Archimedean Dynasty/Schleichfahrt, DOSBox and Geo-11

[NoricForge]

I am currently trying to get Archimedean Dynasty (Schleichfahrt in German) running with Geo-11.
It's an old (1996) DOS-game which is available at GOG together with its 3dfx patch and a DOSBox setup:

Schleichfahrt 1.120 6/10/1997 Re 3dfx
DOSBox SVN-Daum 11-23-2012
DgVoodoo (2.8.31 32-bit 3Dfx)
Geo-11 v0.6.164
GTX 980 TI with 536.99 drivers
Windows 10 Pro 10.0.19045
Full-HD Monitor/Xreal Air glasses/HTC Vive Pro

So far I've had some success with dgvoodoo's Glide2x.dll and Geo-11 (I know this setup can work since I used the same succesfully on ARMA/Operation Flashpoint)
but now I'm at a loss:

In the game (menu etc are displayed as single screen 2D) I get the expected split screen.
Most of the time there is no 3D-effect at all (same perspectives) but when I target an enemy, one of the split screens starts flickering, alternating with the perspective I would expect for 3D and back in split seconds (with some color glitching now and then too).
My guess is that the whole DOS-box setup is messing with hooking (?) since the game is using Glide, while DOSB-box "output" is set to Direct3D. I can even go so far as using dgvoodoo for both, having both logos (dgvoodoo and 3dfx) over one another.
But the 3D is obviously there, I just need to get it more stable.

Anyways, I just wanted your opinion on this. Maybe somebody can point me in the right direction. I would also be happy to hear that this has no point at all. I just can't let it go right now, feeling that the solution is so close.

Here are some captures to make it more clear what I'm talking about:

[3DNovice]

...

[3DNovice]

...

[3DNovice]

...

[NoricForge]

Thanks for the tips and lists! Some of those games I even wanted to try next.
The game was from Germany and very niche too, so I'm not surprised to not find it anywhere.
I also added some of the stupid stuff to the original post.

Now when you say "2D only", what exactly do you mean? Are you talking about missing 3d geometry like the problem with the PSX? Wouldn't the flickering 3D effect contradict that?
Anyways, there are no settings for that. But I think it may be also interesting that the 3D effect only appears when the 2D cockpit overlay is activated too.

Do you know by chance of any succesfull attempts of running DOSBox games with Geo-11, 3Dmigoto or 3Dvision?

[3DNovice]

...

[3DNovice]

...

[NoricForge]

What do you mean by Full HD monitor? Is it 3D?

With a 980ti you can use driver 425.31, it would be a better driver for trying old games.
The problem getting the games to work would be your SbS displays, Nvidia never supported the output.
Adding 3DMigoto and/or Geo-11 to the mix complicates things.

Ok, now i see, this may be a misunderstanding. It's a regular monitor, my goal is always SBS. I just test it on the monitor by crossing eyes because its the easiest setup.
I don't have any 3D Vision hardware. I just thought this forum was fitting regarding the origins of 3dmigoto/Geo-11. I am sorry, was this wrong? No way to change this now, right?

Games can also be made that are partially 3D and 2D, such as using pre-rendered backgrounds.

...which is why I have no hopes to ever play old Resident Evil games and the original Final Fantasy VII in stereo. Just looks weird

You can also check to see if there is another version of this particular game that launched on console. If so, it is possible to
play some old games in 3D depending on the emulator used to run the game on PC.

I do this wherever possible. Sadly this game was only available for DOS/W95. I keep looking if somebody made a port or something.

I looked at your pictures, I do not see any separation, Even if there was separation, if it is parallel to infinity, there can be no 3D, there must be a convergence.

Have you looked at the second and third image? Those are definitely 3D. I just put the first one in to emphasize that it's switching from non-3D to 3D in split seconds.
I guess the image captures are not very visible, but I called the first one "No 3D". My bad, I rearranged them now.

You might look into TriDef, it's possible that this games was made to work with their middleware, but then again, it might be 2D only.

iz3D can also be used for some old games.

Yeah, I've been thinking about TriDef too. I guess I'll give that one a try next. Just haven't used it ever before.

Thanks for all the help!

[3DNovice]

...

[NoricForge]

I'm sorry, but I do not see anything 3D about those images. Just because you can see two images side by side on your 2D monitor, does not mean that the
game is rendering a stereoscopic view.

Ok, I double checked this now and maybe we are also talkin past each other. The sprites are flat, I don't expect anything else, but to me they appear at least behind the also flat cockpit.
And when I checked it first there really seemed to be no 3D besides that. But then I positioned the ship next to (3D) freighter and ramped up separation and convergence
and that on is definitely in 3D. So there's still hope. I added it to the original post.

