Tuesday, May 7, 2013

Oblivion - 3D Vision Fix



3D Vision Fix by mike_ar69


What's Fixed
1. Shadows.  Dynamic shadows from people and creatures (but see below).
2. Water.  Reflections in particular.
3. Stuff overhead.  Sky, Clouds, Stars, Moon(s).
4. HUD.  Presets to compensate for some HUD anomalies, and one to cycle sep/conv settings.

Updates
3-June-2013 Added extra shader fixes for clouds, sun and moon for the case when HDR is off.
5-June-2013 Created new alternative fix for water and shadows (fixed shaders rather than setting render target properties).  This was to circumvent a reported issue with HDR lighting.


Presets
Keys 1-9 control the Quick Wheel.  Press and hold for 0.5s and separation is set near zero to compensate for the incorrect rendering.  To change the setting, press and hold one of the keys, while still pressed change depth and convergence to what you want, press F7, let go of the number key.

Key 0 - This has two presets for Depth and Convergence.  To change them, press 0 to toggle to the preset you want to change.  Change depth and convergence, press F7 to save it.  Press 0 again to select the other preset, repeat process.



Description
An oldie, but with the right mods still looks fantastic.  There have been a few mods for 3D Vision in the past (one by yosj in particular), but the water fixes in particular were mostly just ‘cover ups’ for the fact that reflections didn’t work, and made the water look far less nice that it's 2D equivalent.  This new fix makes the water Skyrim-quality.

Special thanks to Helix for his DLL tools and making these kinds of fixes possible.


Screenshots
Before and After:


Before and After:


Before and After:



Video

A video is available here: Oblivion Video.

Notes
  • There are two versions provided:
    • The first fixes problems with water and shadows by setting properties for render targets in the DX9Settings.ini file.
    • The second fixes the water and shadows the 'old fashioned way' by fixing vertex and pixel shaders directly.  This was cretaed to remve a reported issue with HDR lighting rendering incorrectly with the original fix.
  • Both versions render the same, and if you do not have issues with HDR, the original version is recommended.
  • Dynamic shadows are still not quite right.  As the distance to the shadow increases, the shadow gets ‘clipped’.  I kind of know why, but have not been able to fix it.  Hoping someone else can help with that.  I will continue to look at it though.
  • I recommend you turn off self-shadows for the same reason as above.
  • I can’t find any shaders that render any of the HUD elements, so I can’t do anything with them.  If anyone wants to help with this, please do…
  • The game uses keys 1-8 for the quick wheel.  The Quick Wheel renders incorrectly so you can’t see what you are picking.  I have presets defined that bascially set the depth to near zero when holding the number keys down for about 500ms, then put it back to normal when you release the key.  This is not perfect, but I can’t find a way to do anything else with the HUD.
  • When doing the Lockpicking thing, this also renders incorrectly so you can hold down any of the number keys 1-8 while lockpicking and this will set depth near zero so you can see whats going on.
  • Cross-hair is still 2D.  All related to not being able to find any shaders for the HUD.  There might be a community mod to move the crosshair, like there is for Skyrim, I’m not sure.  I turn off the cross-hair and use the Nvidia laser sight with the 'Skyrim' reticles they created, and it works great - you still get all the context messages when you point at things.



Installation
1. Original Version: Extract this zip file to the same location as the games .exe file.
2. Updated Version if you have issues with HDR lighting: Extract this zip file to the same location as the games .exe file.


45 comments:

  1. Some notes:
    1. This fix works with everything maxxed out - no need to turn stuff down/off.
    2. I set HDR on in game, and set AA in the nvidia control panel (ie use 4x).
    3. Absolutely set anisotropic filtering to 16x in nvidia control panel. This has a massive impact on visual quality.
    4. Fix works for all DLC as far as I can tell. I wandered around the Shivering Isles a bit and everything worked.

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    1. Hi Mike,

      I really wonder why there is so little known in the Oblivion community about a really simple fix for the water and shadows issue. Just renaming "Oblivion.exe" to something else e.g. "Oblivion3D.exe" has fixed that issue for me and should work also for anyone else! Sorry but I don't know anymore where I had found that solution in the web.

      René

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    2. Hi Rene - yeah I also know this now, the nvidia profile is wrong. Removing it in nvidia inspector fixes it as well (this is the same as renaming the exe). Just renaming the exe does not work for Steam games. I guess I should update this blog - thanks for the feedback!
      Mike

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    3. Another issue with removing the profile is that the (newer at least) nvidia driver does not remember convergence settings (when pressing ctrl-F7), though by providing helixmod presets we are getting around that. I'll finally say that every step that gets added to these fixes - like removing the profile in Nvidia inspector - makes it less easy (and less likely) for people to use, so having a one stop solution is beneficial as well. I am still amazed that Nvidia so significantly screwed up the profile for this game - everything they did made something worse, its quite astounding really.

