Stop hijacking an interesting thread with yet another of those neverending and pointless discussions.

Quote from CLRS530 :

Stop hijacking an interesting thread with yet another of those neverending and pointless discussions.

exactly this.

I personally don't think that it is worth putting time into the vive when we already have support for a VR headset and only a few people would use that feature.

I wonder how many people thought the same about force-feedback steering when it was first being implemented?

"but I steer with a mouse, what's the point? Why waste time on something that only a few people will use?"...

Future-proofing is never a bad thing.

Quote from k_badam :

Quote from CLRS530 :

Stop hijacking an interesting thread with yet another of those neverending and pointless discussions.

exactly this.

I personally don't think that it is worth putting time into the vive when we already have support for a VR headset and only a few people would use that feature.

I don't think that we should support widescreen monitors because we already support 4:3 monitors.

Upgrade to DX9 was a waste of time, game ran fine on DX8. Who needs that much DirectX?!

No but seriously, next year when first consumer VR Headsets will start showing up, VR will start spreading faster than Ebola.


Scawen, have you not recieve the power socket adapter yet?

Yes, I have received the socket adapter. I am finishing off some functions for Eric and then I will test the Vive. If it works then I'll have a deeper look into Valve's OpenVR SDK. I am hoping it will all work in a similar way to the Rift without too many nasty surprises! As we have some other priorities at the moment, I don't want to get involved if it's going to take more than a few days. One good thing about OpenVR is that it is supposed to support a variety of headsets, not just the Vive.

Awesome stuff, Scawen.

Quote from k_badam :

Quote from CLRS530 :

Stop hijacking an interesting thread with yet another of those neverending and pointless discussions.

exactly this.

I personally don't think that it is worth putting time into the vive when we already have support for a VR headset and only a few people would use that feature.

VR is the future, not just for gaming. Anyone who believes otherwise has either not yet had the privilege of trying a VR headset or hasn't been following tech news for the past few decades.

Adding SteamVR/OpenVR support to LFS is an excellent idea. As was proven when Oculus support came to LFS, supporting the latest VR gear will serve as a relatively inexpensive marketing tool.

In a few years, consumer VR will have matured a bit and the price will begin to decrease making it accessible to most of us.

So face it, VR has to come to LFS at some point and there's no time like the present.

Quote from k_badam :

and only a few people would use that feature.

It's very simple - some people will be thankful for the support LFS gives therefor it will attract MORE people into the community! That's what we clearly need, we need more recognition and this is what will give that recognition.

Quote from Scawen :

Yes, I have received the socket adapter. I am finishing off some functions for Eric and then I will test the Vive. If it works then I'll have a deeper look into Valve's OpenVR SDK. I am hoping it will all work in a similar way to the Rift without too many nasty surprises! As we have some other priorities at the moment, I don't want to get involved if it's going to take more than a few days. One good thing about OpenVR is that it is supposed to support a variety of headsets, not just the Vive.

Good news! look likes you are working hard on some graphics overhaul which is a welcome addition to the immersion and the attractivity of LFS, hopefully you can make good advance by the end of the year so we can see some preview screenshots.

Also congrats for receiving the new VR, even if I am personally the last one on the liste to get such advanced product due to my problematic geographical position, but I will anyway fully support your VR development as it will be somehow benefic for LFS future.

I have played LFS from 2003 and Scawen's vr support for rift is the reason what bringed me back to game. I sold my DK2 one month ago and now I wait and see which would be best solution for sim games, Vive or Rift. Thank you Scawen for supporting vr !

I sent an update to Eric today and this evening I was able to test the Vive.

It's not really too hard to set up. The instructions are pretty clear and it's just a bunch of wires to plug in. I used a tripod to mount a base station in a location where it can see the floor and my seated position. In my office room there isn't really space for room scale VR so for me it is fine to use only one base station. Lucky that because the first one I tried seems to be faulty. The base stations are very "pre-production" and there is quite a bit of noise / vibration from the base station (mounted on a tripod on the left desk - maybe the desk is amplifying it). A continual hum that is much noisier than my PC, for example. I guess these will be miniaturised for the production version.

For some reason I had to stop and restart the hardware and software several times to make it work, and eventually it started to work. I can run a VR demo where you can just walk around a bit, or in my case take a step in either direction.

The screen resolution seems good in the demo. I can still see the pixels as in the Rift but my first impression is this has higher resolution than the Rift DK2. However it is not really comparable until I can see the same thing in each headset (e.g. LFS). One other thing is better in the Vive - you can turn right around and the tracking stays for much longer. Presumably this is even better when you have two base stations. I have no idea how to access any other Vive software. I'm not too bothered about that, as LFS is my main concern. I plan to have a better look at the OpenVR SDK tomorrow.

