Sounds like Riftcat is entirely the wrong solution to your use case. It's emulating a full VR stack. Not a desktop mirror.
Maybe something like Kinoni is more suitable for what your trying to archive
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.kinoni.kinovrgear&hl=en_GB
Non-VR streaming is included in most recent version. You can launch 2.0 via the exe in diagnostic mode and see your desktop or whatever is running in fullscreen. It will be streamed to your mobile phone and we use this mode a lot for stream diagnostics.
But we don't do any side-by-side redrawing or depth extraction and we don't emulate mouse movements via head rotation so it's useful only for streaming static SBS scenes or SBS 3D video in 8:9 aspect ratio format.
I went through reports and indeed found similar errors with certain Galaxy devices, including Note 8. I created a new tracking item here:
https://trello.com/c/X4WTwmw3/60-crash-on-startup-with-some-galaxy-devices-mostly-galaxy-and-note
Wow. We're gonna verify this because I'd like to reproduce this bug and find an explanation for these numbers. It looks like a graphics resource leak.
Issue card: https://trello.com/c/qEzo0qiN/149-unconfirmed-gpu-resource-leak-inside-vrcompositor-when-in-moonlight-mode
Update:
I added this task to our dev board. We will probably have it fixed with next update.
Thanks for the report. We were not aware of this power saving problem.
We thought about this (link) some time ago but we didn't put much resources into it because it would be incompatible with our future optimization plans for Gear Vr version.
Now we have even more reasons to keep it shelved for now because during Vive Focus version development we identified several more places where we could significantly improve experience with high quality VR hardware (including Gear VR) so we expect that we will have a quite visible step up in terms of framerate smoothness when version 2.2 is finished.
We're going to reevaluate Stream Theater/GameStream compatibility later, when the 2.2 is complete.
We're still working on fixing bugs but we're confident that we'll have all the critical tasks completed by the end of January. We won't be artificially disabling old versions because some older phones might not support the most recent VR runtimes so we'll provide old versions for people that want to stick to the 1.x client/server.
Anyway, hit the link if you want to help us spread the word. If you don't use social media thanks anyway for all the support so far. We'll try to do better in 2018 than in previous year! :)
I added it to our issues tracker but I don't have any more guesses now. We're gonna add more startup checks to pinpoint causes of this kind of timeouts.
I added your problem here.
This could be a tricky issue to solve since it crashes outside of our code, inside GearVRf/Daydream renderer.
Have you encountered similar problems with any other Daydream apps?
Thanks for those examples! I'm gonna check out NOLO + FreeTrack interaction next week because to be honest - I don't think I tested this scenario lately and there were some changes that could (and probably did) break tracking priorities.
I added the issues here: https://trello.com/c/NaVb5q57/34-tracking-priorities-arent-correct-with-freetrack-nolo-at-the-same-time
Yes, that's a very good suggestion. We're aware that radio silence is the worst thing and we will have something to keep people updated more often. It won't be a full blog post every 2 weeks because writing these takes some time but it might be something like this or this with a list of things we're currently working on, known issues, priorities, etc. We haven't fully decided what will be used to create this but it will be organized in a similar fashion.
It's more time-efficient to write quick updates than to write a full blog post every time we change something small. It also doesn't feel right to write a post about every single small thing we add/change. Often tweet-sized updates contained in a public roadmap should fit this better.
We'll still have blog posts talking about major changes/plans, too.
Frozen, I believe you are absolutely correct when you say they both net neutral on heat. So just use whatever gives you the best performance.
What I've done is actually glued a small fan inside the headest. It blows enough air to keep it cooled. I have gone from running into thermal throttling issues, to running smoothly for hours by using a small fan and resistor. If you decide to keep it tethered, you can use a USB hub or something basic like a USB splitter cable.
Just be careful with the USB splitter cause power will go both ways, and data only goes one way. So just make sure the data side is going to the phone.