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    4. Like 1/4-1/5 games past a certain date are on wrong profile.
      Helix actually tried to fix Clive Barker's Jericho when he first started [should look at files. He did it without nvapi].
      The sad thing is its on that "null" profile I talked about before. Game plays flawlessly with aion profile

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  2. Awesome. I am trying do it with Dungeons & Dragons: Neverwinter. But I cant. Shadows is bugged just like Oblivion.

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    1. Thanks. Is the game you refer to the new Neverwinter MMO? I have downloaded the beta and got as far as creating a character, but not actually played yet. I will have a quick look at some point. I will say though that shadows (and relatedly some lighting) issues are the hardest to fix because they are different for each game.

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    2. DX11. Would have to switch it to DX9. Not sure of the "cost"

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    3. Ah ok. How can I change DX11 to DX9?

      eqzitara, wich game is this? http://photos.3dvisionlive.com/eqzitara/image/518e02315ec3465735000030/

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    4. I dont have game so I dont know. I am not a big MMO player.

      velvet ASSassin[Pun intended]
      I just need to finish hud before posting.

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  3. Thanks for the fix, super happy to see this is being worked on. It seems to all work, but for me the HDR doesn't work? It renders incorrectly.

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    1. Thanks for the feedback. Can you describe what rendering issue you have when you enable HDR? Let me know a scene and a specific situation, or provide a screenshot and I'll have a look at it.

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    2. Happens everywhere. Looks like HDR renders in the left eye where it should be on the right eye.

      http://photos.3dvisionlive.com/Cookybiscuit/image/51ab864c5ec3468e470000b1/
      http://photos.3dvisionlive.com/Cookybiscuit/image/51ab860d5ec3467a5d000058/

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    3. Just a quick mention. If you decide to look at it and have trouble fixing it by normal means. I think I tried it once and wound up cheating with same results

      I think hdr in this game is an issue you can get away with by pushing into max depth/seperation [I think its always happening at max depth/in distance]

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    4. @Anonymous
      Thanks for the Visionlive pics. Very strangely, and unfortunately for tracking down the problem, I do not get this problem... There must be some difference in our settings, or installed versions/mods:
      - For settings I have everything max, except I turn off self shadows (I should put a note in the main text about this). I have HDR on. I just tested the problem now with HDR on and off, and all I get is a 'normal' ghosting issue due to contrast variance, and its worse with HDR on, but is not the same as your screenshots are showing. I run at 1080p.
      - Version: The version of my Oblivion.exe is 1.2.0.416. This is the GOTY with everything included.
      - Mods: I have a few of these, which I think the following is full list (I may have missed a minor texture mod:
      -- DarNified UI 1.3.2 (should have no effect whatsoever)
      -- HGEC Body 1.21 (should have no effect whatsoever)
      -- Natural Faces v95 (should have no effect whatsoever)
      -- Qarl_TP3_Full_v1.3 This is a hires texture replacer, so should not have any effect, but who knows
      -- Unofficial Oblivion Patch - OMOD installer-5296-3-4-3. Including "additional changes" This could be a reason.
      -- Unofficial Mods Patch - OMOD Installer-9969-18. This could be a reason NOTE this includes the Qarl pack as well I think.
      -- Unofficial Shivering Isles Patch - OMOD Installer-10739-1-5-2. Including "additional changes"
      -- Babehair. (should have no effect whatsoever)
      -- Enhanced Water v2.0 HD. (should have no effect whatsoever)

      I will note one thing that confused me. The skybox in this game is broken, and is one of things I fixed. After installed one of the mods (no idea which one, I did them all at the same time) the skybox was no longer broken. Perhaps HDR was broken before (before I noticed it to fix it) but I never got to it because I installed the mods...?

      I will try a fresh install of Oblivion with no patches, but thus might take a while. In the meantime, could you let me know what versions/settings you have.

      @Eqzitara
      Are you seeing the same HDR issue? That would be useful for me to know.

