Assassins Creed 4 Black Flag (DirectX 11) - 3D Vision Fix (UPDATE)

Acknowledgements
We are delighted to publish this game fix on the helixmod site, thank you to Helix and Eqzitara for supporting our work on the 3DMigoto DX11 Wrapper!



Fixed
1. Shadows
2. Lights
3. Double Imaging (fog and smoke)
4. Skybox elements
5. HUD
6. Water caustics
**UPDATE
7. Fixed Lights and shadows for all AA options
8. Fix for night stars and moon and clouds

Disabled 
1. Screen stuff like smudges and raindrops
2. Decals like blood etc (for now)

Game Settings
1. Shadows: Shadows must be "very high" or lower, 'soft shadows' have not been fixed (not even looked at yet). For performance reasons turning off soft shadows is a must anyway (the shader is 10000 lines long, compared to most of the others which are all < 600, this explains the processing hog)
2. Ambient Occlusion: SSAO has not been fixed (or looked at) yet. Use "Off", or HBAO+(low).
3. World Detail: Setting to low gives a good FPS boost, but removes gameplay elements, so really needs to be on medium/high
4. Motion Blur: Must be set to OFF


Known Issues
0. Must change profile from AC4 to either no profile, or AC2 (or something else that works).
1. Rain splashes are 2d.
2. Sun Rays: appear 2D, but I can't seem to do anything about this.
3. Shadows from smoke are 2d (minor effect)
4. Text on in-game screens is too deep. This can be adjusted as part of varying the overall HUD depth using new settings in the d3dx.ini file:
  [Constants]
  x=0.8 <-- Change this one e.g. 0.4 is less depth, -0.2 will pop out the screen etc
  y=0.8
  z=1.2
  w=2.0
5. Bloom from some Lights sometimes shines through objects. This might be an SLI issue, not sure
6. Reflections were fixed in the Animus place, but the fix is only approximate, and there is. some residual 'haloing'. This also affects puddles in Havana. Reflections in 3D are messed up bad actually, and we will continue working on it.
7. For some reason, when the game is started, you may need to change the depth setting a fraction (and then back to what ever it was) for the fix to kick in. Switching profile does not have this problem, but it's a minor annoyance, and has only recently been happening.


Installation
1. This fix requires that you either remove the AC4 profile using Nvidia Inspector, or set it to AC2, else the fix for reflections does not work.  If you use the AC2 profile then you will be able to save settings, set SLI bits etc, but this might interfere with playing AC2...

- Download "nvidia inspector" (http://www.guru3d.com/files-details/nvidia-inspector-download.html)
- Open nvidia inspector. Click wrench/screwdriver icon.  This opens a new window.
- Select "Assassins Creed 4" in drop down on top left
- Remove "AC4.exe" by clicking the button with a little red "X" on it
- Save (button in top right hand corner-ish)
- Select "Assassins Creed 2" in drop down on top left
- Add "AC4.exe" by clicking the button with a little green plus on it (next to the one with the red X) - browse to where your AC4 executable is and add it
- Save (button in top right hand corner)
- Close Nvidia Inspector
- Play.
Latest version automatically applies a profile.

2. Run the game once to make sure it's installed, resolution and refresh are like you want.
Make sure 3D kicks in.

3. If you are running recent drivers, and Compatibility Mode is kicking in, do Ctrl-Alt-F11 to disable it.
We've tested it on older drivers like 320.49 and the most recent Beta 337.50, and think it should work in all cases.
We've tested it with SLI and single GPU.

4. Get the fix as a zip file from here: AC4_BlackFlag_3Dmigoto_1.2.54.zip

And unzip all of the files and ShaderFixes folder into the Assassin's Creed 4 exe folder.
e.g. "C:\Program Files (x86)\Ubisoft\Ubisoft Game Launcher\games\Assassin's Creed IV Black Flag"
It's a lot of files, 400 or so shader files, and 4 dlls, an uninstall, and the .ini file.
If you need to uninstall, there is an uninstall.bat that will delete the dlls.

5) With all that installed, run AC4.
You should be able to see everything in 3D, and be able to change depth and convergence.
Performance should be good, very close to what you normally get with AC4 in 3D. You should expect to see only 2 cores active.
First launch will be slow, like a minute, as it caches shaders.


Update 10-25-14: Switched to latest code base, which uses fewer dlls, and does not require the Microsoft platform update.  It includes the bug fix that PirateGuyBrush found in the 3Dmigoto runtime.  Dramatically improves the minimum frame rates.  Big thanks to PirateGuyBrush for the persistence in nailing that down.   Older: 3Dmigoto-AC4-0.98.zip