Saints Row Finally Gets a Patch

Months after its release and hundreds of bugs, the Volition team has finally released a patch for Saints Row. Is it too little too late?

Many of the 2old2play staff and members have long forgotten about Saint Row and it unplayable lag and multi-player glitches. As we reported on in early September, the game had severe online issue which took away the biggest plus this GTA clone had to offer. Although, with the wait for Gears Of War and other holiday block busters it may just have some life in it left.

The Product Update Includes

General

• Enabled 4xAA (anti-aliasing) for 480i standard-def and 480p resolutions (was 2xAA).
• Enabled 4x anti-aliasing during initial player creation screen.
• Added player options to enable v-sync during.
• cutscenes and/or gameplay, with warning that it will affect framerate.
• Fixed widescreen formatting issues in certain resolutions.
• Fixed issue where button icons would sometimes not appear during tagging activity.
• Fixed problem where camera could rapidly rotate around player when exiting vehicle.
• Added dialog reminding player to save before final mission in the game.
• Fixed rare crash bugs due to variants and fast shader constants.
• DLC - Car dealership now skips paint selection for car if the car has no color data.
• Fixed issue when signing out of a gamer profile on The Wheel Woman unlock screen.
• Added missing audio tracks to music stores, including “Pickin’ Boogers.”
• Added long sideburns and four other missing hairstyles to Shear Intensity salons.

Multiplayer

• Improvements to the way the game handles packet loss and bandwidth management between players. This addresses issues commonly cited as “lag”, and general synchronization problems between the players’ clients (vehicles/players warping around, etc).
• Various bandwidth optimizations.
• Fixed connection issues with gang servers (done server-side, update not required).
• The system for rating a player’s quality-of-service has been improved, and made less conservative. This means you’ll see many more matches with 10-12 player limits.
• Fixed “clothes stealing” exploit. Stolen clothes will be deleted, legit clothes will be unharmed.
• Various changes to Matchmaking phase, to get players in the game faster.
• Team-based, non-Gang games are now required to have even teams. Gang matches still allowed to be off-by-one to allow easier matchmaking, since single people cannot be matched-in.
• Fixed issue that could cause the Blinged Out Ride vehicle to get stuck inside the garage when the driver disconnects.
• Fixed crash that could happen during server migration.
• Fixed rank reporting errors in Leaderboards for Team Gang Brawl and Team Big Ass Chains.
• Fixed problem where end of games stats display could be improperly sorted.
• Fixed issue in server migration where statistics would not be properly updated for the newly selected server.
• Fixed issue where incorrect server was elected for game size.
• Fixed issue where car could get stuck in a chop shop or get pushed out of the level and destroyed.
  Added caching to pimp hat and multiplayer chains to reduce delay when they are loaded.
• Fixed problem where PC could become bald after importing from single-player savegame.
• Fixed problem where multiplayer garages had problems with client vehicles colliding at the entrance with an invisible mesh mover.
• Item sync improvements.
• Fixed problem that could prevent twelve people from getting into a match due to not having enough security associations.
• Points stored in Big Ass Chains are now being reset between games.
• Fixed issue where gang stats retrieval could fail and not be retried.
• Addressed “standby” hack where a player would temporarily disconnect their network connection to move around without others seeing them.
• The proper number of custom vehicle choices now appears for the Hustlin multiplayer level.
• Gang sizes limited to 100 members.
• Fixed cases where gangs match but not all players get into the game.
• Only servers with sufficient bandwidth are selected to host a match.
• Fixed bug where multiplayer garages had problems with client vehicles colliding against unseen geometry.
• Big Ass Chains points scored stats are now reset between games.
• Fixed bug where player would have pipebombs in inventory but would not be able to throw them.
• Fixed problem in Protect Tha Pimp where a player would respawn at the beginning of a round in observer mode.
• DLC - Always display name of level server has selected, even if client does not have that level downloaded.

From the looks of it, it appears that the team has really gone out of their way to patch all the problems we saw with the original launch. Saints Row always had vast potential when it came to the online realm, but the bugs simply made it impossible for many to enjoy. I only hope that the time in which it took Volition did not kill off an already limping community which up until now, has been on life support. In any case, I guess I know what I will be doing tonight. Gang Wars anyone?

Update: We have learned from the Saints Row forums that most people have still not received the update. There is no word on when it will actually be sent out to the public, but many members are still waiting as of 11:00 p.m. Central Standard time.

Update 2: The Update is now available to almost everyone. Enjoy.