High On Life and Atomic Heart (Patreon)

Let's end the month with a double punch :-D

Update 1: The Steam version of High On Life has a leftover (useless) VR hook that interferes with my mod. Release 10.0.2 automatically kills that hook when you run RealConfig, and I also revised one of my patches to make it work correctly with the Steam version.
For the crashes at start: try to rename or delete the "sl.interposer.dll" file from the "[GAME PATH]Engine\Plugins\Runtime\Nvidia\Streamline\Binaries\ThirdParty\Win64" folder and please report back if it's enough!

Update 2: It turns out that both HOL and AH use a custom mechanism to save their graphics options, which is made even more convoluted by the fact that Game Pass encrypts the save files. So unfortunately the configuration files that RealConfig applies get completely ignored. I've revised the post below with the new information: basically you'll need to set some graphics options manually in order to have the VR mod work correctly on your system.
Also, despite dedicating more than two days to further testing, I have been unable to repro the crashes at start no matter what graphics card I use (tried with everything I have from RTX 2060 to 4090). For the moment I can only recommend to update your video drivers to the latest version (worked for a few people), rename/delete the interposer file as suggested in Update 1 above, and also try with OpenXR instead of the native runtime (some users have had better luck when doing that).

Update 3: The latest official update for Atomic Heart broke the VR mod (curiously only for the Steam version). Release 10.0.3 fixes the issue and restores VR functionality.  I am also aware that some of you are having problems with subtitles being displayed too low when looking in certain directions, and I've been trying to repro the issue here (unsuccessfully for now).

Update 4: High On Life has a weird issue in VR where the ADS (aiming down sights) mode will sometimes stop working, after either a cutscene or even just a brief stint where the game has taken control of the camera. For now I haven't been able to root cause the issue, but release 10.0.4 introduces a new shortcut to allow you to fix the problem after it occurs. When you notice that the gamepad left trigger or mouse right button is no longer activating ADS, just press both the left thumbstick and left trigger on the gamepad (or if you're using mouse/keyboard, navigate to the HOL tab of the mod overlay and press the "Fix ADS" button, which you can also associate to a hotkey of your choice); this will make the mod reset the camera FOV for about one second, which is enough to get the game ADS state "unstuck".
As for Atomic Heart, I have received reports about crashes/freezes when using the white machines that allow you to take over cameras and display the world map. I haven't been able to repro any crashes, but depending on your IRL position when you activate the machine it's possible that the map won't display immediately. If that happens to you, just give the left thumbstick on your gamepad a flick back: that will always bring the map into view. The map should be fully 3D, and the world markers floating above it should be at their proper position in space.

Release 10.0.4, attached below, adds support for two new games. The archive is common for all games, and the updated list is now:

• Atomic Heart (new)
• Cyberpunk 2077
• Dark Souls: Remastered
• Elden Ring
• Final Fantasy VII Remake Intergrade
• Ghostrunner
• Grounded
• Ghostwire: Tokyo
• Hogwarts Legacy
• High On Life (new)
• Horizon: Zero Dawn
• Marvel's Spider-Man Remastered
• Marvel's Spider-Man: Miles Morales
• Stray

All games implement AER v2.

Besides the addition of two new titles, this release also fixes a few issues:

• VR support has been revised for the various games that had official updates
• the Game Pass version of Ghostwire: Tokyo is now supported and will enter VR as expected
• opening the world map in Ghostwire: Tokyo will no longer cause a crash when a large number of location icons is displayed on screen
• if you experience low frame rates with Hogwarts Legacy after the latest official update, just run RealConfig again to fix the game settings altered by the update.

Setup

As usual, make sure that your video drivers are updated to the latest version.

For Atomic Heart, both the Steam and Game Pass versions have been tested and are officially supported. For High On Life, I developed the mod against the Game Pass version; Steam should also work, but if you encounter issues please upload your RealVR.log file so that we can try to sort them out.

Extract the mod archive into the "C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Atomic Heart\AtomicHeart\Binaries\Win64" folder for Atomic Heart on Steam, "C:\XboxGames\Atomic Heart\Content\AtomicHeart\Binaries\WinGDK" for Atomic Heart with Game Pass, or "C:\XboxGames\High on Life\Content\Oregon\Binaries\WinGDK" for High On Life with Game Pass. You might need to change the paths slightly if you have moved your Steam library from its default location, or if you own the games from a different store.

Then run RealConfig.bat. It will perform a few indispensable 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.

