We're eternally doomed! It's like being back in the dark ages

[Post 2 of 3 for R.E.A.L. VR release 20.1.0]

Update: Release 20.2.0, attached to part 3, fixes the black screen with DLSS in DOOM: The Dark Ages.

No, I'm not talking about the current political situation, what made you think that? :-P

I'm talking about the two newest additions to our game roster: DOOM Eternal and DOOM: The Dark Ages (DOOME and DOOMTDA to friends).

These two mods were unplanned even for me. The DOOME one came out almost of its own volition while I was doing work on the id Tech engine for Indiana Jones and the Great Circle. I left it for quite some time unfinished and unpublished, because I knew there was already one available from 3D Vision hero Helifax. Then however The Dark Ages was published, and I couldn't stop myself from trying to see if the same techniques I had employed on the previous game in the series could be extended to mod DOOMTDA.

As it's always the case with these things, the answer turned out to be "sure, with just a few dozens corner cases to give you hell for two or three weeks". But of course the Doom series it's literally meant to give you Hell, so that was par for the course.

Finally I saw that Helifax's mod had rusted a little around the edges, so I finished my own and I'm now publishing both my efforts to give you a consistent experience.

Updates, known issues and small fixes will be added at the bottom of the post.

Stay tuned! You will find the actual release attached to the next post, which will conclude today's series with the anticipated mod for Death Stranding Director's Cut []-D

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 DOOM Eternal and DOOM: The Dark Ages mods using the Game Pass versions of the games; other editions should also work, but if you encounter issues please upload your RealVR.log file somewhere so we can try to sort them out. 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 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 each game 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:\XboxGames\Doom Eternal - PC\Content" folder for DOOME, or "C:\XboxGames\DOOM- The Dark Ages\Content" for DOOMTDA. 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 "DOOMEternalx64vk.exe" or "DOOMTheDarkAges.exe" executable file.

If you're using the same version (Game Pass), please keep in mind that games installed by the Xbox App can only be modded if you put them in the default C:\XboxGames location. Any other folder on the system will be hard protected by Windows against any modifications.

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 DOOME or DOOMTDA it should automatically display in your VR headset. Read on to find out how to get the most, ahem, hellish experience in VR!

Game options

IMPORTANT: just like Indiana Jones and the Great Circle, both DOOM games encrypt their saved games and user options files with the unique ID of the player (why a single-player game would do that is beyond me, but these days everybody wants to rule the world). That means RealConfig will NOT be able to preselect the graphics options needed for VR and you'll have to do everything manually, so please read on and follow the instructions in this section to the letter or the game will not be working correctly.

DOOM Eternal: before installing the mod, run DOOME flat (not in VR) and access the in-game SETTINGS menu to set the following options:

UI:

• HUD Scale = Large

CONTROLS:

• Aim Assist = Off

• Target Snapping = Off

VIDEO:

• Window Mode = Windowed

• Aspect Ratio = 16:9

• Resolution = 1920 x 1080

• Vertical Sync = Off

• Enable HDR = Off

• Present From Compute = On (recommended value, but can also be set to Off in case of problems)

• Field of View = 90

• Motion Blur = Off (very important in all my mods to avoid image smearing)

• Raytracing: Luckily for DOOME ray tracing was still optional. You can turn it on if you want to be maimed by demons while you're staring at beautifully rendered reflections in puddles of water, but perhaps you'll find it advisable to switch it off and gain back precious fps.

• DLSS = Performance, Balanced or Quality. To enable the DL(S)SS fix which will get rid of the shimmering around the edges of nearby objects and characters, DLSS must be turned on. If it's not available on your AMD system, quit the game and install OptiScaler as explained in my previous post.

• Motion Blur Quality = Low

• Resolution Scaling Mode = Off

• Depth of Field = Off

DOOM: The Dark Ages: before installing the mod, run DOOMTDA flat (not in VR) and access the in-game SETTINGS menu to set the following options:

GAME:

• Environmental Screen Shake: Off

UI:

• HUD Aspect Ratio = Default

• HUD Scale = 0.50 (do not forget this otherwise everything in your HUD will look huge)

• SUBTITLES Scale = 1.50

CONTROLS:

• Aim Assist = Off

VIDEO:

• Window Mode = Windowed

• Aspect Ratio = 16:9

• Resolution = 1920 x 1080

• Vertical Sync = Off

• Enable HDR = Off

• Present From Compute = On (recommended value, but can also be set to Off in case of problems)

• Resolution Scaling Mode = Off

• Field of View = 90

• Depth of Field = Off

• Upscaler = DLSS if you have an NVIDIA card. Unfortunately this title is not yet supported by OptiScaler, so if you have an AMD card you will need to select FSR here and won't be able to take advantage of DL(S)SS yet. Keep monitoring their Wiki though, as I'm sure that somebody will soon find a way to spoof an NVIDIA card in DOOMTDA.

