The current state of classic Call of Duty games in 3D Vision

[Captain007]

It's been about a year that I upgraded to 4090, but I kept my 2080ti in a dual mixed GPU system on x299 platform, triple OS setup on 3 separate SSDs for VR and 3D Vision. If you guys want I can have a separate post about the setup, things I learned along the way and some interesting findings. Now that I have more space I decided to install all my library of games like fighting games etc, and the classic Call of Duty games. All on Windows 10 1809, last official driver, on 2080ti. These older COD titles are still very much active and a lot of fun to jump in every now and then. However, I found that almost all of the games in the series needed some troubleshooting to get things working right in 3D. Below are my findings and if anyone else wants to add in for things I could not fix I'd appreciate it. I'm listing them in order of most active player base to least active and dead games.

Call of Duty - Modern Warfare 2 (COD6):
I'm surprised how active this game is after so many years. Anytime you go online there are multiple lobbies and different game modes, TDM, free for all etc. It's also the game that required least fixing. You can change the following in config_mp.cfg for betting 3D and overall graphics.
seta r_aaAlpha "supersample (nice)" (for supersampling and better graphics)
seta r_aaSamples "16" (16x anti aliasing)
seta r_texFilterAnisoMax "16"
seta r_texFilterAnisoMin "16" (for 16x anisotropic filtering)
seta ui_drawCrosshair "0" (IMPORTANT to turn off crosshair)
Also make sure to set the config file as read only.
- Also disable fullscreen optimizations

Call of Duty - Black Ops II
Another very active game with lots of players always online. You can jump in the action right away. The game looks beautiful in 3D and there's a fix already in Helix blog. The game just has one minor caveat. Higher convergence kinda messes up menus and HUD. Gun can be a bit too close for some as well. I have modified the fix and added the key binding "P" for convergence cycles, with 3 presents. One for max convergence during gameplay, second for menus, third for convergence to the point where you can still make out menus and HUD. I have PG27VQ 1440p monitor so you can modify the lines for your monitor. I added the following in d3dx.ini:
[KeyCycleExample]
Key = P
type = cycle
wrap = true
covergence = 16.14, 10.32, 4.86

Call of Duty 4 Modern Warfare, my all time favorite:
Another very much active game with lots of servers always online. Back in the days, when you installed this game, it would work great in 3D right away and just shadows off. However, now it has a bug where half of the screen is black in one eye. The higher resolution, the more black covers one eye. At 1440p it's almost 80% of screen. The fix on Helix blog is absolutely needed and fixes this issue. The fix just adds depth to HUD, but the dx9.dll is at least needed to fix this.
- Another bug that I couldn't figure out is, at any resolution higher than 1080p the glow and depth of field gets messed up. That's why some people see it and some don't. So you have the option of either disabling glow and depth of field in config_mp.cfg by changing the following:
seta r_dof_enable "0"
seta r_glow_allowed "0"
Or playing at 1080p max.
- Also, the fire and heat distortion has to be turned off in config:
seta r_distortion "0" (VERY IMPOTANT, fixes fire and heat glow)
- Also disable fullscreen optimizations
- Other necessary and optional changes on config:
seta ui_drawCrosshair "0" (turns off crosshair)
seta sm_enable "0" (VERY IMPORTANT, turns off shadows)
seta com_maxfps "120" (for higher max fps)
seta r_aaAlpha "supersample (nice)" (better visuals and supersampling)
seta r_aaSamples "16" (16x antialiasing)
seta r_texFilterAnisoMax "16"
seta r_texFilterAnisoMin "16" (for 16x anisotropic filtering)
seta ragdoll_enable "1"
seta ragdoll_max_simulation "16"
- VERY IMPORTANT, if you just install and go on playing you can't find many servers as version 1.8 doesn't work with most servers out there. You need to install CoD4X Mod at cod4x.ovh/t/releases/24/2. The most current version is 21.1. Download cod4x_client_21_1.zip. That's what everybody on COD4 online is using and it opens up tons of servers for online play.
- If you want to have the max player level and everything unlocked, you can download mpdata file with everything unlocked. The multiplayer data is stored locally so anyone can download it. Just google it and you'll find plenty of results.
- Ignore PunkBuster as no server is using it. I have it turned off.