If you're not going to tether, you can just use a small battery pack and velcro it to the headset to run the fan, or use the usb port on your phone to power it (but that may be counter productive).
I made a video for the Gear VR, but a lot will still relate to the bobovr that you have. I own both headsets.
We didn't change requirements because the gyroscopeless option is extremely* shaky but if you want to see it yourself you can download APK from site like this:
https://apkpure.com/vridge/com.riftcat.vridge?hl=en
It looks like legit unmodified version of our released APK but I can build original APK later when I get home if you want to be 100% sure.
*Really it's unusable. Gyroscope provides a lot of stability. We will try to improve it but we didn't wan't take the gyro requirement off and leave people with crappy experience without possibility of switching to another tracking (with gyro).
We thought about this idea but unfortunately the hardware doesn't support this (Oculus GO SDK doesn't support double 3-DOF controllers - they cannot connect).
We made an app for an Android phone that allows for the second 3-DOF controller as an alternative - https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.riftcat.vridgecontroller
I use the app Rotation Control to get around the screen orientation problem. It's not perfect since it needs manually enabling every time you want to use Vridge, but it works.
Regular USB tethering doesn't work with Gear VR. If you have decent router, Wi-Fi mode still might work okay as long as you don't set bitrate/quality too high.
If you want to go tethered, you have three options.
You can use app similar to this one to toggle between true Gear VR mode and Cardboard mode (Gear VR as viewer only, no Gear VR sensor data will be used). There are free alternatives to the linked app but you usually need to download them off unofficial sites and I haven't tested any of them lately so I don't know which one would work since those types of app often need to be updated when Samsung changes something in OS.
You can use any other cardboard viewer so your Gear VR USB plug won't trigger Gear VR mode.
(Latest Gear VR and S8 only). You can buy USB-Ethernet adapter. This is further described here.
What kind of connection are you getting on the hosted network? May want to check with an android app like wifi analyzer. https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.farproc.wifi.analyzer&hl=en
Just make sure it's actually 5ghz that your connected to and it's on an uncontested channel.
EDIT - Another good idea to make sure is to check on the phone to see if the packets are lost during network transmission, or at the encoder/decoder.
A word of caution. I know for a fact that fake PS Move Navigation Controllers don't act identically to the genuine Sony ones. For some software this is not a problem (such as the android app Sixaxis Controller which can detect the difference and use both). For other software they simply don't work (the original Scarlet.Crush Productions ScpDriver works fine with the genuine ones but wont connect wirelessly to the fake ones).
I know obviously the the PSNavi is more similar to the DS3 than the PSMove when it comes to it's wireless connection. I just wanted to draw attention to the fact that these fake controllers aren't necessarily identical clones.
I run a plex server in my house, but any dlna server would work. Really any network share will work so long as you can browse to your files on your phone.
use an app like bubbleupnp to browse your dlna server. Then open the movie file with your favorite VR video player. I prefer VRTV personally.
There are two ways tracking can be disabled. Maybe one of the options somehow switched to trakcing-disabled.
Extra things to check:
Ooh, I also found some new information on the OBS forums:
https://obsproject.com/forum/threads/getting-blurry-stripes-with-amd-vce-encoder-streaming.49111/
https://obsproject.com/forum/threads/amd-vce-blurry-pixelated-stripes.40773/
No problem! I'm willing to do almost anything to help :P
A further note, all of these graphs are collected with no motion input, so the displayed scene is static. Adding motion makes it harder to see these trends in the network traffic, though the cyclical behavior in the banding stays the same. When there is no banding, network traffic stays constant at the requested bitrate, even when there is no motion.
Here is the initial commit of Media Foundation support into OBS, where the OBS guys noted that CBR mode doesn't seem to work properly for NVENC and VCE.
Here is some further comments where they state that the Media Foundation encoders in CBR mode can exceed maximum bitrate settings.