Have you confirmed APIs with something like MSI Afterburner? dx7 and down does not show up, but you could tell, if it's indeed being wrapped to dx11.

That's a great tip, thank you! I usually test different dlls until one fits and confirm via the watermarks. Does this work with Dx8/9/10 and OpenGL too?

This forum is ok, but most of the people using NReal and HMDs are over at the Discord forum AFAIK.

Though, not many will be able to help you with old games.

Thanks, I think I'm at the right place then. Retro games are what I'm interested in the most.

Yah, I was going to suggest that you look for modded texture or even a RTX update to the game, you never know.

A few old games that were OpenGL have fixes and be found on http://3dsurroundgaming.com/

Masterotaku fixes a few old games, but mostly emulator games when it comes to old games AFAIK. I do not keep up with the emulator stuff.

Some old games he has on the blog
https://helixmod.blogspot.com/2023/08/w ... pengl.html Wipeout Phantom Edition
http://helixmod.blogspot.com/2018/05/st ... racer.html Star Wars Episode 1 Racer
https://helixmod.blogspot.com/2021/10/q ... -dx11.html Quake

I know Masterotaku's stuff and Episode 1 Racer for example i was also able to "stereorize" on my own simply by using pure dgvoodoo and geo-11.
But this one here is a tougher nut, so it seems like I'll have to look into the more advanced stuff now.

[3DNovice]

...

[NoricForge]

I reinstalled my drivers, in case it was something on my end. I can now see that two of the images are in 3D. Sorry about that.

Thanks, no worries. I'm just glad I'm not getting crazy.

Try the old TombRaider profiles like Anniversary, Legend and UnderWorld, as well as the others. Trying profiles is very hit and miss, but sometimes you get lucky.

You could also try some different stereocutoff values to see if the hud changes
https://wiki.bo3b.net/index.php?title=D ... 053569a.29

Unfortunately, Nvidia wrecked the old forums, I posted a bunch of pics for stereocutoff that could give some perspective into the setting.
But while a certain setting works on some games and might stereoize the UI, the same setting doesn't work in another game, it's very hit
and miss. https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/geforce/fo ... y/#4785703

Some others, that also had strange cutoff values Dolphin Emulator, Age of Conan, Mini Golf Adventure, Street Fighter IV, Major league Baseball 2K9

Of course the other option, is to take bo3b's school for shaderhackers and learn how to do basic stereo corrections. Keep in mind that if the shaders are
less than V 3.0 they need to be converted to 3.0. But dgVooDoo 2 might do this already, Duuno.

Thanks for the many pointers, I'll give them a try!

[vr2000]

maybe wrong but i think the game you are using has a vorpx profile maybe you could try that?

vorpx is good but there are tons of 3DVision and (even older) triDef and eDimension 3D games that should be simple to change to use sidebyside for HMDs... but either nobody has tried or nobody is posting guides

there are even software rendered DOS games with early HMD modes that should work with any sidebyside method if somebody worked on them

anyway please post and archive all new and old information on getting older games to work in stereo 3D! the info to make 1000s of games compatible shouldnt disappear

i am especially hoping someone can figure out how to get the 1000s of eDimension games (from before 3DVision) to some kind of compatibility with sidebyside modes on modern HMD (it seems like all it would take is just dgVoodoo for compatibility?)

a lot can work with the depth buffer method of reshade/vorpx but if there is already an old sidebyside mode that should almost always be better i think?

ok thanks for posting this thread, good luck! (i am waiting to try archimedean dynasty until i finish earlier games of that type to play them in order)

[3DNovice]

...

[3DNovice]

....

[NoricForge]

maybe wrong but i think the game you are using has a vorpx profile maybe you could try that?

vorpx is good but there are tons of 3DVision and (even older) triDef and eDimension 3D games that should be simple to change to use sidebyside for HMDs... but either nobody has tried or nobody is posting guides

there are even software rendered DOS games with early HMD modes that should work with any sidebyside method if somebody worked on them

anyway please post and archive all new and old information on getting older games to work in stereo 3D! the info to make 1000s of games compatible shouldnt disappear

i am especially hoping someone can figure out how to get the 1000s of eDimension games (from before 3DVision) to some kind of compatibility with sidebyside modes on modern HMD (it seems like all it would take is just dgVoodoo for compatibility?)

a lot can work with the depth buffer method of reshade/vorpx but if there is already an old sidebyside mode that should almost always be better i think?

ok thanks for posting this thread, good luck! (i am waiting to try archimedean dynasty until i finish earlier games of that type to play them in order)

