Meant to be Seen

Having an issue with Bioshock (v1.1 - latest through steam) when launching either from Steam or directly from executable.

I have Perception running as an administrator.

When I run I get the following error message: That pops up a few times and then bioshock starts without perception hooks (I.e. no split image).

Have you come across this error? I know you had a build of Bioshock working.

Win 7, Nvidia GTX 580, 8gb RAM

Thanks in advance

Seems taht you didn't copy the vireio dll's (which are with vireio executable) in the bioshock executable folder, it's said on the documentation of vireio

RescueGamer wrote:Seems taht you didn't copy the vireio dll's (which are with vireio executable) in the bioshock executable folder, it's said on the documentation of vireio

I did read it and tried the first time but ended up with very peculiar results. Will try again and see if I can get a better experience.

When I tried it I could not see the mouse at all and in game looked like I was stuck in inside my own gun.

Read the updated FAQ under the Vireio tab on the front page.

There are ideas there which may be helpful.

Regards,
Neil

Neil wrote:Read the updated FAQ under the Vireio tab on the front page.

There are ideas there which may be helpful.

Regards,
Neil

Thanks Ralf to be clear - do I still run the program itself? I presume so because using both everything now looks peachy You may want to clarify that in the FAQs for people being a bit dense like me

It was a bit of a rough start for me - but the drivers truly are excellent. Of the 3 games tried so far (L4D/Skyrim/Bioshock) its been the best version I've seen of all middleware.

Yes. You run the program AND you copy the DLLs. I'll add that to the FAQ (good point).

Otherwise it could look like it's injecting, but many of the features won't actually work.

Regards,
Neil

I also have a problem with Bioshock.
I copy the .dll files from /Perception/bin to where the bioshock.exe is and although my rift is on (just tested Borderlands and it was almost working (except for a stragne light bug where on the left eye it was darker and on the right it was going apeshit crazy flickering between light/like normally in the game/ and darker/like on my right eye/) Perception doesn't inject. Both the game and my desktop are set to 1280x800 and I tried admin mode on and off but Bioshock doesn't want to go in rift mode. (It's just one image, no warping on the edges and ctrl+t doesn't do anything)

What should I do?

mite134 wrote:I also have a problem with Bioshock.
I copy the .dll files from /Perception/bin to where the bioshock.exe is and although my rift is on (just tested Borderlands and it was almost working (except for a stragne light bug where on the left eye it was darker and on the right it was going apeshit crazy flickering between light/like normally in the game/ and darker/like on my right eye/) Perception doesn't inject. Both the game and my desktop are set to 1280x800 and I tried admin mode on and off but Bioshock doesn't want to go in rift mode. (It's just one image, no warping on the edges and ctrl+t doesn't do anything)

What should I do?

I also got the weird lightness thing on borderlands but not the flickering. Hey ho - its not noted as playable but as you say very close.

Regarding Bioshock I would double check everything as this does inject:

Exit out of everything including steam / perception etc.
1) Make sure all 4 DLLs from the Perception bin are in the same folder as Bioshock (Program Files\steamapps\common\bioshock\buids\release or Program Files(x86)\steamapps\common\bioshock\buids\release)
2) In the Steam list click on properties and then Launch Options. Type in "-dx9 -nointro" (without the quotes)
3) Run Perception as an administrator.
4) Run Bioshock - Directly or through Steam - Shouldnt make a difference

Et voila.
I suspect you missed step 2. This is perhaps another one for the FAQ - Bioshock must be in DirectX 9 Mode.

Don't forget to set the resolution to something like 1280x800.

I'm getting stereoscopy on the Rift- but no tracker.

Thank you for the advice! Ok, I got it to run in dx9 mode but something weird happens. If i have Perception.exe open the game crashes on launch, but without it i get the 3d and everything except tracking. I'm thinking about running perception with rhe first setting to none and the second to oculustrack, but it's past midnight and I need more energy, Would really appreciate some advice wise people

You should definitely keep tracking active. In the profile settings, try erasing the VRBoost profile for Bioshock. It's possible that the VRBoost profile is causing the crash in this case. We discovered a better technique for getting the right memory pointers, but I don't know if it was implemented in the Bioshock option yet. We should at least rule it out.

Also, which tracker did you select in Vireio?
Are both screens in the same resolution AND the same refresh rate?
Are you in clone mode?
Please share your system specs as well.

