This is a growing list of Vireio Perception Frequently Asked Questions and Answers. Here goes!
I’ve seen Vireio Perception before. What’s the big deal?
Where can I find a list of games compatible with Vireio Perception?
Where do I register for a new MTBS Membership account?
I have an MTBS forum account, why can’t I get into the downloads section?
Which DirectX APIs does Vireio Perception support?
I know Vireio Perception is free, but I’d like to help support you guys. How do I do it?
Which 3D and VR formats do you support?
Can I play multiplayer games online?
How can I maximize performance?
CTRL-T does nothing! How do I get into the Vireio Perception menu?
I’m getting an error that the “msvcr110.dll” is missing. How do I fix this?
My game keeps crashing when VRBoost is active. How do I stop this?
Can I use SLI or CrossFire?
How can I create VR screenshots of my games?
What Field of View (FOV) Can I Achieve From Vireio Perception?
When using the Oculus Rift, the game’s image doesn’t fill the entire screen, and I see black bars on the scene’s edges. Is there a fix?
When I start my game, I’m getting strange errors like “The procedure entry point ??1BaseDirect3D9@@UAE@XZ could not be located in the dynamic link library d3d9.dll”. What is going on?
I ran my game, but I’m not seeing any 3D or VR or anything special. What am I doing wrong?
Will Vireio Perception always be free and open source?
Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim looks horrible! What am I doing wrong?
Why does my game screen look so tiny at start-up (e.g. Left4Dead, certain Source games)?
How do I use the World Scale Calibrator?
What is BRASSA?
Will Vireio Perception add 2D+Depth support?
Can I Mirror Vireio Perception on my website?
Can I use Vireio Perception’s source code in my own project?
I’ve seen Vireio Perception before. What’s the big deal?
Vireio Perception was the first VR driver released to market. It got a lot of media coverage and opened a lot of eyes to the potential of VR gaming. However, version 1.X of Vireio Perception was plagued with problems. Game interfaces couldn’t be seen while wearing an HMD, the left/right images were out of sync, most games required drastic eye candy reductions, and it was best described as a taste of VR potential, but was rarely a practical way to play VR games for long periods of time.
Vireio Perception 2.X is a reimagination of the original Vireio Perception drivers. Supported games have readable and viewable interfaces, the left/right images are synced, performance is directly competitive with commercial options, and it really is setting a new expectation of what a VR driver is capable of…for free.
Where can I find a list of games compatible with Vireio Perception?
Separate from the manual, GameGradeVR is the first choice because it’s based on objective criteria, and the Vireio Perception developers make regular submissions. There are other sites that list games compatible with Vireio Perception, but most list titles from version 1.X which has nothing to do with the current software (and even then, we have no idea how some of those games got listed!). Please stick with GGVR for compatibility ratings, and feel free to make submissions of your own.
Where do I register for a new MTBS Membership account?
Get your free membership by clicking on the Registration button under the Membership tab on the front page. If yo have difficulties, email customerservice@mtbs3D.com.
I have an MTBS forum account, why can’t I get into the downloads section?
Log in from the FRONT page of MTBS under the “Membership” tab. This log-in is good for the WHOLE site, and not just a small part of it.
Which DirectX APIs does Vireio Perception support?
We are starting with DirectX 9. However, DirectX 10 and 11 are on our roadmap.
I know Vireio Perception is free, but I’d like to help support you guys. How do I do it?
We don’t know yet! ;=)
Please contribute to this thread so we can figure something out or even if it’s worth pursuing.
Which 3D and VR formats do you support?
The popular ones include the Oculus Rift, side by side, over/under, interlaced, anaglyph, checkerboard, and more to come. Yes, we would like to support the DIY Rft too – we just aren’t ready yet. ;=)
In addition to supporting the Oculus Rift tracker, there are untested profiles for the Hillcrest Labs tracker, FreeTrack, and the Shared Memory Tracker. This is open source, so we can do whatever the community can help with.
Can I play multiplayer games online?
We strongly recommend against playing games based on Punkbuster or similar anti-cheat technologies. Until Vireio Perception is white listed (which isn’t easy), these tools could easily kick and/or ban the player! Please avoid this.
How can I maximize performance?
Vireio Perception runs on both AMD and Nvidia graphics cards. If you are having clunky performance while using an Nvidia graphics card, try installing the Nvidia 3D Vision drivers and activating them from within the Nvidia control panel. Be careful to NOT activate their 3D features from within the game or they will conflict with Vireio Perception. In some cases, Nvidia’s graphics cards may not perform at full strength unless this is done.