I wonder if you could allow VBR with maximum bitrate settings, but I don't know if that has any implications for latency.
> Quality wise it's pretty nice but it feels like the resolution is below of what Go provides (set at 72fps 2560x1440) even when taking compression into account.
You can try setting bitrate higher in advanced options. It should improve visual quality but it might cause latency/drops if network band is crowded.
> Also, it would be nice to have value shown for the IPD adjustment.
https://trello.com/c/9MMrtoAz/100-improve-ipd-scale-sliders-lower-sensitivity-numerical-values
Scheduled to be added sometime in the future when we make another pass of GUI improvements.
> I hope that controller support for Go will come along sooner rather than later.
Early July when we plan to push it to public beta channel. It's a shame that Go's controller doesn't have enough buttons to map everything 1:1 to SteamVR games, tho.
> Does it use the head model of rotation->translation that GearVR and Go use?
I actually don't remember if we chose to use virtual head model. :). Will check it later when we test Nolo tracking mixing with native Oculus Go tracking.
We've received a report about a problem with Nolo desktop driver too. I added this to our known issues in progress:
Ps: Can you post your vrserver.txt from Steam/logs directory to pastebin.com (or google drive/dropbox, etc)?
Latest 2.0.2 beta has some diagnostic counters. You can use it to test framerate/frame drops/packet loss/etc with various settings.
Alright, please test it at least once without other SteamVR plugins just to exclude potential conflicts.
I don't know how exactly your combo works but if it uses FreeTrack to communicate with VRidge, I just want to let you know that FreeTrack support in VRidge currently has some problems that we need to fix in 2.0.
I know what you mean, I remember tackling this problem back in 1.2 or 1.3 when I added those prefer smoothness/latency options. Currently new timing mode is set to a old "balanced" mode so it definitely might drop more frames than <2.0 "prefer smoothness". We didn't test 2.0 on Snapdragon 617 so maybe it needs slightly bigger timing window.
I added a work item here. We'll try to bring it back before stable release.
Gear VR app doesn't work with Moonlight since Moonlight itself isn't native to Gear VR so that's probably why it wasn't transfering you to Google Play store. You still should get benefit of NVIDIA Gamestream with Moonlight but unfortunately it won't use Gear VR sensor's in this mode.
We will be exploring option of using Gear sensors in the background with Moonlight in the foreground but this might be tricky.
Yeah, not working currently - I'm posting updates here:
https://trello.com/c/U9cCR6jF/35-sideload-vr-download-stops-at-67
For some reason sideload app errors out internally when signing our beta build.
Got it, tracking it here:
I may have some extra questions today or tomorrow once I understand this problem better.
Not much will be bigger FOV than the Gear VR for real cheap.
BoboVR is close and good price for what it is. I have that and the gear VR, so I have compared side by side.
http://www.gearbest.com/virtual-reality/pp_397969.html?wid=21
I have heard good things about Freefly and Homido. They are both higher end cardboard types that are told to both have a slightly larger FOV than the Gear VR. I have never tried either though.
EDIT - Just came across this post. Pretty crazy write up and probably worth the read if you want to get a good idea of different headsets. This guy has tried a ton!
https://www.reddit.com/r/GoogleCardboard/comments/42w2hc/viewerreview_snailvr_svr_glass_review/
I bought this. I don't really have anything to compare it to, but it's dirtcheap, comfortable, and gets the job done. It has so far housed both OPO and Honor 6. You can do small adjustments to the lense placement, too.
But I warn you, Gearbest was slow as hell and their support sucks big time. Other than that, I find it a good purchase.
