Friday, January 12, 2018

Life is Strange: Before the Storm

Download the fix:

The long awaited support for Unity 5.5 (and higher) in my Unity template has finally arrived!

We're all used to game and engine updates breaking these fixes from time to time and when it happens it ranges from a minor inconvenience requiring just a few minutes or hours to address, to a massive time waste of having to redo an entire fix from scratch, to a major headache where the new version has fundamentally changed in some way requiring a huge amount of new work put in to solve some new problem that didn't exist before. The Unity 5.5 update was of the later variety due to some major changes in the engine's shader format, but I have at last managed to decipher the new format and we can now enjoy modern Unity games in stereo 3D once again, beginning with the prequel to one of my favourite games of all time :)


This fix introduces a brand new feature to automatically adjust the convergence while playing to suit the wide range of camera angles this game has. This feature tries to always maintain a small amount of pop-out to maximise the 3D effect, while preventing excessive popout that could make the scene uncomfortable to view and lowering the convergence when necessary to prevent objects near the camera from obscuring the view of the game.

The auto-convergence feature replaces the traditional meaning of 3D Vision's convergence setting with a "popout" setting, which is similar to convergence, but gives better results with a wider range of camera angles, monitor sizes and viewing distances. The same keys that normally adjust the convergence will adjust the popout instead when auto-convergence is enabled, and the popout value will be displayed on screen while adjusting it.

Occasionally the auto-convergence may start jumping back and forth between high and low convergence. It has countermeasures to automatically detect when this happens and temporarily lock it to the lower convergence to stop it, but if it happens anyway and you find it distracting you can toggle the auto-convergence feature off by pressing ~

This feature has a number of tunable parameters, which can be tweaked by editing the [Constants] section in the d3dx.ini. These tunables include things such as the initial popout, minimum and maximum allowable convergence values, thresholds for how far the convergence is allowed to get away from the target, and threshold for the anti-judder countermeasure.

  • ~: Toggle auto-convergence feature on and off
  • Ctrl+F5: Reduce popout when auto-convergence is on
  • Ctrl+F6: Increase popout when auto-convergence is on




  3. I suggest disabling subtitles, as these are a little distracting.


If 3D disengages after leaving the game idle for a while, press alt+enter twice to re-enable it.

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Fixing games takes a lot of time and effort, and I am currently otherwise unemployed largely due to my ongoing battle with mental health issues.




  1. I bought the game on release of the first episode, but without S3D Arcadia Bay was not the same. Thanks to you I can return to Oregon now. Many thanks!

  2. Thank you for all your hard work DarkStarSword
    Love the life is strange serie`s :)

    Also take care , i know how it is
    Kind regards,

  3. It's a good news. I'll start to fix games with link on your Paypal

  4. Thank you. I was actually only waiting for your fix before I buy the game. :)

  5. Awesome job master DSS!


  6. Thanks! Ive been waiting for this. The one thing i really like about tridef was the auto focus (which im assuming is sort of the same idea) and lo and behold a member of the community has only gone and implemented this in 3d vision! I have used so many of your fixes (and await them often) so will become a monthly donator.

  7. unbelievable DSS!!
    the auto convergence feature is absolutely amazing..

  8. As always! Outstanding WORK!!!!!!!!
    Your mind never ceases to amaze us all!!!

  9. v1.1 is a small update for SLI users to make the auto-convergence feature consider objects in the left eye. No changes for single GPU.

  10. Is there some compatibility bits for SLI? I can't seem to get both cards working, with or without the 3d fix. Cheers

    1. I haven't done any testing on different SLI flags - performance wasn't really an issue in this game anyway. You could take a look at the driver profiles that include DX11 SLI flags and see if any of them are Unity games to try, but looking at the list I don't recognise any as being Unity:

    2. ah ok, thanks. Forcing AFR2 in Nvidia Inspector seems to have got the second gpu working. Haven't played enough to comment on how good scaling is, but at least its doing something now.

    3. ah thanks. Simply forcing AFR2 got the second card doing something. However, scaling was odd. It seemed as if it scaled alright, as long as it wasn't outputting 4k. Rendered at 1440p and upscaled to 4k and scaling was terrible, rendered at 1440p without any upscaling and sli scaling was fine (much higher fps). That was until I used the following sli bit : 0x020180F5, at which point sli scaling was fine at 4k too, upscaled or rendered. I've barely played, but no issues so far, using that bit. Might be of use to someone, if using a 4k screen (or passive 4k tv like myself).

