Vk3DVision - A Vulkan 3D Vision Driver (With Single-Frame Stereo and RTX Support)

[Marin3D]

Thanks for taking us on a ride with all the updates, bugfixes and progress reports, its really interesting to follow.

All the best!

[helifax]

Yes, extremely impressive progress. Fantastic to be able to reuse code from your OpenGL wrapper to make this faster. Immediate UI, awesome.


Tangentially related, but not exactly on topic- what is your opinion of gaming using Linux instead? Having a Vulkan wrapper would open up a lot of potential gaming there, and in 3D.

The reason I ask is Windows 10 has always been and continues to be a giant pain in my ass, and I'd personally love to be able to leave their incessant and worthless updates behind forever. Linux desktop is as good if not better than Windows 10 today, and you can at least stick with LTSB builds. Valve is still currently supporting VR on Linux (including Alyx), and Proton has received universally good marks.

Sorry, for the late reply.
While, I haven't used Linux for gaming for a long time now, it is not impossible:) Only the wrapping/proxying (and some other API things like tracking input, etc) are different. In theory it should work just fine:)
Ofc the wrapping mechanism requires writing for it to work under Linux, but it should be doable, if in the future we decide to add this functionality

Cheers,
Helifax

[Losti]

I suggest to link your patreon support project @ the main page )))

[helifax]

I suggest to link your patreon support project @ the main page )))

Actually... yeah! I didn't think about doing that )
Good catch and thanks!

Cheers,
Helifax

[skyrimer]

That pic looks great, though I had to use my glasses upside down to see the 3d properly, amazing progress helifax.

Come on, only 6 people supporting this on patreon? This is the future of 3d gaming, I was really hoping more people would care for this.

[helifax]

That pic looks great, though I had to use my glasses upside down to see the 3d properly, amazing progress helifax.

Sorry, for the upside down glasses. That is interesting. I tested it on 2 different machines with 2 different Actual 3D Vision Monitor & Glasses. And it always looked great (the game).
The image is part of a ShadowPlay video, since ALT+F1 doesn't do anything on DCH drivers Maybe ShadowPlay recorded the eyes flipped? Will have to check it out.
(I can't capture in-game screenshot using the regular trick (I am forced to use DCH drivers on my Alienware laptop, as the Standard ones don't find my RTX 2080 More Nvidia shenanigans )

Really glad you like it!

Come on, only 6 people supporting this on patreon? This is the future of 3d gaming, I was really hoping more people would care for this.

I got a few more donations directly on my Paypal account (which I updated to point to my UK account, instead of my very old, 10 years ago, Belgian account ^_^ - Paypal wants a new e-mail if you change countries).
I believe in total, we are at around 12-15 supporters! (There are also people out there that don't need or have to donate or be on Patreon to show the support in this Project, as I already know they support it, from before me even starting it )
I would also like to see more traction, but maybe... this is it. We are the 15-ish people that really care about it ?! The others are on the fence?! ("if it works great, if it doesn't great as well"). Hard to say
I am still hopeful and maybe, we will get more traction, in time (as the project is relatively new - less than 1 month).
This doesn't mean, I will abandon it, but it will definitely make me think harder about making something like this for DirectX12 (Vulkan & DX12 have a lot of similarities... Guess who "copied" who? ) But, that is another topic and I am definitely not promising anything! Just an in the back of my head

In the end, this could just might be a "single game" fix, instead of trying to make an "Universal", as much as possible, solution?! I still aim for an "Universal" solution still! But, who knows!

In any case, I believe that once I am able to get something out (even a game fixed with Vk3DVision) people will definitely like it more ^_^ Working on that, in my free time ^_^. (Damn! I still need to download and play my pre-order of The Last of Us - Part 2 )

Right! Back to coding and trying to solve the issue of Unique Shaders!

