VBS3 is a flexible simulation training solution for individual and squad level infantry training. DIS/HLA connectivity in VBS is provided by either Calytrix LVC Game or VBS Gateway depending on the version. This guide discusses how to use Portico with VBS3.

Vendor	Bohemia Interactive Simulations
Version	VBS3, VBS2
Operating System	Windows 7, 8, 10 (32/64)
HLA Interfaces	HLA 1.3 (c++), IEEE 1516-2010 (c++)
Suported FOMs	RPR1, RPR2, ERF5
Portico Versions	2.x

VBS and HLA

VBS can operate on HLA federations through one of two middleware options: LVC Game or VBS Gateway:

• VBS v3.7 and earlier: LVC Game
• VBS v3.7.1 and later: VBS Gateway

This article describes how to enable and configure LVC Game for VBS 3. As such, it only applies to versions of VBS 3.7 and earlier.

LVC Game is shipped directly with VBS. There is no need for any separate installation.

Connecting VBS to a Portico federation involves configuring LVC Game to use Portico as its RTI, and defining the appropriate FOM for VBS to use.

VBS is a windows-only application and has 32/64-bit support. Depending on your version of VBS, you will need to identify the right set of Portico libraries to use (vc8, 9, 10…). The table below lists which interfaces should be used for which VBS verison.

Supported Versions

The following list shows the specific versions of Portico that we recommend you use, and which we have verified through testing.

VBS Version	Portico Version	Visual Studio
VBS 3.2-3.7	Portico 2.1.x	VC10
VBS 3.0	Portico 2.0.x	VC8
VBS 2.x	Portico 2.0.x	VC8

Supported Interfaces

The following HLA interfaces are supported when linking Portico with VBS:

HLA Interface	Supported
IEEE 1516-2010	Supported
IEEE 1516-2000	Not Supported
HLA 1.3	Supported

VBS Deployment with LVC Game

In a typical VBS/LVC network, a single computer acts as the LVC Gateway. This computer is also typically the VBS game server (active or dedicated server).

All changes discussed below should only be made on the server. Regular client PCs will connect via standard VBS networking to a game where the server will bridge out to the federation.

Configuring VBS for Portico

We start by assuming that you have VBS and Portico both installed into their default locations. If you need help with Portico, check out the Install Portico guide.

Setting up any application to use the HLA is rarely a simple process. However, once you know the major moving parts, getting VBS working with Portico is mercifully straightforward.

The major steps are:

1. Set your RTI_HOME environment variable
2. Set your PATH environment variable
3. Turn the LVC Game HLA plugin on inside vbsClient.config
4. Edit the HLA.config file
5. Replace LVC Game’s default RTI.rid file

We’ll walk through each of these steps in detail, but before we do, a quick word on what we are setting up.

LVC Game for VBS supports a number of different FOMs. Which version you choose will slightly alter your configuration. In this guide we will be setting up VBS3 with the HLA Evolved (1516e) plugin using the RPR2 FOM. Where applicable we’ll make notes about how to use different interface/FOM combinations.

To test things, we recommend having a second computer handy so that you can link two instances of VBS together via Portico.

Preparing the Environment

Excited? Really!? OK - whatever works for you…

We assume you’ve installed Portico and that it is located in C:\Program Files\Portico\2.1.0. Remember that.

Setting RTI_HOME

Portico has a few moving pieces that need to find one another when things fire up. As is the HLA convention, to do this they use the RTI_HOME environment variable. Depending on the Portico version, the installer may have already set this variable for you, but to be sure you should always check.

In Windows, open the control panel and search for “System”. This should give you an option to “Edit the system environment variables”.

Clicking this brings you through to the system information dialog. Down the bottom of the window you will find a screen that lets you access the environment variables:

Once you have clicked on this, look for the environment variable RTI_HOME. If it is present it will look approximately like the image below. If it is not present, add it now and set the location to the directory Portico was installed in to.

POW! That was pretty easy, wasn’t it?

Setting the PATH

The system path is a series of folders that Windows looks inside when it is trying to load DLLs and other droll bits and pieces. For implementation reasons you really don’t care about (really) we need to add two additional directories:

• The directory that contains the RTI DLLs
• The directory that contains the Java Virtual Machine DLL

Let’s figure out what these values should be. First, the RTI DLLs.

The important bit to remember here is that you must know which compiler version you need. We mentioned in the table under the “Supported Versions” section earlier.

For LVC Game, refer to the table presented earlier. We’re using VBS v3.6 for this test, so we want the VC10 interface, so we are going to add the following directory to the path:

%RTI_HOME%\bin\vc10

Notice that we used the special “%name%” syntax. This tells windows to replace this path with the value of a different enviornment variable.