Call of Duty Black Ops:
The first Black Ops game was supposed to be 3D Vision ready title, but when launched it was rated excellent. I played countless hours and the only issue I encountered was, as chopper gunner, the target icons were at screen depth. You only needed to unlock convergence in config and that's it. I had GTX480 and Windows 8.1 at the time.
- Unfortunately this game is totally broken now in default state. It suffers from the same one eye half black screen bug like COD4 that can be fixed with dx9.dll from COD4 fix. Luckily there's a DX11 fix in Helix blog. However, I encountered a bug where the dx9.dll from dgvoodoo renders the menus unreadable and blocky mess. I figured changing the d3d9.dll from any other higher versions of dgvoodoo fixes this, so I downloaded latest. But then menus and UI won't have depth anymore, the game itself is fully fixed though.
- Another problem with dgvoodoo is performance. The DX9 to DX11 conversion makes up for a very choppy fps. I figured changing the following line in dgvoodoo.conf file provides huge fps boost:
RTTexturesForceScaleAndMSAA = false
This unfortunately introduces a couple bugs where the UI and menus render a bit darker, as well depth of field must be turned off otherwise whenever you aim the gun, whole screen blurs. So you can turn off depth of field:
seta r_dof_enable "0"
You have the option of using the fix as is but very choppy fps that doesn't work well in multiplayer, or using the above fix for a better fps and turning off dof. That's what I'm using right now.
- Also the crosshair in DX11 version with fix is at screen depth so turn it off:
seta ui_drawCrosshair "0"
- Regardless of what option you play with, disable fullscreen optimizations
- Other needed config changes:
seta r_use_driver_convergence "1" (VERY IMPORTANT, unlocks convergence)
seta com_maxfps "120"
seta r_aaAlpha "2" (better visuals)
seta r_aaSamples "16" (16x antialiasing)
seta r_multiGPU "0" (no SLI)
seta r_texFilterAnisoMax "16"
seta r_texFilterAnisoMin "16" (for 16x anisotropic filtering)

- A third option is to fix the DX9 mode by modding the config_mp.cfg. VERY IMPORTANT - You need the dx9.dll file from COD4 fix to fix the half black screen bug. With some changes the DX9 mode can be fixed to some extent. The only issue that I couldn't fix no matter what I tried in config is, there's always a glow or halo to the right of bright objects. It's not noticeable in darker areas but lighter and bright objects can be distracting. Performance is silky smooth though. You don't need to turn off crosshair as it's rendered in proper 3D. In addition to above changes, use the following mods in config to fix DX9:
seta r_dof_enable "0"
seta sm_enable "0" (turns off shadows)

Call of Duty - World at War (COD5):
Active players and always games available to play. Game looks beautiful in 3D, but has some issues.
- Player names are not visible. This was a bug that was eventually fixed, but with later drivers it came back and never fixed again. I haven't found a way to fix it after extensive online searching and troubleshooting. You can tell who is enemy and who is teammate. You just have to recognize.
- 3D has a bug where the bloom or halo effect of light sources are faintly visible through walls and render at wrong depth. There are not many maps that suffer from this anomaly, mostly maps with night lighting. Definitely not a major 3D issue. But after playing around with settings and config file extensively I could not turn it off. 3D text says turn off glow and DOF, but you don't need to, and it's not related to this issue. This bug wasn't there in early days of 3D Vision.
- Another minor issue is, when a match ends, the next match map doesn't load. It stays on loading screen and loading bar not moving, and then your get server timeout error. You can press "Escape" and connect to server back. I spent a long time searching and troubleshooting this but nothing has worked. Again not a deal breaker but a minor annoyance.
- Also disable fullscreen optimizations
- Other changes in config:
seta com_maxfps "120" (like others it's originally locked at 85 fps"
seta r_aaAlpha "supersample (nice)"
seta r_aaSamples "16"
seta r_texFilterAnisoMax "16"
seta r_texFilterAnisoMin "16" (for 16x anisotropic filtering)
- Ignore PunkBuster as not many servers use it, and I tried everything suggested to get it to work with latest version by manually updating it, but it doesn't. You can install older version but that messes up Battlefield games if you play them too, so better stay away from PB altogether.


