Is Vorpx a good buy for the VIVE?

[Nirvana]

I recently got my HTC Vive and I want to play primarily modded Skyrim/Skyrim SE and the Witcher 3 in VR.
Before I buy, just wanted to know the current state of Vorpx development support for Vive users as I see that its still in beta stage for it as compared to the Vorpx support for rift. There are as many vive users (>150,000 as per this vive game’s usage data http://steamspy.com/app/327140) as rift users if not more (twice as many vive(60%) users on steam compared to 30% for rift – Steam’s latest october survey – http://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey) so I hope the devs do give proper supp for Vorpx Vive users.

Just wanted to make sure that if I buy ..I can be reassured that the vorpx supp will get better for vive users in future as I am a bit hesitant with all the confusion around vorpx support for vive users online.

Thanks

[Ralf]

I’m not quite sure how reliable the Steam survey numbers are as a VR market share indicator, since obviously Oculus users will play many made-for-vr-games through Oculus Home, but Vive and Oculus are treated equally in terms of development time spent on them.

vorpX is built in a way that most things being worked on work for all headsets automatically. There is no difference in terms of game support for example. A game profile always works for both Oculus and Vive in the same way. For the things that require vendor specific work (like controller support for example) both headsets are treated the same.

Vive controller support will be added with the next update in the sense that you will be able to map a game’s control scheme to the controllers. There are also some ongoing experiments with gesture based movement, but I’m not sure yet whether these experiments will make it into any final release.

[Nirvana]

Thanks for the reply Raif.
I do not expect roomscale support for the games. I’ll be pretty happy to play with my xbox controller as its good to know that Vorpx is optimized for the Vive headset as much as it is for the Rift.
Also, I hope this guide for Skyrim vorpx setup for the rift would work well for the Vive too- http://riftinfo.com/best-oculus-rift-skyrim-setup-you-will-find

[Ralf]

vorpX ingame settings are always applicable the same way for both headsets, so you can use that guide. Only major difference is that you will need to apply a slightly higher field of view for Vive than for Rift since Oculus opted for a higher pixel density instead of FOV. For Vive you usually want to set an FOV around 120° (110° for Rift CV1).

One caveat: not all options mentioned in that guide exist anymore, but that has nothing to do with Rift vs. Vive, just with the guide being based on an older vorpX version.

[Tiggerdyret]

Hi, Nirvana.
I just wanted to give my two cents on the buy as there tend to be a lot of ill will towards Vorpx.
Vorpx is not for everyone. It’s for people who really want to play their games in “some king of” VR and are willing to tinker and see past a few issues. If you are the kind of person who just want to hit the play button and get a finished experience you might get disappointed.
That said I think it’s an amazing app well worth it’s price tag. Even if you don’t end up playing games with Vorpx, because of motion-sickness, stutters or bad graphics, just walking around in your favorite game worlds in geometric 3d is still an amazing ride.

[Cupzter]

i can vouch for vorpx on skyrim. to me, it does an excellent job with just the default optimization settings. if you got the hardware, you can crank the resolution up further and it will look even better. skyrim is a must play in vr :)

[Nirvana]

Thanks guys…bought and installed..now gonna take my time to read up on the various settings and tweaks for skyrim. If you guys have any latest/updated links for modded skyrim on vorpx..let me know ;)

[Tiggerdyret]

This should do the trick, but it’s for the old Skyrim, which is current better supported than SSE. https://www.vorpx.com/forums/topic/some-help-for-skyrim-offered/

I’m personally waiting a few weeks until SSE has gotten better Vorpx and modding support, but you could give them both a try and see what runs best on your system.

[Myrilion]

The VR mode of VorpX is not working right with my Vive: The center of the image is way too high. If I zoom the image so it covers just the top part, there is a broad black band on the bottom covering 15-20 % of the display. VorpX currently doesn’t let you tweak the center of the image. That makes it almost unplayable to play in VR mode. Either I had to zoom in too much (wasting 20% of rendering power on parts on the top I can’t see), or I have the big band at the bottom. In any case the center of perspective is totally off, and it’s very uncomfortable to watch and even making me sick.

I only use VorpX in VirtualTheatre mode. I cheat the system by recalibrating my height at 40 cm below my normal head position. That way the image is perfectly centered. Of course it’s only a work around, and can’t offer the same experience as the VR mode. You can’t zoom the window far enough so it covers the entire field of view, and the headtracking doesn’t move the virtual screen.

[Ralf]

If you see bars at the top and/or bottom, you need to set the Image Zoom value to 1.0 and the aspect ratio mode to “Pixel 1:1” on the image page of the ingame menu. That also requires a high enough field of view (120° horizontal for Vive), otherwise the image will look distorted.

The image is perfectly centered vertically, i.e. you look exactly at the camera center. The bottom bar is larger than the top bar because the Vive uses a slightly asymetric view to account for the human eye being better at looking downwards than upwards. A neat trick that both the Vive and the Oculus CV1 use to gain a few extra pixels where it counts most.

How the FOV can be adjusted varies from game to game. For some games you can do it directly in the game options, for others the vorpX Game Optimizer in the config app can do it or you need an external tool like Flawless Widwscreen . And if absolutely no other option exists, you may have to use a workaround that may involve visible top/bottom bars.

You can find a full list of options you have in this regard in the Essential Hints Guide in the vorpX help, which also explains a few other basics that are worth to read before starting with vorpX.

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