Softology - Visions of Chaos - Machine Learning Support

Before You Begin
Some users reported these steps looked way too complicated and intimidating so they gave up before they began. There are only 5 programs you need to install and configure. These are required so the AI/ML systems can run. The instructions are only lengthy because I include all details and screenshots to help you get the installs correct the first time and verify they are installed correctly. Once these programs are installed, the hundreds of AI system in Visions of Chaos will then be accessible to you. There is nothing difficult or complicated here. Take your time and you will be running AI systems locally in no time. If you do have any questions or problems during the installations you can join my Discord to ask for support.

Before You Begin

Some users reported these steps looked way too complicated and intimidating so they gave up before they began.

There are only 5 programs you need to install and configure. These are required so the AI/ML systems can run.

The instructions are only lengthy because I include all details and screenshots to help you get the installs correct the first time and verify they are installed correctly.

Once these programs are installed, the hundreds of AI system in Visions of Chaos will then be accessible to you.

There is nothing difficult or complicated here. Take your time and you will be running AI systems locally in no time.

If you do have any questions or problems during the installations you can join my Discord to ask for support.

IMPORTANT POINTS
An NVIDIA 3090, 4090 or 5090 GPU with 24GB VRAM is highly recommended and will get the best performance and highest resolution outputs. If you have an older GPU or one with less than 24GB VRAM, many of the machine learning modes will not work. You MUST have an NVIDIA GPU for the Machine Learning related modes to work in Visions of Chaos. If you do not have an NVIDIA GPU stop now and do not continue with the rest of this page. The required programs, Python libraries and machine learning models are large and do need a lot of disk space to install. If you do not have the patience for long large downloads then machine learning is not for you. Due to the rapid pace of advancements in these systems there will be frequent updates that break previous libraries needing new Python environments to be created. Again, if the thought of having to wait for some downloads and updates after a new release bothers you, then do not go any further. Version numbers are important. If these instructions specify an exact version number make sure you download and install that version. Some versions listed may not be exact, but if you see an exact version, download and install that version. These steps only work on Windows 10 or Windows 11 64-bit versions. If possible you also want to use an SSD or NVMe hard drive. Loading the huge AI models from a mechanical hard drive is so much slower than from a high quality SSD hard drive.

IMPORTANT POINTS

An NVIDIA 3090, 4090 or 5090 GPU with 24GB VRAM is highly recommended and will get the best performance and highest resolution outputs.

If you have an older GPU or one with less than 24GB VRAM, many of the machine learning modes will not work.

You MUST have an NVIDIA GPU for the Machine Learning related modes to work in Visions of Chaos. If you do not have an NVIDIA GPU stop now and do not continue with the rest of this page.

The required programs, Python libraries and machine learning models are large and do need a lot of disk space to install. If you do not have the patience for long large downloads then machine learning is not for you. Due to the rapid pace of advancements in these systems there will be frequent updates that break previous libraries needing new Python environments to be created. Again, if the thought of having to wait for some downloads and updates after a new release bothers you, then do not go any further.

Version numbers are important. If these instructions specify an exact version number make sure you download and install that version. Some versions listed may not be exact, but if you see an exact version, download and install that version.

These steps only work on Windows 10 or Windows 11 64-bit versions.

If possible you also want to use an SSD or NVMe hard drive. Loading the huge AI models from a mechanical hard drive is so much slower than from a high quality SSD hard drive.

Update Your GPU Drivers
Why is this needed? Latest drivers are always fixing bugs and issues. These machine learning systems can perform poorly or even crash with older drivers. Update now and stay up to date. Select Help->Update Graphics Card Drivers from Visions of Chaos. That will show you which model GPU you have and open the NVIDIA download page. Once the download page opens, select your model GPU and click Search. The recommended driver will appear. Download it, install it, reboot.

Update Your GPU Drivers

Why is this needed? Latest drivers are always fixing bugs and issues. These machine learning systems can perform poorly or even crash with older drivers. Update now and stay up to date.

Select Help->Update Graphics Card Drivers from Visions of Chaos. That will show you which model GPU you have and open the NVIDIA download page.

Once the download page opens, select your model GPU and click Search. The recommended driver will appear. Download it, install it, reboot.

CUDA
Why is this needed? CUDA is required for all of the machine learning Python code to run on your GPU. Download CUDA v12.8 Update 1 and install it. NOTE: by default the Nvidia installer wants to install extra drivers etc, you only need the compiler and libraries options checked, ie

Set the Custom CUDA path
Why is this needed? Visions of Chaos needs to know where you have installed CUDA 12.8 into. 1. Start Visions of Chaos. 2. Click Options->Options to open the Options dialog. 3. Click the Machine Learning tab. 4. Click the browse button next to the Custom CUDA path and select the CUDA bin directory. By default this is C:\Program Files\NVIDIA GPU Computing Toolkit\CUDA\v12.8\bin

Visual Studio Community Edition
Why is this needed? Some of these systems need to be compiled to install them. Visual Studio does the required compiling. Without it you will not be able to setup the various Python environments. 1. Download Visual Studio 2022 Community Edition from here. 2. Start the installer and check "Desktop development with C++" on the first tab 3. Click the "Individual Components" tab, scroll down and check the most recent "C++/CLI support" checkbox 4. Click Install. 5. Once the install is finished, you do not have to start Visual Studio or create an account to sign in. Just close it.

