ED and the Oculus Rift Developers Kit 2 (DK2) Discussion Thread

[Nikonthenet]

I have GREEN LIGHT for launch!

DK2 has arrived, unpacked and got the demo's working, am now going to try to get Elite up and running!


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01/07/2014 @ 09:42 PDT - Baton
01/07/2014 @ 16:12 PDT - Anthony Jones
04/07/2014 @ 02:54 PDT - Juniper
11/07/2014 @ 02:00 PDT - brumster
16/07/2014 @ 14:31 PDT - CMDR Pham Nuwen
23/07/2014 @ 12:28 PDT - Jhondidfool
25/07/2014 @ 02:38 PDT - Technotica
27/07/2014 @ 01:54 PDT - Mark D
28/07/2014 @ 03:31 PDT - Mumrah
02/08/2014 @ 12:15 PDT - RaistlinUK
05/08/2014 @ 05:33 PDT - Viajero
05/08/2014 @ 05:59 PDT - Mikevet
06/08/2014 @ 04:53 PDT - Hadron42/Cmdr Jonathan E
06/08/2014 @ 07:33 PDT - Coolts
07/08/2014 @ 07:27 PDT - Robin Sasson / CMDR Harry Paget Flashman
08/08/2014 @ 04:07 PDT - Tomas
08/08/2014 @ 14:13 PDT - Ceud
08/08/2014 @ 21:57 PDT - Bigdukesix
13/08/2014 @ 12:25 PDT - Zebarmy
16/08/2014 @ 12:56 PDT - Ref Minor
17/08/2014 @ 12:42 PDT - Pannad
19/08/2014 @ 06:36 PDT - KickahasTier
21/08/2014 @ 05.52 PDT - ZZleeZZ
22/08/2014 @ 07:57 PDT - Nomadski
23/08/2014 @ 02:44 PDT - si77
24/08/2014 @ 06:40 PDT - Carcharodon
26/08/2014 @ 06:16 PDT - Dooguk
28/08/2014 @ 02:07 PDT - Jim Chapman / CMDR Turnip
29/08/2014 @ 12:51 PDT - MadMossy / CMDR MadMossy
29/08/2014 @ 09:20 PDT - Dinbar
31/08/2014 @ 12.10 PDT - Kroenen
31/08/2014 @ 05.42 PDT - Nikonthenet
19/09/2014 @ 08.12 PDT - cmdr-brancki/ stephen427
20/09/2014 @ 11.48 PDT - Jericho
21/09/2014 @ 20:32 PDT - STABB666
22/10/2014 @ 12:19 PDT - Greebie / CMDR Nekkros

 

[[VR] Mad Mike]

Does anyone have any idea how much work it would be for Frontier to get ED working in Direct to rift mode? Has it ever been mentioned?

imo you have to remember the rift is (and bear in mind I am saying this as a fanboy rift owner) but it is small potatos at the moment, and FD have way more important things to get straight.

loads of devs seem to be having issues getting direct mode working, and I believe some of the work is needed on the oculus side as well.

I am fairly sure that by the time elite launches, or certainly by the time the rift launchers properly, there will be direct support.... until then, be glad we have what we have.... the stuttering is not the fault of extended mode....... loads of apps/games run superbly in extended.

word on the street is there could be a new driver for the rift in the next week.... if so, who knows what changes that will bring (for better or for worse!)

to answer your question tho.... no mate... no idea exactly how much work

 

[Mark D]

imo you have to remember the rift is (and bear in mind I am saying this as a fanboy rift owner) but it is small potatos at the moment, and FD have way more important things to get straight.

loads of devs seem to be having issues getting direct mode working, and I believe some of the work is needed on the oculus side as well.

I am fairly sure that by the time elite launches, or certainly by the time the rift launchers properly, there will be direct support.... until then, be glad we have what we have.... the stuttering is not the fault of extended mode....... loads of apps/games run superbly in extended.

word on the street is there could be a new driver for the rift in the next week.... if so, who knows what changes that will bring (for better or for worse!)

to answer your question tho.... no mate... no idea exactly how much work

Lol sorry my question wasn't meant to sound like complaining - I am VERY grateful for what we have Guess I was was kinda thinking aloud. Totally agree Direct mode is not a priority for FD but would be 'nice'. When I run other software with Direct mode, made me wander if they could just turn it on. If it needs further work by Oculus first, then probably not and answers the question.

