Playing Elite with Google Cardboard

[v01i0]

Thanks! that worked - although I had to manually set the USB Tether to a really high metric. It defaulted to 5 which still took priority over the suggested value of 10 for the LAN.

I'm getting 35-37 FPS @ 8x600 (x2 for fake3D) sitting on the pad in station. Daren't launch yet!

Next up Freetrack!

How do you do that? I mean manually increase the metric of USB Tethering? at the moment I am getting really poor framerate with my setup. I need to configure it more tonight if I have time. I'd appreciate any advice that could improve framerate (BTW, I tried lowering the image quality through TriniusVR, it increased FPS but the image quality suffered too much, made ED look like one of those games from 90s).

-v

 

[v01i0]

Okay, so I did something and Trinus client could not determine connection anymore. It worked fine earlier today until I installed Samsung USB-drivers. Somehow even when uninstalling them I am unable get the client connect, even with USB recognizes my phone. As mentioned, I tried uninstalling Samsung USB-driver and re-installing client to my phone, to no avail. I am at loss, what to do?

-v

 

[Moonax IRL]

Those Samsung drivers are a stones to uninstall, I had the 1.45 version and they wouldn`t work and I had to do a system recovery to uninstall, I came across version 1.5 and they worked a treat and my Note 4 connects every time but I had to get rid of the previous version first. I had the same issue as yourself.

 

[v01i0]

Those Samsung drivers are a stones to uninstall, I had the 1.45 version and they wouldn`t work and I had to do a system recovery to uninstall, I came across version 1.5 and they worked a treat and my Note 4 connects every time but I had to get rid of the previous version first. I had the same issue as yourself.

Thanks for the advice. I did the system restore to the date before I even started meddling with Trinus and the drivers, but it still won't connect. God damn I am not going to re-install my whole setup for this. I am done, I got the taste, but I guess I'll be waiting for the better meal (Oculus).

It would still been nice to try to optimize the card board experience but now it seems that I cannot.

-v

 

[Moonax IRL]

Thanks for the advice. I did the system restore to the date before I even started meddling with Trinus and the drivers, but it still won't connect. God damn I am not going to re-install my whole setup for this. I am done, I got the taste, but I guess I'll be waiting for the better meal (Oculus).

It would still been nice to try to optimize the card board experience but now it seems that I cannot.

-v

Just found the link for the drivers download, http://androidmtk.com/download-samsung-usb-drivers. Version 1.5.55.0 is what I used but they maybe Note 4 specific but I don`t think so, there`s a list of samsung devices on the page. Just make sure you have fully deleted the previous ones, go and delete the samsung folder manually if its still there before a fresh install. You just need the usb driver and not the Kies software.

 

[v01i0]

http://androidmtk.com/download-samsung-usb-drivers

When I was removing the drivers I found out that I had exactly the same version as in above link. What puzzles me is that even when the phone and computer recognizes each other (phone is detected as I plug it to the USB) and I can move files between them, open the phone contents in file explorer, I still can't make the Trinus mobile client to understand that it is in fact connected. Basically everything seems to work just fine except TrinusVR on the phone.

-v

 

[Moonax IRL]

When I was removing the drivers I found out that I had exactly the same version as in above link. What puzzles me is that even when the phone and computer recognizes each other (phone is detected as I plug it to the USB) and I can move files between them, open the phone contents in file explorer, I still can't make the Trinus mobile client to understand that it is in fact connected. Basically everything seems to work just fine except TrinusVR on the phone.

-v

Ok, it can be tricky I had the same experience where I could transfer files and it saw my phone as the Note 4 but in device manager there was an issue with something like an NCIS android unknown in the drop drown menu. The new driver sorted that. also device manager sees my phone as a samsung modem under modem. The info is out there but it takes a bit of time. If you have the same driver as I am using then I am unsure what the problem is, my only thought is that the new driver I installed would not work until the previous driver was completely removed.

 

[Luke Antra]

Best for you would be to manually set a custom resolution with the height of your screen and the width of half of your screen.
Also, don't use trinus built in lens correction, use the Sweet FX lens correction shaders which also fix color etc.

 

[loxai]

Ok, a few tips (Trinus dev here):
- For max readability (while keep things fast enough), Fake3D with a resolution close to phone's half widthXfull height. @v01i0, you mention you have a 1920x1080 phone. In that case, I'd recommend something like 800x900 (8:9) or 1152x864 (4:3)
- Performance wise, there are still more improvements to be made in Trinus (also, make sure you are up to date, I do frequent updates). At the moment, Trinus relies a lot on CPU, so it is important to have a speedy processor
- While USB connection is usually the fastest option, a good Wifi AC router (and AC phone) can give pretty good results
- There are some tricks you can pull using the crop/zoom options in Trinus Advanced Mode>Video tab. These can help to avoid scaling distortion (egg-shaped) and to increase performance while keeping content sharp. The idea is to use a higher resolution in ED and then crop to a portion of that. In the example of a 1152x864 resolution, you may crop to about 60% horizontally to get a ratio close to 8:9 and get faster results.
- Regarding the drivers, I understand it can be painful, but getting the right one can make a big difference (not working/working/working better). There are some sites with info about how to manually remove those drivers, by deleting certain Windows folder (careful with that!). If Trinus fails to detect the connection you still can manually enter the IP shown on the phone (using the Set IP option). Of course, that might not work either if the driver is not right at all (note that being able to transfer files and seeing the phone on Windows explorer is not the same as USB Tethering to create a network connection)

@Luke Antra Trinus Lens correction does support color fix (chromatic aberration distortion)

Hope this helps!

 

[Luke Antra]

@ cptwhite



So if I have the non-steam version of ED are there any other options? I was really looking forward to giving this a go until I read this bit

You can redeem your Elite: Dangerous key on steam so you can use it through steam.