This is the smartwatch i bought.. it detaches from the wristband so you can hold it like a regular phone, and it has software that allows you to connect it to a another phone to receive notifications. This particular watch has accelerometer built which is needed for the VRidge controller app to work. https://www.amazon.com/Android-MTK6761-Smartwatch-Waterproof-Activity/dp/B091TSWYFS/ref=mp_s_a_1_10?crid=15SSS2MQANXNL&keywords=lokmat+appllp&qid=1638567340&sprefix=lokmat+appllp%2Caps%2C123&sr=8-10
Spawning in the floor is most likely caused by incorrectly set height in the SteamVR Room Setup. Click on the small SteamVR window and redo the Room Setup.
Finding source of lagginess without any details is difficult. Make sure that your PC meets our requirements. Beyond that it would be best to contact so they can look into it.
Could be integrated GPU interfering in which case you can select your GTX 525m in Nvidia's control panel, however, GTX 525m doesn't have nvenc so you probably won't be able to stream but you can always try software encoder in RiftCat settings.
For reference here are listed requirements for VRidge - https://riftcat.com/vridge#requirements
Minimum for what?
Vridge minimum specs are GTX650
https://riftcat.com/vridge/requirements
And Oculus itself has minimum with GTX 1050Ti or alternatively GTX960 (although I understand that relies on ASW which is not available for Vridge)
https://support.oculus.com/1633938460220125/
If you got to the riftcat https://riftcat.com/vridge/requirements you will see that some variants of the s4 arent supported. However, this incompatibility shouldn't effect the sensors, but who knows? The following is straight from that page.
*Incompatible smartphones: Asus Zenfone 2 (or other Intel-based phones), Galaxy S4 (some variants), Huawei Honor 4C and P8 Lite (possibly more Kirin chipset phones).
Now it could be something else such as having tracking off on the vridge app settings or the wrong tracking settings on the riftcat desktop app. double check those
That's right. Check local classified ads. I was generally able to find them for $15-$25 CAD. Just shop around and you can find them. Deals do pop up.
No idea where in the UK you live (I'm assuming you're in the UK), but I found this within a few seconds: https://www.gumtree.com/p/ps3/playstation-3-move-controller-set-with-gun-holder-for-controller-and-ps3-shoot-game/1195902124
1 Controller and 1 camera.
Exactly same here! I'm using wireless as well. The usb is crashing all the time however it didn't happen before. If you don't want to use Nolo you can fall back to older versions. https://apkpure.com/vridge/com.riftcat.vridge I have no idea where you can find pc version riftcat but some versions perhaps going to work with the current version. Anyway try wireless with 10mb bitrate maybe a bit lower it should be enough.
Desktop versions below 1.3.x are not compatible with NOLO but you can try using desktop 1.3 (stable) with older mobile version.
You can download 1.0 mobile version here (scroll down to version history):
Yeah it looks like this problem. We found that it happens on S5 mini and Galaxy Grand Prime. Your phone uses the same GPU as S5 mini and Grand Prime so it's probably caused by the same thing.
For some reason it's only happening in new version and old one works ok:
You can keep using it until we solve it. It's mostly compatible with latest desktop app.
My advice is to connect your phone directly to your computer by setting your phone or computer as a hotspot and connecting the other to it as a wifi connection. Avoids the lag you get by connecting via the router (which depends on how good your router connection is).
Make sure you dial your bitrate right down to 1 or 2 and see whether that gets rid of the lag. It sends lower quality images, so requires less data to be transferred.
Try the Wifi Speed Test app (Play Store link) to test your connection speed. That will show you how good your connection is. Not straightforward, but you'll work it out (or ask for help here).
Finally, try USB tethering. That should give you loads of bandwidth (can also check that with Wifi Speed Test). If you still get poor quality, then the issue may be with your computer's ability to stream the images rather than the connection speed. In which case, try dialling down game settings. If the initial Steam Room scene isn't completely smooth, then your game will be worse, so focus on getting that working well first.
Good luck and feel free to post here and I'll try to help. I've spent a lot of time playing with settings. I have a pretty consistently good set up nowadays.
