Friday, May 2, 2014

Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft

Fix by Eincrou




3D Video (Skip to 18:17 to see the game board working properly)

Menus
Game Board

Created using game version: 1.0.0.5170

Description

This is probably the simplest "fix" on the blog, but I think it's extremely useful and worth sharing with others.  In the six months that I've been playing Hearthstone, it never occurred to me that the game might be viewable in stereoscopic 3D.  I had assumed that many of its visual elements were 2D.  The truth is that the entire game is composed of 3D models, from the menu graphics to the game boards to the particle effects.  Even the cards are perceptible as 3D models if you have high enough depth.  And the best part is that the game has no rendering anomalies!

The only major problem is that different convergence values are required for menus and for when you are in a game.  This fix addresses that problem.

This fix solves:

  1. Menus and game boards require radically different convergence values.  Manually changing them is annoying.

Problems not fixed:

  1. None that I know of.

Change log:

  • v1: (5/2/2014) Initial fix with depth/convergence presets.


How To Get It Working

  1. Extract the .zip file to the same location as "Hearthstone.exe"
  2. Follow the instructions below on allowing the game to render in stereoscopic 3D.
  3. When in the game menus, press the F1 key and then tune your depth and convergence values to your liking.  Press F7 and the values will be saved to the F1 key.
  4. Repeat the same process for the game board by pressing F2, finding your preferred stereoscopic values, and then pressing F7 to save them to the F2 key.
  5. Enjoy easily and quickly adjusting your stereoscopic settings as needed!

Getting Hearthstone to run in stereoscopic 3D:


Hearthstone has no official 3D Vision profile from Nvidia and so the game will not even run in 3D.  This can be easily resolved by associating Hearthstone with another game's profile.
  1. Download NVIDIA Inspector: NVIDIA Inspector Download
  2. Extract and run the program as an administrator.
  3. The main window has a row that says Driver Version near the middle.  To the right of that row is a tools icon.  Click it.
  4. In the Profiles drop down menu in the top-left corner, find the "Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft" profile.
  5. On the top toolbar, find the icon to "Remove application from current profile."  It's the blue icon with the red X in the corner.  Remove hearthstone.exe from the profile and accept the warning message.
  6. Now, select the profile for "Aion"
  7. On the top toolbar, find the icon to "Add application to current profile." Locate your Hearthstone install folder and select Hearthstone.exe.
  8. Confirm that hearthstone.exe appears in the green bar below the toolbar.  Press the "Apply changes" button on the top-right corner.
  9. 3DTV Play Users: Hearthstone's "fullscreen" mode is borderless windowed mode and will not work with 3DTV Play if your desktop resolution is not already in a 3DTV Play supported mode.  To fix this, set your desktop resolution to 1920x1080 @ 24Hz or 1280x720 @60Hz.  Revert the resolution back to normal when finished playing.
If you want to use SLI for Hearthstone (....really?), then change the SLI compatibility bit to 0x02402005.  Change it back to 0x02400405 if you want to run Aion with SLI.

Preset Hotkeys:

Remember that pressing F7 saves your current depth and convergence values to the last preset key you pressed.  The default hotkeys can be changed.  Reference the linked chart for keycodes.  Use the number from the second column: Keyboard Keys and Key Code Values
  • Preset Key 1: F1 By default, a good menus setting.
  • Preset Key 2: F2 By default, a good game board setting.


Download 

37 comments:

  1. Holy Balls dude, this was the most amazing thing I have seen in a long time. I didn't think hearthstone used directx for rendering so 3D wasn't ever something I considered. Man after playing the game in 2D for so long to have this come along, it's like a completely new experience. Thank you :)

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  2. Nice update, much appreciated it's perfect now.

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    1. I did my initial testing with the Aion profile, but since using SLI required changing the compatibility bits I wanted to recommend a different profile for those who might also play Aion. I didn't notice that shadows were bad with the rFactor profile until later. There are probably other profiles with the same SLI bits as Hearthstone that will work perfectly, but I'll let someone who is motivated to do it figure that out, haha.

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  3. I have followed the NVIDIA inspector steps, however it just did not swap to 3d automatically. I also did not get the overlay from 3dtv play. It felt like it is because of the game not being in fullscreen (It does not have fullscreen, all it has is windowed fullscreen). Am I missing something?

