3D Fix Manager

Last Updated: March 23, 2024

I like to share an application with you I’ve been working on for a while. It’s called "3D Fix Manager" and the reason I developed it is that I wanted to have a comfortable way to install 3D fixes in order to play games in flawless setereoscopic 3D on my 3D Vision certified monitor. 

Download 3D Fix Manager:

• Version 1.87 (file size: 48 MB, Google drive)

I uploaded the file to my Google Drive account as something changed on HelixMod's AWS server and I have no rights any more to publish files there.

3D Fix Manager with Geo-11 support now!

A bit of history first:

On October 2020 Nvidia partially removed stereoscopic 3D support from their graphics drivers when the new RTX 3000 series cards were released. This meant that any DirectX 11 game lost  compatibility to stereoscopic 3D. Any owner of a RTX 3000 / 4000 series card was locked out from 3D Vision gaming - at least for most of the games.

On June 2022 this issue was solved when our amazing developer davegl1234 released a full replacement driver for Nvidia 3D Vision, called "Geo-11". This driver finally allowed to play DirectX 11 games in glorious stereoscopic 3D again - on latest Nvidia cards! (including RTX 4000 series).

After having taken a long break from 3D Fix Manager project I finally have some good news for you. During the last weeks I found some time to dive into this project again and  accomplished to add full Geo-11 support to 3D Fix Manager! For further improvements done please check the change notes (v.1.86).

Short summary:

• 150 profiles haven been reworked to use the new Geo-11 driver and tagged to be compatible to the driver's "nvidia_dx11" output mode. This means that you can play these games on a 3D Vision certified monitor but you need a RTX 2000 series card or older. "Nvidia_dx11" mode is not compatible to latest graphics cards!
• A subset of these profiles (roughly 100 so far) have been tagged to to be compatible to "nvidia_dx9" output mode  which means that you can play these games on a 3D Vision monitor + latest graphics cards (including RTX 4000 series cards!). "Nvidia_dx9" mode still does not work on any DirectX 11 game, but on many.
• Instead of using "nvidia_dx9" and "nvidia_dx11" (which are suited for 3D Vision monitors only) you can also use other output formats like "side by side" or "top and bottom"
• DirectX 9 games are still fully compatible to stereoscopic 3D and run on latest graphics cards
• Vk3DVision and OpenGLWrapper should work as well on latest graphics cards but I didn't retest

FAQ to Geo-11:

1) I have a RTX 3000 / 4000 series card and I want to play games using the new Geo-11 driver on my 3D Vision monitor. How can I filter  the list of games to see relevant games only?

Locate the games filter list on the top left region of the window and select "Geo-11 Nvidia DX9". These games will run on latest graphics cards and your 3D Vision monitor.

2) I have a RTX 1000 / 2000 series card or older and I want to play games using the new Geo-11 driver on my 3D Vision monitor. How can I filter the list of games to see relevant games only?

Locate the games filter list on the top left region of the window and select "Geo-11 Nvidia DX11". These games will run on graphics cards up to RTX 2000 series and graphics drivers up to v.452.06. You can easily install Geforce driver v.452.06 on the "Drivers" tab of the application.

3) I want to filter the games list to see games only which I am generally able to play in 3D on latest Nvidia Geforce drivers. How can I do this?

Locate the games filter list on the top left region of the window and select "Supports latest drivers". This filter will show you games which are compatible to the 3D drivers Geo-11, 3D Vision DirectX 9, Vk3DVision and OpenGlWrapper. Please notice that 3D Vision DirectX 9 games require a 3D Vision monitor in any case. The other drivers allow to use other devices as well.

4) I do not have a 3D Vision monitor. How can I launch Geo-11 games in "side by side" or "top & bottom" mode?

• Navigate to the "Settings" tab and click on the sub-tab "Display profiles". Here you see 3 display profiles called "Monitor", "Projector" and "TV".
• Assuming you are using a monitor set up the following to use "side by side" mode:

• Optionally you can directly link the display profile to the display device you are using. In my case it's a Asus ROG PG278QR. If you do this 3DFM won't ask you on game launch any more which display profile to use as it auto selects the monitor profile for you if the Asus PG278QR is set up as the primary display device in Windows. If you don't link the display profile to your device then you have to manually select the monitor profile after hitting the "Play 3D" button.

5) I have launched a game using Geo-11 driver but 3D does not kick in on my 3D Vision monitor. I see a 2D image only.

