{"id":21981236,"url":"https://github.com/SpecialKO/SpecialK","last_synced_at":"2025-07-22T20:31:50.794Z","repository":{"id":37255805,"uuid":"450996695","full_name":"SpecialKO/SpecialK","owner":"SpecialKO","description":"Lovingly referred to as the Swiss Army Knife of PC gaming, Special K does a bit of everything.","archived":false,"fork":false,"pushed_at":"2025-07-11T06:44:09.000Z","size":287975,"stargazers_count":1408,"open_issues_count":105,"forks_count":64,"subscribers_count":14,"default_branch":"main","last_synced_at":"2025-07-20T01:30:46.000Z","etag":null,"topics":["framerate-fixer","gaming","hdr","latency-analysis","modding-games","reverse-engineering"],"latest_commit_sha":null,"homepage":"https://www.special-k.info/","language":"C++","has_issues":true,"has_wiki":null,"has_pages":null,"mirror_url":null,"source_name":null,"license":"gpl-3.0","status":null,"scm":"git","pull_requests_enabled":true,"icon_url":"https://github.com/SpecialKO.png","metadata":{"files":{"readme":"README.md","changelog":"CHANGELOG.txt","contributing":null,"funding":null,"license":"LICENSE","code_of_conduct":null,"threat_model":null,"audit":null,"citation":null,"codeowners":null,"security":null,"support":null,"governance":null,"roadmap":null,"authors":null,"dei":null,"publiccode":null,"codemeta":null,"zenodo":null}},"created_at":"2022-01-23T03:42:47.000Z","updated_at":"2025-07-18T22:48:38.000Z","dependencies_parsed_at":"2024-02-28T21:26:18.515Z","dependency_job_id":"77380cd9-155f-406e-915d-179a6958ee74","html_url":"https://github.com/SpecialKO/SpecialK","commit_stats":null,"previous_names":[],"tags_count":70,"template":false,"template_full_name":null,"purl":"pkg:github/SpecialKO/SpecialK","repository_url":"https://repos.ecosyste.ms/api/v1/hosts/GitHub/repositories/SpecialKO%2FSpecialK","tags_url":"https://repos.ecosyste.ms/api/v1/hosts/GitHub/repositories/SpecialKO%2FSpecialK/tags","releases_url":"https://repos.ecosyste.ms/api/v1/hosts/GitHub/repositories/SpecialKO%2FSpecialK/releases","manifests_url":"https://repos.ecosyste.ms/api/v1/hosts/GitHub/repositories/SpecialKO%2FSpecialK/manifests","owner_url":"https://repos.ecosyste.ms/api/v1/hosts/GitHub/owners/SpecialKO","download_url":"https://codeload.github.com/SpecialKO/SpecialK/tar.gz/refs/heads/main","sbom_url":"https://repos.ecosyste.ms/api/v1/hosts/GitHub/repositories/SpecialKO%2FSpecialK/sbom","host":{"name":"GitHub","url":"https://github.com","kind":"github","repositories_count":266567307,"owners_count":23949329,"icon_url":"https://github.com/github.png","version":null,"created_at":"2022-05-30T11:31:42.601Z","updated_at":"2022-07-04T15:15:14.044Z","status":"online","status_checked_at":"2025-07-22T02:00:09.085Z","response_time":66,"last_error":null,"robots_txt_status":null,"robots_txt_updated_at":null,"robots_txt_url":"https://github.com/robots.txt","online":true,"can_crawl_api":true,"host_url":"https://repos.ecosyste.ms/api/v1/hosts/GitHub","repositories_url":"https://repos.ecosyste.ms/api/v1/hosts/GitHub/repositories","repository_names_url":"https://repos.ecosyste.ms/api/v1/hosts/GitHub/repository_names","owners_url":"https://repos.ecosyste.ms/api/v1/hosts/GitHub/owners"}},"keywords":["framerate-fixer","gaming","hdr","latency-analysis","modding-games","reverse-engineering"],"created_at":"2024-11-29T17:17:20.212Z","updated_at":"2025-07-22T20:31:47.252Z","avatar_url":"https://github.com/SpecialKO.png","language":"C++","funding_links":[],"categories":["Modding Utilities"],"sub_categories":["Vortex Plugins \u0026 Tools"],"readme":"\u003cp align=\"center\"\u003e\n\u003ca href=\"https://github.com/SpecialKO/SpecialK/actions/workflows/build-windows.yml\"\u003e\u003cimg src=\"https://github.com/SpecialKO/SpecialK/actions/workflows/build-windows.yml/badge.svg\" alt=\"Builds\"\u003e\u003c/a\u003e\u0026nbsp;\n\u003ca href=\"https://discord.gg/SpecialK\"\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"Discord\" src=\"https://img.shields.io/discord/778539700981071872?logo=discord\u0026label=Discord\"\u003e\u003c/a\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\nSpecial K\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u003csub\u003e*\"Lovingly referred to as the Swiss Army Knife of PC gaming, Special K does a bit of everything. It is best known for fixing and enhancing graphics, its many detailed performance analysis and correction mods, and a constantly growing palette of tools that solve a wide variety of issues affecting PC games.