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    5. OK - so I reinstalled Oblivion GOTY edition on Steam, so there are no mods at all, and no Helixmod. I do not get the HDR issue you have in your screen shots. When I install the Helixmod, I still do not get the HDR issue.
      I will note that that the skybox (clouds) were 'back' to being at the wrong depth with this clean install, but the Helixmod does fix that up. This shows that something in the mods affected the skybox - perhaps they included that other guys skybox fix in the community mod...?
      Either way, can you check if you have the latest version of Oblivion? Thanks.

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    6. Nah, I was just throwing it out there before you started. I tried fixing it in a different game. And was just mentioning an easy solution.

      Hes got mods installed. I saw thread, I have no idea which one effects it though.

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    7. FIXED. See main text. I removed the DX9Settings.ini entries and fixed the shaders for shadows and reflections, even one odd little shader I noticed that renders water rings when crabs go into the water. I checked as many watery areas as I could but I may have missed some.

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  4. Thank you Mike_ar69 for your fantastic work!! Oblivion is fantastic in 3D and with some mods!! Have anyone noticed why the game is so slow with 3D Vision enabled? Try to click the button on the emmiter while in-game and you'll see a big difference in lag-speed of the game!! Why is that? Is there a fix for making 3D Vision in Oblivion optimized for speed? -stamdd

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    1. Hi - actually I get a constant 60 fps with everything maxed out, that's on a 770. Remember that 3d renders two frames so approximately halving frame rate is not uncommon unless the game is CPU limited.

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  5. Also, has anyone tried it with the new fantastic ENB version v0181 which makes the graphics so realistic? When i try to load it (both version v2 & v3) by adding the parameter inside DX9settings.ini : ProxyLib=Q:\Games\Oblivion\d3d9_enb.dll (renaming dll from ENB) the game crashes at start!!!
    Is there a workaround?? -stamdd

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    Replies
    1. http://helixmod.blogspot.com/2013/07/installation-known-issues.html?utm_source=BP_recent
      Go through that.

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    2. Thank you Eqzitara for the reply but i know that, i use in many other games (e.g. Skyrim) both ENB and your 3D fixes but in Oblivion with this fix and the latest ENB i cannot start the game!!
      Perhaps there is a parameter in DX9settings.ini that gives this CTD.
      Did Mike_ar69 tried to run ENB along with his fix?

      -stamdd

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    3. See my comment below, I pressed the wrong 'reply' button...

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  6. Could you verify the folllowing: (1) that ENB works in Oblivion without the helix fix installed (b) that the game will start with the ShaderOverride folder being renamed to something else (so the shader files are not picked up).
    One other thing you can do is remove the Oblivion profile completely in Nvidia Inspector - I found after I made this fix that removing the profile fixes the stereo issues (most of them anyway), but of course you will lose things like SLI flags (if you use SLI and whatever else is in there, like overriding AA or AF and so on).

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    1. Just to note that the skybox is still all wrong when the profile is removed, as is HDR lighting, but the latter can be turned off.

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  7. A huge thank you to Mike and others for carrying the baton for 3D stereo. You all do wonderful work here. Oblivion GOTY looks fantastic, it's like a whole new game.

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  8. Excellent fix!
    I'm gearing up for TESO in April, but i also have a 1 year old game of Oblivion i'd really like to finish before then. I want the best possible 3D experience for Oblivion. mike_ar69, Helix Mod i am in your debt.
    Which is the better fix? 2 or 3? Is one better for increasing frame rate to a steady 24 fps?
    Something strange though, i cant seem to enable my MSI Afterburner FPS OSD anymore, it prevents Oblivion from loading. Hopefully unrelated.
    Oh, one more thing. Does ANYONE know of a way to un-cap the frame rate in Oblivion? It is kinda low, especially using 3DTV Play at 24hz...
    Thanks for your hard work!. :D

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  9. Im using Oblivion Helix Mod 3D Fix V3, it seems to work fine but i am suspicious that v2 may have worked better. Oh, and an UPDATE: the frame rate may be fixable - http://www.nexusmods.com/oblivion/mods/23208/?

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    1. Hi - thanks for the feedback. v3 is more complicated than v2, I actually fix lots of shaders. v2 is preferred if you are not having HDR issues. That being said, I can't really tell the difference between the two solutions visually myself, but I have a fair tolerance for rendering errors I guess and might not notice things that others do ;-)

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  10. Hi !
    You make something very good!

    I only have a question:
    Did this fix can work with OBGE Liquid water?

    Your fix works for all the mods installed except for the water and i believe that OBGE Liquid water isn't compatible with the fix.

    Do you know Liquid water? can you do something with it?



