Grand theft Auto 4 - Helixmod Fix

[mikear69]

In case there is any interest for this old fave of a game, I am posting a link to a WIP fix. As far as I know this is the first time shadows have been fixed for this game, and it looks pretty good. I also fixed a number of lights, and water halos (at the beach).

LATEST
v0.9
https://www.dropbox.com/s/ykttlgw6oz9hj ... 9.rar?dl=0
Fixed more lights and put more reflections at depth. Game looks shinier now.
Added variable cross-hair depth as a function of convergence.

v0.6
https://www.dropbox.com/s/rs0rkt2g5u6ie ... 6.rar?dl=0
Fixed some lights and shadows, added window reflection depth.

v0.5
https://www.dropbox.com/s/ruorkpq4btdj5 ... 5.rar?dl=0
Fixed shadows under cars, and added Right Mouse Button event to push cross hair to depth.

v0.4
https://www.dropbox.com/s/0hk1mo50yk5gq ... 4.rar?dl=0
Fixed few extra lights in cutscenes, added cross-hair/HUD depth (rough'n'ready)

v0.3
https://www.dropbox.com/s/6w3zcw1wcri4t ... 3.rar?dl=0
Shadows, lights, reflections, water, fixed.

v0.2
Link : https://www.dropbox.com/s/113boi7jk63yn ... 2.rar?dl=0

ORIGINAL
Outstanding is a whole slew of specular light issues I've not tracked down yet, and bloom lighting shines through objects. Both of these issues can be disabled but the game is more bland without it. I've also not touched the HUD. There are also some flicking on and off lights, that I think is due to a hardcoded FOV value, and I am probably off some decimal places.

Any feedback would be welcome, and if anyone would like to contribute, please chime in e.g. HUD, the specular lights, or the FOV parameter.

[Chtiblue]

Incredible good news Mikear69 !

I will soon test it and report back!

Please keep the good work on this awesome fix 8)
Cheers

[russellk]

In case there is any interest for this old fave of a game, I am posting a link to a WIP fix. As far as I know this is the first time shadows have been fixed for this game, and it looks pretty good. I also fixed a number of lights, and water halos (at the beach).

Outstanding is a whole slew of specular light issues I've not tracked down yet, and bloom lighting shines through objects. Both of these issues can be disabled but the game is more bland without it. I've also not touched the HUD. There are also some flicking on and off lights, that I think is due to a hardcoded FOV value, and I am probably off some decimal places.

Link : https://www.dropbox.com/s/113boi7jk63yn ... 1.rar?dl=0

Any feedback would be welcome, and if anyone would like to contribute, please chime in e.g. HUD, the specular lights, or the FOV parameter.

Hi Mike, are you the one who spent quite a lot of time originally trying to fix this? I remember the old forums someone did years ago, but they never cracked the shadows so well done! I know you're in the elite category for this kind of thing anyway
I did have this game but I have a feeling my copy died somewhere along the lines with GFWL, but I'll try and check it out at some point.
Cheers.

[Chtiblue]

side note, I never finished the game neither EFLC because of no 3D, is it time soon to play it 3D?

[Blacksmith60]

Now this is great news indeed

A HUGE thanks for looking into this great game, I tried to make it playable some time ago with Tridef, but it look terrible without the shadows !!
I did find a rather nice workarround for the bloom issue though, afair I used Reshade to adjust the effect so it didn't bleed through everything but still looked nice....

I'll try the Wip ASAP, and report back.

Edit: Mike, any info regarding the game version used (older versions supports a huge number of mods, the newer ones NOT) I don't know if any shaders has changed over the years ?

[mikear69]

Now this is great news indeed

A HUGE thanks for looking into this great game, I tried to make it playable some time ago with Tridef, but it look terrible without the shadows !!
I did find a rather nice workarround for the bloom issue though, afair I used Reshade to adjust the effect so it didn't bleed through everything but still looked nice....

I'll try the Wip ASAP, and report back.

Edit: Mike, any info regarding the game version used (older versions supports a huge number of mods, the newer ones NOT) I don't know if any shaders has changed over the years ?

It seems to be called "Grand Theft Auto 4: The Complete Edition". It includes Liberty City DLC. I am sure the fix will work on older versions as well, I used to have the original and the shadow shaders were the exact same.
If you could let me know how the bloom thing works, I could see about incorporating it.
Mana84 has a basic fix on Helixmod blog as well, something to do with the cross-hair - I could also roll that in.

In case there is any interest for this old fave of a game, I am posting a link to a WIP fix. As far as I know this is the first time shadows have been fixed for this game, and it looks pretty good. I also fixed a number of lights, and water halos (at the beach).