Visual Studio Community Edition

Why is this needed? Some of these systems need to be compiled to install them. Visual Studio does the required compiling. Without it you will not be able to setup the various Python environments.

1. Download Visual Studio 2022 Community Edition from here.

2. Start the installer and check "Desktop development with C++" on the first tab

3. Click the "Individual Components" tab, scroll down and check the most recent "C++/CLI support" checkbox

4. Click Install.

5. Once the install is finished, you do not have to start Visual Studio or create an account to sign in. Just close it.

Add Visual Studio to Path
Why is this needed? Without this change the required Visual Studio command line compiler executables will not be found. 1. Hold the Windows key and press Pause to bring up the System Control Panel. 2. Click Advanced system settings. 3. Click the Environment Variables button. 4. Highlight Path in the lower "System variables" section and click Edit. 5. Click New then click Browse and browse to your VS Hostx64\x64 directory. Mine is C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio\2022\Community\VC\Tools\MSVC\14.33.31629\bin\Hostx64\x64 , but your directory may have a different version number or drive letter, so don't just copy and paste my path. Browse to your Hostx64\x64 folder to be sure your PATH is correctly pointing to the right location. 6. Move it to the top of the list as follows 7. Click OK, OK, OK to close all dialogs.

Add Visual Studio to Path

Why is this needed? Without this change the required Visual Studio command line compiler executables will not be found.

1. Hold the Windows key and press Pause to bring up the System Control Panel.

2. Click Advanced system settings.

3. Click the Environment Variables button.

4. Highlight Path in the lower "System variables" section and click Edit.

5. Click New then click Browse and browse to your VS Hostx64\x64 directory. Mine is C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio\2022\Community\VC\Tools\MSVC\14.33.31629\bin\Hostx64\x64 , but your directory may have a different version number or drive letter, so don't just copy and paste my path. Browse to your Hostx64\x64 folder to be sure your PATH is correctly pointing to the right location.

6. Move it to the top of the list as follows

7. Click OK, OK, OK to close all dialogs.

Verify Visual Studio command line
You should now be able to go into a command prompt window, type cl and get the following response. Make sure you open a fresh command prompt window. If you try and use an existing command prompt that was open prior to adding the path entry the new path is not updated in the already open command prompt window. If you cannot get cl.exe working on a command line, do not go any further before fixing it. It is needed for the later Python library installs.

Verify Visual Studio command line

You should now be able to go into a command prompt window, type cl and get the following response. Make sure you open a fresh command prompt window. If you try and use an existing command prompt that was open prior to adding the path entry the new path is not updated in the already open command prompt window.

If you cannot get cl.exe working on a command line, do not go any further before fixing it. It is needed for the later Python library installs.

CMake
Why is this needed? Like Visual Studio, CMake is another compiler required to setup some of the Python packages and libraries. 1. Download the version 3.31.6 installer of CMake from here. 2. Install CMake using all the defaults.

Verify CMake command line
You should now be able to go into a command prompt window, type cmake and get the following response. Make sure you open a fresh command prompt window. If you try and use an existing command prompt that was open prior to adding the path entry the new path is not updated in the already open command prompt window. If you cannot get cmake.exe working on a command line, do not go any further before fixing it. It is needed for the later Python library installs.

Verify CMake command line

You should now be able to go into a command prompt window, type cmake and get the following response. Make sure you open a fresh command prompt window. If you try and use an existing command prompt that was open prior to adding the path entry the new path is not updated in the already open command prompt window.

If you cannot get cmake.exe working on a command line, do not go any further before fixing it. It is needed for the later Python library installs.

Git
Why is this needed? Git is needed to automatically update source code from GitHub repositories. 1. Download the latest 64 bit installer of Git for Windows from here. 2. Install Git accepting all the numerous default settings.

Verify Git command line
You should now be able to go into a command prompt window, type git and get the following response. Make sure you open a fresh command prompt window. If you try and use an existing command prompt that was open prior to adding the path entry the new path is not updated in the already open command prompt window. If you cannot get git.exe working on a command line, do not go any further before fixing it. It is needed for the later Python library installs.

Verify Git command line

You should now be able to go into a command prompt window, type git and get the following response. Make sure you open a fresh command prompt window. If you try and use an existing command prompt that was open prior to adding the path entry the new path is not updated in the already open command prompt window.

