A walking simulator?

[Post 3 of 3 for R.E.A.L. VR release 20.2.0]

Oh, before I forget: this release also fixes the games which were broken by recent updates. The first person camera for SWO is working again (you can finally shoot from your speeder, thanks to the official patch!).

And I can't believe I never knew it was broken, but gaze-based aiming will now work properly when you're using a bow while riding your horse in KCD2.

So, here we are with "the" game: Death Stranding Director's Cut. I need to be honest with you. When this title first came out, I read a few reviews and gave it a wide berth. Not just a walking simulator: a simulator that makes it actually hard to walk because you're carrying so much cargo on your back that you keep falling and making a fool of yourself, or slip while crossing a stream and find yourself riding the current on your back while your scattered packages float every which way.

But other people said different things. They spoke of a meditative and poetic game, with a complex story that takes you in deeply. And many of you asked for a VR mod to be able to be immersed in its world.

So I tried. And at some point the game started rendering in VR. And then I watched the first cutscene. No, actually: I lived the first cutscene. With goosebumps all over my arms. And I thought, okay. I get it now. No matter how hard it turns out to be, I need to finish modding this game because it's an unforgettable experience.

Even if you are dead set against this genre, give it a chance. Go through the first hour or so in VR. It's free anyway, as Steam will refund you if you stop playing a game before 2 hours. Or maybe you still have it stashed in your digital library from the time Epic Games was giving it out as a gift. If you are not sold on the story after the first 2 hours, it's fine. But if you are, then you are going to get one of the most memorable and unusual experiences of your VR gaming life.

Games list

There is only one package to download, which enables all 35 VR conversions you can find on this Patreon. All titles support AER v2, which is my own version of frame interpolation tailored for Alternate Eye Rendering (see this post for a detailed description). Most of the games also support DL(S)SS, meaning that I fixed the DLSS implementation for them so that it will work correctly in stereoscopic 3D. And 4 titles even allow for Ray Reconstruction!!! Here's the complete list:

• Atomic Heart [AER v2 + DL(S)SS]

• Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora [AER v2 + DL(S)SS]

• Cyberpunk 2077 [AER v2 + DL(S)SS-RR]

• Dark Souls: Remastered [AER v2]

• Dark Souls II: Scholar of the First Sin [AER v2]

• Dark Souls III [AER v2]

• Death Stranding Director's Cut (new) [AER v2 + DL(S)SS]

• DOOM Eternal (new) [AER v2 + DL(S)SS]

• DOOM: The Dark Ages (new) [AER v2 + DL(S)SS]

• Elden Ring (with its massive Shadow of the Erdtree DLC) [AER v2 + DL(S)SS when NVIDIA DLSS is enabled with a third-party mod]

• Far Cry 4 [AER v2]

• Far Cry 5 [AER v2]

• Far Cry 6 [AER v2]

• Far Cry New Dawn [AER v2]

• Far Cry Primal [AER v2]

• Final Fantasy VII Remake Intergrade [AER v2]

• Final Fantasy VII Rebirth [AER v2 + DL(S)SS]

• Ghost of Tsushima [AER v2 + DL(S)SS]

• Ghostrunner [AER v2 + DL(S)SS]

• Ghostwire: Tokyo [AER v2 + DL(S)SS]

• Grounded [AER v2]

• High On Life [AER v2 + DL(S)SS]

• Hogwarts Legacy [AER v2 + DL(S)SS-RR]

• Horizon: Zero Dawn [AER v2]

• Horizon Forbidden West [AER v2 + DL(S)SS]

• Indiana Jones and the Great Circle [AER v2 + DL(S)SS-RR]

• Kingdom Come: Deliverance II [AER v2 + DL(S)SS]

• Marvel's Spider-Man Remastered [AER v2 + DL(S)SS]

• Marvel's Spider-Man: Miles Morales [AER v2 + DL(S)SS]

• Star Wars Outlaws [AER v2 + DL(S)SS]

• Stray [AER v2]

• Uncharted 4: A Thief's End [AER v2 + DL(S)SS]

• Uncharted: The Lost Legacy [AER v2 + DL(S)SS]

• Watch Dogs [AER v2]

• Watch Dogs 2 [AER v2]

Please note that all trademarks belong to the respective owners, and that no copyright infringement is intended or condoned. And of course, you'll need to have a legit copy of the original games that you want to play in VR.