I hadn't heard any rumours about a new rift driver ....... so that was interesting thanks

 

[Juniper]

Eeeep. 0.4.3 released!

https://developer.oculusvr.com/?action=hist

Main thing seems to be Linux support, but there are other new features & bug fixes in there too.

 

[Mark D]

Eeeep. 0.4.3 released!

https://developer.oculusvr.com/?action=hist

Main thing seems to be Linux support, but there are other new features & bug fixes in there too.

Was just reading that over in the Oculus Dev centre.

*There's no new firmware at this time. If I understand this correctly (that's a big if) - this doesn't effect ED until there is a new ED release compiled under this SDK?

----------
Version 0.4.3 Beta

New Features
•Display Driver latency reduction in Direct Mode by 1 frame, resulting in 0ms Post-present
•Updated display driver to support multi-threaded calls efficiently, this may improve performance in some scenarios.
•Added option in the Oculus Configuration Utility to Suppress the Health and Safety Warning during active development.
•Added option in the Oculus Configuration Utility to set the OVRServer logging level.
•Updated the Health and Safety Warning screen to reflect an age restriction of 13. More information can be found in the Oculus VR Best Practices Guide and in the Oculus VR Health And Safety Warnings documentation.
•Experimental Linux support (see included LINUX_README)
•Numerous stability and performance improvements.

Unity
•Added support for Unity Free in Unity 4.5.5 and up.
•Overhauled Unity C# API. Reduced performance overhead. See the migration guide for more details.
•Improved support for multi-layered rendering. Just instantiate multiple OVRCameraRigs, set Camera.depth and Camera.clearFlags for each eye, and use

Bug Fixes
•Fixes in Vsync direct mode tearing.
•Fixed a bug in the D3D10/11 rendering path that was causing the overall brightness of the visuals to change on some systems.
•Improved OpenGL state management through contexts Unity
•Fixed a source of jitter in TimeWarp timing that resulted in shaky images.
•Removed problematic "out of camera range" message. Will be replaced by an optional camera bounds visualization in a future release.
•In the editor, Game view rendering no longer targets the wrong view..

 

[doctrewho]

People on reddit are saying they can now getting Elite running in direct mode with this. But there seem to be "issues", might not be a good plan to update just yet. I'm going to test it out when I get home though cause I'm a sucker for "must run latest and greatest version now".

 

[Juniper]

Was just reading that over in the Oculus Dev centre.

*There's no new firmware at this time. If I understand this correctly (that's a big if) - this doesn't effect ED until there is a new ED release compiled under this SDK?

Couldn't say for definite mate, but looking at it, unless there is an SDK change (i.e. different calls) we should be good to go even if it's compiled against 0.4.2. It's not quite the radical departure that 0.3 -> 0.4 was.

Obviously most of the improvements are centred around their own display driver, which E: D isn't using, and I doubt we'll see that for beta 3 (it would be nice, but I'm sure FD have bigger fish to fry at this point). The rest is bug fixes, which E: D should benefit from.

I'm saying all this and yet I haven't risked installing it yet.

 

[Juniper]

Ah k. I think it's possibly that causing the most nausea to me, that and straining my eyes trying to see any half decent detail out of the ship window.

If you're feeling brave (I'm not) and it's bothering you greatly (it isn't for me), there is a potential 'fix' I have heard but never tried.

The screen in the DK2 is a Samsung Galaxy Note 3 screen. Apparently, if you put a standard screen protector on it (couple of quid from eBay) it reduces the SDE greatly. Some have said it even removes it entirely. The downside is a slight loss of brightness, so your gamma setting would need to be raised slightly to compensate.

Doing this of course means taking your Rift apart, which will invalidate your warranty, yada yada yada... but if you're feeling brave...

EDIT: Found a video showing the improvement. Almost tempted now...

 

[Mark D]

Couldn't say for definite mate, but looking at it, unless there is an SDK change (i.e. different calls) we should be good to go even if it's compiled against 0.4.2. It's not quite the radical departure that 0.3 -> 0.4 was.

Obviously most of the improvements are centred around their own display driver, which E: D isn't using, and I doubt we'll see that for beta 3 (it would be nice, but I'm sure FD have bigger fish to fry at this point). The rest is bug fixes, which E: D should benefit from.

I'm saying all this and yet I haven't risked installing it yet.