CALL OF DUTY - MODERN WARFARE REMASTERED: It worksssss, flawlessly in glorious 3D
This was a big surprise. This amazing remaster of COD4 is fully fixed, a fix already existed and I bet no one knew about it. Thanks to an anonymous poster on Helix blog for the find, the Advanced Warfare fix completely fixes this game as well, as if it was made for it lol. The graphics options are nearly identical, so follow the instructions in that fix and install it on this game. Menus, HUD, multiplayer, singleplayer all work perfectly. A dream come true as it was sitting on my wish list for the longest time.
Now that this game is on Steam Autumn sale you can grab a copy. If you have this remaster, there's literally zero reason to play the singleplayer of original COD4. The remaster looks superior in every way; it looks good, plays good, sounds good, overall one of the best remasters. Online multiplayer is mostly active during daytime. At night you might have to wait a bit for a lobby.
I think it was a huge mistake by Activision to sell this game originally as part of Infinite Warfare legacy edition, and not including dedicated servers like original COD4. They released it separately later, but damage was done. Otherwise, pretty much all COD4 playerbase would have moved to remaster. Lack of dedicated servers was a huge bummer.
- The only mod you have to do is to disable crosshair in config_mp.cfg:
seta 0x7026285C "0"
- Also you'll need to create exceptions in your firewall, antivirus, and advanced threat defence to avoid freezing and connection issues.
- Make sure your microphone is not system wide disabled in Windows privacy settings. It can freeze the game.
--THIS DEFINITELY DESERVES ITS OWN ENTRY IN HELIX BLOG, so if anyone can add it please.

Call of Duty Ghosts:
The game is still active, though every now and then you might have to wait a bit to join a lobby.
- The game suffers from a random freezing issue. It's mainly due to the game by default launching in high priority. You can manually change CPU priority to normal via task manager or console, but better permanently change it in config file:
seta r_elevatedPriority "0"
That fixed the random freezing for me.
- Turn off crosshair:
seta ui_drawCrosshair "0"
- Also create exceptions in your firewall, antivirus, and advanced threat defense (I use Bitdefender)

Call of Duty Modern Warfare 3:
Online multiplayer is hit and miss. Sometimes you can find lobbies, sometimes there's no one. However, "Special Ops" almost always has someone that you can join with, and it's a ton of fun fighting waves and waves of ever more difficult AI enemies. There's a fix for the game, but it wasn't absolutely needed back then. Now the game suffers from same half black screen in one eye bug so the fix is definitely needed and mitigates that.
- Disable fullscreen optimizations
- Some settings to change in config:
seta r_aaAlpha "supersample (nice)"
seta r_aaSamples "16"
seta r_distortion "0"
seta r_ssao "2_High" (max SSAO)
seta r_texFilterAnisoMax "16"
seta r_texFilterAnisoMin "16"

Call of Duty Advanced Warfare:
Things get a bit messy from here on. First, online multiplayer is totally dead. I haven't found a single game yet, no matter what time of day or week. You can still play with bots, or play the Exo and Exo zombies modes. They can be fun. The game suffers from freezing and crashing issues.
- Make sure you microphone is not disabled on device system wide in Windows privacy settings. I never voice chat in online games and not using mic in general so I disabled it on device for all Windows. Bad idea, it crashes several COD games.
- Create exceptions in your firewall, antivirus and advanced threat defense (yours may vary, mine is Bitdefender)
- Game has a bug where if you play with bots, shadows higher than normal crashes the game once you get killed. The problem is with killcam. For some disabling killcam works, but for me shadows map resolution to normal fixed it.
- Disable crosshair as always
seta ui_drawCrosshair "0"

Call of Duty Infinite:
This is the most messy 3D Vision game in the series. Single player is fine with the fix and only minor issues so all good. But the game itself is full of bugs; suffers from multiple crashes and freezing issues. The fix in blog doesn't fix multiplayer maps, and not needed either coz multiplayer is completely dead. Shadows in multiplayer maps are completely broken and no option to turn them off. The config file is cryptic so I tried changing and experimenting with a lot of options, but nothing turns shadows off. Even if you wanna play with bots, its just unplayable and not worth it.
- Game crashes with microphone on device turned off in Windows privacy settings, and you get a weird error leaving you scratching your head.
- Once I figured that, then I was hit with random directx crash issue. It only happens in menus, but once you're in a game it doesn't happen. It was fixed by running the game in compatibility mode with Windows 8.
- Create exceptions in firewall and antivirus
- Disable crosshair by changing the following in config:
setcl -1099316916 "0"
Singleplayer campaign is great in 3D, but forget about multiplayer.

I'd appreciate if anyone can add some fixes to things I couldn't find. Also if anyone can add the Modern Warfare Remaster in Helix blog coz I'm sure some fans of that game are missing out on playing it with proper 3D fix, not knowing a fix exists.