Setup

I developed and tested the Death Stranding Director's Cut mod using the Epic Games Store version of the game. Yes, I was one of those who claimed it back when Epic was giving it away for free. In fact, the gift from Epic was the original edition, not the Director's Cut. However, during the development of the mod at some point I switched from the original to the DC because the OG product placement was a little in-your-face, haha. So in theory both editions should work, including from other stores, but if you encounter issues please upload your RealVR.log file somewhere so we can try to sort them out.

Generally speaking, if you own a game in a different version than the one I modded, or the game just had an official update, it's always a good idea to take a quick look at the log. It's conveniently accessible from the mod overlay itself, with a search function. The usual symptom if a version diverges too much from the one I modded is that some patches will fail to apply (you can search for keywords like "patch", "error", "fail" etc.). If you give me that information, I might be able to fix it quickly.

Also, always make sure that your video drivers are updated to the latest version. That's especially important for NVIDIA due to a flurry of regressions in driver releases since the 50xx series came out; we have now gotten to the point where new games refuse to launch if they detect that the driver version is not the specific one they were tested against :-(

Run Death Stranding flat (not in VR) at least once, so that it can generate its config files and you can check that it works correctly. Then quit out of it and extract the mod archive into the "C:\Program Files\Epic Games\DeathStrandingDC" folder. Note that you might need to customize the path if you moved your library or own the game from a different store, but it will always be the folder that contains the "DeathStranding.exe" or "ds.exe" executable file.

Finally run RealConfig.bat. It will perform a few required operations (including the v-sync fix for NVIDIA drivers) and preselect graphics settings that are known to work well in VR. Remember that running RealConfig is mandatory; if you omit this step the mod will not work.

At this point, the next time you launch DSDC it should automatically display in your VR headset. Read on to find out how to get a good balance (ah, the subtlety of my puns) for your experience in VR!

Game options

Death Stranding's configuration is very simple. RealConfig will choose suitable defaults for the GRAPHICS SETTINGS menu, as follows:

• Screen Mode = Windowed

• Display Monitor = Display1

• Aspect Ratio = 16:9

• Display Resolution = 1600x900

• Vsync = Off

• Maximum Frame Rate = 240. On at least one system this value was observed to cause some instability, but that might have been a temporary glitch. If that happens to you, go down one notch to 144 and you should be fine.

• NVIDIA DLSS = Quality, Performance or Ultra Performance. Make sure this is turned on so that you can use my DL(S)SS fix to eliminate the shimmering around the characters and nearby objects. OptiScaler also works perfectly with this game if you are running an AMD GPU (see my previous post for details on how to install and configure it for VR).

• Depth of Field = Off

• Motion Blur = Off (make sure never to turn this on, otherwise everything will look smeared horizontally).

Additionally you will want to set CONTROLLER> Auto-Aim to Off so that it doesn't interfere with gaze-based aiming.

Cutscenes

Cutscenes are fully 3D and allow you to look anywhere without restrictions. There are some elements missing in areas you weren't supposed to see with a fixed camera, but mostly the environment is complete and the emotional impact of the cutscenes is preserved.

There are some 2D movies too, rendered in-engine but stored as full motion videos (as is often the case, one is shown right at the very beginning!).

Occasionally, some cutscene portions might display a wrong FOV, with the world slightly swimming, but that only lasts for a few seconds.

Resolution and frame rate

The high resolution needed for VR can be set very easily by bringing up the mod overlay and looking for a slider in the main "R.E.A.L. VR" tab named "Target pixels per degree". Set it to a value approximately in the range 15-30 depending on your GPU, then press the "Adapt resolution" button to set the game resolution to your preferred value. You can do that at any moment, even during actual gameplay. The target PPD you choose will be remembered and re-applied automatically across sessions.

