Feature Request – Game renders in Headset only or window

[OculusRiftRocks]

Feature Request – Game renders in Headset only or window, NOT monitor, running games in 5:4 can destroy some moniors, for this reason I cannot play Return to castle wolfenstein or quake 4.

ideally I’d rather the game was minimised or something, So i can see regular desktop on the monitor, running in 5:4 or over resing my current monitor is not good and its runing my monitor which only accepts 16:9 1:1 pixel grid.

Thanks

[Ralf]

vorpX always has to open games on the monitor and then send them to the headset from there since the headset itself does not register as a regular monitor. If your monitor does not support 5:4 resolutions (highly unlikely that it will be destroyed by them though), you can switch auto resolution setting off in the vorpX ingame menu (Direct VR page).

For the games in question I would suggest to simply run them windowed though if our monitor can’t handle 5:4/4:3 resolutions. That will probably solve the issue.

Out of curiosity: did vorpX set an unsupported resolution or did you do that manually? The reason I’m asking is that vorpX should never set a resolution that Windows doesn’t report as supported.

[OculusRiftRocks]

VorpX automatically put it to 5:4/4:3, I can’t tell it doens’t show me in the options panel for wolfenstien, my desktop is monitor is a laptop monitor which is connected via custom board based in china to allow any connection to it, but it must run at 1366×768, I would want to keep the best resolution for VorpX anyway and make it work including 4:3/5:4, it does destroy the monitor to run any other aspect ratio, on 5:4/4:3 it flickers constantly and i can only run the game for 10 minutes then when I close the game the picture on the monitor is broke for 10 minutes, it needs to recover.

I did try to make the game windowed in that game but it didn’t have the option to do it in the menus, it crashed when i tried to set it to windowed instead, maybe an ini file edit would do it, but if vorpx can run games in a window that would be great, but it does mean I have to find a way to do it, if all games work correctly in VorpX in a window then that’s great, I’ll have to test it though,

I guess it would be a nice to have option to do it automatically, this is how doom 3 fan mod works as well, in a window, I would have to do this with all games as running higher than 1366×768 isn’t advised on my monitor as well, it mildly ruins it.

[Ralf]

vorpX only sets resolutions that a monitor reports to Windows as supported. Seems like the EDID or driver of your custom board reports resolutions to the PC that the display in fact doesn’t support. This isn’t really a vorpX issue, but an apparently highly incorrect monitor driver/EDID in your custom board.

You can disable vorpX auto settings in the config app, but that way you will lose a lot of useful functionality, e.g. correctly setting FOV in many games. Makes a lot more sense to use an actual monitor (any monitor made in the last 25 years should do) instead of your incorrectly configured custom display.

[RJK_]

I assume that windowed thing would require vorpx to scale down the image which is not a good idea because of additional resources that need to be used. I rather fiddle around abit until a game runs properly instead of a slower VR driver.
BTW i dont belive a monitor can break feeding it with a signal that it doesnt support, either it displays the image or it does not.

[OculusRiftRocks]

its a new 12″ high end laptop monitor with a custom board, its very popular alternative solution to the bulky monitors with no matte and IPS finish which was my main reason for going down the custom route, this is the best monitor on the planet and will never give it up for anything.

makezine.com/2011/09/06/33-board-turns-your-bare-lcd-into-working-monitor/

This link sums it up, but it looks much better these days, its for people that want 13″ IPS and Matte rolled into one, you wont get that with conventional monitors.

sadly VorpX does damage the monitor, the picture that is displayed flashes a lot when you run in 5:4, if you run the game for more than 5 minutes the picture on the desktop is runied for about 20 minutes, it needs to recouperate, i was only able to test quake 4 and return wolfenstion for 5 minutes to see what it was like but ultimataely couldn’t play it.

in my experience every official steamVR and fan moded VR game has run in a window, serious sam 3, arizona sunshine and doom 3, this may be due to this issue, but to a much less severe extent for every case of user, overall I dont’ think you want to force a monititor to run at a much higher resolution and/or different aspect ratio than its native resolution in general, seems that VorpX is the odd one out runing in fullscreen monitor.

maybe it can be looked into later, but I don’t think its a good idea to dismiss it too quickly, the standard seems to be to have it in a window not duplicated on monitor (then again i remeber seing robo recall on the monitor i think?)

for now I will try to run games in a window, to see what that’s like.

[Ralf]

As said above: vorpX only sets resolutions that the monitor reports to Windows as supported.

If that custom board of yours reports resolutions to Windows that the panel you connected does not support, that is a severe problem with your DIY display, not a vorpX problem.

The only thing here that needs fixing is your DIY custom display.