Outstanding is a whole slew of specular light issues I've not tracked down yet, and bloom lighting shines through objects. Both of these issues can be disabled but the game is more bland without it. I've also not touched the HUD. There are also some flicking on and off lights, that I think is due to a hardcoded FOV value, and I am probably off some decimal places.

Link : https://www.dropbox.com/s/113boi7jk63yn ... 1.rar?dl=0

Any feedback would be welcome, and if anyone would like to contribute, please chime in e.g. HUD, the specular lights, or the FOV parameter.

Hi Mike, are you the one who spent quite a lot of time originally trying to fix this? I remember the old forums someone did years ago, but they never cracked the shadows so well done! I know you're in the elite category for this kind of thing anyway
I did have this game but I have a feeling my copy died somewhere along the lines with GFWL, but I'll try and check it out at some point.
Cheers.

Yeah I was one of them, actually! Someone one posted somewhere else on this Forum recently about GTA4 and I thought I would have another look. Perhaps because I ended up doing a lot of more complex fixes since I first looked at it, I had a few more ideas this time round and things were clearer to me.
Like I said it not quite finished, the incorrect specular lights can look overwhelming in some night scenes.

[Blacksmith60]

Hmm... After some research in my memories, I'm quite sure it was IceEnhancer Enb I used to "fix" the bloom issue.

But now I've spend 2 hours trying to get 3DV run along with Enb and/or alternatively Reshade, but no luck so far, I've tried adding Proxylib in both and also in our d3dx.ini to no avail

To my big surprice, the game runs extremely smooth 60fps in 3D, it could just be my new 10700 KF Cpu, but it's a pleasure

So far the game is in a never seen - and already playable 3D state, thanks so far Mike, I'll look forward to actually play it

[Chtiblue]

Just tested it...
Man it's phenomenal

Just looking awesome this game with shadows, cars density max, details max, view distance max, awesome water reflections.

i'm gonna to download IceEnhancer ENB just right now

The original musik tracks are still totally awesome

The way it's meaned to be played

Incredible work Mikear69!!!
Cheers

[mikear69]

Just tested it...
Man it's phenomenal

Just looking awesome this game with shadows, cars density max, details max, Field Of view max, awesome water reflections.

i'm gonna to download IceEnhancer ENB just right now

The original musik tracks are still totally awesome

The way it's meaned to be played

Incredible work Mikear69!!!
Cheers

Great news! Can you let me know who you change the FOV? As I noted I had to fix a constant correction for FOV for some night lights/shadows, which might look wrong when you get to them, so I could determine the correct value for you while I see about working it out programatically.
I might need to just disable some of the reflections for now (e.g. off cars and in windows), I've hit a wall with that...

[Chtiblue]

Sorry by Field of view, I meaned the "view distance" option in graphic menu, wrong translation,my bad

[Chtiblue]

BTW, what is the key for the 2 convergence presets?

[mikear69]

BTW, what is the key for the 2 convergence presets?

No worries about the FOV, when I looked I guess this is what you meant
The key for the convergence presets is "0".
I have cleaned up the WIP a bit, corrected a couple of issues, and disabled some of the shiny reflections, bloom, and raindrops on the screen. There are still some lights flicking on and off, but it does this in pure2D mode sometimes as well, so its hard to pin down. You might actually notice much difference. I ran around a lot in main game and the two DLCs and its all looking pretty good - aside from the HUD, I think this is playable as is.
Here is the v0.2 version: https://www.dropbox.com/s/vsv2kdukri7od ... 2.rar?dl=0

[Blacksmith60]

Just tried the new version, all I can say is WAUUUU !!
After all these years we can play GTA4 in REAL 3D, I even pushed my luck with DSRx4 / 5120x2880 , it still ran quite smooth (52fps vs. 60fps in the benchmark)

@ Chtiblue Any luck with the Ice Enhancer, or anything related, that would be the icing on the already lovely cake

@ Mike did you incorporate the Mana84 fix for the crosshair - Really appreciate this Thanks.

[mikear69]

Just tried the new version, all I can say is WAUUUU !!
After all these years we can play GTA4 in REAL 3D, I even pushed my luck with DSRx4 / 5120x2880 , it still ran quite smooth (52fps vs. 60fps in the benchmark)

@ Chtiblue Any luck with the Ice Enhancer, or anything related, that would be the icing on the already lovely cake

@ Mike did you incorporate the Mana84 fix for the crosshair - Really appreciate this Thanks.

