OSVR any good
- Thread starter lilikin
- Start date
Be aware that there is VERY little support for this thing at the moment so you need to have lots of time and enthusiasm to learn and keep up to date with developments. For example just today we had a Steam VR driver that may or may not break ED compatibility (downloading now) or otoh may fix the tracking drift issue. Also there isn't much activity in the community so not many people on hand to help you if you have an atypical setup like a laptop, Windows 10 etc and googling does not work.
Also - for anyone in the EU (possibly other non USA regions) there is no economical way to get a refund for this from Razer. They send you an RMA and expect you to courier it to California even though you signed a Terms of Service with a Razer subsidiary in Ireland and DHL reports it as having originally shipped from Eindhoven (NL). If you courier it to California (it comes in a HUGE box and weighs about 4kg) your net refund is about 10 EUR (at least from my country). Probably a tax issue that means consumers will have to get their refunds via ebay.
Also - for anyone in the EU (possibly other non USA regions) there is no economical way to get a refund for this from Razer. They send you an RMA and expect you to courier it to California even though you signed a Terms of Service with a Razer subsidiary in Ireland and DHL reports it as having originally shipped from Eindhoven (NL). If you courier it to California (it comes in a HUGE box and weighs about 4kg) your net refund is about 10 EUR (at least from my country). Probably a tax issue that means consumers will have to get their refunds via ebay.
Well, it's decided not to recognise the IR camera, probably because the instructions tell you to use extended mode and then select direct mode in Steam VR, but since I'm on a laptop I'm not sure direct mode can ever work. No one else seems to have had this issue, so back to tinkering!
4810MQ CPU, 980M GPU (no OC on either), 8GB, Win7 - and sadly, Nvidia Optimus. When it (OSVR) works it's awesome, though the last time that happened was pre Engineers, and that update brought my non VR FPS to about 40ish in ports / planets / RESes.
I had some time with a Vive and yes, the FOV was a bit better and the head tracking MUCH better but nowhere near 600 EUR better. If both devices worked (atm OSVR is (again) just a paperweight, but that's down to my ineptitude rather than a hardware fault) then I would say OSVR is well worth the 350 EUR and the Vive worth tops 450 EUR. I would never part with nearly 1000 for it, utter madness until Fdev irons out the kinks, but by then we'll be pre-ordering Vive 2.0 I suspect...
I had some time with a Vive and yes, the FOV was a bit better and the head tracking MUCH better but nowhere near 600 EUR better. If both devices worked (atm OSVR is (again) just a paperweight, but that's down to my ineptitude rather than a hardware fault) then I would say OSVR is well worth the 350 EUR and the Vive worth tops 450 EUR. I would never part with nearly 1000 for it, utter madness until Fdev irons out the kinks, but by then we'll be pre-ordering Vive 2.0 I suspect...
Last edited:
Avago Earo
Banned
[video=youtube;1ZaboSUUpcI]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ZaboSUUpcI[/video]
OK a quick update for anyone considering the OSVR.
As Avago Ero posted there are now drivers that work with the latest "normal" Steam VR (rather than an old 'private' beta). OSVR is slowly becoming a consumer grade package- not plug and play yet though. At least now you don't have to go through the horror of a thousand compositor crashes because your OS resolution was incorrect - up till now they all had to match up or you'd get nowhere and there are few troubleshooting tools and guides currently.
I finally got this working with an Optimus (ie where the Nvidia GPU is outputted via the CPU as a battery saving solution) laptop. Things that the tutorials on youtube and reddit do not mention and are essential include - 1) how important it is to properly remove all old components when doing a fresh driver install - you'll be doing a lot of these reinstalls when you fail to follow instructions carefully or a new driver/component is released. 2) With Optimus you must always select extended mode at least in the first instance 3) persistence - there are lots of crashes in either Steam VR, ED, Windows, OSVR runtime at the moment but they do have a pattern so you have to note down what settings you were trying and in which order 4) Some things still need to be fudged to get working. For example Steam VR requires room setup and this crashes if you spend more than a couple of seconds at each step, so you have to just rush it (next-next-next) and hope for the best. Also I could not get the HMD to work in ED until I put in all the 3D settings on my main monitor and then switched from primary to secondary as the very last step. Note you do NOT need the Steam launcher for ED, it will work from the FDev launcher.
So at the moment after days of 'work' (newcomers won't need this now) I am now flying around 3D with an anaemic laptop (980M = 780 Desktop) having spent 'just' 350 EUR. It still has kinks, the headtracking doesn't work properly so you can't go to the left and right panel, but I understand that a fix is coming.