Right - I installed WiFi Speed Test (https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.pzolee.android.localwifispeedtester) on my phone and ran the server on my desktop, removed the time limit, and let it run transferring from PC to phone at max speed for TCP and 20Mbps target rate for UDP. Intermittent dropouts (down to 0 Mbps for a few seconds) feature both on TCP and UDP connections, so there's something up with the network connection between the two for sure.
No Wi-Fi link speed change occurs at this time, so it looks like it's not a Wi-Fi problem per se, but something else to do with the network and that data route.
I then tried another Android 5 GHz Wi-Fi phone and that had a similar problem, so that's ruled out my Pixel 4 as the issue.
I then set one of the phones as a server and the other as a client, so all the data is going over the 5 G Hz Wi-Fi to and from the router, and there was the occasional brief slowdown in transfer speed between the phones, but not down to 0 - the lowest transfer rate was around 10 Mbps for a few seconds where it usually hovered at 140 Mbps. Not sure if that's just the instability one might expect from in-channel interference between two close devices... I'll continue trying other test scenarios, I guess!
Maybe Nolo Vr with an Android Phone.
I've got one on Kickstarter and it's quite fine if you have already a headset. There's an App on Play Store and a Nolo Home on Pc.
There are a lot of reviews on YouTube, take a look!
The Android version of iVRy was released yesterday, you can find it on Google Play here:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.mediator_software.ivry
iVRy on Twitter: https://twitter.com/iVRy_VR
Just amazing. You know using a ~7" tablet with wearality sky frames would give you a much bigger FOV than any consumer has now and make the other trade-offs worth it.
If you have the knowledge to set it up these are pretty much the best value for the money. This is what businesses/schools use to soak their thick concrete buildings with usable wifi. If it's good enough for those setups a single family home is no issue.
Wire this up to your existing router and turn off it's wifi if applicable, and let this handle the wifi while the router handles the wired connections.
Thanks for the info! Are you considering a replacement or are you going to stick with the edtracker? I'm actually thinking about just buying another used phone with a working gyroscope. I can get a used Note 4 for around $200 on craigslist ...
Or what about something like this?
BoboVR is a pretty popular choice. I use a galaxy 6 edge+ which has a nearly identical screen and have use the BoboVR with it. It comes with or without headphones too which is pretty cool as well.
Not sure where you are located, but here are some examples:
Without Headphones - https://www.amazon.com/Virtoba-X5-Elite-Headset-Smartphones/dp/B01H35AU3G/ref=sr_1_7?ie=UTF8&qid=1485561965&sr=8-7&keywords=bobovr
With Headphones - https://www.amazon.com/Xiaozhai-Virtual-Reality-Headset-Glasses/dp/B01N0T42IE/ref=sr_1_11?ie=UTF8&qid=1485561965&sr=8-11&keywords=bobovr
Many vendor rebrand the same headset, so don't let the name difference fool you. They are all off the same assembly line but with different names stamped on them. As long as they look to be the same, they are.
I got the ones without headphones cause I prefer to use wireless headphones instead from the PC.
EDIT - I can't compare it to the viewmaster as I have not used it, so I don't know if it's any better or worse.. sorry.
I'm shocked! lol That's fantastic.
If there really is no good way to run the wire, you can also try using a powerline adapter instead. A decent 500Mbps adapter set should be pretty decent, especially if the 2 plugs it's connected to are on the same breaker. It will be far superior to the wireless issues you experienced, but may not be able to get you the full 95Mbps. Rent one from a local best buy to see if fixes the issue (30 day no hassle money back guarantee!)