• IMPORTANT: Unfortunately RealConfig is unable to carry out part of its tasks with the two new games, because both Atomic Heart and High On Life use custom mechanisms to save their graphic options, which are made all the more complex by Game Pass encrypting the save files.
  So you'll need to tweak some critical options manually from the game menus to have the VR mod work correctly. Specifically set:
• WINDOW MODE to WINDOW (not fullscreen windowed)
• VSYNC to OFF
• FPS CAP to 300 (for Atomic Heart)
  Also the game graphic options and resolution should be manually set to a level suitable for the GPU you're using. As a rule of thumb, try to make sure that the game frame rate never drops below 60 fps, or only occasionally. AER v2 will make things look smooth (as smooth as possible at least) but it can only do so much. If your system, GPU especially, is overloaded and cannot maintain at least 60 fps your VR experience will be janky and you might even get crashes, depending on your hardware and drivers.

Atomic Heart

Wow is this game beautiful, especially the opening part! The [no spoilers] ride in the [no spoilers] at the beginning is a wonderful experience in VR, and swimming through the [no spoilers] is so satisfying :-)

Unfortunately this title offers no resolution control for windowed mode, so I had to implement the same workaround as with the Spider-Man games: bring up the mod overlay and in the main tab find the slider that says "Target pixels per degree". Set it to a value approximately in the range 10-20, depending on your GPU, then press the "Adapt resolution" button to set the game resolution to your preferred value. You can also do that at any moment while in actual gameplay. The resolution you choose will be remembered across sessions.

As you probably all know by now, with most headsets in VR it's best to use square-ish resolutions (because they map better to the headset FOV and avoid wasting precious GPU cycles on pixels that would never be seen). However, Atomic Heart will sometimes assume that your screen has a wide aspect ratio, and using a square resolution will result in information being cut off at the sides. For this reason I also added an aspect ratio selector near the resolution slider; it defaults to 5:4 which I think is an acceptable compromise, but you can select various rates from 1:1 to 16:9.

The game is in first person and you're basically always aiming with the crosshair or the dot, so the HUD is headlocked throughout gameplay.

Atomic Heart implements supertitles (captions that appear over NPC heads or in front of the round screens you occasionally find hanging on walls). I managed to push the supertitles into their correct 3D world position, but that has the unfortunate side effect that interactions where you need to make choices (like when you speak with NPCs) will occasionally be displayed in a sort of 2D window that floats in front of your eyes.

So, for this game I overrode the left thumbstick to turn the supertitles correction on/off. During normal gameplay it's best to leave it on, which will make supertitles display correctly, but if you see the floating window a click on the left thumbstick will immediately toggle the correction off. At the end of the interaction you can restore the supertitles with another click on the left thumbstick. Also supertitles have a tendency to look huge in VR, so I think it's best if you set the interface size to "small" in the game options.

During the initial part of the game the camera will often get locked by the game to force you to look ahead. If you really want to see what's behind you, just bring up the game menus with the Start button on the gamepad; this will pause the game and disable the lock, allowing you to look around freely.

Cutscenes have top/bottom black bars, which I didn't remove because for once they work correctly in VR and give a nice "cinematic" effect. To avoid ruining the effect you'll want to keep your head mostly still during those (brief) sequences.

Finally, when interacting with [no spoilers] in the safe rooms, the skills selection screen will initially display in 3D which makes it impossible to interact with the skill trees. The workaround for that is temporarily selecting the 2D virtual screen from the "AH" tab of the mod overlay.

High On Life

This title correctly allows you to select the resolution even while in windowed mode, so I was able to mod the square-ish resolutions needed for VR directly into the graphic options menu.

High On Life too is in first person and you're basically always aiming with the crosshair or the dot, so the HUD is headlocked throughout gameplay.

However, the game has a weird way of presenting information to the right side of objects (like when you looks at items in the shop) which makes it very hard to read with the HUD headlocked, so I implemented a shortcut: if you keep the left thumbstick pressed the HUD will stay in place and no longer rotate with your head, which makes it possible to look to the side and finish reading the item descriptions.

Known issues

Both Atomic Heart and High On Life draw the gun misaligned with the camera when you're aiming down sights. I might perhaps be able to fix that in the future, but for now I recommend using the crosshair as reference. With Atomic Heart the crosshair disappears when in ADS mode, but my dear friend Brandon has found that if you take aim with it before entering ADS, you can gain both the precision offered by the crosshair and the improved accuracy of guns in ADS mode.

Enjoy the new and old games, and let's always keep the VR flame burning!
[8]-D