If you are using an Oculus Rift, we also recommend the following changes:
- Make sure you are using a “clone” mode between your primary and secondary display. This means the output for both displays should be identical.
- Make sure the refresh rate and resolution is identical for both displays.
- Turn SLI off and put all your dependencies on one graphics card.
- If you are a multimonitor set-up, try disconnecting all but one monitor and the Rift.
- You can also try running the Perception.EXE as an administrator.
- If you are running a Steam game, “verify the integrity of the game cache” because a file reversion can sometimes fix problems (yes, it happens!).
This should help with many performance issues.
NOTE: If you are activating Nvidia 3D Vision in the Nvidia control panel, NEVER press CTRL-T in the game to call up the Vireio menu has that will also activate Nvidia’s software. Instead, use Left-SHIFT + NumPad *. We will update the keyboard controls in a later version so this conflict no longer exists.
CTRL-T does nothing! How do I get into the Vireio Perception menu?
We removed CTRL-T from in version 2.0.0.1 and high to avoid a conflict. CTRL-Q or L-SHIFT + NumPad * will work instead.
I’m getting an error that the “msvcr110.dll” is missing. How do I fix this?
Download the Visual C++ Redistributable for Visual Studio 2012 from Microsoft. Make sure it’s the X86 version!
My game keeps crashing when VRBoost is active. How do I stop this?
VRBoost directly interacts with the video game’s memory registers. Unfortunately, if it interacts at the wrong time, this can cause unexplained game crashes. The solution is to make sure the memory registers are adjusted while playing the game, and not while you are reading a menu or going through a “load screen”.
As an indicator of what stage a game is in, we know that menu scenes use fewer vertex shaders than actual game modes, so we need to set a reasonable threshold for VRBoost to activate.
If you are experiencing a game that regularly crashes with VRBoost activated, follow these steps:
- Read through Vireio Perception’s “profiles.xml” file and find your game.
- Within your game’s section, there should be a line that says VRboostRules=”yourgameprofilename.MTBS”
- Rename the *.MTBS file to something that doesn’t exist. Like “test.mtbs”.
- When you restart your game, if VRBoost was the cause, it shouldn’t crash. However, your head tracking may no longer be working properly.
- Enter the Vireio Perception menu, and go to the “Overall Menu”.
- At the bottom of the “Overall Menu” screen, there is a shader count in green letters.
- Go to a game menu, and take note of the number of shaders. Try different menus and load screens (between level screens), and write down the different shader counts. Vireio just needs an approximation.
- Go back to the profiles.xml file, and rename the VRboostRules file name back to what it was originally.
- In the same profiles section, there should be a field labeled “minVRboostShaderCount”. Take the highest shader count you had in the menu system and add about ten to twenty to it. Replace the field with this value. Again, this is a best guess approximation.
- Get back into your game, and in the overall menu system, make sure the software mouse is set to FALSE. You can usually tell VRBoost is working by lower latency and limited mouse movement in relation to head tracking (e.g. you can’t move your head up or down with the mouse, but you can go side to side).
If your system is still crashing because of VRBoost, try increasing and decreasing the shader count in increments of five.
Unlikely. Try it, but we have no evidence that this works.
How can I create VR screenshots of my games?
Vireio has some functionality for this, but it’s honestly not very good yet. If you are using an Oculus Rift, we recommend using Beepa’s FRAPS until we come up with something better.
What Field of View (FOV) Can I Achieve From Vireio Perception?
As of version 2.0.0.2 or later, Vireio Perception now has a VRBoost options menu that has multiple FOV choices for each game. If a VRBoost profile isn’t yet available, most titles support 90 degrees or higher FOV natively, and many have gamer mods you can download and install for free.
In Vireio’s “Overall Settings Menu”, you can increase the distortion scale to get the imagery to completely fill the screen. As you increase it, you may want to also increase the game’s field of view to compensate for the changes. The distortion scale gets reset each time you exit a game, but we are working to make this a saveable setting in a future version of Vireio Perception.
Easy to fix! Just copy Vireio Perception’s *.DLL files to the game directory where its main EXE file(s) is stored.
I ran my game, but I’m not seeing any 3D or VR or anything special. What am I doing wrong?
Some games need to easily see Vireio’s DLL files, or they just won’t work with the driver. Just copy Vireio Perception’s *.DLL files to the game directory where its main EXE file(s) is stored. You still have to run the Perception.EXE file though. Otherwise Vireio may still look like it’s injecting, but many of the features won’t actually work.
