Trinus VR, affordable PC VR gaming. Dev here!

[loxai]

Hi everybody,

For the last few months I've seen posts here related to mobile VR in general or Trinus VR in particular, how to use it, what head mount is recommended, problems...
So I thought it was time for me to join the forum and try to help a bit with questions and issues you might have.

For those who don't know, Trinus VR is a low cost software solution that uses your own phone and a head mount like Google Cardboard (or Homido, VR One, ColorCross, etc.) to play PC games in Virtual Reality.

My name is Xavier, I am the guy behind Trinus VR (or Trinus Gyre, as it was formerly known). I started this project simply because I wanted to play flight sims in VR. There was no cheap and easy way to do that so I decided to create it myself. With the powerful smartphones we have nowadays, it seemed to me like a good thing to use them for VR and make the most of such hardware.

After a few tests and proofs of concepts, I realised this could really be a feasible alternative to expensive, non publicly available systems like Rift or Vive. Trinus VR is still under heavy development and it will get much better as I keep working on it. It's communities like this, providing feedback, reporting bugs or showing gameplay videos that inspire me to give everything to the project.
I actually quit my regular job last January. It was, it is, a risky move, but I love the project (even if I now spend more than twice as much time working) and believe it can be a great product for everyone to enjoy the thrill of Virtual Reality. Hopefully I can keep dedicated to it, with your support.

So, introduction done Let me know your thoughts and experiences with Trinus VR. And if you haven't tried it yet, do! You can check trinusvr.com for download links and usage instructions (and also reach the Trinus VR forum).

 

[SlackR]

Hi everybody,

For the last few months I've seen posts here related to mobile VR in general or Trinus VR in particular, how to use it, what head mount is recommended, problems...
So I thought it was time for me to join the forum and try to help a bit with questions and issues you might have.

For those who don't know, Trinus VR is a low cost software solution that uses your own phone and a head mount like Google Cardboard (or Homido, VR One, ColorCross, etc.) to play PC games in Virtual Reality.

My name is Xavier, I am the guy behind Trinus VR (or Trinus Gyre, as it was formerly known). I started this project simply because I wanted to play flight sims in VR. There was no cheap and easy way to do that so I decided to create it myself. With the powerful smartphones we have nowadays, it seemed to me like a good thing to use them for VR and make the most of such hardware.

After a few tests and proofs of concepts, I realised this could really be a feasible alternative to expensive, non publicly available systems like Rift or Vive. Trinus VR is still under heavy development and it will get much better as I keep working on it. It's communities like this, providing feedback, reporting bugs or showing gameplay videos that inspire me to give everything to the project.
I actually quit my regular job last January. It was, it is, a risky move, but I love the project (even if I now spend more than twice as much time working) and believe it can be a great product for everyone to enjoy the thrill of Virtual Reality. Hopefully I can keep dedicated to it, with your support.

So, introduction done Let me know your thoughts and experiences with Trinus VR. And if you haven't tried it yet, do! You can check trinusvr.com for download links and usage instructions (and also reach the Trinus VR forum).

Nice to meet you... Have you got it running well with ED ?

 

[Beavis Tingleball]

Guess not...

 

[ranix]

I'm very skeptical that you can get the kind of bandwidth you need to drive an HD display at a respectable framerate with low-latency headtracking on a cell phone. You simply don't have the hardware available that you need, at all.

Availability of displays is probably the least of VR's problems. We're having issues with performance in applications, stutter and judder, optimizing text for the pixel layouts and densities of various HMDs, reliability & precision & latency of headtracking, arm and body tracking, etc. etc.

Frankly I found Google Cardboard kind of insulting. It's one of those "why don't we just" things. Like someone went "hey, why don't we just put a cell phone in a case, that's basically all the Oculus is right"? Well, actually... no. It's not. The response to these kinds of "why don't we just" problems is always "because..." with a long answer and I'm getting kind of tired of seeing them asked constantly when the answer is always the same.

It's cool that you have a low cost development environment for playing with strategies for developing VR apps, but that's all this is unless I'm misunderstanding something.

 

[loxai]

@SlackR I haven't tested with ED as I don't have the game. But seen some videos of people using it and their feedback was positive. Since results depend on many factors, experiences may vary. Have you tried? didn't work? I've read one of the main issues is text size, and it can be sorted to some extent with different color schemes. Considering the max resolution that could be used with phone is higher than the Rift, I'd assume this problem wouldn't be unique to mobile VR... or maybe is it due to the headmount used (e.g. Cardboard being on the 'primitive' side of things)?