Nice. What's the tracking like compared to the DK2 in general? Is it smoother?

Quote from Scawen :

I sent an update to Eric today and this evening I was able to test the Vive.

It's not really too hard to set up. The instructions are pretty clear and it's just a bunch of wires to plug in. I used a tripod to mount a base station in a location where it can see the floor and my seated position. In my office room there isn't really space for room scale VR so for me it is fine to use only one base station. Lucky that because the first one I tried seems to be faulty. The base stations are very "pre-production" and there is quite a bit of noise / vibration from the base station (mounted on a tripod on the left desk - maybe the desk is amplifying it). A continual hum that is much noisier than my PC, for example. I guess these will be miniaturised for the production version.

For some reason I had to stop and restart the hardware and software several times to make it work, and eventually it started to work. I can run a VR demo where you can just walk around a bit, or in my case take a step in either direction.

The screen resolution seems good in the demo. I can still see the pixels as in the Rift but my first impression is this has higher resolution than the Rift DK2. However it is not really comparable until I can see the same thing in each headset (e.g. LFS). One other thing is better in the Vive - you can turn right around and the tracking stays for much longer. Presumably this is even better when you have two base stations. I have no idea how to access any other Vive software. I'm not too bothered about that, as LFS is my main concern. I plan to have a better look at the OpenVR SDK tomorrow.

You can actually do 360 tracking with both base stations.

I think the final retail solution will allow you to attach as many base stations as you want to increase the resolution of the tracking.

Quote from Scawen :

Lucky that because the first one I tried seems to be faulty.

You should let Valve know, you are kind of a beta tester.

Quote from Scawen :

The base stations are very "pre-production" and there is quite a bit of noise / vibration from the base station (mounted on a tripod on the left desk - maybe the desk is amplifying it). A continual hum that is much noisier than my PC, for example.

That's new, never heard of that. Well, there is some moving parts in the base stations so that must be the source of the noise:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5yuUZV7cgd8

Quote from Scawen :

I can still see the pixels as in the Rift but my first impression is this has higher resolution than the Rift DK2. However it is not really comparable until I can see the same thing in each headset (e.g. LFS).

Resolution is 1080x1200 vs 960x1080 per eye compared to DK2. There is also less wasted space on the screen, lenses are better and I think there is less space between the pixels:
http://i.imgur.com/ZWEsSru.png

Quote from mbutcher :

Nice. What's the tracking like compared to the DK2 in general? Is it smoother?

I think the Vive and the DK2 both have very smooth tracking if the correct frame rate is maintained. I can't see a difference.

Quote from Amynue :

You should let Valve know, you are kind of a beta tester.

True but I am not allowed to post is either of the SteamVR forums.

I am not allowed to post in the "SteamVR Developer Hardware" forum because we are not "on-boarded". It is not possible for Live for Speed become on-boarded unless we have a US Taxpayer ID and change our business into a Company instead of a Partnership.
http://steamcommunity.com/app/358720/discussions/

I am also not allowed to post in this "SteamVR" forum but I don't know why.
https://steamcommunity.com/app/250820/discussions/

So basically I can only send emails to my Steam contacts but it's probably better not to spam them with feedback about noisy lighthouses. I may need their help with something more serious. I can tell them about the lighthouses when I also have something else to say.

Quote from Amynue :

Well, there is some moving parts in the base stations so that must be the source of the noise:

There are two flywheel things in each box spinning at 60 Hz sending the laser light around the room. So there's going to be some noise.

For comparison it is a lot louder than an ordinary refrigerator. Subjectively, I'd say 5 times as lond. It's too noisy to leave on while you keep working. Most of the noise comes from the vibration of the box itself. If I lift the tripod off the desk, some of the low hum is reduced but most of the noise remains.

Quote from Scawen :

I am also not allowed to post in this "SteamVR" forum but I don't know why.
https://steamcommunity.com/app/250820/discussions/

Once I wanted to posted on steam forums and could not. It turned out one needs at least one bought game in account. Someone gifted me the cheapest possible game (he had a free key or something), I added it to my account and then was able to post...
That was a year ago or so, not sure if it changed.

