Quote from slakmehl :

One suggestion: it would be *great* to make it possible to map the Rift 're-centering' to arbitrary wheel buttons. I don't have a prayer of locating my keyboard and the ALT and F12 keys with the Rift on, and that and escape are really the only buttons needed to stay in the Rift indefinitely.

It´s possible. I did it too and it´s very useful. See this thread from the Oculus forum:

Quote from scawen :

Hi RiftXdev, thanks for the feedback. It's really easy to bind any ALT+ key to a wheel button. In the Controls Options screen there is an ALT+ tab so you can assign any of those keys (or any text command you enter) to a wheel button.

Quote from Strien :

I sounds like everyone else is experiencing some black bars with E9, but I personally can't see them here (I'm using the B lenses on the closest setting).

The B cups give you a lower FOV than the A cups. And the C cups are even more worse than the B cups. Thats why I only use the A cups and wearing contact lenses

Quote from just2fast :

Can you couple the mouse pointer with the rifts view....
....For example I am sitting in a racing seat which stays 1m away from my desk.
A wirelwss keyboard is next to me, but the mouse is on the desk. So it´s a bit annoying when switching some settings in lfs. Always lift the Rift up, leave the chair, make settings, go back to the seat, put rift on again...

Scawen, here you can see what I mean. This guy has the same issues (in this case with iRacing):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?f ... e&v=x-hX70oWZSI#t=663

And this is how other games solve it. For example the VR jam Winner "ciess". Simple but very entertaining game:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?f ... e&v=aIYfUkQtFh0#t=275

Quote from Scawen :

1) How does the Rift SDK get the value of EyeToScreenDistance? Do you have to enter it manually or does it measure it in some way? I see (from one thread) the default distance is 0.041 [EDIT : apparently this value doesn't change when you use the physical adjusters and is hard coded for each type of Rift so that doesn't sound too good at the moment]

No idea, what this value should be. The only values that can be set atm in the ConfigUtility are the eye cups (A,B,C), IPD and Player Height.

Quote from Scawen :

The other high priority is to get to grips with the FOV calculation.

I have one more for the hight priority list pleeaaaaaaaseeeee :bowdown:
Can you couple the mouse pointer with the rifts view. So that the mouse pointer is like attached to the nose, but on HUD level? And the possibility to assign a wheel button as left mouse button? That would be really great.
In this way there would be no need to lift the Rift always up and search for the mouse. Instead the whole navigation through the menus can be done with the Rift!

For example I am sitting in a racing seat which stays 1m away from my desk.
A wirelwss keyboard is next to me, but the mouse is on the desk. So it´s a bit annoying when switching some settings in lfs. Always lift the Rift up, leave the chair, make settings, go back to the seat, put rift on again...

This implementation might be also a good basis for future improvements. For example in this way the whole buttons (lights, horn...) in the virtual cockpit can be pressed!

Some infos regarding the E9 Patch.
With the eyes as close as possible to the lenses the rendered view is not enough, so that there are black borders seen at the edges.
With the default distance (eye-lenses) I can´t really say if it´s some black from the black display area or the plastic lense holder.

I would suggest to reduce the viewport just a little bit compared to the E8 patch.
Maybe using the vertical boundaries exactly from that of the tuscany demo and the horizontal one between the E8 and E9 boundaries.

Ohh and back to the FOV angle discussion
In the E9 Patch a vertical FOV setting of something around 98° seems to be fine. 110-112° is now too much.

A resolution of 1920x1200 with downsampling now has a noticable effect for the better!

Quote from Dygear :

Ok but why? If some can see it, then why throw away information?

Because you can´t see it clearly.
Do a test. Look forward and then tell me if you can see details on the left/right/top/down edges of you view.

In the Rift this peripheral area is between the red and green dots (see pictures of my recent post) which is only noticeable when looking straight forward.
When moving the eyes to left/right/top/down, then suddenly the view is limited to the red border.

Anyway the pixelaton is just a theory, but I can imagine it works. The question will be if it´s technically possible and will bring performance benefits.

As I just wrote, the rendered view shouldn´t be reduced too much, because the black borders might get noticeable by some individuals.
But I have a different idea...

What about if the peripheral vision (outside red area) is simply rendered with a very very low resolution, and inside the red area with normal resolution?

