- Improved the visuals of glass reflections in scopes
- Fixed a visual movement glitch that caused a sudden bump after stopping while in dynamic crouch
- Adjusted the lighting on low settings to balance the overall darkness
- Stability and miscellaneous fixes:
- Fixed an issue that could cause the game to freeze when closed with ALT+F4
- Fixed an issue where the foliage might flicker and disappear under specific circumstances
- Fixed an issue that caused the Load Friends Failed error if a player accumulated over 100 friends
- Fixed an issue where Steam friends data failed to load after 60 minutes in the main menu
- Fixed an issue where players were unable to join the server as a squad leader under specific circumstances
- Fixed a rare issue that caused players to connect to a full server, resulting in a connection error message
- Fixed the Twitch Drops rewards distribution system for players who were unable to claim them until now
- Fixed an issue where light artifacts appeared on buildings during nighttime
- Fixed an issue where the inside of a bunker in Fort Narith got too dark if global illumination was set to low
- Fixed a rare issue where the suppression blur effect would persist on the player’s screen after death
- Reduced flickering of various smoke effects in shadows
- Players can now choose whether they want to reconnect to their original server, if within a reconnection window, or to abandon it and join a new one
- Added a recommended driver version pop-up that appears when starting the game after an update if outdated graphics drivers are detected
- Final roundup of tech updates:
- Updated to Unreal Engine 5.5
- Updated the NVIDIA DLSS plugin to version 8.1.0
- Updated to AMD FSR 4
- Upgraded Wwise to version 2024.1.8
- Updated Oodle to 2.9.14 to reduce crashes related to specific Intel CPUs
Patch 0.3.5.0 should download via Steam the next time the client launches.
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