HTC Vive Price Drop

This morning I see the Vive has dropped in price. The retail price of a new Vive is now a mere US$600. That is better than the previous $800. But still expensive. Vive headsets have been going on eBay for about $500 for some time. Gear VR units are going for $65 on eBay.

HTC Vive – Aug 2017

Sansar is supporting Oculus and Vive. I have neither. So, how well they are supported and how easy they are to setup with Sansar, I don’t know. I have yet to get my Gear VR working with Sansar. So, I know that is difficult. I think I am down to a ‘controller’ problem. I have an Xbox 1708 controller on order (US$20-30±).

If you Google on Vive and SL, you may get the idea Vive and SL will work for VR. That isn’t the case. The information is almost all 2016 stuff written before the Lab dropped their SL VR project and CtrlAltStudio stopped VR Viewer development. I have been able to get SL into 3D, not VR, with my Gear VR. Not really worth the effort. It’s a nice novelty.

I have used the old CtrlAltStudio Viewer to see SL in VR. There is no Bento support. Until someone decides to merge the CtrlAltStudio code and an updated Firestorm there is essentially no ‘native’ VR support for SL. There is some third-party software for various games to get them into VR. Most of those are for DirectX games, not OpenGL.

SL users are second-class VR citizens…

VR News 2017 w30

Oculus is pushing updates. A beta update is available allowing a user to combine their Oculus and Steam games in one library. That will be handy.

VR User Case

As it is now I have problems getting Stream VR working on my Gear VR. It does not like the Gear VR’s controller. So, I’ll have to get the Beta and see if it relieves the problem. My hope is because Gear VR and the Oculus store are integrated that will carry over to Steam games in the library.

Get More information from Road to VR, Oculus 1.17 Update Will Let You Launch SteamVR Apps From Oculus Home.

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

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

Second Life – State of VR – Gear VR

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