@Beavis well... er, good guess. Have you?

@ranix if you are so skeptical, I probably won't be able to convince you... but it is possible to get HD quality I think, it is best to try for yourself, because numbers and specs are nice but VR perception will vary a lot from person to person. That you find Cardboard insulting sounds a bit weird to me, tbh it is unclear if your 'problem' is specifically with Cardboard or the concept in general. Since there are much better alternatives to Cardboard and even better ones under development (e.g. headmounts with 150 degrees FOV and minimal distortion), I'm going to go with the second assumption of not liking the whole concept. Every option has its advantages and disadvantages. In my opinion, mobile PC VR (to use an alternative term to inappropriate Cardboard) has many advantages + great potential for going past dedicated VR systems. For example, resolutions are already above. Refresh rates are currently maxxed at 60hz, but there is 'some movement' towards 120hz. Sensors, same stuff: it's good, will get better.
In any case, even with current hardware, results can be very good. To put it in context: i7 non gaming laptop, Crysis 2 at 1280x720, Galaxy S5 via Usb 3 gets you 50-60fps with 50-60ms latency (with some tricks that further reduce the latency when it is most needed). But I know I know, you are going to jump at me about the latency
First, 60ms is not ideal but not so bad, it gets to a point where it depends on each individual. Second, did I mention this is a work in progress? I do believe much lower latency can be achieved with certain improvements (not easy ones, but I plan to get there), and then there are the standard tricks to further reduce perceived latency, like TimeWarp, which is specially beneficial on lower sensor sampling frequencies. And others I would like to experiment with.
Also, when there are limitations, one (maybe just me? ) looks for the best way to accommodate. For example: resolution or frame rate too low? I skip full 3D depth and use a 'half' resolution (8:9 or 4:3). Suddenly frame rates improve and I can go with full HD or higher resolutions (halved, as it is mirrored per eye on device).

That said, no, this is not a low cost solution for strategies/app development/whatever. This is to have fun playing games on a new level of immersion.
One other big issue I'm having with Trinus VR is that it seems to be too hard for some users to get it working properly and effectively, and they give up before checking the help or seeking support in the forums. This is specially tricky because I'm an IT guy, I know how the app works and I know how to make the most of it, but I have trouble communicating this or making it easy enough for the general user... that, aside from the tech matters, is currently one of the biggest obstacles to tackle. But I'm very stubborn, I will fix it

Also worth noting (and I finish) there's a difference between VR immersion and presence. The former is quite doable, the latter is much harder. It requires a set of features to be tuned very accurately... a perfect scenario that is definitely hard to achieve at this point using mobile tech, in part due to fragmentation, not only in Android but also headmount, and PC aaand connection, aaand game design. This is way easier on a closed system (i.e. Rift or Vive) with no or minimal hardware variations and a game industry developing exclusively for it.

Sorry for the long post, I like discussing these topics hello? hey... anybody still reading this?


TL;DR: Results are good, will get much better. There are limitations that can be countered if able to accept other tradeoffs. Cardboard is more a proof of concept than an end product (it's made of cardboard! ). There alternatives that are way better, existing and under development. 'Presence' is cool but hard to achieve, VR immersion is cool, accessible and fun and go play already!

 

[ziddan]

Ive tried trinus gyre and over usb tether it performs well in the video department, havnt used the gyro function since i had already set up ir head tracking with a modded ps3 camera and a diy ir cap.

Ive only got a 800x480 phone screen though so i havnt uset it in other than the training bits since there is no way to read text ingame.

The last couple of times i was using limelight but i should give the limeligth mode in trinus a try.

 

[Kyokushin]

Hello loxai, good to see you

 

[loxai]

hey, Kyokushin, long time no see

 

[Ancipital]

loxai,

You're a very silly person. Carry on doing unreasonable things with smartphones <3

(DK2 user, but cheering this sort of thing on from the sidelines)

 

[Igor]

Hello,to all!
first , thank you loxai for app, i try you last 3 or 4 ver. and i must say that it is getting better and better
i try it with 3 diferent phones and resolutions and with lg3 - 25xx X14xx res. screen - things start to look very nice and immersive , only problem was latency that was always present regarding the res. of phone.
if you can deal with it you are a winner !

thanks

 

[loxai]

@Ancipital, cheers, I'll try to be reasonable and unsilly, just for you kid!
@Igor, yes, have to work on reducing latency. Would be great to be able to play on an lg3 at full res!