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    1. Yes, this game's "fullscreen" is actually borderless windowed. I don't know much about 3DTV Play, but I've heard that it requires exclusive fullscreen to work. Hopefully you have a 3DV monitor you can use for this game.

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    2. Solved the issue and found more about the system actually, here is what I did:
      - Swap the desktop resolution to 1920x1080p 24Hz and tadaa. 3DTV has only two options, 1080px24 or 720px60. Apparently, it does not have to be fullscreen, however the content must be viewed in one of the formats above by any means. Changing the resolution to 3D formats from NVIDIA control panel forces the desktop to be viewed in 3D. So everytime I want to play, I have to switch my resolution from 1080px60 to 1080px24 3d.

      For the people who wants this to work on 3dtv play, here is the TLDR:

      - Do all the steps Eincrou mentioned
      - Everytime you want to play Heartstone Go to Nvidia Control Panel, change resolution
      - From HD3D subtab, select 1080p (You will notice on the right side, the refresh rate will be 24Hz)
      - After playing the game, revert the changes, 24Hz is not good for anything else

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    3. Thanks for sharing how you got the game working. I'll add your instructions to the post.

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  4. Thanks for the fix, working great. However, I'm only getting around 35-45 fps when I'm playing. I usually get 120hz before this fix, I have a gtx 670 so I don't know what the problem is.

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    1. I just tested Hearthstone with it setup as described in the post. I ran the game in S3D at 2560x1440 with 340.43 beta drivers. The frame rate was an unwavering 60FPS, both in dual-GPU and single-GPU modes.

      I'm not sure what you mean by "this fix." There are two parts to this post: 1) the Helix Mod fix that enables switching depth/convergence presets with a hotkey, and 2) instructions for how to allow HS to run in S3D. The fix shouldn't have any impact on your performance, but running the game in S3D might. A GTX 670 should be able to keep 60FPS @1080p with no problem, so I don't know what the issue could be.

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    2. I'm guessing the performance issues might have something to do with the Aion profile, not sure what else it could be.

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    3. I am using the Aion profile without any issues, and even its default SLI bits work properly. You can try adding Hearthstone to any other game profile that has a 3D Vision profile. The "View Compatibility With Games" tab in the NVIDIA Control Panel has a list of every game with a 3DV profile.

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  5. Hello! I've run the app as an administrator, but everything is greyed out and I can't select the tool icon. Could you help me out?
    Thanks!
    -Jakkjakk

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    1. Sorry, I don't know much about Nvidia Inspector and cannot troubleshoot it.

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  6. Thanks a lot! That changes everything!

    Minor defect: you cannot take snapshots (alt + F1 by default, and the Nvidia panel does not allow you to change that hotkey).

    Keep up the good work, here!

    Cheers

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    Replies
    1. That's true, I forgot about the default screenshot hotkey being Alt+F1 because I've been using a different key for years now. Regardless, instructions for how to change the depth/convergence preset hotkeys are in the post. And here's how to change the screenshots hotkey: http://3dvision-blog.com/3053-modifying-all-3d-vision-control-key-combinations-as-you-need/

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  7. Quick as lightning! Thanks!

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  8. not working anymore any idea to launch Hearthstone with 3d vision?

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    1. "not working" is useless in terms of providing any information or suggestions. If you are going to make a bug report, put some effort into it and tell us exactly what is happening and what you've tried.

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  9. sorry... i wanted to say that with new nvidia driver since some year, hearthstone isn t kickin 3d, the trick with nvidiainspector isn't working anymore :(
    btw i had no hope someone will answer.. no one posted here since 2014.

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    1. The key part is getting it to kick into 3D, so remove the other parts of the fix, until you can get that to work. Make sure your files are good with a game verification.

      You'll probably need to experiment with nvidiainspector to see if you can get 3D to enable. Try different profiles, because nvidia might have broken Aion profile. Also worth looking at the http://wiki.bo3b.net/index.php?title=Driver_Profile_Settings for profile settings that enable 3D.

      Best bet is to roll back to older drivers. They seem to be breaking a lot of stuff in the newest drivers.

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  10. I think the problem is the mandatory Battle.NET launcher. I added both Hearthstone + battle.net to the Aion profile, but does not work.

    I will be very, very happy if I can play this in 3D like in the video.

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  11. Hi is it still possible to play in 3D these days ? I can t fix it on my side.