Just read a later comment from the Oculus dev who posted the release - he meant to put in the title that it included a new run time. Sod it ...... updating now

 

[TrueFranco]

It work on Direct mode with the new runtime but only at 60Hz not 75

 

[Jonathan E]

People on reddit are saying they can now getting Elite running in direct mode with this. But there seem to be "issues", might not be a good plan to update just yet. I'm going to test it out when I get home though cause I'm a sucker for "must run latest and greatest version now".

Yep, works in direct mode now

Good for me as I couldn't get extended mode to work at all

 

[Mark D]

Yep, works in direct mode now .....

That is TOO weird! A couple of hours ago I was reading these forums and I asked a random question about direct mode thinking I would look stupid (as usual). If I was reading this from someone else I would not believe it - feel free to flame me

 

[ZZleeZZ]

If you're feeling brave (I'm not) and it's bothering you greatly (it isn't for me), there is a potential 'fix' I have heard but never tried.

The screen in the DK2 is a Samsung Galaxy Note 3 screen. Apparently, if you put a standard screen protector on it (couple of quid from eBay) it reduces the SDE greatly. Some have said it even removes it entirely. The downside is a slight loss of brightness, so your gamma setting would need to be raised slightly to compensate.

Doing this of course means taking your Rift apart, which will invalidate your warranty, yada yada yada... but if you're feeling brave...

EDIT: Found a video showing the improvement. Almost tempted now...

I have been looking into this in some depth recently. What sparked my interest is that rumour has it that the Crescent Bay prototype has diffuser tech which removes any perceived resolution. I am baffled why a diffuser was never used for DK2 but someone speculated that it might be that they wanted the developer version to show the devs the image they were generating warts and all.

Anyway, a standard screen protector will do very little, I bought a bunch and tested them on my Note 3 screen using one of the DK2 lenses to see what the effects were. Matte screen protectors make very little difference, a decent screen protector will not change or filter the image at all and I have found that the cheap nasty screen protector I tried is actually pretty good optically.

I have heard that a privacy filter screen protector will have better results and have ordered one of those, I will report back when I receive it.

The best, by far, results I have had testing different materials has been a plastic sandwich bag bought from either tescos or sainsburys. Cant remember which. A completely clear bag will have very little effect, what is required is a material that diffuses the pixels just enough to make them melt into the next ones without blurring the image further. The sandwich bag I tested does this just a little more than I would like but would be acceptable to my eye. The real big problem with this is that getting that plastic attached to the screen surface is next to impossible without introducing artifacts due to the bag creasing or not laying completely flat on the screen. One enterprising fellow created a frame across which he stretched the plastic bag, he then took the DK2 screen (stripped from the casing) and held it against the plastic to mark out the area of the screen. Next he applied contact glue to the plastic and allowed it to dry a little, eek! He then held the screen against the plastic and once glued cut around the screen and folded the overlap behind the screen. But thats crazy talk!

The only other promising option I have found on my searches would be a proper diffuser material, such as used by photographers or lighting engineers. The problem with this is its not easily available or particularly cheap.

Would appreciate any ideas of where it might be possible to source some samples of likely materials.

 

[Juniper]

Anyway, a standard screen protector will do very little, I bought a bunch and tested them on my Note 3 screen using one of the DK2 lenses to see what the effects were. Matte screen protectors make very little difference, a decent screen protector will not change or filter the image at all and I have found that the cheap nasty screen protector I tried is actually pretty good optically.

Good to know, thanks. When my Rift was on it's way, I read about this method and ordered a couple of cheap Note 3 protectors. I haven't had the courage to try it. From what you're saying, it's not worth the risk.

I have heard that a privacy filter screen protector will have better results and have ordered one of those, I will report back when I receive it.

Please do.

The best, by far, results I have had testing different materials has been a plastic sandwich bag bought from either tescos or sainsburys. Cant remember which. A completely clear bag will have very little effect, what is required is a material that diffuses the pixels just enough to make them melt into the next ones without blurring the image further. The sandwich bag I tested does this just a little more than I would like but would be acceptable to my eye. The real big problem with this is that getting that plastic attached to the screen surface is next to impossible without introducing artifacts due to the bag creasing or not laying completely flat on the screen. One enterprising fellow created a frame across which he stretched the plastic bag, he then took the DK2 screen (stripped from the casing) and held it against the plastic to mark out the area of the screen. Next he applied contact glue to the plastic and allowed it to dry a little, eek! He then held the screen against the plastic and once glued cut around the screen and folded the overlap behind the screen. But thats crazy talk!

Ohhh kayyy, I won't be trying that one.