\"*\u003c/sub\u003e\n\n\u003cp align=\"right\"\u003e\u003cimg src=\"https://img.shields.io/github/license/SpecialKO/SpecialK\" alt=\"License\"\u003e\n\u0026nbsp;\u003cimg src=\"https://img.shields.io/github/languages/top/SpecialKO/SpecialK\" alt=\"Primary Language\"\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\n\u003chr\u003e\n\n\u003e**Contents of Repository**\n\u003e\n\u003eThis repository contains source code for Special K's code injection payload (`SpecialK(32|64).dll`).\n\u003e\u003eSupporting utilities such as SKIF (**S**pecial **K** **I**njection **F**rontend) and the now deprecated SKIM (**S**pecial **K** **I**nstall **M**anger) are maintained as separate projects. Additionally, some older mods built using Special K exist as standalone plug-in DLLs; plug-ins and SKIM are no longer actively maintained, but are accessible via Kaldaien's GitHub profile.\n\u003e\n\u003e\u003cbr\u003e**Build Dependencies**\n\u003e\n\u003e All of Special K's build dependencies are included when you clone the repo beginning with 23.5.7. Older versions have an additional dependency on the June 2010 DirectX SDK.\n\u003e \n\u003e\u003e Special K requires Visual C++ 2022 or newer to compile due to language features not present in older compilers.\n\u003e\n\u003e\u003cbr\u003e**Platform Dependencies**\n\u003e\n\u003e Special K is not supported on anything older than Windows 8.1, though (as of 23.5.7) still builds and runs (massively feature-reduced) on Windows 7 (Platform Update).\n\u003e \u003e It does run in WINE and is compatible with DXVK, but must be configured with `UsingWINE=true` in its per-game INI file to work on Linux.\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003e\n\u003e\u003cbr\u003e**Miscellaneous**\n\u003e\n\u003eThere is a good chance the project will not compile correctly if you use the Debug build configuration, Special K is designed to produce debuggable Release builds.\n\u003chr\u003e\n\n### High-Level Overview of Special K Code Injection\n\nSpecial K's DLLs are capable of injecting their code in one of two ways:\n\n**Local Injection**\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u003csub\u003eProxy / Wrapper DLL\u003c/sub\u003e\n1. Rename `SpecialK(32|64).dll` to `(dxgi|d3d11|d3d9|d3d8|ddraw|dinput8|OpenGL32).dll` and catch a ride via Static Imports or calls to **`LoadLibrary (...)`**.\n\n**Global Injection**\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u003csub\u003eWin32 Global Hookchain\u003c/sub\u003e\n\n2. Globally Inject using CBT / Shell hooks\n\t\u003eThis is the preferred technique, and the DLL is capable of bootstrapping the hook without any outside assistance via **`RunDLL_InjectionManager (...)`** (**rundll32.exe** will host the DLL as a normal Win32 UI process).\n\t\n\u003cbr\u003e\n\nThere are many more possible ways to inject the DLLs, the two outlined above are useable without any additional tools.\n\nSpecial K will happily inject into a game that is already running if you want to build your own tool using something like **`CreateRemoteThread (...)`**, but keep in mind that late injection will prevent some of Special K's features (particularly those related to D3D overrides and shader/texture mods) from working.\n\n\u003e CBT Hooks were chosen due to hookchain order. Since most graphics APIs on Windows need a window before they can do non-trivial initialization, a CBT hook reliably gets us into the application ***before*** D3D9/11/12 swapchain creation.\n","project_url":"https://awesome.ecosyste.ms/api/v1/projects/github.com%2FSpecialKO%2FSpecialK","html_url":"https://awesome.ecosyste.ms/projects/github.com%2FSpecialKO%2FSpecialK","lists_url":"https://awesome.ecosyste.ms/api/v1/projects/github.com%2FSpecialKO%2FSpecialK/lists"}