Cheers,
Helifax

[helifax]

Just a quick update:
In case you are wondering why my Patreon Page disappeared: I received this morning an e-mail from Patreon that my account has been suspended for "suspicious activity".
I've submitted help form to understand why this has happened and to get it corrected. I am not sure how long it will take for them to respond and get back to me, but I'll try to resolve this.
It would have been a lot easier, if they would told me the reason in the first place, rather than a cryptic, generic, "suspicious activity" e-mail

Cheers,
Helifax

[Pauldusler]

Just a quick update:
In case you are wondering why my Patreon Page disappeared: I received this morning an e-mail from Patreon that my account has been suspended for "suspicious activity".
I've submitted help form to understand why this has happened and to get it corrected. I am not sure how long it will take for them to respond and get back to me, but I'll try to resolve this.
It would have a lot easier, if they would told me the reason in the first place, rather than a cryptic, generic, "suspicious activity" e-mail

Cheers,
Helifax

Hi Helifax!

Just discovered this topic here and I'm really impressed about your Vulkan wrapper! Sounds very promising. I'll definitely add support in 3DFM for this when it's finished + configuration via GUI (hotkey editing, 3d format selection...). Just let me know what would make sense to configure via 3DFM.

Cheers!

[skyrimer]

Yeah I noticed it was gone, i'm glad it's only some Patreon issue, hopefully it won't take long for it to get fixed.

[Shift-E]

I am still hopeful and maybe, we will get more traction, in time (as the project is relatively new - less than 1 month).
This doesn't mean, I will abandon it, but it will definitely make me think harder about making something like this for DirectX12 (Vulkan & DX12 have a lot of similarities... Guess who "copied" who? ) But, that is another topic and I am definitely not promising anything! Just an in the back of my head

In the end, this could just might be a "single game" fix, instead of trying to make an "Universal", as much as possible, solution?! I still aim for an "Universal" solution still! But, who knows!

In any case, I believe that once I am able to get something out (even a game fixed with Vk3DVision) people will definitely like it more ^_^ Working on that, in my free time ^_^. (Damn! I still need to download and play my pre-order of The Last of Us - Part 2 )

Right! Back to coding and trying to solve the issue of Unique Shaders!

Cheers,
Helifax

This is encouraging news, I was wondering if things learned from developing Vulkan 3D software could be used in a DX12 attempt -- or if the API's are just so wildly different that it would be completely separate animals to tackle (I'm sure they each have their own unique headache inducing challenges). I agree that this is the future of 3D gaming, we all love our shaderhackers...but without the select few who can engineer software to allow these games to be fixed, 3D gaming would have been dead LONG ago (even before Nvidia drove the final nail in the coffin). Even if it does not result in total success, I really thank you for starting this project. I only have one Vulkan game I would LOVE to play in 3D (RDR2), but its not really about that - its about advancing our passion into the future. I have no doubt that the next gen consoles are going to result in a lot more DX12 only games on PC. I would think a lot more donations might start coming in, once people see the writing on the wall...but we shall see what the future holds.

In the meantime I donated $100 usd via paypal, best of luck! we are ALL rooting for you, and appreciate the time and effort involved. Heck, this night be the one good thing to come out of the quarantine

[helifax]

I am still hopeful and maybe, we will get more traction, in time (as the project is relatively new - less than 1 month).
This doesn't mean, I will abandon it, but it will definitely make me think harder about making something like this for DirectX12 (Vulkan & DX12 have a lot of similarities... Guess who "copied" who? ) But, that is another topic and I am definitely not promising anything! Just an in the back of my head

In the end, this could just might be a "single game" fix, instead of trying to make an "Universal", as much as possible, solution?! I still aim for an "Universal" solution still! But, who knows!

In any case, I believe that once I am able to get something out (even a game fixed with Vk3DVision) people will definitely like it more ^_^ Working on that, in my free time ^_^. (Damn! I still need to download and play my pre-order of The Last of Us - Part 2 )

Right! Back to coding and trying to solve the issue of Unique Shaders!

Cheers,
Helifax

This is encouraging news, I was wondering if things learned from developing Vulkan 3D software could be used in a DX12 attempt -- or if the API's are just so wildly different that it would be completely separate animals to tackle (I'm sure they each have their own unique headache inducing challenges). I agree that this is the future of 3D gaming, we all love our shaderhackers...but without the select few who can engineer software to allow these games to be fixed, 3D gaming would have been dead LONG ago (even before Nvidia drove the final nail in the coffin). Even if it does not result in total success, I really thank you for starting this project. I only have one Vulkan game I would LOVE to play in 3D (RDR2), but its not really about that - its about advancing our passion into the future. I have no doubt that the next gen consoles are going to result in a lot more DX12 only games on PC. I would think a lot more donations might start coming in, once people see the writing on the wall...but we shall see what the future holds.