Will Vireio Perception always be free and open source?
Yes for multiple reasons. While Vireio Perception is competitive, it’s just a hobby for the MTBS team. If we start charging money, a lot of responsibility comes with it. We’d rather be spending 100% of our time creating better code than 40% processing payments, 30% handling complaints, and 30% working on something new. We’re just too small an operation.
MTBS is also a media body. We test and review games, we feature all kinds of products in our forums, and we work with most members of industry. If we tried to sell a competing product for commercial gain, it would put us in a conflict of interest and hurt our credibility.
Finally, Vireio Perception is an excellent catalyst for the VR gaming community to grow, and we are very proud of it. That’s rewarding enough!
Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim looks horrible! What am I doing wrong?
In the SkyrimPrefs.ini file, make sure you have “bDeferredShadows=0”. Sorry, forgot to put this in the manual! Some users are reporting two copies of the same file on their system; if the shadows don’t look better after adjusting one file, adjust the second file too!
As of Vireio Perception 2.0.0.2 or later, Field of View (FOV) is best controlled by the VRBoost Options menu with controls for multiple aspects of the game. Adjusting FOV via the game’s console is no longer necessary, and FOV preferences are permanently stored for future game loads.
Skyrim is a highly modifiable game with gamer driven add-ons. Get the game back to a vanilla status to rule out compatibility issues. HUD and GUI add-ons are not really necessary with Vireio Perception anyway because of the enhancements included with the drivers. We’ve also learned that mod installers can be problematic too – get rid of them! ;=)
We didn’t have time to correct this in the current build. The HUD is a bit separated between the left and right view, and the text may seem uncomfortable when you get very close to people or objects. In the Vireio Perception menu, choose GUI calibration. Then select GUI 3D Depth, and set i to -0.020. This should be an even more comfortable experience now.
Why does my game screen look so tiny at start-up (e.g. Left4Dead, certain Source games)?
Depending on how a game is put together, the adjustments to make the HUD or GUI look good in the game can have the oppositive effect with the game’s menus. If your game opens with a tiny screen, try using the HUD or GUI quick set options to bring the size up to something you can easily see. You can also create a more permanent option with HUD/GUI setting hotkeys that can activate at the right moment. For example, if hitting ESC brings up the menu, you can set it to also change to the correct HUD/GUI profile.
How do I use the World Scale Calibrator?
The World Scale Calibrator makes an informed estimate of the relationship between real life units (e.g. feet, meters) and each video game’s virtual units (game units). It’s most helpful when publicly available game specs and Vireio Perception’s estimate match up.
First, use the Right SHIFT to go through the different game unit estimates. Press SHIFT-SHIFT to go in reverse. If this isn’t working, follow the manual process described on the same screen where you walk as close as possible to a vertical edge (table, corner, straight object) and adjust according to the on-screen reference.
In all cases, it’s very important that you use the Oculus Rift IPD tool because that accurately determines where the game’s cameras should be placed by using your interpupillar distance (IPD) as a reference.
Brown Reischle and Schneider’s Settings Analyzer (BRASSA) is a tool that helps users create VR game profiles from scratch and without programming or game development expertise. When this fails, it also has advanced shader discovery and adjustment tools for more tenured programmers. If at all possible, we would like to erase the concept of drivers being defined by the number of games they support. We are after the “one click” instant compatibility option. It’s a lofty goal, but we are getting closer.
Will Vireio Perception add 2D+Depth support?
This is up to the open source development community. We have made it a very low priority because 2D+Depth is not true 3D, and while it has little impact on a game’s performance (unlike true dual camera 3D), it’s not as convincing – especially for objects up close.
However, we are only limited by willing developers and available time. We will not block features if people are willing to invest the time to properly implement them.
Can I Mirror Vireio Perception on my website?
Vireio Perception is LGPL open source. So it is “legal” to do this. However, this was put together by hard working volunteers to not only bring a lot of fun to VR gamers, but also build up the MTBS community as well. Needlessly mirroring this would be frowned upon.
The VRBoost and game profiler components are completely closed-source. It is free to download and use, but it’s also the property of MTBS and the authors. Mirroring this without approval would be considered a form of computer piracy.
Can I use Vireio Perception’s source code in my own project?
Yes and no. If you use our LGPL source code, it means your software has to also be made available for free. If you are commercial, this will obligate you to make your software equally free and open source.
It’s inevitable that others will try to imitate Vireio Perception’s work. Please do the right thing and use your own code to do this, and credit your inspiration to Vireio Perception and its volunteer inventors.