Posted November 29, 2023
1) Buy red-cyan colored plastic 3D glasses for a Dollar on Amazon or your 1-Dollar Store.
2) Download the current Reshade version from the reshade.me website.
That is all you really need to experience Homeworld 'Classic" (HW1 HW2 HWCat - now called 'Emergence') in stereoscopic 3D!
The Reshade Shader implementation is called "Depth3D". That is the one you should choose, when installing Reshade. Here's a quick and dirty ad-hoc 'howto':
1. Install Reshade
2. Point Reshade to 'Cataclysm.exe'
3. Choose 'OpenGL' as the rendering API you want Reshade to support
4. Use the created opengl32.dll and place it inside ~\Homeworld Emergence\3Dfx\WinNT (this is the Opengl API version GOG installer registered in the Win registry)
5. Start Homeworld Cat/Em
6. Reshade UI will appear. Check if the Shader and Texture paths are set correctly
7. Enable the 'SuperDepth3D' effect.
8. Hide the Reshade UI. Start a mission, skirmish or training mission.
9. Now, enable the Reshade UI again and you can live-edit and tweak the stereoscopic effect to your liking.
It works with Nvidia/Radeon & Intel (iGPU!) cards equally (I tested it on 3 diff PCs). Game does not crash. Only 'issue' I see is the Reshade UI 'lingering' over the HW 2D menu screen, after being turned off. You need to 'swipe the screen clean' with your mouse, to update and make the 2D menu 'visible' again.
This method described here, is the 'cheapest' stereoscopic 3D. It is the old-fashioned 'color-analgyph' kind. You will lose game colors, but that is a small price to pay for this effect. Other - color-preserving - 3D rendering options are available and supported by the Reshade 3D shader.
Nvidia used to support stereoscopic 3D with their '3D Vision' drivers in the past, but stopped support when it was clear that '3D Televisions' are no longer selling. Now, that 'VR' has become popular, old-fashioned 3D effects without VR-kits are no longer fancied by driver makers (there is still fan-based support).
The Reshade solution of the past was inferior to the original Nvidia 3D Vision driver, but the latest version can hold up to the Nvidia solution. And even better, Reshade is GPU agnostic, hence you can use it with AMD/Intel GPUs. And it supports multiple graphic APIs (DX9-12, Vulkan, OpenGL).
This 'stereoscopic 3D gaming' also works with other 'Good Old Games'. Pretty much everything that has a 3D engine and uses DirectX or OpenGL from 1998 to today.
Some games are worth exploring. The 'setup' (= installing Reshade, initial testing) is done in less than 5 minutes.
[Pro Tip: if you like this at all, I highly recommend replaying 'DARK SOULS' in 3D!
It is a completely new experience and even helps you play 'better' due to the depth effect and experiencing precise spacial awareness between your player character and the enemies while fighting or not stumbling into the abyss, because you can now judge the distances btw your character and the edge of a plank or narrow path].
2) Download the current Reshade version from the reshade.me website.
That is all you really need to experience Homeworld 'Classic" (HW1 HW2 HWCat - now called 'Emergence') in stereoscopic 3D!
The Reshade Shader implementation is called "Depth3D". That is the one you should choose, when installing Reshade. Here's a quick and dirty ad-hoc 'howto':
1. Install Reshade
2. Point Reshade to 'Cataclysm.exe'
3. Choose 'OpenGL' as the rendering API you want Reshade to support
4. Use the created opengl32.dll and place it inside ~\Homeworld Emergence\3Dfx\WinNT (this is the Opengl API version GOG installer registered in the Win registry)
5. Start Homeworld Cat/Em
6. Reshade UI will appear. Check if the Shader and Texture paths are set correctly
7. Enable the 'SuperDepth3D' effect.
8. Hide the Reshade UI. Start a mission, skirmish or training mission.
9. Now, enable the Reshade UI again and you can live-edit and tweak the stereoscopic effect to your liking.
It works with Nvidia/Radeon & Intel (iGPU!) cards equally (I tested it on 3 diff PCs). Game does not crash. Only 'issue' I see is the Reshade UI 'lingering' over the HW 2D menu screen, after being turned off. You need to 'swipe the screen clean' with your mouse, to update and make the 2D menu 'visible' again.
This method described here, is the 'cheapest' stereoscopic 3D. It is the old-fashioned 'color-analgyph' kind. You will lose game colors, but that is a small price to pay for this effect. Other - color-preserving - 3D rendering options are available and supported by the Reshade 3D shader.
Nvidia used to support stereoscopic 3D with their '3D Vision' drivers in the past, but stopped support when it was clear that '3D Televisions' are no longer selling. Now, that 'VR' has become popular, old-fashioned 3D effects without VR-kits are no longer fancied by driver makers (there is still fan-based support).
The Reshade solution of the past was inferior to the original Nvidia 3D Vision driver, but the latest version can hold up to the Nvidia solution. And even better, Reshade is GPU agnostic, hence you can use it with AMD/Intel GPUs. And it supports multiple graphic APIs (DX9-12, Vulkan, OpenGL).
This 'stereoscopic 3D gaming' also works with other 'Good Old Games'. Pretty much everything that has a 3D engine and uses DirectX or OpenGL from 1998 to today.
Some games are worth exploring. The 'setup' (= installing Reshade, initial testing) is done in less than 5 minutes.
[Pro Tip: if you like this at all, I highly recommend replaying 'DARK SOULS' in 3D!
It is a completely new experience and even helps you play 'better' due to the depth effect and experiencing precise spacial awareness between your player character and the enemies while fighting or not stumbling into the abyss, because you can now judge the distances btw your character and the edge of a plank or narrow path].