Ok,

I did some more tests (with the E8Patch!).

Last time I used the default distance between eyes and lenses.
This time I moved the Rift as close to the eyes as possible (can be adjusted on the side of the Rift with a coin). In this position my eyes almost touch the lenses.
--> The FOV is much higher then, but not really playable (at least for me) because it´s uncomfortable and the lenses become easily dirty.

Anyway see the attachment for the results.
The red dots describe the area, which I can see when i move my eyes around.
The green dots describe the area, which I can see when I look straight forward. Well honestly it´s not really seeing, it´s more like "oh ok , there is something now at the edge". But it´s noticeable.

How come when looking forward, there can be seen more?
I just can explain it in this way: For example when looking to the left, the pupil is more near the lens edge, which hides the view.

Quote from Scawen :

So that I know roughly what a good render size looks like, can you post a Rift screen shot from another game that seems to fill the entire area that you can see, but doesn't draw too many wasted pixels?

I´ve added a picture where the Rifts view and that of the Oculus Tuscany Demo are combined.
When looking at that picture I agree with DickDastardly, that the view shouldn´t be restricted too much.
I have an IPD of 64mm which is exactly the distance of the Rifts lenses. That means my view goes straight through the lenses.

Let´s say someone has a smaller IPD, then it would mean that he could see further to the left and the right...

Quote from Scawen :

That looks like an extremely serious issue! I can't believe the designers of the Rift intended you to look at such a small part of the screen - resolution is low enough already without throwing away 70% of the pixels! Is this something do do with your eye position relative to the lenses, your choice of lens, something else? Are you certain that screenshot was displayed in full on the Rift's screen? I wonder if this is something you should discuss with Oculus VR technical support. It would be good to hear from someone else about this... other Rift users, can you do a similar test and see how much of the screen you can actually see?

That is true but that is only in the menu screens. The in game render (of world and cars) is not affected. Because the background is now drawn in a different way (so that it can be rendered as a 3D thing after the main draw) that means that 3D objects (cars / drivers) can't be drawn after the background. So the 3D object is rendered onto a render target texture and that is added to the 2D draw. So the problem is the old problem... for some unknown reason, Direct 3D will not perform antialiasing when rendering to a render target texture.

quick reply, because I go out with my wife ...
Using A cups, normal distance from lenses.
No, i think it´s all fine. This is known a long time ago. I would almost say this is normal.
Other games (half life, team fortress ...) for example don´t render that much on the screen.

Quote from Scawen :

I don't want to do that until I've gone through the calculations, using the official method. I am surprised you are using such a high value because the LFS Oculus Rift view does not use the full vertical FOV available on a 16:10 Rift (and that is OK because you have a helmet on). But this needs to be checked using the recommended calculations.

I can´t sleep, so here some thoughts why a vertical FOV setting around 110-112° in lfs might be correct.
I did a test with a screenshot from the game and watched that fullscreen in the Rift.
Then i have drawn red dots to mark the visible area when looked trough the lenses.
Surprisingly there are alot of rendered pixels wasted!

Now let´s assume, that the Rift has a vertical FOV of 90° which can be read often somewhere. This are around 253 pixels in the screenshots (vertical red line).
The vertical blue line is around 349 pixels long.

-->349/x=tan(lfs_FOV_angle/2)
-->253/x=tan(90°/2)

-->x=253
-->lfs_FOV_angle=2*(atan(349/253))
-->lfs_FOV_angle=108°


Edit1: x is the distance from screen to eye
Edit2: the blue vertical distance should be even a bit longer because of the distortion --> lfs_FOV_angle is even bigger than 108°

Last edited by just2fast, Sat 30 Nov 2013, 15:53.

Quote from Scawen :

I don't want to do that until I've gone through the calculations, using the official method. I am surprised you are using such a high value because the LFS Oculus Rift view does not use the full vertical FOV available on a 16:10 Rift (and that is OK because you have a helmet on). But this needs to be checked using the recommended calculations.

Maybe you are right, when considering wearing a helmet.
It´s just because with 90° everything just feels a little bit strange when looking up/down left/right and with around 110° this effect is almost not noticeable. And everything feels a bit to near and big with 90°.


