Category Archives: General Computer Stuff

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

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This is for NVIDIA owners… sorry AMD peeps. It’s a software limitation.

Stream Theater Start Screen – Post Setup

So, you want to see Second Life™ or any OpenGL game on your Gear VR. Well… you are going to have to learn a lot. You’ll also find few are telling you what the result of their tutorials or apps actually provides. Advertising hype is everywhere. If  O N E  PC or OpenGL game will run or even sort of run, then PC and OpenGL compatibility is the headline. Expect disappointment. I’ll explain what worked for me below.

Visual quality is the next point of disappointment. My S8 has a 4k screen. I normally run it at 2k to save battery. In everyday use, 2k is pretty much retina resolution, way sharp and crisp, beautiful. 4k is overkill. If I didn’t tell you which mode the phone was in, you probably couldn’t guess.

The Gear VR turns the phone up to 4k when connected. Most VR headsets are NOT 4k and thus most media is made for 2k and that media is fuzzy on my 4k screen. Looking at my 1k 24” Samsung monitor is way nicer.

Then there is ‘screen door’… This is a term from the VR-world. The headsets magnify the small screens to fill the field of view. In doing so the individual pixels start to be visually apparent. This creates an effect that looks a bit like looking through a window/door screen. With the S8 it is a very fine screen, but a visible screen.  Continue reading →

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Second Life – State of VR – Gear VR

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If you are hoping I am going to tell you we have VR for Second Life™, I’ll disappoint you. However, it apparently is possible. But, it isn’t easy and the whole VR thing is a mess, especially if you want to do it cheaply.

For an instance of a mess, when you place a phone in Gear VR it auto-launches the Oculus app. Doesn’t matter what app you have running, the Oculus app launches and takes over the device. A bunch of people tell you to insert to the headset without connecting the phone to the headset. WAY lame, but doable. However, without the USB connection made the phone can fall out of the unit.

So… you have to get Samsung’s BK Package Disabler (US$1.49) get around this problem. They have a free version if you rooted your phone. If not, you have to hope the retail package will install. If you did root it, no problem just delete all you phones accounts, installed the root-version of BK, and redo all your accounts… lovely. Continue reading →

Worldwide Ransomware Attack

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If you have paid attention to the news, you know the world is in a cyber war firefight running from Friday to today. No one is going to protect you. To make it worse, some are claiming anti-virus software is making it worse. Sheesh!

The First Evil

The First Evil

The current primary problem is older operating systems; Windows XP and Vista. Microsoft quit supporting those old systems. But, many businesses have chosen not to update to newer systems. For some like the healthcare industry and industrial manufacturing their complex applications were dependent on features in the old operating systems. It was difficult and expensive to update.  Continue reading →

VR: Minimal Latency

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You probably know a serious problem with VR is latency, the delay between moving your head and your eyes seeing the visual response. It is considered the primary cause of Simulator Sickness, aka motion sickness, AKA sea sickness, etc. A part of that delay comes from how long it takes the display screen to refresh the image it displays.

I suspect many of us haven’t realized that for Augmented Reality the problem is even worse. In AR we are seeing the world in real time with perfect sight and head movement synchronization and  an lagging AR image super imposed. While there is less chance of simulator/motion sickness the lag is visually obvious and annoying. See the video.

NVIDIA is experimenting with 16,000Hz (16KHz) screens. My Samsung screen provides a 120Hz refresh rate, more than 1,000 times slower.

See: NVIDIA Demonstrates Experimental 16,000Hz AR Display

We can get acceptable AR for most uses with way lower refresh rates. However, NVIDEA’s tech will provide crisp images even in combat games and athletic efforts where head motion is extreme.

Google Chrome is unresponsive. Relaunch now? Ouch!

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If you use Chrome you may be running into a new problem: Google Chrome is unresponsive. Relaunch now? Relaunching does not resolve the problem.

Chrome

Chrome

The problem popped up in 2015 and seems to be back. It bit me after the latest Win 10 upgrade(?). But, the fix in 2017 is different than in 2015.

Clicking a URL link in another app should open Chrome and subsequently the target web page. Instead you get the ‘unresponsive’ error message. There was a popular 2015 work-around for those using Outlook or Thunderbird: Continue reading →

Second Life: OBS Streaming Tutorial

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Strawberry Singh has posted a nice tutorial on YouTube and her blog. It runs 26 minutes. The video is simple, complete, and well done. I’ll link you to her current challenge where there is a link to the video. The challenge is a bit of fun and incentive to learn how to stream Second Life™.

Strawberry’s Video Challenge

I did find that my OBS (18.0.1 Windows 64-bit) is a bit different than Strawberry’s (18.0.1 64-bit Mac?).

If you haven’t seen the term ‘vlogging’ it is blogging using video. Medhue Simoni is doing an almost daily (8 or ( AM SLT) video tutorial on Second Life modeling and animation. I suppose we could call the tutorials his vlog. See: Medhue channel. The channel has 4,000+ subscribers.

Strawberry’s Vlogging Challenge is here. You can compare her videos and Medhue’s. Strawberry gives away that she has notes and a script for her video in the OBS tutorial as she flips from primary to her secondary screen with the script. Continue reading →

Second Life: Open Source DJ Software

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MIXX DJ Software

I came across this in my daily reading. KirstenLee Cinquetti started posting in the KirstenLee blog. There are two new posts apparently the first since 2015. Whatever, there is this interesting software for those DJ’ing in Second Life™.

See: K’s Software Pick of The Week! This is an article about the software MIXX. See it here: DJ Your Way. For Free. I don’t DJ in SL, but it looks way neat…

Adobe Premiere and After Effects Changes

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The new release of Adobe’s various products change the way we work. I think it is a great improvement. I am still learning how to change my work flow. This video gives you an idea of the important changes.

I used the latest Premiere CC 2017.1 to create my CCUG video. My YouTube uploads are here.

I can make all the video in Premiere now, including opening titles where I usually use a still processed in Photoshop. I do have to save a still shot of the opening title to use on YouTube. YouTube never allows me to choose the frame I want to use. Their three choices always suck.