In the meantime I donated $100 usd via paypal, best of luck! we are ALL rooting for you, and appreciate the time and effort involved. Heck, this night be the one good thing to come out of the quarantine

Many thanks for your support! It's much appreciated!
The Patreon Page is back online, as well! (There was some misunderstanding with Patreon and they probably didn't like the fact that I changed my Paypal from my very old Belgium bank account to the UK one )

Regarding DX12, I hope that Vulkan will get more traction than DX12, but we will see in the future. Conceptually, they are very similar. (I could re-use some parts of it like I do now, from my OGL3DVision wrapper, but the whole infrastructure needs to be written from scratch, exactly how I do it for Vulkan ^_^).
My current goal is to get the Vk3DVsion one working and maybe later, at some point, I'll take a stab at DX12
There are actually a lot of games written in Vulkan and I really hope that more games will support both APIs (Vulkan & DX12 - like RDR2 does) as Vulkan is much broadly used (Linux, Stadia, etc).
Time will tell

Again, much appreciated!

Cheers,
Helifax

PS: I'll more news on the progress in the following days Now I am trying to stab lots of "fishes" at once
I am currently mostly working on the Unique Shaders and UI for RT compilation and error messaging (And lots of things regarding the ability to be deterministic & granular in shader swapping. Not the greatest of works, but very much needed ).

[for3donly]

"My current goal is to get the Vk3DVsion one working and maybe later, at some point, I'll take a stab at DX12 "

your words bring hope and your action bring joys. I believe vulkan wrapper will get more supports from our community, vr has its appeal but 3dvision definitely much more convenient to use on diffeferent displays and now with hd projectors. DX12 effort will also get a lot of support as well I think.

[Necropants]

Theres a lot of talk about Cyberpunk 2077 maybe being ported to Vulkan or Dx12 for next gen and maybe even release( I hope not) but it's likely. Which makes me nervous but I will be donating to this project periodically when I have the budget too
Again, Good luck with your work Helifax.

[helifax]

Theres a lot of talk about Cyberpunk 2077 maybe being ported to Vulkan or Dx12 for next gen and maybe even release( I hope not) but it's likely. Which makes me nervous but I will be donating to this project periodically when I have the budget too
Again, Good luck with your work Helifax.

Cyberpunk 2077 will have to be Vulkan, as per Google's Stadia requirements.
I am not sure if the PC version will be the same engine though or Dx12. It seems a bit strange to do the work 2 times for 2 different engines, but maybe it will support both or Vulkan only.
We don't know yet and unless they state officially is hard to say.

Cheers,
Helifax

[Shift-E]

Theres a lot of talk about Cyberpunk 2077 maybe being ported to Vulkan or Dx12 for next gen and maybe even release( I hope not) but it's likely. Which makes me nervous but I will be donating to this project periodically when I have the budget too
Again, Good luck with your work Helifax.

Cyberpunk 2077 will have to be Vulkan, as per Google's Stadia requirements.
I am not sure if the PC version will be the same engine though or Dx12. It seems a bit strange to do the work 2 times for 2 different engines, but maybe it will support both or Vulkan only.
We don't know yet and unless they state officially is hard to say.

Cheers,
Helifax

Well we know it will include DX12 for sure, since they’ve already announced it will launch with the detailed raytracing on PC day one. The raytracing on emissive lights will look awesome.

This is why I figured we will start seeing more DX12 games on PC once the next GEN consoles launch. With built in ray tracing hardware, they will be encouraging all devs to include RTX features… Which means mandatory DX12 on PC. As for any other APIs being included, it will be a crapshoot I hope I’m wrong though!

[helifax]

Theres a lot of talk about Cyberpunk 2077 maybe being ported to Vulkan or Dx12 for next gen and maybe even release( I hope not) but it's likely. Which makes me nervous but I will be donating to this project periodically when I have the budget too
Again, Good luck with your work Helifax.