This is a known issue of "nvidia_dx9" and "nvidia_dx11" output modes of Geo-11. In order to fix this issue try these things:

• Press CTRL + T two times (this often works in "nvidia_dx9" mode)
• Press ALT + ENTER two times
• Ingame check whether the game runs in "fullscreen" mode. "Borderless fullscreen" won't work in "nvidia_dx9" mode
• Ingame switch resolution from e.g. 2560x1440 to 1920x1080 and then back to the original resolution.(e.g. required for The Witcher 3)
• Ingame switch from fullscreen to borderless fullscreen and then back to fullscreen
• If nothing helps restart Windows (as stupid as it sounds but this helped in my case)

6) I have a RTX 4090 but still I get poor framerates with Geo-11 driver.

• Disable "Vertical Sync" ingame and use driver based Vsync. There are some severe issues with "nvidia_dx9" and vsync enabled ingame for a few game titles. 
• Don't use an external framerate limiter tool such as RivaTuner Statistics Server. "Nvidia_dx9" mode doesn't work correctly with it and might cause a choppy / non-stable framerate.
• Please be aware that "Nvidia_dx9" causes a worse performance compared to "nvidia_dx11" or "side by side" mode. Currently we have to live with that as it's the only mode we can use for our 3D Vision monitors combined with latest graphics cards.

7) I want to try a game with Geo-11 but it's not tagged to be compatible to Geo-11 yet. How can I launch the game using Geo-11 driver anyway?

So far roughly 150 game profiles have been tagged by me to be compatible to Geo-11. But that's probably just the peak of the iceberg of compatible games and I just don't have enough time to check each single game. 

If you want to experiment and see whether an existing game profile works with Geo-11, please read the following instructions. Please note that you will have the highest chance to get a game running with Geo-11 if it's based on Unreal Engine 4 or Unity game engine.

• Locate the games filter list on the top left region of the window and select either "3dmigoto (DX 11)", "Unreal Engine 4" or "Unity". The games listed are our candidates and might be potentially compatible to Geo-11.
• Select the game from the list you are interested into and hit the "Edit" button below the games list
• Locate the "Geo-11 settings" and set the first 3 options to "Yes" as seen on the screenshot. Please note that you only need to set the very first option "Use Geo-11 driver" if you do not have a 3D Vision monitor

• Setting the driver version for Nvidia Dx9 / Dx11 depends on the game engine. Generally Unreal Engine 4 games are best known to work with 0.6.56 while Unity games work best with 0.6.164. You can simply try the "Default" option first and if it doesn't work then simply try the other driver version options.
• Click on the "Save Changes" button 
• Launch the game by pressing the "Play 3D" button

8) I have launched a game using Geo-11 driver and auto convergence is active. How can I disable it?

3DFM has a new option to disable / enable auto convergence globally for all Geo-11 games. You find this option under "Settings" => "Application Settings" tab. Look for the option "Enable Geo-11 auto convergence" and set it to the option you prefer.

9) When launching a game a stereoscopic screenshot is opened in Nvidia Stereoscopic Photo Viewer. Why does this happen?

3DFM opens this picture on game launch. This is a workaround I found that prevents the 3D Vision monitor to enter a wrong stereoscopic refresh rate ingame and showing a red warning overlay. This happens on latest graphics drivers only - mostly in Direct X9 games (not happening on v.452.06).

10) I have bought HelixVision on Steam some years ago and I wonder whether I can play games using Geo-11 + 3DFM with my VR headset. Is it possible?

Yes, it is. I have added HelixVision Geo-11 support to 3DFM. You can turn 3DFM into HelixVision by following these simple steps:

• Install HelixVision via Steam
• Locate the HelixVision install folder and navigate to the subfolder "./Tools/Katanga" 
• Copy the "Katanga" - folder into the "Tools" folder of the latest 3DFM version
• If you launch 3DFM it should show a slightly different UI with 3 buttons to launch a game
• Hit the "Play in VR" button for Geo-11 tagged games
• Please note that I haven't recently re-checked this code path any more but it should work.
• If you want to use the regular 3DFM version, simply delete the Katanga folder again

In general I'm open for the idea to bundle Katanga with 3DFM but I had no chance to contact Bo3b but hopefully he reads this post.If he's also fine with the idea I would bundle it with 3DFM. 

FAQ to be continued...

General FAQ / Info:

1) "3DFM auto update does not work - Is it a bug?"

