How to Play PC Games on Gear VR 2017… Right…

Oculus Take Over? – Getting to VR

You’ll probably have heard about running into the problem of the Oculus app taking over the device when you plug it into the Gear VR unit. That is a problem with Cardboard and some other apps. With Stream Theater isn’t a problem. Just start Stream Theater while holding the phone in your hand.

You’ll get a screen telling you to place the phone in the headset. Do so. You’ll see a NVIDIA screen that lets you select the computer you want to connect to. Only computers with GameStream running will show up.

Firestorm in VR+/- Stream Theater – 6/2017

If GameStream has no games setup on the PC side, you are done. I have Obduction®, a Cyan Worlds game. (Great fun and VR.)  So, the Theater starts that game. With an SL Viewer running I let Obduction start then quite it. The Theater doesn’t notice.

If you mistakenly have the phone’s WiFi off, you’ll get a scary JAVA error. Turn WiFi on and restart the Theater.

Next, you’ll see the Theater. There are several to choose from. Also at the top of the screen, there are controls so you can get to the Theater’s controls/menus. The various theaters are about how to display the streamed content. Use the Gear’s touchpad to scroll to the VR theater. Swipe forward and backward. I’m still playing with the controls, so I’m not in a place to teach you how to use the controls. I’m still stumbling my way through. Just know it is a combination of look-at and touchpad.

In the image above, you’ll see I have the duel image for VR-3D. But, all I get is my computer screen. Which is very neatly floating in 3D space. But, the SL image is the standard 2D image. I suppose it is kinda neat… for about 5 minutes. Also. This screen capture does NOT show the ‘screen’ pattern I see in the headset.

Summary

I’m not sure, but I think this is the same thing one gets with vorpX (US$40). A 2D SL in a 3D-VR space… not that exciting.

But, I consider this progress.

I hear Doom, an OpenGL game, runs in vorpX. Much fiddling and a big geek hat are needed, but it actually runs in VR mode and makes those prone to motion sickness puke. Oh yeah… nauseate me…

6 thoughts on “How to Play PC Games on Gear VR 2017… Right…

  1. You gotta try ye olde CtrAltStudio in Oculus mode next!, It ought to be in 3d since it’s doing spherical-mapped side-by-side which isn’t native to either the Nvidia or AMD solutions.

  2. Thanks for writing this. Keep the world posted. I was really excited when I heard you can connect GearVR to a PC. Kind of knew it was too good to be true, otherwise more people would be doing it I think. I did buy a second hand GearVR so hoping it doesnt take too much effort.

  3. Galaxy S8 does not have a 4K screen, I have no idea where you read that. Also, a lot of people I know hadn’t noticed a difference in battery life with lowering the resolution, and in a lot of cases, it can make the device run slower due to the fact that the GPU needs to scale things up and down accordingly. On some apps, things are just outright broken too, because most apps go by your actual display resolution, not software resolution.

  4. There is also a massive difference in the 2960×1440 vs anything lower. Especially in how much screen real estate you have.

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