BUT this effect can also be due lack of positional tracking respectively neck model! Who knows...

Quote from Scawen :

I'm hoping this evening.

Great news! Can´t wait for the next patch.
:bannana_g
Is it possible that you set a default FOV of 110-112° as default for the Rift? I recently use 111° which i feel is best.

Edit: 90° is way too less

Last edited by just2fast, Fri 29 Nov 2013, 18:29.

Quote from Scawen :

Hexagon said : "You only get the option available if you have your monitors set to extended."
https://www.lfsforum.net/showt ... php?p=1832338#post1832338

Maybe that will help?

Ok thanks, in extended mode i was able to set up a new custom resolution of 1920x1200 in the NVIDIA Panel, which then can be choosen in lfs.
(the button in the graphics option was available, but not necessary anymore).

Anyway....
I couldn´t see a difference between 1200x800 and 1920x1200!
Either downsampling is overrated or it simply doesn´t work.

Quote from Scawen :

However, the render target size in LFS at the moment is chosen to suit a final screen output size of 1280x800, so I would expect that you would not get much benefit from choosing a higher screen size.

If i undestood you correctly Scawen, then you render internally always with 1200x800? So that means resolution will be upscaled first and then downscaled again --> useless atm?

Quote from Scawen :

At the bottom of the Graphics Options screen, just above the Z-buffer depth option, there is a button which has the name of your graphics card. If you click that button you may be able to select the device which will be used the next time you start LFS.

Hmm, yes the graphics card is shown, but nothing happens when I click there ...

Quote from T3charmy :

I've been playing with the Oculus Rift today, and my only complaints so far, is the fact that chat is super hard to read(due to the pixelation), and the GUI's that are right on the edges are hard to see(Though, I'm not sure what exactly you can do about that).

Yeah, at first I have to point out again, that racing in VR is wonderful and i can´t really think of playing it on the old way again. Please keep in mind, that I was playing in front of a 2.5m projector screen in the past (2D not 3D)

Anyway there are some issues which still must be adressed.
(Some of them have to be solved by oculus itself).

Here my personal top3 issues:

1. low resolution --> goes to: oculus (or as workaround in lfs downsampling from higher res if possible)
2. 3D/VR GUI --> goes to: lfs
3. chromatic aberration correction --> goes to: lfs (isn´t there a solution in the Oculus SDK already?), else oculus for further research

Then maybe for a consumer release some more improvements should be achieved.
4. positional tracking --> goes to: oculus (workaround in lfs through a simple neck model)
5. lower latency --> oculus & lfs
6. still more FOV (don´t get me wrong 110° is already great, but human FOV is something around 180°) --> oculus

Quote from Scawen :

I've now done the automatic selection of render target size so the render target and screen size match at the view centres if you use larger output size (for downsampling or a higher resolution Rift).

Scawen, is there an option to force the ingame resolution to 1920x1200 ?
The maximum i can select is 1920x1080.

Quote from Whiskey :

If I'm not terrible wrong is something related to the Oculus, and not the normal rendering on your screen.

Yes that´s true. Nothing really to do with lfs, but with the Rift implementation.
Through the lenses the colors at the edge become a little distorted. But in software (here lfs) it can be compensated. It´s not that annoying at the moment.

Quote from Scawen :

Sorry about the delay getting the 3D (virtual monitor) version of the 2D interface finished.

No problem, I'm busy playing lfs in VR anyway

Quote from Scawen :

Don't expect any miracles - LFS will look the same as it did in DX8! But it allows more graphical development in the future.

DX9 is good news, because the correction of chromatic aberration seems to be possible. And of course DX9 will allow other graphics improvement in the future. In the end better graphics is nice, but proper Rift support is by far more important (for me).

Hi Scawen, i think you need some motivation for working/finishing the "3D stuff". Read this :

Quote from halfshay :

Holy Crap, this integration feels a lot better then iracing. I keep my resolution to 1920x1080. Way less screen door

(posted on the Oculus forum lfs thread)

Quote from Scawen :

All I want to do is finish this 3D stuff and get onto completing the tyre physics, so LFS can actually move on!

Quote from Scawen :

...And this will still be the situation even when LFS moves to DX9.

Scawen, is there a chance to implement chromatic aberration correction with DX8?