It's not a bug. Currently I did not rent a server in order to make auto updates possible. Only if there is a high demand of users who wish to see this feature I might be thinking to add it again. Until then simply check this blog page for updates.

FAQ to be continued...

So which features does 3D Fix Manager provide?

• Clear GUI with multi-language support (Englisch, French, German, Portuguese)
• Auto restores 3D Vision compatibility with Win 10 > 1809 and Geforce drivers beyond 425.31
• Detection of installed 3D Vision games (Steam, Uplay, Origin, GOG and many more supported)
• Download, install and uninstall 3D Vision fixes with only 1 click
• Installed 3D fixes are automatically kept up to date
• Simple configuration of 3D fixes. Adjust 3D hotkeys for changing 3D depth and convergence and much more. Configs are automatically backuped and restored when reinstalling 3D fixes.
• Launch games directly with 3D Fix Manager either in 2D or stereo 3D mode. For 2D mode 3D fixes are automatically disabled as not needed then.
• Graphics settings of games are automatically optimized for playing in stereo 3D
• Nvidia driver profiles are automatically installed and optimized for stereo 3D
• Options for individually editing the global Nvidia driver profile for both 2D and stereo 3D mode
• Up to 3 display profiles provided - optimize settings for your display devices and load them easily by selecting the respective profile
• No need to use Nvidia Control Panel any more - all stereo 3D related settings are directly integrated into 3D Fix Manager. Additionally all settings can be backuped and restored.
• Simple activation of Compatibility Mode (also known as fake / depth buffer 3D) for any DirectX 11 game
• Highly customizable - fine tune a lot of settings for each game profile. Easily create new profiles for games not supported by 3D Fix Manager yet.
• Performance for stereo 3D automatically improved by using RivaTuner Statistics Server
• Automatic updates for game profiles which include new 3D fixes
• Automatic updates for the application itself which add new features and bugfixes

Currently more than 1000 3D fixes from helixmod.blogspot are supported by 3D Fix Manager. This includes fixes using Helix Mod (DirectX 9), 3dmigoto (DirectX 11), Geo-11 (DirectX 11), Vulkan Wrapper and OpenGL 3D Vision Wrapper.

Technical support and discussion:

• The main thread about 3D Fix Manager can be found in Geforce forum
• Future discussion about 3D Fix Manager should be done on MTBS3D as Nvidia made Geforce forum useless with their last update
• In discord you will find a sub topic about 3D Fix Manager here

Donation:

• If you want to support this project you can donate to this PayPal account: duselpaul86@gmx.de

Instructions:

• Extract the downloaded file archive.
• Start the application with "3DFixManager.exe" 

Requirements:

• Windows 7 / 8 / 10
• .NET Framework 4.6 or higher
• Nvidia graphics card
• 3D display compatible to 3D Vision, 3DTV Play or Optimized for Geforce
• Note: If you have a Nvidia graphics card but not a 3D display device you can still fully use this application with anaglyph mode (3D Vision Discover). You need anaglyph red / blue glasses for this (e.g. available on Amazon for not more than 5$).
• If your card is AMD this application serves as a simple game launcher only (all Nvidia related settings locked then)

Known Issues:

• When double clicking on "3DFixManager.exe" and nothing happens it 's very likely that your AntiVirus software is blocking the application from being started. Easiest fix is to copy the application from protected places like C:\Program Files (x86) to other places like D:\3D Fix Manager. You can also try to add the folder of the application to the whitelist of your AntiVirus software but this does not always fix the issue.
• Detection of games might fail if no info about the game is available in Windows registry. When this happens 3D Fix Manager tries to find the game via search paths but this might fail as well when no according search paths have been added to the application. In this case please make sure that all paths to your game libraries are listed in the search paths option (you find this in "Settings" tab -> "Application Setting" tab -> "Detecting installed Games")
• If a game is still not listed you can force detection by setting up a custom install path for the individual fix profile (you do this by changing the search filter from "Installed Games" to "All Games" in the upper left corner. After that double click on the game in the list and navigate to "Custom Root / Game Path")

GitHub:

• The application is not available in your language yet? Please feel free to translate this language file on GitHub and your language will be added to the application with the next update.

Notes:

• Please help me to improve this application by reporting bugs, wrong / outdated fix profiles or if you have any suggestions. Thank you.