Quick final note on the Vive - once the headtracking works there is no need to get a Vive if ED is your main reason for VR. The OSVR is cheaper and upgradeable, so when you get a 1080Ti next year you just spend 90 EUR on a new 1440 OSVR screen, pop it in, and go. No 1000 EUR for Vive 2017 version.
As Avago Ero posted there are now drivers that work with the latest "normal" Steam VR (rather than an old 'private' beta). OSVR is slowly becoming a consumer grade package- not plug and play yet though. At least now you don't have to go through the horror of a thousand compositor crashes because your OS resolution was incorrect - up till now they all had to match up or you'd get nowhere and there are few troubleshooting tools and guides currently.
I finally got this working with an Optimus (ie where the Nvidia GPU is outputted via the CPU as a battery saving solution) laptop. Things that the tutorials on youtube and reddit do not mention and are essential include - 1) how important it is to properly remove all old components when doing a fresh driver install - you'll be doing a lot of these reinstalls when you fail to follow instructions carefully or a new driver/component is released. 2) With Optimus you must always select extended mode at least in the first instance 3) persistence - there are lots of crashes in either Steam VR, ED, Windows, OSVR runtime at the moment but they do have a pattern so you have to note down what settings you were trying and in which order 4) Some things still need to be fudged to get working. For example Steam VR requires room setup and this crashes if you spend more than a couple of seconds at each step, so you have to just rush it (next-next-next) and hope for the best. Also I could not get the HMD to work in ED until I put in all the 3D settings on my main monitor and then switched from primary to secondary as the very last step. Note you do NOT need the Steam launcher for ED, it will work from the FDev launcher.
So at the moment after days of 'work' (newcomers won't need this now) I am now flying around 3D with an anaemic laptop (980M = 780 Desktop) having spent 'just' 350 EUR. It still has kinks, the headtracking doesn't work properly so you can't go to the left and right panel, but I understand that a fix is coming.
Quick final note on the Vive - once the headtracking works there is no need to get a Vive if ED is your main reason for VR. The OSVR is cheaper and upgradeable, so when you get a 1080Ti next year you just spend 90 EUR on a new 1440 OSVR screen, pop it in, and go. No 1000 EUR for Vive 2017 version.
Last edited:
'Head in a vice' (almost - down still works) at the moment though I can see it being resolved quickly - it worked before but had drift, which was supposedly fixed. Maybe it is my ineptitude again, but don't think so - it tracks well at the main menu and then fixes up in game. Until it is sorted though, you're really just doing VR for the novelty factor - for gasping inside space stations. Totally unplayable obviously, not being able to select waypoints or check cargo.
No idea on AMD - it should be fine, there is very little Nvidia specific in what I did. There is a VR section in the Nvidia panel but I can't use that because it detects Optimus and greys out. That said it is vital for the driver to be compatible with the latest Steam VR which I would suppose it is - I think at some point HTC and Oculus were partnering with different GPU manufacturers and Steam always made a point of supporting both HMDs and therefore both Red and Green GPUs.
No idea on AMD - it should be fine, there is very little Nvidia specific in what I did. There is a VR section in the Nvidia panel but I can't use that because it detects Optimus and greys out. That said it is vital for the driver to be compatible with the latest Steam VR which I would suppose it is - I think at some point HTC and Oculus were partnering with different GPU manufacturers and Steam always made a point of supporting both HMDs and therefore both Red and Green GPUs.
Last edited:
Could you use something like Freepie on a smartphone through to Opentrack to replace the tracking mechanism used by the OSVR? It's simple to set up a 1:1 rotation curve on it. Sure, it would be a bodge, but it would get the headtracking working.
For those considering OSVR - They plan a "big" unveil on 14th June on E3, so I would wait for the order on OSVR till then and see what the new version will be like
Cheers for the tip!
OSVR HDK2
Competitive specs against the other big dogs and at $399 USD
http://www.osvr.org/hdk2.html
That price point is definitely tempting me.
Competitive specs against the other big dogs and at $399 USD
http://www.osvr.org/hdk2.html
That price point is definitely tempting me.
Last edited:
Just beware that the OSVR dev kit might be subject to one months warranty only like the first dev kid. If it is the case you might be risking your dosh as the original was known to die a lot. Their black screen of death due to firmware update which KO some of their headsets is well known on reddit and other forums. Just a bit of warning. Otherwise it sounds good. Also you might want to add 79 dollars for the motion cover plus postage so you are looking at around 500 dollars if you want full VR experience if they charge postage and even more in Europe, but still not a bad deal I guess
Last edited:
Been thinking about this - my PC only rocks an AMD R9 270 graphics card. It seems likely the new HMD will - as well as being more expensive - require a more meaty PC to play with. Like I might need a new GPU, or even a new CPU (effectively a new computer). I might be better off with the older model (1.4), which is also much cheaper....
Hmmm.
Hmmm.