Quote from Strien :

... it definitely feels way easier to control the cars than I remember it being previously!

This is what i was thinking too. I just wasn´t sure if its a delusion or not, because I didn´t play lfs for 3 years now (and before that I didn´t play that much, too)
Anyway yesterday i was able to compete on profi-level with the AI drivers, which the last time i can remember was very hard for me.

btw.. Did I mention that I LOVE play lfs in VR?

Quote from just2fast :

I thought i have tested it also with the Rift as the only display, but i will check it again when I´m at home tonight.

Ok, I tested again. This time i completely switched to the Rift as single monitor, but the result is the same. With a resolution of 1680x1050 in lfs the output on the Rifts display differs from 1280x800 (maybe some 5-10%)!
It must have to do with the hardware, because as I understood the downsampling happens in the Rift box

Quote from Scawen :

I'm interested in trying something though, an option to render each eye twice as big to an intermediate square texture which would then be halved in size when transferred to the current render texture, using the bilinear filtering to perform antialiasing (4 texels to 1).

I´m curious for this results, too

Quote from DickDastardly :

That's really weird. I see exactly the same FOV etc when viewing at 1680x1050 as I do when playing at 1280x800. The gif below toggles between a screenshot at each res (although obviously the larger one has been resized to 1280x800 for comparison purposes). As you can see they're identical apart from a very slight difference in head position (which presumably came from the rift tracker drifting slightly between shots as it sat on my desk).

Yesterday I did the same with taking screenshots and overlapp them in Gimp. The funny thing is that everything matches as you describe. I think screenshots are not really compareable. There should be taken pictures of the Rifts display with a camera instead.

Quote from DickDastardly :

One thing that occurs to me is that you may have set up your screen cloning incorrectly in your nVidia/AMD settings. You want the source of the cloning to be the rift screen not your (probably 16:9) desktop monitor.
Cheers,
DD

I thought i have tested it also with the Rift as the only display, but i will check it again when I´m at home tonight.

Some thoughts regarding 1280x800 vs. 1680x1050.
While the native resolution feels fine, with 1680x1050 there is noticeable eye strain!
That means even if the radio of both resolutions is the same (1,6), it displays different on the Rift.

I did a test.
I chose 1280x800 and sat in the BMW Sauber F1 looking with my head pointing directly on the steering wheel (BMW logo).
Then i rolled my eyes to the left and the right (head keeps still pointed forward). In this way i could see a some part of the mirrors.

Then i chose 1680x105 and did the same. However with this resolution i could see both mirrors completely!
I also had the feeling the picture is slightly squeezed horizontal.
Conclusion: be very careful choosing an other resolution then the Rifts native one!

So in a nutshell my best practises with the rift and lfs are:
- Set up a profile with correct IPD value in the Oculus config Utility and mark it as default.
- Setting the vertical field of view to somewhat between 110°-116° (I´ve choosen 112°)
- Use the Rifts native screen resolution of 1280x800
- Show the virtual driver and steering wheel
- Move driver in x,y,z direction until your head-position matches with your virtual body
- Set the option for moving view with animation to NO (hey, we have real headtracking now!)
- View accelaration option of headmovement: DEFINITELY(!) set the value of the angular headmovement to ZERO (0°/g)!Else the shaking of the view in VR makes you crazy!
- View accelaration options of horizontal, vertical and forward directions: Can be chosen to personal preference, but if too high you feel like a fat guy wobbling in the car

That´s it, with these setting i had a wonderful experience so far, despite the low resolution. For me racing is much more fun now and I love the subtle details:
Intuitively looking over the shoulder, looking into the corners, seeing the lifesize tyres left and right in front of you (I want to touch them and feel the heat), the desire to lean outside/inside the car and have a closer look at everything (even it´s not possible yet)
I barely can imagine what a consumer version with higer resolution and positional tracking will bring.

Quote from Scawen :

I'm interested in trying something though, an option to render each eye twice as big to an intermediate square texture which would then be halved in size when transferred to the current render texture, using the bilinear filtering to perform antialiasing (4 texels to 1).

If that works then I think the best image will come from selecting the native resolution for output.

Sounds definitely interesting. What I read so far AA with the barrel distortion is not that simple. Here´s a good article which covers some of the issues which have to be dealt with.