Thanks for the feedback - I have a few more changes to roll in. I did include the Mana84 fix, but the texture filtering is not working, I need to re-work out what the cross-hair texture ids are etc, and I can't remember how to that (will need to go back and do my research, look at Helix very original forum post etc lol)

[Chtiblue]

@ Chtiblue Any luck with the Ice Enhancer, or anything related, that would be the icing on the already lovely cake

I let you try this, it broke my game
I'm redownloading a different version of the game

[russellk]

Well I wanted to try this but I can't get the game to run any more. I bought it years ago when Games for Windows Live was still running.
I've read up a bit on various potential solutions, but even when I go back to my old Windows 7 partition, it thinks the install needs activating and I'm unable to do so, since I don't have a serial number.
I haven't run it since 2015! haha. It has seperate folders for GTA IV and EFLC.

In this instance I might even try a... 3rd party solution, since I paid for the software.

[Chtiblue]

You might actually notice much difference. I ran around a lot in main game and the two DLCs and its all looking pretty good - aside from the HUD, I think this is playable as is.
Here is the v0.2 version: https://www.dropbox.com/s/vsv2kdukri7od ... 2.rar?dl=0

Yeah it looks totally awesome 8)

Only thing is that we the red debugging/hunting text (VS PS etc) on the screen, I don't how yo remove it

[Chtiblue]

The key for the convergence presets is "0".

the key "0" doesn't work here, perhaps because of the red text...

[Losti]

Just tried the new version, all I can say is WAUUUU !!
After all these years we can play GTA4 in REAL 3D, I even pushed my luck with DSRx4 / 5120x2880 , it still ran quite smooth (52fps vs. 60fps in the benchmark)

@ Chtiblue Any luck with the Ice Enhancer, or anything related, that would be the icing on the already lovely cake

@ Mike did you incorporate the Mana84 fix for the crosshair - Really appreciate this Thanks.

Thanks for the feedback - I have a few more changes to roll in. I did include the Mana84 fix, but the texture filtering is not working, I need to re-work out what the cross-hair texture ids are etc, and I can't remember how to that (will need to go back and do my research, look at Helix very original forum post etc lol)

Hey Mike. May want to read my Tutorial for texture spciffic fixes here, may it helps you to remember

viewtopic.php?p=167689&sid=2c205f033f63 ... 0f#p167689

[Blacksmith60]

@ Chtiblue, Mike forgot to delete the hunting version of d3d9.dll (the one just named d3d9.dll)
So delete that and rename the Release_d3d9.dll to..... d3d9.dll, and you are golden

Have you had any luck with enabling an Enb or perhaps reshade ?
I tried an older version 1.0.7 I think, I had issues with that like squashed car models ( the outer of the car is broken, and you just sit in the seat - really weird) so I went back to the latest version 1.2.0.43

@ russellk You're not alone, just get it going

[russellk]

@ russellk You're not alone, just get it going

Thanks mate, will do

[Chtiblue]

@ Chtiblue, Mike forgot to delete the hunting version of d3d9.dll (the one just named d3d9.dll)
So delete that and rename the Release_d3d9.dll to..... d3d9.dll, and you are golden

Thanks amigo

[Chtiblue]

Have you had any luck with enabling an Enb or perhaps reshade ?
I tried an older version 1.0.7 I think, I had issues with that like squashed car models ( the outer of the car is broken, and you just sit in the seat - really weird) so I went back to the latest version 1.2.0.43

I'm with v1.2.0.43 too and do have squashed cars often when turning...

Didn't try ENB nor reshade

[mikear69]

The key for the convergence presets is "0".

the key "0" doesn't work here, perhaps because of the red text...

Hi Sorry about the red text - Blacksmith sorted it out for you I see. Regarding the "0" key:
- Press 0, then change the convergence to, say something low, and then press F7
- Then press 0 again (move to the other preset) and change the convergence to something high (pop out) and press F7
Then - repeated pressing 0 should show the convergence toggling. I think I may have put an ini file out with the same sep+conv on both presets...
If that does not work, it might be that there is no Nvidia profile enabled - there is a setting in NvidiaInspector, I think I had to set it to true from false. Look under section"7 -Stereo", and then value "StereoProfile" should be set to "yes".

Just tried the new version, all I can say is WAUUUU !!
After all these years we can play GTA4 in REAL 3D, I even pushed my luck with DSRx4 / 5120x2880 , it still ran quite smooth (52fps vs. 60fps in the benchmark)

@ Chtiblue Any luck with the Ice Enhancer, or anything related, that would be the icing on the already lovely cake

@ Mike did you incorporate the Mana84 fix for the crosshair - Really appreciate this Thanks.