• Enable HDR = Off

• Motion Blur = Off (very important in all my mods to avoid image smearing)

• Reflections Quality: Sadly this game follows the modern trend of making ray tracing mandatory, which really kills frame rate even if you have an RTX 5090. You can try to gain back some fps by setting Reflections Quality to Off or Low, which apparently limits ray tracing to shadows and general lighting.

Cutscenes

Cutscenes are fully 3D and allow you to look anywhere without restrictions. DOOMTDA has letterboxing (horizontal black bars above and below), but the effect is rendered correctly so it's not too much of a nuisance. Expect the usual missing props, invisible walls, levitating characters and so on in the parts of the scene that you were never supposed to see in the flat game.

Occasionally, some cutscene portions will force you to look in a certain direction (so the world will appear to be headlocked), but that only lasts for a few seconds.

An awesome feature of the DOOM games is that frequently cutscenes are seamlessly integrated with gameplay, with no visible jump from one to the other, which makes the experience very immersive and visceral.

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.

DOOM Eternal is a very nicely optimized game, and despite having beautiful visuals it will run at full frame rate on most systems. That's why I set the default Render Mode to 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.

DOOM: The Dark Ages is a different story, due to compulsory ray tracing. Such a weird choice for this kind of game. The official excuse is that art teams can produce maps much faster if they don't have to bake in lighting. Except that hardly sounds believable to me. Seriously, racks of powerful hardware in AAA studios cannot do in days what a single consumer PC is expected to do in real time at >60 frames per second?!?

Anyway, that's why I built AER v2. If you have an NVIDIA card, your best bet is probably to set the Render Mode to 1/2 or 1/3 rate. Fluidity is very important in fast-paced battles. If you have an AMD card, choose Legacy AER and make sure that Camera rotation compensation is enabled.

Input

It's best to use a gamepad to play DOOM 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 ;-)

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" slider in the "DOOME" tab or the "HUD scale X" and "HUD scale Y" sliders in the "DOOMTDA" 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 these titles).

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

Both my DOOM mods support 6 DoF tracking, i.e, the camera will follow your head rotation and movement. However, by default full 6 DoF is only enabled in cutscenes and other moments when you don't have control of your character, because during actual gameplay the camera is in a constant "aiming" state, meaning there's always a crosshair or dot displayed where you are aiming. So during gameplay the mods will restrict you to 3 DoF, or rotational tracking only, as enabling positional tracking would get your aim out of alignment. If you prefer you can turn 6 DoF on at all times, exactly like you could with my previous Indy mod; just be mindful not to stray too much from your home position, or if that happens recenter by shaking your head "no".

In the "DOOME"/"DOOMTDA" tab you can 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 to the Death Stranding post, fixes the issue with no more need for workarounds.

Selecting a different weapon in DOOMTDA may cause a sudden change in the direction your character is facing. The issue is being investigated; the impact on gameplay is reduced if you are more or less facing your home direction.

Mantling in DOOME uses a different code path than the rest of gameplay. I managed to make it work in VR anyway, but please note that while normally the Slayer will move where you look, during mantling he will be decoupled from the camera (so before you jump off a wall make sure that your character is facing the direction you want it to jump towards!).

Deactivating the DOOM mods temporarily, in case you find something wrong with them or just want to play flat, is very easy. Actually there are several ways to do it, but the canonical one which I recommend is renaming the RealRepo folder to a different name (for example adding an underscore at the end, "RealRepo_"), since the Vulkan injection process will look for that folder before trying to hook a game. When you want to go back to playing in VR, you can restore the folder to its original name and the mod will hook again the next time the game is launched. Note that this is only needed in case you find showstopping issues or want to play flat for a long time; if you simply want a short break from VR, for example to try out a hard battle in 2D, all you need do is press the "Stop VR" button in the mod overlay.

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

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Only one post left! See you soon for DSDC :-D