 

[OVMorat]

Hi Loxai,
I've got as far as getting ED streaming to a Samsung Note 3 via WiFi direct (nice addition btw!)
My problem is getting the whole of the video to show up in smartphone display. I only see the top left of the output, spread across both eyes (ie no side by side image).
I've tried various resolutions, and the closest I got to working was with Side by Side 3D enabled in ED, but the resolution was so low it took me agest to remember the option locations to get back out again!
I still didn't see the whole of the picture in each eye.
I'm sure I'm missing something obvious - but a few words of wisdom would be greatly appreciated.
Best,
Morat

Edit:
Further issue. I'm trying to adjust the screen using the "Adjust" button on the Trinus settings and although I can press 5 to step between the adjustment options, 6 and 7 seem to make to difference to the settings. The grid doesn't move. It's possibly that 8 doesn't work either, but it's hard to tell if a reset has taken place.

Edit2: I think I've cracked it. If you use MOUSE as the head tracking, it's stable. It's a bit clumsy feeling but at least you get to correct the drift with your mouse if you want. I think I understand the image adjustment better now that I've realised you need to launch it from the phone, not the PC (or so it seems).

There's a lot to go at here, I got it looking really rather nice before I ran out of phone battery!
It's pretty exciting. I'm looking at a Note 4 or even 5 in the next month or two so if the WiFi bandwidth is up to it, the resolution should be a lot better. It's not terrible now (I guess it's the same as a DK2, being the same screen) so this really could be excellent.

But.. could we please have open track support? I prefer the head rotation support that the mouse look lacks.

Awesome work!!!!

 

[Xtarsia]

Hi Loxai,

Firstly, awesome work and keep it up! I've been trying out Trinus with a G3 and USB tethering, on various games, including Elite, and it shows a lot of promise!

Unfortunately, the main thing stopping me from playing most games with it, its the lack of display quality, specifically with elite, being unable to read text.

running at 2560x1440 with lens shaders (via sweetfx) courtesy of another ED player really does look fantastic, its a shame its a slideshow.

just how much of the available bandwidth / cpu is being used by trinus? From what I can tell, it only uses 3% of the USB tether and 2% CPU even at 2560x1440.

Another thing, I'd be willing to accept 100ms delay if it doubled (or more) the frame rate.


Thanks again for you awesome app. It lets me dabble with "VR" for only £4!

 

[Xtarsia]

The best balance I can get between quality / speed seems to be 1680x945, with quality on "Ultra" anything less than ultra severely affects text readability (downscales the resolution).

Usually get around 20-25 fps, 30-40ms latency still and the text is juuuuuust readable but doing so is strenuous!

sadly its only really good for a taste of what could be. (playing crysis 3 at 720p is pretty damn passable though!)


Perhaps some way of directly fiddling with the encoder settings? I presume you are using h264 with zerolatency preset? it could be worth it to give options for not being so singly focused on latency and allowing users to find a balance between latency/quality/fps that find playable

 

[Tomkin]

Hi,

as the last Post in this thread is from Juli 2015 i think that Loxai has stopped his support(in this Forum) i guess.

So hopefully there are some members who could help me out for some Questions.

Im trying to set up my TrinusVR with TrackIR, but get no results. How does this Work? Is the Gyro Sensor from my Phone connected with Track IR or how does this work?

Maybe the best way is to use some reflecting Points (or IR-LEDs) sticked on the Cardboard or (Cellphone)VRHeadset.

Connection to PC is via USB thetering,i think this will be the best way to redice latency.

Or is Direct Wifi faster then USB Thetering?

Best Regards

Tomkin

(Please no comments about my poor english grammar as my native Language is German)[uhh]

 

[Anjin]

...

I don't have any experience with TrackIR, but I experimented a bit with Trinus and Elite Dangerous VR a couple of months back, and can relate my experiences there:

I don't know which headset you are using, but I found the lenses on the knock-off cardboards to be pretty blurry. Invest in a nice plastic headset if you can, the lenses are generally way better. Just make sure it isn't too big for your phone or else the screen might not cover the whole field of view and you get a 'wearing-blinkers' effect with no 'peripheral vision'.