Thanks for the feedback - I have a few more changes to roll in. I did include the Mana84 fix, but the texture filtering is not working, I need to re-work out what the cross-hair texture ids are etc, and I can't remember how to that (will need to go back and do my research, look at Helix very original forum post etc lol)

Hey Mike. May want to read my Tutorial for texture spciffic fixes here, may it helps you to remember

viewtopic.php?p=167689&sid=2c205f033f63 ... 0f#p167689

Thanks Losti! Unfortunately that post seems only for 3DMigoto, GTA4 is an "old" DX9 helixmod fix. I found the original instructions for this, except it still does not work, so I will try different DLLs until it does... Great info on 3DMigoto texture filtering though, I did not know any of that.

As a quick update, I can't find anyway to fix the "Reflections", and they really need to be turned to "Off" in the graphics options. This is a bummer, as it removes some of the 'shinyness' from windows etc when walking down streets, but all reflections render at screen depth and I can't work out how to fix them. If there are any shader hackers out there who still know how to use helixmod, and wanna give it a try, please do! It's been driving me nuts - not a single thing I have done moves the reflections off screen depth, they just distort and smudge a bit. There are still reflections in water, and specular lights, its just reflections of the environment off windows and cars. Anyway, I will post a 0.3 alpha shortly, I fixed a few more lights/shadows.

[Chtiblue]

The key for the convergence presets is "0".

the key "0" doesn't work here, perhaps because of the red text...

Hi Sorry about the red text - Blacksmith sorted it out for you I see. Regarding the "0" key:
- Press 0, then change the convergence to, say something low, and then press F7
- Then press 0 again (move to the other preset) and change the convergence to something high (pop out) and press F7
Then - repeated pressing 0 should show the convergence toggling. I think I may have put an ini file out with the same sep+conv on both presets...
If that does not work, it might be that there is no Nvidia profile enabled - there is a setting in NvidiaInspector, I think I had to set it to true from false. Look under section"7 -Stereo", and then value "StereoProfile" should be set to "yes".

Great I'll test that tomorrow!

[mikear69]

I made a v0.3 update:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/6w3zcw1wcri4t ... 3.rar?dl=0

This is pretty close to done:
- Shadows
- Lighting
- Reflections
- Water Halos
- Disable 2d on screen raindrops
- Toggle key "0" for convergence and separation presets
Outstanding:
- Bloom (currently disabled)
- Cross hair at depth

[Chtiblue]

Awesome Mike, you are a legend 8)

You brought GTA 4 back to life

[Blacksmith60]

Thanks again Mike, I have dreamt about this, but never really thought it would happen !

V.03 is pretty flawless afaict, reflections is great, It could be great if we could reenable bloom though, if only we could get an Enb going...

@ Chiblue I guess you haven't had any luck either, have you solved the car issue ?
1.02.43 seems to work for me, but it's a version with some preloaded vanilla fixes..

[mikear69]

Thanks again Mike, I have dreamt about this, but never really thought it would happen !

V.03 is pretty flawless afaict, reflections is great, It could be great if we could reenable bloom though, if only we could get an Enb going...

@ Chiblue I guess you haven't had any luck either, have you solved the car issue ?
1.02.43 seems to work for me, but it's a version with some preloaded vanilla fixes..

Thanks for checking out the fix. I have another update:

v0.4: https://www.dropbox.com/s/0hk1mo50yk5gq ... 4.rar?dl=0

- Fixed some lights in cut scenes
- Added basic toggle for cross-hair at depth

Crosshair:
Unfortunately Mana84s fix for the cross hair texture filtering does not work as is, the texture CRCs seems to have changed. I have also not been able to identify the new texture CRCs since the helix DLLs simply do not dump them out - I tried 8 different DLLs that were release across 2012-2013 and none of them work with this game. Two of them did export a Textures.txt file, but no actual texture CRCs. I might still be doing something wrong, but I can't track it down.
So here is what I did:
- Created a toggle key, tilde "~", that puts *the whole HUD* either at full depth, or screen depth. This is not as bad as it sounds.
- For the most part you can keep everything at screen depth, and simply press "~" when you want to shoot something
- I personally like the HUD at depth as well, gives the map in particular a really "big" feel, and the map cursor is also at screen depth so there is no parallax issue

As for Bloom - I have started looking at this, but I am not optimistic yet, I can't actually find associated pixel shaders.

I am super happy about this fix, there was some tricky stuff in there and its been real fun solving the puzzle.

[Lizzard]

Glad you re fixing such an old time beauty Mike. I never really got into this one because my hardware could never run it. But a lot have changed since then. We might need to wait till 2077 for Cyberpunk to fully mature. Till then this will be a great alternative.