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  12. I think this game needs another fix, I'm still waiting too. For the moment I uninstalled it

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    1. Just tested this out, and it was working for me. Assigning to the Aion profile still worked, and I get 3D in game.

      Win10 1803, Driver 419.67.

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    2. Strike that, only partly worked. I was in Discover mode, and that actually works. But, normal 3D Vision does not. That says that it can work, but needs to be forced to exclusive full screen. Discover will work even if not exclusive.

      I can't quite tell the API used. Afterburner says it's DX11, but I dropped in 3Dmigoto, and no log file is created, so it's not being loaded or wrapping the API. It looks like maybe it's using OpenGL to startup, that's linked to the app. But then Eincrou's fix is using HelixMod, which is DX9.

      Nevertheless, if you think of a way to force fullscreen, it will work.

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    3. OK, one more time- I figured it out. This is now a Unity game. So you can go to the Battle.net launcher and add command line parameters of -window-mode exclusive and it will force full screen and 3D Vision kicks in.

      Only partially a success though, because since it's now DX11, that means the old fix no longer works, and the graphics are not as good. Could be fixed using 3Dmigoto, but a ShaderHacker will need to find the shaders.

      If you use the x32 version of 3Dmigoto, you can edit the shaders. It would also be worth trying DHR's Universal Unity fix, might fix the shaders using the regex. Lastly, DarkStarSword has a Unity script that can fix Unity games for 3D.

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    4. Thank you very much for your findings!

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    5. Thanks to bo3b for looking into if Hearthstone still works with the now defunct technology once called NVIDIA 3D Vision!

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    6. Today I have played a lot of hours without fix and everything is perfect as is, I even uploaded a 3D video to YouTube. The only thing when I press ctrl+F7 to save convergence setting the values reset to defaults instead

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    7. Is it possible to make a tutorial please, i am still struggling with that :(

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  13. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  14. Yeah i am trying to play in 3D since i ve got my monitor and couldn t do it at all :( Is it possible to release a new fix please ? Thank you very much. I am still trying to find a way.

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  15. You don't even need the fix right now. You only have to open "Options" for the game on Blizzard Battle launcher, click on "Game settings", enable "Additional command line arguments" and write below "-window-mode exclusive"
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0nhARwcrK4M

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  16. Is this still working with hearthstone? It crashes for me now.

    I add in the -window-mode exclusive parameter, and I have been able to somehow get hearthstone to launch with anaglyph mode enabled on my monitor with the following steps, however it is not via the "3d mode" or "vr mode" buttons. It crashes upon the intro screen every time I try to launch it in either of those modes, nonetheless I am able to get anaglyph + NOT crashing if I:

    1. Install the 3d fix.
    2. Launch it using the 3d mode button and allow it to crash. Before it crashes, it is indeed displaying anaglyph mode on the title screen.
    3. Re-launch the game normally through the blizzard launcher.

    It is then "stuck in anaglyph mode until I uninstall the 3d fix. Any ideas what I'm doing wrong?

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    1. I tried with game updated to last version and it doesn't launch in full screen exclusive mode anymore. I noticed I wrote "exclusive" instead "-exclusive", tried both, but none works. So I contacted with Blizzard support to complain not being able to execute in exclusive full screen.
      Last time it worked without any fix, now I opened 3DFM but it doesn't detect the game. I will try to apply fix manually.

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    2. Installed fix manually and followed instructions. Still not working...

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  17. I contacted with Blizzard about the Full Screen Exclusive mode and they said me this (automated translation):
    Greetings David!

    Surely it all depends on the system you have!
    Note that the option to play in Full Screen Only is not available normally, the normal configuration of Hearthstone is Full Screen in window, the same with the great majority of games that are available in Windows 10.

    Windows 10 has gradually disabled the ability to play video or games in Full Screen Exclusive mode. Many times the option is simply not available or is set to be full screen in window, this is part of the Windows 10 system itself, not the games you are using.

    If you say you used to have the ability to make adjustments, it may be that since that time you have upgraded windows, upgraded the Unity system, or adjusted Hearthstone and no longer offered the option.

    Unfortunately, Blizzard's official technical support can only help with the settings that exist in the game. If it is possible or if it was possible before making changes via your operating system, unfortunately we have no way of knowing and it would be a matter of checking if there are any adjustments or fixes that you can use outside of what is offered officially.

    If you have another question or doubt you can talk to us again :D
    Thanks for playing and I hope you have a good day.

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