Cyberpunk 2077 will have to be Vulkan, as per Google's Stadia requirements.
I am not sure if the PC version will be the same engine though or Dx12. It seems a bit strange to do the work 2 times for 2 different engines, but maybe it will support both or Vulkan only.
We don't know yet and unless they state officially is hard to say.

Cheers,
Helifax

Well we know it will include DX12 for sure, since they’ve already announced it will launch with the detailed raytracing on PC day one. The raytracing on emissive lights will look awesome.

This is why I figured we will start seeing more DX12 games on PC once the next GEN consoles launch. With built in ray tracing hardware, they will be encouraging all devs to include RTX features… Which means mandatory DX12 on PC. As for any other APIs being included, it will be a crapshoot I hope I’m wrong though!

Nothing is sure, until the developer says so. Based on their partnership with Nvidia it will/does use DX12. https://www.videogameschronicle.com/new ... ee%20below.
For Stadia though (since it is a launch title) it needs to run Vulkan. Either they will create 2 versions of the game (one for PC with DX12 and one for Stadia exclusive with Vulkan) or they will release both APIs, like RDR2 did. (The reason RDR2 has Vulkan is because of Stadia again. Guess which runs better? ^_^). https://www.reddit.com/r/cyberpunkgame/ ... punk_2077/

Raytracing is also supported in Vulkan just as much as in DX12. There are games with DLSS 2.0 and RTX that are Vulkan (Wolfenstein: Youngblood is such an example).
Since all these discussions are off-topic, I would like to stop here and not derail this thread more. (This thread is about Vk3DVision and not what Cyberpunk 2077 will use or not We can definitely discuss all of these, in the Cyberpunk thread, I have no issue with it )

[helifax]

I know, I've been quiet in the last few days with the development of Vk3DVision.
I've been working on quite a lot things (some that are "internal" - which will benefit everyone - but not worth mentioning - like bugs), others much more interesting
I'll not go through the whole list now (I'll make later posts about the other features - when I am comfortable with them).

In this post, I want to talk about the performance improvements that I've been working on:
- Initially I was forcing the creation of Shader Decompilation & Injection & Recompilation on a Single Thread. If you watched my previous Video, you definitely saw the long loading times and the long stutters/freezes that would happen.
- I have reworked all that part and now Shader Decompilation & Injection & Recompilation is Multi-Threaded , like originally intended (and how Detroit generates the shaders and other games).
- Fixes on how Uniform Buffers are being sent from CPU to GPU (this removed around 60% extra CPU utilisation )

I made a video comparison about it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g_28eJVRGjM


So, please check it out
(The Shader Decompilation & Stereo Injection & Recompilation is happening in both cases, but for simplicity I recorded the video in 2D )
Obviously, there is a CPU overhead (doing all the Shader Decompilation & Stereo Injection & Recompilation), but I plan to add support for compiling the shaders and loading them as binaries (like the game does it). This is not a problem, if you have a new CPU - as seen in the videos - but, in theory could improve things even more

Hope you like it!

Cheers,
Helifax

PS: ALWAYS SAVE THE FISH

[thebigdogma]

Very impressive performance jump! I second the ...

[Skawen]

Thank You for updates on Your Journey, this is really interesting to read.

[Shift-E]

multi-threading paying big dividends, very cool.

[Losti]

Yeah i also follow this i silence. I am impressed of what you do and achieve.

[helifax]

I expect that THIS IS THE MOMENT a lot of people are waiting for

Getting the first Vulkan game to render & RUN in Stereoscopic 3D (Detroit: Become Human):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9MQUrCj3hW0

I recommend downloading the video and watch it on your favourite Stereoscopic 3D player

There are a few things that I manually fixed:
- Double Stereo Injection
- Got RID of that horrible DOF (as you can't disable it entirely).
- Fixed Halos (in the first scene of the game).
- Disabled ALL OF THE SHINY reflections/decals & Screen Space Reflections (will be fixed later) just to get a CLEAN Stereoscopic 3D image!