    ReplyDelete
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    1. Hi - I have not heard of OBGE Liquid water, I will see if I can have a look at it. Have you tried v2 and v3 of my fix? v2 does not alter shaders to fix the water, so that might work for you.

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    2. OK, I just had a look and the OBGE Liquid Water *does* replace the Oblivion water shaders, and will thus conflict with my stereo fix. I doubt there is anyway I can fix their shaders, so I suggest you use v2 of my fix.

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    3. Thank you for your answer mike. :)

      As far as i remember i was using the V2 fix (if it's the one without pixel shader).

      But may be when i try it i make a mistake when i write the proxylib line in the DX9Settings cos i was testing oblivion 3d ultra modded with sweetfx.

      The result was awesome except for the water and the FPS (8 fps in the cities despite my I5, GTX 770 and 8Gb ram)

      i have now two options, play in 3D without OBGE LW or play 2D with OBGE LW and i think (when i see what Liquid Water is able to do) that i'll play 2D.

      Cos the water with this plug-in is simply awesome, you can tweak so much things like waves height and form, number of wave, ...etc.

      However the job you do for this fix is very impressive, good job! ;)

      P.S: I found an FPS optimizer who work in an other way than OSR that blubberduck86 tell you.

      This mod manage the view distance to keep the fps min/max you want and you can set a lot of tweak with. (but if you're in my case and have 8 fps min you can't have more than 15 fps without to have the object popping up only when you're close of them, a little bit frustrating when you have a pretty good hardware).

      http://www.nexusmods.com/oblivion/mods/7706/?

      Thank you !

      Mikael

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    4. I've not had chance to look at OBGE yet, but I want to comment on the performance - I get solid 60 FPS in this game, and never anything as low as a few FPS, so not sure what the issues might be. I am i5 3570K at 4.5GHz and GTX770 SLI.

      I would, however, definitely play this game in 3D over better water. The water mods I used improve things a lot as it is. This game looks so fantastic in 3D I can't imagine playing in 2D. If you like water effects, I've just been working on Hydrophobia the Prophecy, that has fantastic water effects and I have them working in 3D, check it out its $0.49 on Steam right now. I'll post a fix to this Blog in the next week or so.

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  11. i already buy it since 1 year and .... i never played it yet.

    :|

    I'm surely take a look at it if you'll do something for 3D.

    For Oblivion i removed OBGE but im forced to remove water reflection to cos i got a problem with the world reflect in the water. May be an other mod who conflict.
    I use around 75 mods in oblivion so it's a lot of chance to have conflict. But the beauty of this game in 3D with sweet fX made me forget the little bug!
    :°)

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  12. Hey Mike, Eq and HelixMod
    I was wondering if there is a way to use ur mod with SoftTH?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Maybe, havent tried
      http://helixmod.blogspot.com/2012/08/guidehow-to-install-helixmod-game-fixes.html

      TBH, people dont use softth anymore[unless multimonitor] they downsample manually.
      http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=509076

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  13. Hello
    I installed this fix, but I get a "Warning: attempt to run stereoscopic 3d on a non stereo environment.."
    It also happens with Ryse Son of Rome and Crysis 3. Dragon age is crashing alot but is working. Do you know what I am doing wrong? Thank you

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    1. That means that your screen resolution is wrong. 3D Vision only supports resolutions that are 120Hz for normal hardware, and only 1280x720 for 3D TV Play.

      If you can't get it working, use the geforce 3D Vision forums, and people can help you out.

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  14. Having issues with this fix. I'm on win8.1 64bit clean install of both windows and oblivion (steam goty edition, no mods)

    With the fix installed, as soon as I click play on the launcher, a windows error box appears saying "oblivion has stopped working) any ideas on how to fix this?

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    1. Maybe backup a bit to try to narrow it down. Remove the fix with uninstall.bat, and see what happens when you run with just 3D enabled. If you can get into the game with 3D enabled, but broken effects, we can look further.

      Also worth trying would be using the 3D Fix Manager to install the fix, and let it update to the latest version of 3Dmigoto, because the 1.3 versions are vastly improved in compatibility with Win10 and Win 8.1.

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    2. Hi bo3b. Sorry for spamming my issue both here on the forums and the discord. I used the fix manager to install it as it has been a godsend that it was created. The drivers should come with that and not geforce experience in my opinion.

      Anyway backing up, I uninstalled and reinstalled for the gazillionth time, 3d worked with no fix. Installed the fix and it all works, and now I have installed the mods I wanted to use, including NothernUiAway for full controller support without changing the menus and low and behold everything works fine. Not sure what has changed but happy days =]

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