Regards,
Neil

mite134 wrote:Thank you for the advice! Ok, I got it to run in dx9 mode but something weird happens. If i have Perception.exe open the game crashes on launch, but without it i get the 3d and everything except tracking. I'm thinking about running perception with rhe first setting to none and the second to oculustrack, but it's past midnight and I need more energy, Would really appreciate some advice wise people

You definitely need the Perception app open. It may seem like the stereo is working when Perception is not open but things will quickly fall apart (or in fact not work at all). Similarly you really want to keep these both on Oculus modes. I see your logic but Perception isn't sitting on top of the DLLs in the way you think. The tracking itself may be a red herring. Neil may be right on the VRBoost although this is definitely working for other users.

I have exactly the same issue, I copied the DLLs to the Release folder, and start Perception in Admin. Then I run Bioshock, and it crashes with the annoying "Stopped working" message. If I don't run perception, the game starts but I don't have head tracking (though head roll does seem to work). I deleted the Bioshock.MTBS file from the vrboost config folder, but that had no effect.

My machine specs, if it helps, are:

CPU:   Intel Core i5 4670k (OC 4.2 GHz)
Motherboard: Asus Z87-K
GPU: Asus Nvidia GeForce GTX 660 Ti
Memory: Crucial Ballistix Sport PC3-12800 (2 x 4GB)
OS: Windows 8.1 64-bit

Skyrim on the other hand works like a VR dream. The VRBoost functionality that means the mouse only moves the view left and right makes it SO much more playable, as I don't end up accidentally looking at the floor when my head is pointing forwards. Brilliant, now if only I can Bioshock to work I'll be a happy man.

I seem to have the same problem as DrBeef. One thing is that I'm on windows 7 and have to force bioshock to run in DX9 mode (create a link with -DX9 switch) to get it to use the DX9 driver. Other then copy the .dlls to the bin directory of bioshock, is there anything else I need to do?

android78 wrote:I seem to have the same problem as DrBeef. One thing is that I'm on windows 7 and have to force bioshock to run in DX9 mode (create a link with -DX9 switch) to get it to use the DX9 driver. Other then copy the .dlls to the bin directory of bioshock, is there anything else I need to do?

Not that I can think of. I also run Bioshock in administrator mode just to be on the safe side.
I would try making sure nothing else is running at the same time and maybe even temporarily disable any virus scanners / safe guards you have. Any crash logs would be helpful in debugging.

DrBeef wrote:I have exactly the same issue, I copied the DLLs to the Release folder, and start Perception in Admin. Then I run Bioshock, and it crashes with the annoying "Stopped working" message. If I don't run perception, the game starts but I don't have head tracking (though head roll does seem to work). I deleted the Bioshock.MTBS file from the vrboost config folder, but that had no effect.

My machine specs, if it helps, are:

CPU:   Intel Core i5 4670k (OC 4.2 GHz)
Motherboard: Asus Z87-K
GPU: Asus Nvidia GeForce GTX 660 Ti
Memory: Crucial Ballistix Sport PC3-12800 (2 x 4GB)
OS: Windows 8.1 64-bit

Skyrim on the other hand works like a VR dream. The VRBoost functionality that means the mouse only moves the view left and right makes it SO much more playable, as I don't end up accidentally looking at the floor when my head is pointing forwards. Brilliant, now if only I can Bioshock to work I'll be a happy man.

Dont delete the VRboost profile. There is currently a bug whereby headtracking does not work unless VRboost is on (apart from roll) and even then you would need to update the profile entry.
If I were you I would restore Perception back to its original state with VRBoost for bioshock. Any crash logs you could sen would be useful.

So I unzipped a fresh instance of Perception, copied the DLLs to the Release folder of Bioshock, started Perception as Administrator and then ran Bioshock (also as admin) and it crashed in the same way it has done before. I played around with it a bit, and discovered that if I change the output in Perception to "Side by Side", then I actually get 4 images side by side (rather than the two I was expecting). If I try to use Oculus Rift, then it just dies. I've stopped most resident processes, and the anti-virus is just the basic "whatever comes with Windows 8" business.

I went to the windows event log (as there was no logging of any sort in the Bioshock binaries folder that I could see) and it had generated the following:
This issue is very reminiscent of a problem I had with Bioshock Infinite and the first release of VorpX, turned out to be a Steam DRM problem that didn't affect everyone. The most recent update of Vorpx fixed it, but exactly what the change was, I have no idea. Anyway, it might be completely unrelated, but it feels similar.

When you start in side by side, do you see some kind of nvidia descriptive text?

In control panel, make sure nvidia 3d vision is OFF. I have a hunch


Neil

DrBeef wrote:I played around with it a bit, and discovered that if I change the output in Perception to "Side by Side", then I actually get 4 images side by side (rather than the two I was expecting).