MOST IMPORTANTLY, I got the Unique Shaders working, otherwise this would not have been possible

Next steps, involve looking at Pattern Matching (Regex) and how to inject Stereo3D in targeted places (unlike now, where I target all Vertex Shaders!) This will happen, only if you don't fancy spending 100+ hours fixing variants of the same shader over and over again
Thus, I will require the community a bit, in the future, as Regex Pattern searching is not my strongest point, when it comes to shader injection & Regex

I hope you like the video, as there has been a lot of work & knowledge invested (in a very short time) to get here

Cheers,
Helifax

PS: I know the HAIR looks wrong! That's become of the Compute Shader that I disabled - which is responsible for a LOT of things ^_^

[Losti]

Amazing News!!!! Let me know if and how i can help you:-)

[maurizioclaudio21]

I downloaded the video, awesome
great job, thanks

Ho scaricato il video, impressionante
grande lavoro, grazie

[bo3bber]

MOST IMPORTANTLY, I got the Unique Shaders working, otherwise this would not have been possible

Next steps, involve looking at Pattern Matching (Regex) and how to inject Stereo3D in targeted places (unlike now, where I target all Vertex Shaders!) This will happen, only if you don't fancy spending 100+ hours fixing variants of the same shader over and over again
Thus, I will require the community a bit, in the future, as Regex Pattern searching is not my strongest point, when it comes to shader injection & Regex

Amazing! Great job on getting a unique hash for the pipeline. Is this a first? I don't recall seeing any other modding tools able to do this on Vulkan.

For RegEx- consider using the same package that 3Dmigoto uses. It's open-source, and a standalone chunk. The value there would be the exact same RegEx specification so that people coming from 3Dmigoto RegEx will have same syntax. Lots of packages to choose from, just suggesting this one is already working and a good match for our ShaderHackers.

[helifax]

MOST IMPORTANTLY, I got the Unique Shaders working, otherwise this would not have been possible

Next steps, involve looking at Pattern Matching (Regex) and how to inject Stereo3D in targeted places (unlike now, where I target all Vertex Shaders!) This will happen, only if you don't fancy spending 100+ hours fixing variants of the same shader over and over again
Thus, I will require the community a bit, in the future, as Regex Pattern searching is not my strongest point, when it comes to shader injection & Regex

Amazing! Great job on getting a unique hash for the pipeline. Is this a first? I don't recall seeing any other modding tools able to do this on Vulkan.

For RegEx- consider using the same package that 3Dmigoto uses. It's open-source, and a standalone chunk. The value there would be the exact same RegEx specification so that people coming from 3Dmigoto RegEx will have same syntax. Lots of packages to choose from, just suggesting this one is already working and a good match for our ShaderHackers.

Thanks and hope that you liked it!

From my knowledge this is correct. I haven't seen a tool for generation Unique Shaders using the Graphics/Compute Pipeline information & Shader Blob, nor one that allows for Real-time decompilation, editing, recompilation of shaders. So, this right here is unique
For Regex, I haven't started looking too much into it, but it's been pretty much clear so far that I'll need something like this That is an awesome idea to use the same package as 3DMigoto! Thanks!
However, the regex patterns will look completely different since in DX11 we target DXBC ASM code, while here we will be targeting GLSL (the equivalent of HLSL in DirectX). I think this will actually make it easier, as it has been way easier for me to find and fix all the bloom halos & local Dof as seen in the video.

I'll have to play a bit more with the shaders to see what and how, but I will have a challenge for our ShaderHackers coming soon, that will have to do with RegEx

Cheers,
Helifax

[Shift-E]

awesome job, congrats! I was curious how you were going to resolve the generation of unique shader hash, this is great news

[helifax]

awesome job, congrats! I was curious how you were going to resolve the generation of unique shader hash, this is great news

Yeah Unique Shader generation is not as easy as it sounds ^_^ when in Multi-thread env.
There are still quite a lot of issues with MT & shader manipulation that I am looking at (Crashes & Race conditions - that is because I fail to synchronise in "places").
I am looking at fixing these issues

Cheers,
Helifax

[Scarhead]

Great work!

I will support you with a small donation.

THX

[Chtiblue]

Awesome progress Helifax

[helifax]

Awesome progress Helifax

Thanks!

But, I am afraid this is just another prototype!

While, I fixed a lot of MT problems in the last days and found another interesting bug that could reduce the performance up to 50% in some scenarios, I still don't like the overall performance!
After prototyping a lot of things, I came to the conclusion that is time for yet another redesign!