There's something about needing to spend $5 but it's not at all clear. E.g. that gives you access to various things but it does not state that it would allow you to post on that forum. I suppose I could put $5 on my steam wallet to see if it allows me to post. I do feel reluctant though, handing over money when it's not clear what you get. Yeah it's only $5 but it annoys me that the description isn't clear, and also that one guy at Steam didn't reply when I asked him how to get access to that forum.
https://support.steampowered.com/kb_article.php?ref=3330-IAGK-7663

Thanks for the info Scawen, very interesting reading. Obviously the DK2 is pretty old in comparison to the vive but with the rift just around the corner and the vive consumer edition also I am very interested in the display. A lot of people are assuming the screen is the same in both final headsets with different lenses obviously. In racing games the dk2 was that bit too low resolution to see the braking area ahead. With the vive and rift having a 25% increase in pixels I'm hoping that will be 'enough' to see the braking zone properly. I know in years to come things like this won't be an issue but I've got a lot of hope for the consumer rift and lfs being the best overall combo. I think this because of the mechanical IPD adjustment on the consumer rift helping more people get the best possible sweet spot for the display and optics.

Started coding for OpenVR this afternoon. Based on my Oculus DLL, I created a new DLL project linked with the OpenVR library. I started converting several functions to use the OpenVR versions of the functions they call. Finally I've had enough for the day, so just converted the remaining functions to do nothing at all so it could be compiled. Tested the new DLL was loaded by LFS and the initialisation function correctly reported that no headset was found. More progress tomorrow.

Quote from Scawen :

There's something about needing to spend $5 but it's not at all clear. E.g. that gives you access to various things but it does not state that it would allow you to post on that forum. I suppose I could put $5 on my steam wallet to see if it allows me to post. I do feel reluctant though, handing over money when it's not clear what you get. Yeah it's only $5 but it annoys me that the description isn't clear, and also that one guy at Steam didn't reply when I asked him how to get access to that forum.
https://support.steampowered.com/kb_article.php?ref=3330-IAGK-7663

The reason why there's the distinction between a community-restricted account and an unrestricted account is to try to curb the number of trade scammers. You may not know, but CS:GO and DOTA have in-game items that are very valuable to those who play those games, and where there's money to be made.. there's people trying to con those people out of their money.

The $5 is enough "proof" that you're probably not going to be a scammer (as your account will be trade banned if you do attempt to scam people). And, if you do scam/money launder (which has happened) to the extent that legal action must be taken, there's some payment information that could at least begin an investigation to press charges.

If there's any game/software/video that you find interesting that's on the Steam Marketplace, you can always purchase that and it will count as "unlocking" your account.

FWIW: I can post in the public SteamVR forum, but I cannot post in the private one. It may be worth emailing [EDIT: Gabe Newell] explaining your situation for the private one. From quickly reading, it looks like all the developers in that group have access to the Steam application for SteamVR, so they want people who are actually signed up to SteamWorks (their distribution/integration backend) for access as they have the ability to publish their demos if desired.

https://www.vg247.com/2015/02/06/gabe-newell-good-guy-steam-support/

Quote from dawesdust_12 :

If there's any game/software/video that you find interesting that's on the Steam Marketplace, you can always purchase that and it will count as "unlocking" your account.

FWIW: I can post in the public SteamVR forum, but I cannot post in the private one. It may be worth emailing [EDIT: Gabe Newell] explaining your situation for the private one. From quickly reading, it looks like all the developers in that group have access to the Steam application for SteamVR, so they want people who are actually signed up to SteamWorks (their distribution/integration backend) for access as they have the ability to publish their demos if desired.

It makes sense that a payment can allow more access and I don't object to sending them $5. Their text should be more clear though. In fact, exactly the same vague explanation about Limited User Accounts is linked to from the SteamVR Developer Hardware forum, although it is not relevant over there. When asking for money it is best to make sure the customer knows what they will get. Vague, generic explanations aren't all that encouraging!

Anyway it sounds like the payment should get me access to the SteamVR forum so I'll probably end up doing that, if I have a question that could be answered there, or perhaps to let people know about a test patch with LFS support.

For now it's a bit of a struggle to get through the code. Their documentation has not been updated. For example it mentions functions that you need to call, but you find those functions don't exist anywhere. I found out that I need to read the change log as well, because there you can find that certain functions have been removed and there's now another method for doing what the original function did.

Also I could not find any simple step by step guide of a minimal way to get support in there. Compared with the Rift, it seems there are many different ways to implement Vive support, and hundreds of function calls available, most of which I should not need to use (hopefully). Trouble is, this makes it quite confusing!

Anyway let's see how far I can get today. Sometimes these things can get clearer as you just keep trying to do them and see what comes up...

I can see something in the Vive!

Recognisable as LFS but it's kind of flickering and crazy...

Also no tracking yet as I haven't even tried to sort that out yet.

Pleased that submitting the render targets to the Vive actually resulted in something being displayed!

Yay ! Keep it up Scawen, I love to read this small dev blog

Got a stable 3D image now. It's too bright, as if the gamma is wrong. But the SetGamma function doesn't seem to have any effect. I could try calling it at a different point in the code. But it's more interesting to get the head tracking to work first.