If you cannot get git.exe working on a command line, do not go any further before fixing it. It is needed for the later Python library installs.

Python
Why is this needed? Python is the language all of these machine learning systems are written in. Without Python nothing will work. 1. Download Python v3.10.11 from here. 2. Click "Customize installation" and install Python outside the "Program Files" directory (eg to C:\Python\ or D:\Python\). This saves potential security rights problems in the pip install stages later on.

Verify Python command line
You should now be able to go into a command prompt window, change into the directory you installed Python into, type python --version and get the following response. If you cannot get Python working on a command line, do not go any further before fixing it.

Set the Custom Python path in Visions of Chaos
To ensure Visions of Chaos always uses the correct 3.10.x version of Python you need to point Visions of Chaos to your Python directory. 1. Start Visions of Chaos. 2. Click Options->Options to open the Options dialog. 3. Click the Machine Learning tab. 4. Click the browse button next to the Custom Python path and select the directory you installed Python into.

Create LIB environment variable for Python\Libs directory
1. Hold the Windows key and press Pause to bring up the System Control Panel. 2. Click Advanced system settings. 3. Click the Environment Variables button. 4. Click the lower New button in the "System variables" section. 5. Call the variable LIB and point it to the Libs directory under your Python install directory 6. Click OK, OK, OK to close all dialogs. Note: The variable name is LIB and the directory is libs (plural). If you point to the Lib directory and not the libs directory you will have problems.

Create LIB environment variable for Python\Libs directory

1. Hold the Windows key and press Pause to bring up the System Control Panel.

2. Click Advanced system settings.

3. Click the Environment Variables button.

4. Click the lower New button in the "System variables" section.

5. Call the variable LIB and point it to the Libs directory under your Python install directory

6. Click OK, OK, OK to close all dialogs.

Note: The variable name is LIB and the directory is libs (plural). If you point to the Lib directory and not the libs directory you will have problems.

Enable Long Filename Support
Why is this needed? Sometimes these systems create very deep nested directories. This tweak to the registry allows longer paths so you do not get errors. 1. Press the Windows key and type regedit. 2. Click Registry Editor to open the Registry Editor. 3. Expand the left hand tree to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\FileSystem 4. On the right hand pane, double click LongPathsEnabled and change the value from 0 to 1 5. Reboot for the change to take effect.

Enable Long Filename Support

Why is this needed? Sometimes these systems create very deep nested directories. This tweak to the registry allows longer paths so you do not get errors.

1. Press the Windows key and type regedit.

2. Click Registry Editor to open the Registry Editor.

3. Expand the left hand tree to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\FileSystem

4. On the right hand pane, double click LongPathsEnabled and change the value from 0 to 1

5. Reboot for the change to take effect.

Enable Unicode Support
Why is this needed? Without this the Windows command line may incorrectly display the various batch files that Visions of Chaos uses to install and update the machine learning modes. 1. Press the Windows key and type region settings. 2. Click Region Settings. 3. Expand the top Windows Display Language. 4. Toggle on the Beta: Use Unicode UTF-8 for world-wide language support. 5. Reboot when prompted for the change to take effect.

Enable Unicode Support

Why is this needed? Without this the Windows command line may incorrectly display the various batch files that Visions of Chaos uses to install and update the machine learning modes.

1. Press the Windows key and type region settings.

2. Click Region Settings.

3. Expand the top Windows Display Language.

4. Toggle on the Beta: Use Unicode UTF-8 for world-wide language support.

5. Reboot when prompted for the change to take effect.

Check and Enable Machine Learning in Visions of Chaos
1. Start Visions of Chaos (if you already have Visions of Chaos open, close it and restart to ensure all path updates are seen) 2. Click the Options menu and then select Options to open the Options dialog 3. Under the Machine Learning tab, click the "Check Machine Learning" button At this point you should get a message that Python, nvcc, cl and cmake have been detected. If not, go back up and fix the installation for the error. You should now have a bunch of sub menus under Mode->Machine Learning to explore. As you start the various machine learning related modes for the first time you may be prompted to download model files or setup virtual environments. Let these processes run to ensure you have all the required machine learning related files.

Check and Enable Machine Learning in Visions of Chaos

1. Start Visions of Chaos (if you already have Visions of Chaos open, close it and restart to ensure all path updates are seen)

2. Click the Options menu and then select Options to open the Options dialog

3. Under the Machine Learning tab, click the "Check Machine Learning" button

At this point you should get a message that Python, nvcc, cl and cmake have been detected. If not, go back up and fix the installation for the error.

You should now have a bunch of sub menus under Mode->Machine Learning to explore.

As you start the various machine learning related modes for the first time you may be prompted to download model files or setup virtual environments. Let these processes run to ensure you have all the required machine learning related files.