Not a 100% sure about this but I believe DJRK developed a very unique method to isolate the center of the UI and give it depth. For the sake of the crosshair. Remember Masteroraku used his awesome method in SkyrimSE. Maybe this can help here?

[Blacksmith60]

Hi Mike
Been testing th V0.4 fix..

TBH I'm not a big fan of having the hud in depht, not in this one nor other titles.
It also comes with some minor issues, the mini map is kindof broken with two side bars in mono, also the trafficlights is broken.
I have a request - wouldn't it be possible with a right mouse button toggle, so when aiming the hud goes to depht, that will be perfect for me and maybe others, this way I wouldn't care about a few minor issues either

One other thing needs to be mentioned - can someting be done about the fake shadows under cars, they are stereorized but not correct.

You said: I am super happy about this fix, there was some tricky stuff in there and its been real fun solving the puzzle.
So are we

[Tron75]

Thank you so much for this fix. Love to play this old gem in 3d.
0.4 works great for me.
My only problem is that after 20 minutes or so in the game the steam client in the background shut down itself.
This goes hand in hand with a hughe performance lost. Without the fix in 2d this never happen.

[Lysander]

Thank you so much for this fix. Love to play this old gem in 3d.
0.4 works great for me.
My only problem is that after 20 minutes or so in the game the steam client in the background shut down itself.
This goes hand in hand with a hughe performance lost. Without the fix in 2d this never happen.

Performance hit above 100%?

[Tron75]

Thank you so much for this fix. Love to play this old gem in 3d.
0.4 works great for me.
My only problem is that after 20 minutes or so in the game the steam client in the background shut down itself.
This goes hand in hand with a hughe performance lost. Without the fix in 2d this never happen.

Performance hit above 100%?

Problem solved.A curios steam bug has taken screenshoots every time i move the gamepad in game.
Had over 57000 screenshots. Change the screenshot hotkey from none to f12 was the thing.
Sorry for the inconveniences.

[Lysander]

Well, I mean usually with 3d there's a 100% hit to performance, since there's double the amount of frames rendered. So if you have like 50fps in 2d you'll get 25 in 3d (usually). I know it's noob info and you probably know that already, but some ppl don't so I was just making sure.

Your issue definitely sounds strange - can u measure fps with Afterburner?

[Tron75]

Problem solved. Thank you for your help.

[Lysander]

Aah, lol. That's pretty funny. Glad you got it sorted out.

[mikear69]

Hi Mike
Been testing th V0.4 fix..

TBH I'm not a big fan of having the hud in depht, not in this one nor other titles.
It also comes with some minor issues, the mini map is kindof broken with two side bars in mono, also the trafficlights is broken.
I have a request - wouldn't it be possible with a right mouse button toggle, so when aiming the hud goes to depht, that will be perfect for me and maybe others, this way I wouldn't care about a few minor issues either

One other thing needs to be mentioned - can someting be done about the fake shadows under cars, they are stereorized but not correct.

You said: I am super happy about this fix, there was some tricky stuff in there and its been real fun solving the puzzle.
So are we

- I added the "~" shortcut key to toggle between 0-depth and high depth, so you can always view the hud in 2D that way. I noticed the mini-map thing as well, and it looks a bit crap. However, I did implement a correction for the traffic lights, so not sure why that's not working. Can you re-download v0.4 and make sure you delete the original ShaderOverride folder?
- The helixmod DLL does not support the right mouse button events (that I know of) - I do remember in the past using AHK (AutoHotKey) to map the right mouse click to the selected hotkey to do the toggle, and you could maybe search on the old DX9 games on helixblog for an implementation.
- Can you send me a pic/location of the car undershadows? I may have corrected a shader that should not be (its one of the tricky things with this game, the exact same code in shaders for similar effects do not all need correction).

[3DNovice]

eqzitara posted a solution for the middle mouse, as well as mouse button 4 and 5.
He stated the feature is not available in all of the Helix DLLs, only the ones larger then 600kb.
http://helixmod.blogspot.com/2013/04/gu ... ustom.html

[mikear69]

eqzitara posted a solution for the middle mouse, as well as mouse button 4 and 5.
He stated the feature is not available in all of the Helix DLLs, only the ones larger then 600kb.
http://helixmod.blogspot.com/2013/04/gu ... ustom.html

Thanks for bringing this to my attention! I have implemented Right Mouse click to put cross-hair (hud in general) at depth. Only conflict is in the map where the RM button is used to add a waypoint. I'll post something up tomorrow.
@blacksmith60 I looked and really can't work out what the issue is with under-car shadows, could you find a way to get a screen shot or save game to me?