    4. Cool, thanks for posting your results and the SLI settings you used :)

    5. Just to update, that compatibility bit worked for the prologue, but scaling was crap again once the opening scene in the bedroom started of ep 1. I have now been using 0x2A0127F5 and have had perfect scaling and no issues (flickering etc) throughout episode 1. Great game by the way!

  11. Hey. The first time I'm trying to play in 3D with your fixes. Before that I played only in Sleeping Dog and 3d effect was spectacular.

    I have a 3d 3lcd projector. Also watch 3d movies on it.

    Can you please tell me how I can play games with your 3D fixes?

    1. Activate stereoscopic 3d in Nvidia settings
    2. Just unpack the contents of the archive in the folder with the game?
    3. And write: "Properties" -> "Set Launch Options" and enter "-window-mode exclusive"

    It's all?

    1. Easiest way is to the 3D Fix Manager, download it under Installation above.

      You can use the manual steps above if you prefer. That's all there is to it for this fix. The zip file includes the code and fixed shaders, the window-mode-exclusive is necessary to force Unity games to full screen so that 3D will turn on.

    2. This comment has been removed by the author.

    3. So I do not need 3DTV play or something like that? And if there is a difference in what resolution to run the game? I saw often that many people write about 720p

    4. Most likely you will need 3D TV Play for the projector, but it depends upon the projector. If it can do 120Hz at 720p, then you can use an EDID override to use 3D Vision glasses. Otherwise you need 3D TV Play and the glasses that match the projector.

      Sort of complicated, too much to detail here, and this is all answered in the 3D Vision Geforce forums. Go to the forums and search there, or make a post with your specific hardware details and people can help explain.

      First step is that you absolutely have to get the 3D Vision sample (in the control panel) working.

    5. The characteristics of the projector indicate that it supports 3D:

      HDTV (720p) 50/60 (Hz) 1280 x 720 - Packaging frames / Left and right / Top and bottom
      HDTV (1080i) 50/60 (Hz) 1920 x 1080 - Left and right
      HDTV (1080p) 50/60 (Hz) 1920 x 1080 - Left and right
      HDTV (1080p) 24 (Hz) 1920 x 1080 - Packaging frames / Left and right / Top and bottom

      So I need NVIDIA 3DTV Play? I do not quite understand what it is. Is it a paid program that I need to buy from Nvidia? And why is it needed? I played Sleeping Dogs 3D without it. And everything worked perfectly.

      Without NVIDIA 3DTV Play, can not I use your 3D fixes?

      The 3d test was correctly displayed in the control panel (Stereoscopic 3D).

    6. Our fixes do not require 3D TV Play, but they do require 3D Vision. *You* may or may not require 3D TV Play to allow 3D Vision to work with your hardware - I'm not familiar with your projector (and you haven't mentioned which one it is), so I cannot say, however if you were able to get Sleeping Dogs working without it that suggests that you probably don't need it.

    7. have an Epson Home Cinema 2150 projector (epson eh-tw5650). I tried, but the 3d effect on Before the Storm is either not on or very weak (I do not see any significant differences).

      How to check the 3D effect is activated or not? And can I somehow adjust the depth or something like that during the game?

    8. If it was working you should be seeing a 3D effect comparable to the screenshots in the post. 3D Vision's standard shortcut keys are Ctrl+F4 to raise separation and Ctrl+F6 to raise convergence (the later requires advanced keys enabled in the 3D Vision control panel), and you should see the green text saying "3D Vision Ready... blah blah press Ctrl+Alt+Insert to disable this message" in the lower right - if you aren't it means 3D hasn't engaged at all, and you need to get past that problem before trying our fixes.

      I'd strongly recommend moving this discussion to the Geforce Forums ( ) where other people who may have more experience with your hardware can help out, because my only experience with a projector is with a BenQ 1070 that is certified to support 3D TV Play (1280x720 @60Hz/eye) and works with SBS/TAB 3D formats (there's a trick to allow our DX11 fixes to work in those modes).

    9. Does not appear green text saying "3D Vision Ready ... blah blah press Ctrl + Alt + Insert to disable this message". This means that 3D does not work. Okay, I'll go to the GeForce forum. Thank you.

  12. Still working Brilliant :)
    Iam enjoying every second of it.
    Bought so many games thanks to you DSS.
    Did leave a little gift for all your hard work!

  13. Massive thanks for the fix for this game as well as for the Life is Strange 3D Vision fix!