System Shock 2 – can’t get it to work properly

[andrei]

Hi there.
I’ve been messing around trying to make System Shock 2 work with Oculus Quest. It kind of works in the sense that you can look around by rotating your head and use the controllers but the screen is very small, the rest is ambient. And in DirectVR menu there’s no scan option and head tracking reads “unavailable”.
And there’s no stereoscopic vision, regardless of which option is set for 3D (was expecting at least Z-Buffer to work).
Can anyone lend a hand?
I noticed “DX9 mod” in profile name in the supported games list, is this a mod that needs to be downloaded, or maybe do I already have it? It’s not the steam version but the cd one.

[Ralf]

The profile should work with the current Steam and GOG versions, which already come with the updated DX9 renderer.

IIRC there is no DirectVR head tracking for the game, DirectVR adjusts the FOV and resolution in this case. If the game is displayed on a screen either the settings aren’t at default or the game isn’t recognized correctly. Try to reset the profile in the config app and check whether your game’s .exe is named either ss2.exe or shock2.exe.

[andrei]

Thank you for replying, Ralf.
Just to make sure I get it right I bought the game from GOG and it came patched to the latest version (2.48 – july 2019). No altered settings, just installed and played. Same behavior.

Although I’d have wanted to just scan and play, it’s not eventually a problem that I manually set the resolution, I’ll start off 1440*1600 (Quest’s reso per eye) and work it from there.

But those 2 things are important:

1. Head tracking – I’ve seen tutorials showing how head movement maps to short movement faking leaning (in some games). Is this dependent on DirectVR? Should I presume that games w/o DirectVR don’t benefit from 6 dof VR?

2. There’s still no stereoscopy.

I must be missing something, maybe someone who’s been through setting up VorpX with SS2 could jump in?

[Ralf]

Please try a profile and/or full factory reset in the config app, especially if you already fiddled with settings in the vorpX menu, which should not be necessary at all. With default settings you can just start playing after restarting the game once when vorpX prompts you to do so to apply the FOV. You shouldn’t have to adjust anything besides maybe the resolution if you want better image quality.

You don’t have to set the resolution manually in this case. DirectVR can do that for System Shock 2. You can select a quality preset in the vorpX menu. You should see a message about that in the headset as well as in the top left corner of the game window.

There is no 6DOF tracking for this game. 6DOF tracking is only available in Geometry 3D games and games with Direct VR head tracking.

[andrei]

I did a factory reset and when I re-entered SS2 it auto-adjusted the resolution and head turn sensitivity. head turn resembles reality turn perfectly.
Do you think there’s any chance that they’ll ever implement DirectVR for this game?
TBH this is my no.1 game :)
About stereoscopy, still no joy. Maybe it’s a video card issue? GTX 1050.

I tried Alice Madness Returns for a change and the 3D effect was only present with Geometry, and it became to look right after 3.

What can I say, all in all, VorpX looks like an ambitious software.

[Author]

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