• I tested the application a lot and I think it’s in a good state. However I take no responsibility if any damage should occur on your machine by using this application. Use at your own risk. :)

Change Notes Version 1.87 (March 23, 2024):

• Bugfix: 3D Vision was enabled if Geo-11 3D format was set to side by side / TaB or another non-3D Vision mode.
• Bugfix: Desktop resolution was enforced to 120hz even if 3D Vision wasn't enabled / required.
• Bugfix: Vertical Sync was enforced even if the global driver profile had another configuration set.

Change Notes Version 1.86 (March 11, 2024):

• New: Fixed stalls / freezes which occured with latest DCH GeForce drivers installed and 3D Vision enabled.
• New: Added general Geo-11 compatibility to 3DFM.
• New: Tagged more than 100 profiles to be compatible to Geo-11 and "Nvidia_dx9" mode (=runs on latest Nvidia graphics cards including RTX 4000 series)
• New: Added filter to quickly see which games are compatible to Geo-11 (nvidia_dx9 / nvidia_dx11 filter)
• New: Added profile option to upgrade 3dmigoto fixed games to Geo-11 fixed games.
• New: Added profile option to choose which Geo-11 version to install. Please note that currently some games run with specific versions of Geo-11 in "nvidia_dx9" mode only.
• New: Added option whether to use frame rater limiter in case of "nvidia_dx9" Geo-11 output mode. Please note "nvidia_dx9" might show fps drops if using a framerate limiter.
• New: Added option to provide an optimized Geo-11 convergence value to use by default.
• New: Added global option to disable / enable auto convergence for DirectX11 / Geo-11 fixed games.
• New: Fixed EA App crash which occured with 3D Vision enabled.
• New: Fixed crashes which occured when launching games in Geo-11 mode and various game store overlays enabled.
• New: Added UE4 SSL crash fix on Intel 10th generation CPUs.
• Changed: Auto-enable global driver hack in case of Geo-11 and "nvidia_dx11" output mode. Local driver hack is not available for Geo-11 any more.
• Bugfix: Fixed broken Steam libraries + Ubisoft Connect libraries detection.
• Bugfix: Fixed red 3D Vision driver warning overlay which happened with latest GeForce drivers and some DirectX 9 games (e.g. Darksiders II).
• Bugfix: Nvidia stereo photo viewer showed a red warning overlay for GeForce driver versions beyond v.452.06. and 3D Vision monitors.
• Bugfix: Download of 3D screenshots failed in some cases.
• Bugfix: Game config override didn't work if the documents folder is located in One Drive directory.
• Bugfix: Fixed wrong third party DLL detection. The wrong detection caused very few games to rename a DLL which belonged to the game.
• Bugfix: Fixed "Update fix" button being visible on the wrong game when switching quickly through the list of games.

Change Notes Version 1.85 (April 01, 2021):

• Changed: When a shaderhacker uploads an updated version of his 3D fix no popup message is automatically shown any more which notifies about the update. Instead you'll see an "Update available" button on "Play" tab. The change was done as the popup message was too aggressive (Big thanks to Tim for the tip!)
• Bugfix: With version 1.83 a bug was introduced which caused the application to hang 2-3 seconds when trying to close it. It crashed after that without showing any error message.
• Bugfix: The crash bug mentioned above also caused the program updater to fail because the crash caused a lock on some files. This made 3DFM to fail when trying to update itself.
• Bugfix: Fixed validation bug for relative install paths containing a dot in folder name

Change Notes Version 1.84 (March 14, 2021):

• New: Copied some functionality from "Play 3D" button to "Install 3D Fix" button to get a higher chance that a manual game launch through Steam & Co works without 3DFM. However: the "Play 3D" button is still the recommended way to launch games!
• New: When closing some rare games the original desktop resolution wasn't restored which was active before the individual game was started. 3DFM corrects the desktop resolution on game exit according to the settings in the display profile now. If you want to use the feature please set up a display profile in "Display Profiles" tab and start the game via "Play 3D" button.
• Changed: GeForce driver setup file is kept on the HDD after installing the driver. So next time the user wants to install the driver no download is required any more.