If I can't get the performance to be around 2D /2 in 3D, then... I am not happy! I don't like stutters & framerate drops.
Sure, getting a prototype and seeing what works and what doesn't it was easy enough Now, it's the time to actually think about it and make it as optimised as it can be! Sure, there will always be a GPU overhead (it should be minimal) and a bit bigger CPU overhead (since I am decompiling & injecting & recompiling shders in REAL TIME)

So.. get those Intel i9 CPUs READY

Only later, I can start thinking about Regex and other features (which will add more CPU overhead). I am thinking again about making a "Release" version - that uses pre-compiled shaders and a "Development" version - slower but with full functionality and used to find Regex patterns, fix & export shaders. These shaders can later be compiled offline and fed back into the "Release" version. (There is a cost for every "if(){} else{}" that you put in your code )

Back to the drawing table

Cheers,
Helifax

[helifax]

Great work!

I will support you with a small donation.

THX

Many thanks! It is much appreciated!

Cheers,
Helifax

[bo3bber]

But, I am afraid this is just another prototype!

While, I fixed a lot of MT problems in the last days and found another interesting bug that could reduce the performance up to 50% in some scenarios, I still don't like the overall performance!
After prototyping a lot of things, I came to the conclusion that is time for yet another redesign!

Now this right here- this is how you know that Helifax is a real programmer, a professional, and not a script kiddie.

The first version of anything hard like this is always a huge mess and bad architecture, because when you start, you don't know what to do. You can only find out by doing, and then the second version is 100x better.

People who are amateurs at programming just keep the first version and never start over. And it always remains a wreck.

[Necropants]

This is so cool. Btw what are people using to download things from youtube these days?

[Chtiblue]

Impressive!

[3DNovice]

Your progress is insane and awe inspiring.

Thank you, for all you do.

[schwing]

This is so cool. Btw what are people using to download things from youtube these days?

    4K Video Downloader can download entire playlists and queue downloads. I paid $15 to activate it for up to 3 computers to be able to download without limits. The app makes it easy when you copy links to videos or playlists. Looking at the site, I noticed it also downloads 3D content.

[helifax]

I know I've been a bit silent This doesn't mean I haven't made great progress

There are a few things that I want to iron-out and test & fix before I announce anything new

A bit off-topic, but it would help me with my testing!
Does any of the shadercrackers know a way on how to test if the coords in a vertex shaders are already stereorized?

For Example: I have VS X. It runs 1st time to render geometry, where I stereorize the coords. The same shader is then called again to render shadows. At this point the coords are already in stereo and I don't need to stereorize them.
Is there a way for me to detect if they are already in stereo?

Cheers,
Helifax

[Losti]

I know I've been a bit silent This doesn't mean I haven't made great progress

There are a few things that I want to iron-out and test & fix before I announce anything new

A bit off-topic, but it would help me with my testing!
Does any of the shadercrackers know a way on how to test if the coords in a vertex shaders are already stereorized?

For Example: I have VS X. It runs 1st time to render geometry, where I stereorize the coords. The same shader is then called again to render shadows. At this point the coords are already in stereo and I don't need to stereorize them.
Is there a way for me to detect if they are already in stereo?

Cheers,
Helifax

Its a bit hard for me to get how this works what you do because i dont know your Way to fix in Vulkan. In DX11 with migoto as you know you have saved the VS so its only once beeing modified by yourself ^^ So how do you do the stereorization the first time and why a second time for the same shader?

Just an idea not knowing what/how you exactly do things, may it works or is non sense ^^:

What about saving the cords to a temp register, than stereorize it and save result in a second tmp register.
If cords EQU tempregister2, than they are stereorized
If cords EQU tempregister1, than they are not stereorized

[ohJah5Ti1A]

Hi,
just stumbled over Vk3DVision and wanted to express my interest in linux compatibility as well.
If native linux support is too much work, maybe it could be made to work inside proton. f.e. ReShade and 3Dmigoto do work inside proton too. Would be great to get "3D vision compatible" games to work in VR on linux
(side-by-side Depth3D shader via ReShade and/or vkBasalt do work already btw).
edit: Proton already uses dxvk as d3d9-d3d11 to vulkan and vkd3d as d3d12 to vulkan wrapper, so basically every windows game you play via SteamPlay/Proton uses vulkan ootb.