The location of all RTI DLLs in Portico is in the bin/vcXX directory, where ‘XX’ is the version number you need. If you have any doubt, go look inside that folder in Windows explorer:

Next we need to find the location of the Java Virtual Machine (JVM) DLLs. Portico ships with the JVM it wants to use. The only thing you have to be aware of is that the path you want will change slightly between 32-bit and 64-bit versions:

• 32-bit: %RTI_HOME%\jre\bin\client
• 64-bit: %RTI_HOME%\jre\bin\server

Double POW! Take a deep breath - the hardest part is over. Once you’ve got the environment set up there is very little else you need to do. And to make things even better, the process you have just completed is common for most Portico installs. Now that you’ve learnt it for VBS, you can do it for any other application - AND it may well have already been taken care of by the installer!

Configuring VBS

Now that we have the RTI installed and some environment variables pointing to the right location we need to configure LVC Game. There are a couple of steps here:

1. Turn on HLA plugin in vbsClient.config
2. Edit HLA.config to set federate/federation names
3. Replace the RID file

VBS Client Config

The vbsClient.config file is located in [VBS_DIR]\config. It contains the main configuration for LVC Game, including the plugins that it should load. We want to edit this file to disable the DIS plugin and enabled the HLA plugin.

IMAGE - config directory

Any lines in an LVC Game configuration file starting with the # character are considered comments and ignored.

In this case, we will comment out the default plugin configuration and put a # at the start of line 123 (approximately). To enable the HLA plugin we will uncomment (remove the #) from line 123 (approx again). When done, it should look like this:

IMAGE - editing the file to enable HLA

Selecting the right Interface/FOM

When editing the vbsClient.config file you will notice that you can choose from many different combinations of HLA version and FOM. It is important to choose the option that fits your needs.

In this example we are using IEEE-1516e and RPR2, but you just as easily switch that to HLA v1.3 and an alternate FOM like the “Entity Resolution FOM” (ERF) if you wanted. To do this, just enable the appropriate line in the configuration to point to the right configuration file.

Editing HLA.config

Now that we’ve enabled the HLA plugin, we need to make some final HLA-specific configuration edits. To do this, we have to edit the plugin config file: HLA.config.

From the [VBS_DIR]\config directory, go to HLA-1516e\RPR2\HLA.config. Inside this file we are going to set two important properties:

1. The federate name
2. The federation name

Inside the HLA.config file look for the following two lines:

100: 
101: hla.fedex = LVCGame
102: 
...
140: 
141: hla.federate = FederateName
142: 

Replacing the RID file

A RID file contains configuration data for an RTI. By default, LVC Game ships with RID files for an alternate RTI.

On startup, LVC Game will ensure that the RTI.rid file sitting in the same folder as HLA.config is the one that gets loaded. Because this is not a Portico RID file, it is a different, incompatible format. As such, we need to replace it with the default Portico RID file.

Copy [RTI_HOME]\RTI.rid to [VBS_DIR]\config\HLA-1516e\RPR2\. If you want to change any Portico settings later on, you can do so by editing this RID file.

Starting VBS

That’s it! Everything is configured. We just need to start VBS with the proper switches to enable LVC Game now and we are good.

To do this, from the launcher select the “LVC Admin” preset. Alternatively, you just need to make sure that the lvc box is checked on the “Special Builds” section of the launcher profile.

IMAGE - Launcher Special Builds

Launch VBS and start a network game. LVC Game is initialized when you first click “Start Network Game”:

IMAGE - Button you click when LVC plugin is loaded

If things are working properly you will notice a significant pause after you click this button. That pause is Portico creating a new federation.

Confirming it is working

To double confirm that things are working we can look in the log files.

We can first check the LVC Game log file. Look inside [VBS_DIR]\LVCGame.log to see what it said about loading the HLA plugin. You should see lines confirming that everything was initialized successfully:

IMAGE - LVCGame log file!

Secondly, you can check for the presence of the Portico log file. If LVC Game is being loaded properly, and it in turn is loading Portico properly, you’ll have a Portico log file! If it didn’t load then the file is unlikely to have been created at all.

Check to see if [VBS_HOME]\logs\portico.log exists:

IMAGE - Portico.log is alive!

And that it is!! Portico is now up and running with VBS.

Troubleshooting

So… something went wrong, did it? Hey, this is HLA so let’s not you and I pretend like that is some sort of surprise. We both know better.

Because life is cruel, there are a number of common things that can go wrong. However, because we are not cruel, we’ve compiled an awesome list for you!

• Error 193: Mismatched 32/64-bit

• Error 126: DLLs are not on the path - have you forgotten jvm.dll? You’ve forgotten to put the jvm.dll directory on your %PATH%

• LVCGame.log says “Failed to load…”: You forgot to replace the RTI.rid Portico is failing to load because the RID file is in a different format.

• Nothing happened. I don’t get any Portico log but LVC Game log doesn’t show any errors Is the HLA plugin enabled? Check vbsClient.config to ensure that one of the HLA plugins is enabled.

That is all.