I'll definitely keep you updated. There a few things I hate more than finding threads with problems I have but without any conlusion.
And I'll create posts to the old games I found working with geo-11. That's what I'm doing most because I prefer it over the depth buffer solutions and I can also use it on my SteamDeck (still flashed that I can play Half Life: Alyx in stereo on the deck).
It's often easier than i thought, just adding the appropriate dgvoodoo and geo-11 files.
The biggest problems I have found so far are games that have no ways to customize resolution/aspect ratio or which run on OpenGL (I've tried adding TitaniumGL to the "wrapper-chain" but it looks terrible).
Do you think I should put these posts in this forum too? They are not proper fixes, more proofs of concepts btw but I guess when I have learned more I could provide fixes too.


Now back to the topic: I very soon found out that I can fix the flicker and get stable 3D by cycling through the vertex/pixel shaders. More specifically I need to cycle to a shader (vertex or pixel) that disables the HUD/crosshair. As soon as that is gone the 3D is perfect, screenshots below:

Default

dosbox_2023_10_29_23_32_04_797.jpeg

Disabled Pixel Shader

dosbox_2023_10_29_23_32_15_861.jpeg

Disabled Voxel Shader

dosbox_2023_10_29_23_33_01_077.jpeg

Now I don't know how to continue or even if there is something more I can do. Is there a way or even a guide for such a problem where 3D is disabled if a shader is active and how to reenable it without losing depth?
I've searched for some guides but all i managed to do was adding some depth the HUD (which didn't help with the problem but I had some fun with shaders).
There's also one more problem: disabling the voxel shader also disables updates in the rest of the HUD/cockpit. E.g. the radar is frozen. This doesn't happen when disabling the pixel shader so I guess a solution using that would be preferable.
Anyways, I'd be happy to play the game as is in stereo without HUD but maybe there's still some way to improve it.

This all only works when using the 3dfx glide version btw. The other one apparently uses software rendering. Although both are dx11 and stereo in the end, there's no 3D to get from the latter.

[3DNovice]

...

[3DNovice]

...

[NoricForge]

This is all gold, thank you so much!

[3DNovice]

...

[3DNovice]

...

[NoricForge]

I posted some links that I know of, to help anyone trying to disable or fix shaders. DJ-RK put some great links on the blog, from when he started shader hacking.
The best thing to do, is download the Nvidia forum rip and read the threads using it vs reading them on the sucky "new improved" Nvidia forums.
viewtopic.php?p=188405#p188405

TweakGuides also has invaluable information for some games and the configuration variable values
https://tweakguides.pcgamingwiki.com/All.html

StereoTextureEnable can often be your best friend to get a game launching in 3D
https://wiki.bo3b.net/index.php?title=D ... 0c0125e.29

Also, other sub-forums on MTBS might have valuable information for old games. A lot of the people that played in 3D prior to Nvidia officially releasing 3DVision, posted on these forums.

Great stuff, I'll have look!

FWIW, there are old guides on building a Legacy PC with like a 7900GTX with XP OS.
Back then Nvidia kinda supported SbS via a clone mode setting available in nView.
But I suppose the nReal glasses need HDMI 1.4 input minimum?

Interesting post by iondrive showing the old drivers, he describes how to setup a user profile in the ancient Nvidia drivers
viewtopic.php?t=3023

I have an old laptop with Windows XP. I already use an USB-C to HDMI adapter to connect the glasses to the PC so I'd need an HDMI to VGA adapter..

In the meantime I managed to produce half a solution. I hacked the vertex shader and disabled it on the top of one half of the screen. So i get stereo and radar + half of the cockpit and HUD (see screenshot). I'll have a look at all the material you gave me and which I additionally found and continue in this direction.

dosbox_2023_10_31_01_30_27_465.jpeg

[3DNovice]

...

[NoricForge]

Thanks for the advice. I managed to disable parts of the overlay in the pixel shader and so far put together a very hacky version using pixel color and the stereo parameters.
I discard pixels that are on the right-eye picture and not part of the green HUD (see screenshot).
As expected the HUD misses yellow and red elements and bright green elements in game are sometimes visible but I haven't found any better solution so far.

It seems to me that the HUD is drawn properly onto the left-eye image but that the pixel shader then uses this as the source for the HUD on right eye, overdrawing the otherwise correct stereo image. Maybe I could save the texture before in another variable and use that as source in the right-eye run or something. It's a lot of trial and error. But I'm having fun, learned a lot already and I still think it's cool that this works at all.

dosbox_2023_11_04_15_50_40_923.jpeg

dosbox_2023_11_04_16_16_54_288.jpeg

[3DNovice]

...