If you get 4 images, the driver injected for two times. Had that once with a game (it was Mirror's Edge i think). Try to load the game directly in the folder (without steam or any loader). Also, try to start the game with just the dll's copied and no vireio driver loaded.

After my last post I wasn't getting anywhere with Bioshock, so I gave up and played Portal 2 for a bit, Perception works fantastically with that even without VRBoost (tempted to have a go at creating a VRBoost profile for it though), just before wrapping up for the evening I thought I would give Bioshock one more try, and it unexpectedly it seemed to work!, though I don't think VRBoost was working as the mouse control was clearly affected by the head tracking and I could look up and down using the mouse. So, something still isn't right, and I don't really have a solution as I am not going to want to play Portal 2 everytime I want to play Bioshock, but clearly more tinkering is required on my part (incidentally, the side-by-side only yielded two images when I tried that again too).

Also, excuse my ignorance, but I couldn't see anything related to 3D Vision in the NVIDIA control panel, so I suspect I may not have set that up/installed it. I didn't see any nvidia descriptive text either from what I recall.

I suspect when I try again later I will see it crashing as before, and I'll be back to square one.

baggyg wrote:Dont delete the VRboost profile. There is currently a bug whereby headtracking does not work unless VRboost is on (apart from roll) and even then you would need to update the profile entry.

What do you mean "you need to update the profile entry"? I think this is what I wasn't doing.

xhonzi wrote:

baggyg wrote:Dont delete the VRboost profile. There is currently a bug whereby headtracking does not work unless VRboost is on (apart from roll) and even then you would need to update the profile entry.

What do you mean "you need to update the profile entry"? I think this is what I wasn't doing.

I meant if you wanted to run without VRBoost you would edit the profile. My advice is still to stick with the original profiles / boost files as supplied with the release.

Hi Guys!

I added a section to the FAQ section entitled "My game keeps crashing when VRBoost is active. How do I stop this?"

Please let me know if this is helpful:

http://www.mtbs3d.com/index.php?option= ... Itemid=473

It's possible that each of you may have different shader count needs, so it's best you don't try to copy other people's results for your own game.

Regards,
Neil

I've Tried everything, but i cant get Bioshock to work. I have no problems with mirrors edge or skyrim, works good, but bioshock just launches normally. Setting it manually to 1280x800 or making it windowed or whatever, nothing seems to be working. I did put those 4 dll's in the binary folder where the exe is located (the same i had to do with skyrim, and it worked from the first start). I even tried the launcher commands -dx9 -nointro but it wont help. Bioshock does not crash, it just does not start in rift-mode.

onimoschta wrote:I've Tried everything, but i cant get Bioshock to work. I have no problems with mirrors edge or skyrim, works good, but bioshock just launches normally. Setting it manually to 1280x800 or making it windowed or whatever, nothing seems to be working. I did put those 4 dll's in the binary folder where the exe is located (the same i had to do with skyrim, and it worked from the first start). I even tried the launcher commands -dx9 -nointro but it wont help. Bioshock does not crash, it just does not start in rift-mode.

Is your Bioshock a Steam version?

My directory for this is: X:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Bioshock\Builds\Release\

Make sure that in addition to copying the Vireio Perception DLL files to this directory, you also run Perception.EXE

Do you have other software running that could interrupt the driver's injection? Another driver, perhaps?

I just tested the game, and it runs fine here (I know! You don't want to hear that! ;=) ).

Regards,
Neil

Unfortunately I am still getting the crash. I went through the steps to set the minVRboostShaderCount, but even after I had changed "bioshock.MTBS" to "test.MTBS" in the profile.cfg, and commenced step iv. (When you restart your game, if VRBoost was the cause, it shouldn't crash) it persisted in crashing, so it possibly isn't VRBoost causing this?

The only time it doesn't crash is when I don't have Perception.exe running.

I feel like I've tried everything at this stage, so if there's any other suggestions I'll gladly hear them.

It just occurred to me.

In the startup options for Bioshock, do you have "-dx9" set so it is forced to go into DX9 mode?

Regards,
Neil

Yes, I do, along with -nointro , so it crashes quicker

I'm beginning to think I might have to build perception from source and run bioshock with a debugger attached, that way I might be able to at least give you a meaningful stack trace. Unless you can think of anything else I may have missed?

Try this. It's a bit radical, but it has helped me with other crashes.

1. Make sure you have this particular data backed up.
2. Delete all the save games and config files for Bioshock. Delete the entire directory if you have to. Make sure only the meat of the game remains.
3. When the game is restarted, it should run as though it has never been run before. Don't run with Vireio while going through this step.