You will notice that the mod preselects a 3:2 aspect ratio. That is because it's the minimum aspect at which the engine will render correctly. You can go lower if you really need to save rendered pixels, but parts of the HUD will be cut off at the sides, which in this game is a big no-no because you constantly need to access text-filled pages like the cargo menu and having them overflow the visible area is a big nuisance.

Death Stranding is a very well optimized game, and despite its amazing visuals it can still run at full frame rate on a powerful system. So the Render Mode options list includes AER v2, which for instance on a Quest 3 set to refresh at 72 Hz will make the game run at 144 fps, thus eliminating any need for reprojection. If you feel that you cannot maintain frame rate, go down to something like 1/2 rate for NVIDIA or Legacy AER for AMD.

Input and cameras

I recommend using a gamepad to play DSDC in VR; XInput-compatible controllers like the ones from Microsoft are usually the best for my mods.

Don't worry about console-player syndrome: in my mods aiming is gaze-driven and extremely fast, intuitive and accurate, so even if you're used to playing FPS with your mouse, give your gamepad a chance ;-)

I didn't mod any first person camera into the game, for two reasons. First (I've waited for a chance to use this pun!), the cargo mechanics require you to be able to see your character and the surrounding terrain at all times during a run. Second, the camera work in this title is masterful. Unlike several other third person games I modded, where the camera would be too far from your character or too wild, or it would shoot up into the sky as soon as you engaged in combat, forcing you to crane your neck towards the floor to see anything, in DSDC the camera always feels like it's in the perfect spot to allow you to feel the emotions of close encounters or to take in the beautiful scenery during longer runs.

The only moments when I wish the camera behaved differently is when you're driving a vehicle. There is automatic recentering, called Camera Assistance (While Driving) in the settings menu, but it's way too sudden and unforgiving, even at minimum Camera Assistance Sensitivity, so I recommend leaving it Off and using the right stick to orient the camera manually while at the same time steering the vehicle with the left stick.

HUD and gameplay

The HUD rescaling can be finely customized, so you won't miss any of the important information that appears at the sides like health, hints, ammo count and so on. If the default size I suggest doesn't work for you, you can tweak it from the R.E.A.L. VR mod overlay, using the "HUD scale X" and "HUD scale Y" sliders in the "DSDC" tab (NOTE: I'm not referring to the usual sliders found in the "R.E.A.L. VR" main tab, which won't have any effect in this title). I also implemented a separate "World markers scale" since the game doesn't give you that option, and the default size for markers (1.0) looks distractingly huge.

The sliders take effect immediately while playing, without any need to bump the resolution.

The DSDC mod supports 6 DoF tracking, i.e, the camera will follow your head rotation and movement. It's usually completely decoupled from the character (i.e., you can look in a different direction from Sam without influencing where he walks), except when you're aiming.

In the "DSDC" tab you can also change the world scale, from small adjustments to playing with dolls or giants, and even force the game to render to a 2D virtual screen in case you should find a section too hard to play in full VR.

Updates and known issues

DLSS in DOOM: The Dark Ages. On some video cards, release 20.1.0 had an issue with DOOMTDA where activating DLSS would lead to the game displaying a black screen (audio kept playing, but the game was no longer rendering). Release 20.2.0, attached at the end of this post, fixes the issue with no more need for workarounds.

Death Stranding original version (as opposed to the Director's Cut which is the recommended way to play) should now be hooking correctly. This is for people who got the game for free from the Epic Game Store and never upgraded it. I'm told instead that the Director's Cut bought from the Xbox app has problems. I'll try to fix them, but my recommendation is to buy the game either from Steam or from Epic because those versions have already been tested.

[I'll post new information here as it becomes available.]

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Wow this was too intense! I need at least 24 consecutive hours of sleep now =_=

Have fun with all the new stuff!!!