[OculusRiftRocks]

in general your not suppose to feed a 5:4 1280×1024 signal into a 16:9 1920×1080 monitor LCD as its a fixed pixel display, it distorts the image and I belive it is bad for the monitor to some degree, I am an early adopter of your software and I remember when VorpX didn’t duplicate the display and had no issues then, could there not one day be a back door option to do this, maybe this is something you can think a nice to have option to look into later on in many months from now, keep in mind almost every official VR game in steam and fan mod renders the game windowed, only VorpX forces 4:3/5:4 low resolution signals such as 1280×1024, 1024/768 into high resolution widescreen displays, it’s just a practice that is not generally done, otherwise all my games would have this issue but only vorpX does.

[Ralf]

Did you actually read my first reply? vorpX does not work like native VR apps, it has to open games on the monitor. There also is a reason why games are not set to windowed mode automatically except for a few cases where that brings advantages.

You should really fix your dysfunctional DIY display or contact the vendor of its driver board for a fix. It very clearly does not work correctly if it reports resolutions to the PC as supported that don’t actually work. If your display only supports a single resolution, it (obviously) should only report that resolution as supported to the PC.

If you can’t fix your DIY display, you can – as suggested above – run games windowed if possible or alternatively globally disable all vorpX auto settings in the config app. Just keep in mind that you will lose automatic FOV in many games and other useful functions in that case, which is why it makes more sense to use a working monitor instead.

Noone with a correctly working monitor built in the last 25 years could ever encounter your “problem”, which solely is a problem of your DIY display.

Thanks for your understanding.

[OculusRiftRocks]

I did read it but as i said i was an early adopter of your software and if i can remember vorpx didn’t mrror the monitor back then, or if it did it was in SBS windowed view i think,I can’t recall.

I run VorpX games in a window now, vorpX works fine that way, what i am saying is the standard of rendering games in VR seems to be incorect for VorpX as almost every official app runs in a window or minimised because in genenral your not supposed to feed a low resolution/different AR feed into a higher resolution different AR monitor regardless of whether there is a minor or massive issue on the monitors end.

so I am hoping thinking as

nice to have

faeture to be added in over 1+ year if its easy to do, I did see option to mirror image in direct mode, maybe that will do that, but an optin like that would be good, or just an overal standard option in control panel, ‘for windowed gaming’ so you dont feed all these moniors with incorrect resolutions/ARs, some other problems may happen down the line.

[Ralf]

Sorry in advance for sounding slighty annoyed by now, I’m slowly starting to feel like talking to a 3-year-old.

There is no need for any additional feature in this regard – nice to have or otherwise – since noone with a correctly working monitor can have your “problem”.

Again: vorpX only sets resolutions that your obviously dysfunctional do-it-yourself display reports as supported to the PC. Make sure that your DIY display only reports the resolution to the PC it actually supports and you won’t have to worry about anything.

If you can’t or don’t want to do that, you have the two options that I suggested multiple times now.

[dellrifter22]

Sounds like it’s not possible to run minimized, games aren’t programed that way.

Does your laptop have a screen power off function? Sometimes I just turn my monitor off while in vr.

[Ralf]

@ dellrifter: This thread is not about a laptop, it’s about a do-it-yourself display based on a laptop LCD panel and a cheap driver board that reports wrong supported resolutions to the PC. OP has been made aware how to best use vorpX with his broken do-it-yourself display multiple times.

[OculusRiftRocks]

as i said before it is generally not a good idea to send the incorrect signal to an LCD monitor regardless of the reprecussions of the monitor, it is bad practice in any case.

but yes it will look correct on the HMD but it is like dual signalling to 2 different displays, you would run it in a window on the alternate monitor which has different Res/AR properies and run it full screen on the main one that your using, imagine two monitors, one 4:3 1024×768, one 16:19 1920×1080, if you have software that ran the game on both monitors at 4:3 and the user looked at the 4:3 display, the 16:9 display would just have it in a window, you would not constantly feed the 16:9 1920×1080 display with a full screen forced 4:3 image that would be stretched, in general you would do this.

also keep in mind this is how almost EVERY game runs on steamVR, Oculus Home & fan Mods, I’m very sure VorpX used to be like that as well, it has a windowsed SBS view like quake II fan mod, VorpX is the odd one out, its bad pracitce to do this, it just so happens that it’s not a major issues in most peoples cases but it is still incorrect to do this, but if VorpX used to show windows SBS view, can’t it easily do it again?

[Ralf]

That is indeed a bad idea. Hence monitors report the resolutions they support to the PC/OS since more than 20 years, so that programs that change the resolution know which ones work. Just like any other program that changes resolutions vorpX evaluates this mode list before doing anything.

Your do-it-yourself-display however apparently reports resolutions to the PC that it doesn’t really support.

To summarize your options once again: you can address your issue either by 1. using any normal monitor instead of your hacked together do-it-yourself display, 2. making sure your do-it-yourself-display only reports the resolutions as supported that it actually supports, 3. running games windowed, or 4. by disabling the auto resolution option.

Thread closed. You can hopefully understand that I have better things to do than telling you the same things over and over again.

[Author]

Posts