The lowest latency connection I found was using a USB-Ethernet adapter and cable, I felt it was slightly faster than USB Tethering, but the downside is the extra cabling. Wi-Fi had the highest latency.

The best experience I had in low-latency video streaming to my phone was actually using NVidia Shield Streaming with the Moonlight client. You need at least an NVidia GeForce GTX 650 series card and GeForce Experience for this. Remember set Elite to run at your phone resolution.

Head tracking is where stuff really gets tricky. Movement latency and inaccuracy == nausea in VR, and there is plenty to be found.

I found virtual-mouse-moving head tracking in Trinus to work pretty well, but there was considerable drift and latency.

I haven't used EDTracker, but I imagine it'll be similar to my phone accelerometer/gyroscope.

I also tried using OpenTrack 3-point tracking, with Trinus head tracking turned off. This got rid of the drift problem, but there was still too much latency and a fair bit of 'judder' when the tracking was unsure of the head pose. Also, at certain head positions, it confuses the points and the tracking goes a bit nuts, which can be disconcerting in VR. Single-point tracking might be limited (no roll), but it would probably provide a better experience. I didn't try it myself, since OpenTrack doesn't support that, and I didn't want to install FreeTrack.

I'm still looking out for a nice fast/accurate head tracking solution myself.

 

[Tomkin]

Hi,

in small steps im comig to a nice "CheapVR".

The last thing i have to figure out is why my Tracking with selecting TrackIR in Trinus is stucking/hanging. It looks like Trinus "want" to use the data that the Phone sends, but always slipping back. I has the look of two picture laying over each other an you are sliding one of it in the direction of movement which falls back immediately. Sorry, i cant't explain better.

The Picture Quality is quite good, there is noch lag. I hope i can solve the Problem with the Tracking. If it's done, i open a new Thread with the right Settings.

Regards

Tomkin

 

[MoodyB]

I haven't used EDTracker, but I imagine it'll be similar to my phone accelerometer/gyroscope.

I also tried using OpenTrack 3-point tracking, with Trinus head tracking turned off. This got rid of the drift problem, but there was still too much latency and a fair bit of 'judder' when the tracking was unsure of the head pose. Also, at certain head positions, it confuses the points and the tracking goes a bit nuts, which can be disconcerting in VR. Single-point tracking might be limited (no roll), but it would probably provide a better experience. I didn't try it myself, since OpenTrack doesn't support that, and I didn't want to install FreeTrack.

I'm still looking out for a nice fast/accurate head tracking solution myself.

EdTracker is much better than phone based tracking, and that's just going by the older 1st gen version of EdTracker that I have.

The EdTracker Pro has next to no drift from what I've read on here.

Hi,

in small steps im comig to a nice "CheapVR".

The last thing i have to figure out is why my Tracking with selecting TrackIR in Trinus is stucking/hanging. It looks like Trinus "want" to use the data that the Phone sends, but always slipping back. I has the look of two picture laying over each other an you are sliding one of it in the direction of movement which falls back immediately. Sorry, i cant't explain better.

The Picture Quality is quite good, there is noch lag. I hope i can solve the Problem with the Tracking. If it's done, i open a new Thread with the right Settings.

Best results I had with phone based rotational tracking was on an LG G3 using the FreePie IMU android app along with OpenTrack ( it's included in the OpenTrack download )

The tracking could still drift a little bit over time though & you'd have to overcompensate when returning to the centre point from looking to the far left or right.

If you didn't then the tracking would be off centre by about 5-10 degrees. Certainly useable but it could also make you nauseous at times because of the latency.

 

[Kyokushin]

No, is not better. Works very similar. Phone tracking works very good, but you need to have a phone with gyroscope, for example galaxy s3 or s4. No drift, no delay and phone tracking is wireless.

 

[MoodyB]

With the 3 phones I tried - LG G3, Xperia Z2 & Nexus 5X - I couldn't get the rotational tracking to be as smooth as it was with EdTracker.

Tried all sorts of combinations of TrinusVR / OpenTrack / Moonlight over USB tethering & wireless. Same result.

Maybe it was PEBKAC at my end though