EDIT - Turns out even the gigabit powerline adapters are a decent price now too: https://www.amazon.com/NETGEAR-PowerLINE-1000-Mbps-Gigabit/dp/B01929ESG6/ref=sr_1_4?s=pc&ie=UTF8&qid=1483846046&sr=1-4&keywords=powerline+adapter
oh nice. I actually bought the pseye mounting clip https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B004P7EUPA/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
i was going to stick them to my wall or something. http://i.imgur.com/tdKCIz8.png
the cameras are place above your head level looking diagonally down right?
atm i actually only bought 2x pseye 2x ps move to test it out in placement and etc.
then when that patch comes for the psmoveservice i will order another pseye+ps move controller
thanks. I hope riftcat would add the gear vr sensors that would be awesome would definitely help with head turning =). I notice a bit of a difference when im head truning on the gear vr vs using my phones sensors. But i think its probably not a priority for them atm
Im thinking of getting another hmd because the gear vr doesn't support usb tethering.
i see destek made a v2 pretty nice i saw a video with some one with this http://www.amazon.com/DESTEK-V2-Virtual-Distance-Adjustable/dp/B0154NAJP8/ref=pd_cp_23_1?ie=UTF8&refRID=1V2RBBRSTAT854RJB746
If you do add it please make sure its a toggle as I would rather 100% of the data being used between the phone and PC for video and tracking information. Adding extra sound data and processing overhead to the phone especially to wifi connections may impact the quality of the video which is the top priority for me.
For guys currently having sound issues I assume its a cable length problem? The way I solved it was to just buy an extension audio cable for my headphones or you could buy wireless headphones.
Jam are a pretty decent brand for wireless headphone and earbuds.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00L23XFNS/ref=s9_acsd_hps_bw_c_x_1
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00LIS5KD0/ref=s9_acsd_hps_bw_c_x_5
Sounds like you may need to calibrate your gyro in your phone. Bubble Level on the android play store is a good little tool for that. It will show you IF it's out of wack, and help you calibrate it if it is.
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.gamma.bubblelevel&hl=en
Few things to note. If you have any enhancement features enabled on your router, disable them. These are things like QoS, or anything else that is supposed to be extra bonus features outside of a standard router function. Any other unessessary features can be disabled as well. Routers are like mini computers. The more load you can take off of them, the better they will perform. So if you have any services running on it, you can disable. EG - USB Ports, Media server functionality, etc.
Secondly, what bitrate are you using, and what are the other settings your are using in Riftcat?
You can also use an app like: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.farproc.wifi.analyzer&hl=en
This will tell you how crowded your 2.4Ghz and 5.0Ghz channels are. Find something isolated, or set your router to auto.
Lastly, do you have the standard version of the Rifcat app installed as well? If not, get that installed so you can change some settings at the phone end.
Hope some of this helps!
Interesting idea! There are a few BT controller apps in the google play store. First one I saw that somebody referenced using with cardboard apps is this: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=softigloo.btcontroller&hl=en
Only gripe in the review is that he couldn't get a button mapped to emulate a screen tap for some cardboard apps.
Use a dedicated 5GHz ac WiFi network and try to make sure it's on a channel that isn't crowded (you can check using a tool like this).
And be close.
No, Moonlight is just an app on Google play. You need Nvidia Geforce Experience installed on the PC.
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.limelight&hl=en
>Frames Decoded: <number of frames> | <FPS>
Yes I believe so.
I think most of the cinema apps do this. just went through a handful on the play store and many of them support 3d video and have a cinema setting.
My personal favorite movie watching app for cardboard is call VRTV Free Just tested it with a 3d movie for the first time and man oh man is that awesome.
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.farproc.wifi.analyzer&hl=en
Try using the app linked above and you will see how wifi-intensive your area is. You can tap top-left part of VRidge stream screen to see if you are losing fames @ network (losing few frames a minute is rather normal but losing frames every 5-10 seconds is not).
I'm not gonna suggest buying 90€ router (but having one is nice when you use a lot of wifi @ home) because basically all we do at RiftCat is trying to find the cheapest ways for the best experience.
We still have few tricks up our sleeve to reduce bandwidth by 50+%, we want to add error concealment techniques to prevent packet loss from totally destroying a picture group and cuasing the floaty-blocky pixel soup thing.