 

[ManuelCS]

I have LG G3 (display resolution of 2K - 2560x1440 - ), how can I fix Trinus - or Elite if I have - to make a good res of view? I mean, I really can't read the text in-game.

 

[Geztyr]

OK, so with a local store selling Cardboard kits for only €2, and my old Xperia Z gathering dust, I figured 'why not?' and picked one up. Got it working on ED but with two minor     les. Wondering of those more in the know can help:
1) the image is squashed. I'm running in 1024x768, SBS 3d mode, but the image is stretched vertically. Is there a cure I'm missing? It also means I can't see my radar at all unless I purposely look down at it.
2) Despite Trinus saying it supports Freetrack, I can't get it to work. I can only get head movement if I set tracking to 'mouse' and engage freelook in-game. If I set it to freetrack, once I strat the display, I get about 2 seconds of freetrack movement as the main game visual loads, but then the cockpit/hud load, and freetrack stops.

Apart from those two points, it's not too bad at all. Not having any trouble reading text. only running the free version of Trinus on my phone.

 

[Arthanis]

I was able to get this set up on my PC, but is it just me, or am I the only one seeing the view as looking at a giant monitor?
I am not seeing any depth here. It's like Im in a 360 degree monitor.

 

[megadonkeyx]

i tried this using a pasonomi plastic "cardboard" hmd before getting a deepoon e2 chinese dk2 clone. Found the best software to be "vr streamer" in terms of raw speed over wifi.

trinus - buggy
intugame vr - slow, poor quality visuals
vr streamer - very very good and very cheap app

was using an LG G3s

 

[Arthanis]

i tried this using a pasonomi plastic "cardboard" hmd before getting a deepoon e2 chinese dk2 clone. Found the best software to be "vr streamer" in terms of raw speed over wifi.

trinus - buggy
intugame vr - slow, poor quality visuals
vr streamer - very very good and very cheap app

was using an LG G3s

Off of your post I went and got my hands on VR Streamer.
Definitely quick on the connection, but it would snap my mouse to opposite corners of my screen every 15 seconds, lurching my view all over.
The other issue with it was the latency. Was having a very difficult time trying to get it to be a clean stream.
Feels like theyre all very meh solutions right now...

 

[Ittiz]

I just got a google cardboard and I have an LG G4 (2560x1440 screen res) phone that doesn't have service I've been trying with this. First off if your phone doesn't have service (no sim card or an invalid one) you can't use the USB connection, since the phone needs a data connection in order to allow USB tethering. So I have to rely on the phone's Wifi, but most of the time this seems to work well, with an image quality and speed similar to that of the computer monitor when I have my settings correct.

I'm currently using Trinus, which as other people have pointed out can be buggy. My biggest issue with it is it seems to take a crop of your game window directly from your screen and sends it to the phone. So you can't play dirty tricks to get higher resolutions like making the game run windowed at 2560x1440. Trinus won't send the image, or else you only see a part of the window if it does. However what I've found to get around this is either a really good monitor (that has the res of your phone at least) or lots of monitors. With Trinus the "Freetrack" protocol works well, but tends to drift a lot. I found the best solution for this is to bind the head track reset to a keyboard key and just press it when I notice is doesn't seem to be centering well anymore. Also don't use any key binds for menus in the game! It seems to be buggy in ED and messes up the game's head track centering!

I'm currently using two monitors, both running at 1280x1024, combined gives 2560x1024. Same width as my phone, but not the same height. Text is easily readable using the goggles and object edges are nearly as crisp as they are on the monitors. However because the height is 1024 and not 1440 it causes the image on the phone to be even more stretched than it already is on the screen. I tried compensating for this using SweetFX shaders but it results in either a blurry, bloated, low quality looking image, or one that is highly letter-boxed. So for now I'm putting up with a distorted, but crisp image. Ideally I'd like monitor setup that is 2560x2880. That would provide the best undistorted image quality on a 2560x1440 phone. I just don't know is my computer and network connection could handle it...

 

[wstephenson]

If you have an EDTracker or other head tracking device, you can use that and OpenTrack instead of Trinus+the phone's sensors to provide accurate, non-drifting head tracking.

 

[Ittiz]

Well that would be quite logical I suppose. However I'm super cheap and expending a few bucks for a google cardboard was enough of a stretch.

 

[wstephenson]

If you figure out a way to get non-letterboxed 8:9 aspect ratio out of ED's SBS mode, let me know. It worked this way the first time I tried Cardboard + Geforce home streaming + Moonlight + EDTracker+ED+Reshade (whew!) but GFE now seems to stream the whole 1600x1200 screen I use, downscaled to 1920x1080, rather than the custom resolution I have set. Hence letterboxing.

 

[Ittiz]

Okie dokie I figured it out. I use AMD GPUs, and I have some extra unused monitor connections. This enabled me to create and Emulated EDID "Ghost display" with no actual display attached in AMD's catalyst control center. I created a new EDID file that had the specs of 2560x2880 (as wide, but twice as high as my phone) using this program: http://www.tucows.com/preview/329441/Phoenix-EDID-Designer. I then imported that that EDID into my Ghost display using the catalyst control center. I already have an extra monitor so I had to set it as my primary in order to play the game, but man does it look fantastic, even using Trinus. However the resolution is a lot for my poor old computer to handle so the frame rate isn't that spectacular. The key here is I'm not depending on a reshader to fix my aspect ratio, I'm using the aspect ratio difference between my ghost display (2560x2880) and my phone (2560x1440) to fix it for me.

EDIT: A resolution of 1920x2160 produces a much better frame rate with very little reduction in quality. I don't think those screen streaming apps can send 2560x2880 data anyway...