Helix Mod: Improving 3d vision games via shader manipulation

[eqzitara1]

http://helixmod.wikispot.org/
I am not the creator of the mod, thats helix. I just run the wiki site and make a few minor fixes. I was just making a post here so maybe some people who didn't know that it exists now know. Maybe if you try one of the games listed and enjoy it, you can give it a new game grade rating and list helix mod as the reason.
We are always looking for more people to try to make fixes whether its running the debugger and just removing shaders. Or someone who knows the c language and shaders. For more information please go to http://helixmod.wikispot.org/Coding_Fixed_Issues

You can "follow" us here http://helixmod.blogspot.com/. Some people got some big projects done or in the works. We have over 30 games. Just bookmark or follow and you will be kept up to date.

[cybereality]

Cool, I have to try this when I get a chance.

[eqzitara1]

They just made skyrim nvidia's equivalent of 3D READY.2

[WiredEarp]

I saw that, I'll check out this mod, as the water is the only bad thing about Skyrim in 3D.

Thanks for the heads up!

[eqzitara1]

Update. Revamped and complete rewrote system. Please see first post.

[Likay]

It's really nice to share -=HeliX=- work. I follow the thread on nvidiaforums with great interest eventhough i really can't contribut with anything. And of course it is a great effort of you too for keeping track of the changes/updates that are made!!!
I've done some testing with the iz3d-driver and unfortunately it seems like the crc's change when the debug dll is used together with the iz3d-driver. The dll can be used when the iz3d-driver is disabled but i found it quite hard to identify anomalies when in 2d. When crc checksums are known some fixes can be applied using the baseprofile.xml file but the options are quite limited. In most cases an easy fix would be completely disable a shader but it's unfortunately (what i know about) not possible.

[eqzitara1]

@likay
Yea that sucks. New version is numbered though. Not sure if that helps you as example VertexShader_389_CRC32_58F25E33

[eqzitara1]

Helix just added mass effect 3. Should fix MANY of the issues. If you use and like leave a comment I am sure he'd appreciate it. Tons of work work went into (200 shader changes!) and its not easy to test stuff since you cant even save in demo. But he wanted to make it ready for release. Also be sure to give a GG3D review.

[iondrive]

Hi all,

This is awesome. I tried it with old-school drivers on windows-XP (card: gf-7800GTX, driver: 162.50) and it sort of works. You can disable shaders with the debug version but the game (demonstone) won't start with the non-debug version... it uses shader 1.1 anyway. It was just a test and I didn't really fix anything but it's nice to know that I have this option. I'll keep it in mind and I'm sure it will come in handy sooner or later. Probably later since I currently have older games on my mind so that's directx 3 to 8 as well as OpenGL and native 3d DOS games. Also, for DX9, I'll generally prefer iZ3D or Tridef drivers for their presets and autofocus features.

Other shader playgrounds:
If anyone wants to play around with shaders, there's a version of DosBox that has shaders in external shader files that you can study and edit easily. It's one of the DosBox versions that are adapted to use 3dfx glide but you have to use the direct3D output option or else it doesn't work. The game does not have to be a 3dfx game. It should be any game that works with DosBox. You can use the precompiled version from the following:
http://www.si-gamer.net/gulikoza/

And then there's a program called "RenderMonkey". Does anyone have any experience / comments on this program?

--- iondrive ---

PS: I'm so glad I can now find shader CRC's since it might help with some iZ3D profiles. I'll put that info in the iZ3D forum if I ever do anything with it but it's low on my todo list. Thanks for the hint Likay!

[iondrive]

hey eqzitara1,

So do you have some knowledge of Shader programming? Can you answer these questions:

1. ) Can a shader be made that puts a blue line of different lengths on alternating frames?
2. ) Can a shader be made that converts frame-sequential 3d to interlaced 3d?

Basically, for question 2, the shader needs access to image data from both the previous frame as well as the current frame. I know very little about this but my sense is that it only has access to the current frame. Is this correct? I would be very appreciative if you could get this info for me so I don't have to post on the nvidia forums and elsewhere.

For question 1, the shader needs a counter that increments for each frame. From there the shader can determine odd and even frames and behave accordingly to apply blue-line coding to frame-sequential 3d gameplay.

Thank you in advance for any info you have for me.

--- iondrive ---

Edit: related to question 2, if you can access image data from the previous frame, then you can show that image instead of the current frame and that could fix the parallax inversion problem that some people have while using frame sequential mode!!! So is this possible?

[Zloth]

Helix just added mass effect 3. Should fix MANY of the issues. If you use and like leave a comment I am sure he'd appreciate it. Tons of work work went into (200 shader changes!) and its not easy to test stuff since you cant even save in demo. But he wanted to make it ready for release. Also be sure to give a GG3D review.

He added X3: Albion Prelude, too. Can't we just worship him instead of messing with comments?

[Guig2000]

Unfortunately, Helix Dlls themselves change shaders crc, even without settings activated. So the debug dll can give crc values that works only with Helix dll release.

I write that because I tried with iZ3D:
If you launch a game with iZ3D driver activated and if iZ3D have shaders fixes in the base profile that works:
1°)this fixes will stop to works when the game use one of the helix dll.
2°)helix debug dll will give crc values which are different than the values on the iZ3D baseprofile.xml, whatever iZ3D driver is activated or not.

[WiredEarp]

I love the Helix mods for Skyrim and FarCry3, make the games how they should have been released in the first place!

[Guig2000]

Indeed and it's amazing the number of games it support.
But I built my planar 3 years ago. It was an investment of time and money, it is 16:10 and have a very good 3D quality, so I intend to continue to use it, for 2 years or more. And atm, only the iZ3D driver works with it for gaming.
So it would have been great if it have been possible to use helix dll tool to find shaders crc and use them in iZ3D game profiles. But shaders crc are modified by helix, so they cannot be reuse into iZ3D.