If the game fails to run, use the Steam verify game cache feature (under local files).

NOW try with Vireio.

Regards,
Neil

DrBeef wrote:Yes, I do, along with -nointro , so it crashes quicker

I'm beginning to think I might have to build perception from source and run bioshock with a debugger attached, that way I might be able to at least give you a meaningful stack trace. Unless you can think of anything else I may have missed?

Rather than doing this, just run with http://tracespy.codeplex.com/ running in the background. Should give you some debug information to provide.

I've attached the output I got from tracespy.. if it's not enough (doesn't look all that revealing to me) then I am prepared to give a debug build a try.

I'll try deleting everything and running fresh as per Neil's suggestion tomorrow, it's got a bit late and I didn't get as much time to play around with this as I had hoped.

I built the source, debugged it attached to the bioshock process and have pin pointed the crash to something that VRBoost.dll is doing (when is called). Unfortunately I can't tell what exactly as I don't have the VRBoost source, but I have saved a crash dump complete with heap, hopefully that will be of some benefit, I've 7-zip compressed it but it is still 71MB, which I imagine it a bit big to attach to this post, so if you let me know what you would like me to do with it (upload it somewhere, email it, or anything else) then I will be happy to do so.

If there's anything else you can think of for me to do that would help please let me know, since I have everything set up and am happy to get my hands dirty.

Hi !

DrBeef wrote:I built the source, debugged it attached to the bioshock process and have pin pointed the crash to something that VRBoost.dll is doing (when
Code:
m_pVRboost_LoadMemoryRules(config.game_exe, config.VRboostPath);
is called).

Did you try to manually delete VRBoost.dll in both folders (game and driver) ? In that case it should at least start and you should be able to play forcing mouse emulation head tracking in the brassa menu. The VRBoost method LoadMemoryRules() should output a debug entry ("Load VRBoost rule..." or similar) but i did not find this in your log. And since the last entries in your log handle the tracker : Did you try it using no tracking ?

Regards, Denis

Hi Denis

I am generally seeing some very strange behaviour, which is all the more odd as I have no issues with Skyrim (with VRBoost) and Portal 2 (without VRBoost). For all of the below I have the perception dlls copied to the bioshock binaries folder.

It seems that if I have Perception running I will get a crash in bioshock regardless, but the crash is different depending on whether I try to use VRBoost or not. If I use VRBoost, then I get the crash I previously mentioned in the VRBoost code (presumably initialising the tracker).

If I don't use VRBoost (I renamed the dlls), or if I do have VRBoost active but I select "No Tracking", then I get a stack overflow as the following two methods appear to call each other recursively, entering a loop from which it never escapes:
If I don't have Percption running then it doesn't crash and I get stereo rendering and warping, and if I force mouse emulation head tracking, then it does appear to work, though the recommendation in previous posts appears to be the Perception app should be running and it doesn't look quite right, the 3D is ok, but lightsource reflections and shadows look bad. Plus I would really like to be able to use VRBoost to play Bioshock!

It is all very strange as I am able to use perception without issue with other games.

Still not working for me. I've tried 2.0.0.2, and it's basically the same. I accessed the Ctlr-Q menu and switched on force HW mouse, which gave me some terrible headtracking... but now I can't get back to the Ctrl-Q menu.

Some info:
Rift Dk-1
i7-4770K 3.5 GHz
AMD 7870
16 GB RAM
Windows 7 64 bit
Bioshock- Non Steam- From GameFly PC Direct
All 4 .dll's copied to C:\Program Files (x86)\2K Games\BioShock\Builds\Release

Dear Esther works great. Fallout New Vegas works pretty darn well. Borderlands 2 has lots of flickering and is unplayable.

Bioshock originally gave me stereoscopy without headtracking. Then I enabled force HW mouse, as I mentioned above. And I can't get back to the BRASSA menu.

Working on something new for you. I don't have a release date yet.

Regards,
Neil

Excellent and thank-you!

Neil-
Will your secret solution help Dr LeBeouf or me or both?

Thanks

Hey Neil,
Will the upcoming Vireio release contain this fix you mentioned a couple posts back?

Bioshock and VR Boost update:

I have been spending quite a bit of time debugging both. In the case of Bioshock we have found that the retail version of the game is currently not compatible with our VR boost profile.
99% this is your problem @xhonzi.
If you would like to test if your version is failing please follow the guide here

VR Boost / Crashes - Dr Beef, regarding a crash I have spent a bit of time debugging VR boost and diagnosing why things go wrong. It currently quite a closed box. I have attached a debug version of the DLL. Can you please retry this with trace spy running and send me any output?