The only other promising option I have found on my searches would be a proper diffuser material, such as used by photographers or lighting engineers. The problem with this is its not easily available or particularly cheap.

Would appreciate any ideas of where it might be possible to source some samples of likely materials.

You can buy a 20" diffuser from Jessops. £15. You'd have to take a knife to it to cut it to size and then stick it on somehow...

 

[Mark D]

People on reddit are saying they can now getting Elite running in direct mode with this. But there seem to be "issues" ......

It's work in progress but still a nice bonus to see something in direct mode.

Started first time, but yes as kinda expected seeing some issues :
- as mentioned by TrueFranco in native rift resolution it appears to only offer in ED / options / graphics a refresh rate of 60 MHz.
- I changed my main monitor to 1280 x 1024 & 75 MHz. In game, same as above but if I lower the game resolution to match can now choose an ED refresh rate of 75 MHz.
- From extended mode with graphics quality low my fps dropped from 75 to 37.

 

[KING5TON]

Well it's a bonus to see something in direct mode.

Started first time, but yes as kinda expected seeing some issues :

- as mentioned by TrueFranco in native rift resolution it appears to only offer in ED / options / graphics a refresh rate of 60 MHz (from extended mode with low my fps dropped from 75 to 37).

- I changed my main monitor to 1280 x 1024 & 75 MHz. In game, same as above but if I lower the game resolution to match can now choose an ED refresh rate of 75 MHz.

Use this - http://www.monitortests.com/forum/Thread-Custom-Resolution-Utility-CRU
Setup 1920x1080 75hz.
Restart your PC
You should now be able to select 1920x1080p 75hz in E: D

 

[horizone]

Discovered an interesting thing... I always get judder in space stations. The kind of judder that when you pan your view across the HUD you seem to have double vision. Anyway, I checked my FPS and it's around 60-63 when sitting in your ship in the hangar in the docking tutorial.

However, sometimes after RESTARTING the tutorial (not always on second try but mostly) and once back in your ship in the hangar I suddenly get 75 FPS. Nothing have changed except for the fact that this is the second or third try without leaving the tutorial. Very interesting I think.

I had all settings on low for this test. Oculus quality highest. 1920x1080. Nvidia GTX 980. AMD processor at 3800 mhz, 4 GB RAM, Windows 10 latest build, Oculus runtime 0.4.3

EDIT: Restarted the game and got 75 FPS on first try, second try I got single judders every 500 ms or so. Very strange. Does anyone else get different judder frequency on subsequent retries in the docking tutorial?

By the way, how do I launch ED in Direct Mode if I want to try it? Just switching mode in Oculus Config didn't seem to help.

 

[Mark D]

Use this - http://www.monitortests.com/forum/Thread-Custom-Resolution-Utility-CRU
Setup 1920x1080 75hz.
Restart your PC
You should now be able to select 1920x1080p 75hz in E: D

I like your thinking - testing now

Something I have noticed is ED is not picking up the resolution / refresh rate from my windows desktop - but from my monitor options. Ie set my windows desktop back to my usual resolution & 60 Mhz refresh, but the options in ED were the same (could choose 75 Mhz for a lower res not set in windows but native to my monitor).

Also my earlier post was wrong, I hadn't noticed that the resolution 1920x1080 was entirely missing from ED because my primary monitor did not support. I chose the highest available 1680x1050.

 

[Mark D]

Use this - http://www.monitortests.com/forum/Thread-Custom-Resolution-Utility-CRU
Setup 1920x1080 75hz.
Restart your PC
You should now be able to select 1920x1080p 75hz in E: D

Yes that worked thank you. I can now select 1920x1080p 75hz in ED.

I guess there is something else going on in direct mode. No matter whether I choose low or high graphics in ED my fps never shifts from 37. I'll probably knock it on the head for tonight and see if others get the same.

Cheers
Mark

PS
At 37 fps I would expect judder (have had judder before so know what it looks like). But in direct mode on the rift I am getting a 'shimmer' - everything is in focus, but when I turn I get a double / ghost image. When stationaty it stops. The only other time I've seen this is when someone mocked up an image earlier in this thread. The mirror image on the monitor is butter smooth which makes me wander if the reading of 37 fps is correct. Possibly linked to low peristance being turned off? At least two other ED users on reddit have the same problem.

PSS my fps is locked at exactly 37.5. Again given that's exactly half of what I would expect which makes me suspicious.

 

[Sanderson]

Careful with the new 4.3 sdk. My tracking no longer works.