Change Notes Version 1.83 (March 09, 2021):

• New: Added Russian translation (Big thanks to Женя)
• New: Added a FAQ dialog on startup which explains why to launch games via the "Play 3D" button and why the driver modification is needed.
• New: Added option to start the application minimized in info tray.
• New: Added special start3d.exe for Rise of the Tomb Raider and Deus Ex: Mankind Divided which turns them into a 1 click solution to play in DirectX 12 3D.
• New: Added option to restart the display driver when enabling stereo 3D. Fixes a blackscreen issue which might happen on some 3D monitors.
• New: Desktop refresh rate is forced to 120hz when hitting Play 3D button
• New: Added toggle for hiding the important 3D fix info. More advanced users don't require this.
• New: For drivers beyond 452.06 stereo 3D screenshots are forced into fullscreen mode as windowed mode no longer works for these drivers.
• Changed: 3D Vision IR emitter driver is installed by the official Nvidia installer now. Formerly it was installed via .inf file and pnputil.exe.
• Changed: Added "-window-mode exclusive" launch argument when selecting Unity universal fix in "Fix Profile" tab. Makes sure 3D kicks in on 3D Vision monitors.
• Changed: Improved timing of focus handling on game start. Now 3DFM detects the exact time when the game window pops up and forces it to the foreground then.
• Changed: Replaced SetRes.exe by QRes.exe as the latter does not make the application hang when trying to apply non-supported resolutions.
• Changed: Adjusted order: desktop resolution / refresh rate is set first then 3D is activated.
• Changed: Create / Edit / Delete profiles button has been hidden in compact GUI mode.
• Bugfix: Fixed a startup crash which occured when the app config got broken. Corrupted config files get automatically reset to factory default now.
• Bugfix: DirectX 12 versions of ROTTR and SOTTR couldn't be launched in 2D mode any more.
• Bugfix: "Install 3D fix" was unlocked after closing a DirectX 12 game.
• Bugfix: PDB file of main assembly was in wrong directory where it was not found.

Change Notes Version 1.82 (December 23, 2020):

• New: Added special instructions for Shadow of the Tomb Raider and Rise of the Tomb Raider which make the game compatible to 3D in DirectX 12 mode + 3D Vision monitors. Big thanks to TimFx7 and Lysander who provided the tools and ideas for this.
• New: Added automatic driver profile creation on game start. Makes sure the user can save convergence ingame with CTRL + F7 and prevents some DirectX 9 games from rendering one eye only on Windows 10.
• New: Epic store overlay is automatically disabled on game launch. Prevents a crash when running DirectX 11 games + overlay active. The overlay is automatically re-enabled on game exit.
• Changed: Profile info text which was previously shown only when moving the mouse cursor on the green / orange info icon is shown always now (located above the fix description text). The change was done because most people ignored the tooltip of the info icon.
• Changed: Cleaned up root folder of the application and moved all DLLs to a separate "Assemblies" folder.
• Changed: Slightly improved startup speed of the application by lowering number of hard drive access.
• Changed: Vulkan games can be played on 3D Vision monitors and latest Geforce drivers as the underlying vulkan driver support this now. Previously an error message was shown which prevented vulkan games from being started.
• Bugfix: HelixMod DirectX 9 injector version didn't work any more.
• Bugfix: Hotkey controls weren't hidden for Vulkan Wrapper.

Change Notes Version 1.81 (November 14, 2020):

• New: Added focus handling for game start. The game window is automatically forced into foreground 6 seconds after the game process was launched. Without this the user sometimes had to bring the window manually into foreground.
• Changed: Removed local driver hack for Vulkan fixed games as the latest Vulkan stereo driver uses DirectX 9 API for accessing the Nvidia 3D Vision hardware. This also means that Nvidia RTX 3070 / 3080 / 3090 cards work with Vulkan games in stereo 3D now.
• Changed: Adjusted uninstall procedure and ini file detection for Vulkan 3D fixes. The directory structure of the fixes changed with the latest update of the Vulkan stereo driver.
• Changed: Removed auto restore of 3D depth and convergence as this is not longer working with the latest version of the Vulkan stereo driver.
• Changed: Set 7zip as the default extractor when creating new fix profiles as it's much faster than the old extractor SharpCompress.
• Bugfix: CMU wasn't closed automatically after the game was terminated.
• Bugfix: 'Additional exe' wasn't created any more although enabled in fix profile. This prevented e.g. AoE 3 from working as this game needs a renamed copy of the original game executable.
• Bugfix: When a game process couldn't be shut down properly it could occur that "Play 2D / Play 3D" buttons were disabled permanently for all games.
• Bugfix: Hardware acceleration for the GUI wasn't disabled on next startup if the user has set hardware acceleration to off previously.

For a full list of previous change notes please visit http://fixmanager.markus-guendert.de/download.php

Outdated Versions:

• Version 1.86
• Version 1.85
• Version 1.82
• Version 1.81
• Version 1.8
• Version 1.79
• Version 1.78
• Version 1.77
• Version 1.76