The zoomed-in problem

[augre]

So Vorpx is a bit of hassle to make it work (but after all so is the Oculus Runtime and all it’s obnoxious Extended Display stuff).

But so far we managed to make it work with most games (setting resolution to 1080p, setting the HMD as secondary display in Portrait/Landscape(flipped) mode, setting Vorpx to display to DK2 HMD, with no profile set-up etc…)

But there’s something that remains hard to get around when there’s no Geometry 3D option, is the “zoomed-in” effect:

First of all, I don’t understand why a plugin costing 40€ that is supposed to make games playable on Oculus pretty easily has this option at all: the point of a plugin is not to have to waste time trying to tweak .ini files and other more obnoxious stuff. And since zoomed-in games are unplayable and you have to set Geometry 3D to the maximum every time you launch the game, I don’t understand why it’s not the base configuration.

Secondly some games advertised as compatible, are unplayable due to this problem since you can’t have Geometry 3D option.

So I’d like to understand: what is it due too, and will future update of Vorpx make game run directly with a better 3D z-buffer enable, and maybe find some workaround for other games?

[Ralf]

Please check the Essential Game Hints in the vorpX help for information regarding this and other important things.

Here’s the FOV part of the Essential Game Hints for your convenience:

You can get most games look almost perfect in this regard. And even for those that do not offer FOV control, neither directly, nor through vorpX, there are functions in vorpX to make them playable, although not in a perfect way.

From best to worst here is what you can do:

1. Set the game FOV directly in the game if it provides to dial in an FOV of 120°,
2. Set the game FOV directly with the vorpX Game Optimizer (vorpX config app) for games that support it.
3. Set the game FOV to 120 manually through an ini tweak or external tool (avaliable for many games, google FOV + game name).
4. Use the 3D FOV Enhancement in the vorpX ingame menu (availabe in Geometry 3D games).
5. Use one of the letterbox aspect ratio modes in the vorpX ingame menu and/or ImageZoom
6. Play the game in Virtual Cinema Mode
7. Use the 2D FOV-Enhancement in the vopX ingame menu (be aware that this distorts the image)

[Karlor]

The biggest reason games have a “zoomed in” effect is games are made to be played on consoles and a really wide FOV is almost never included. PC gamers have been harping on FOV forever. The fact that vorpX even tries to auto edit the inis for you is badass. Almost all other programs would make you go hack around your settings your self. Also as far as settings go, they wil always need adjusting. VR isn’t a one size fits all type thing. The good news is once you figure out what your settings are they transfer from game to game pretty easy.

[augre]

It kind of work with Mirror’s Edge thanks to the in-game menu.

But the said menu doesn’t work or appear in Outlast or Half-Life 2 so it’s unplayable.

Also again, we tried vorpx on two computer and two screens, and the zoomed-in problems were exactly the same, so if we could we had to use Geometry 3D the same way: so why isn’t vorpx set to do that directly?

[Ralf]

Both Mirror’s Edge and Outlast can be optimized with the Game Settings Optimizer in the vorpX config app (2. in the above answer). If that fails or isn’t available for a game, the first thing you schould try is 3. from the list above. The vorpX ingame menu can be displayed in every game when it runs with vorpX.

Here’s the FOV part of the Essential Game Hints for your convenience again:

You can get most games look almost perfect in this regard. And even for those that do not offer FOV control, neither directly, nor through vorpX, there are functions in vorpX to make them playable, although not in a perfect way.

From best to worst here is what you can do:

1. Set the game FOV directly in the game if it provides to dial in an FOV of 120°,
2. Set the game FOV directly with the vorpX Game Optimizer (vorpX config app) for games that support it.
3. Set the game FOV to 120 manually through an ini tweak or external tool (avaliable for many games, google FOV + game name).
4. Use the 3D FOV Enhancement in the vorpX ingame menu (availabe in Geometry 3D games).
5. Use one of the letterbox aspect ratio modes in the vorpX ingame menu and/or ImageZoom
6. Play the game in Virtual Cinema Mode
7. Use the 2D FOV-Enhancement in the vopX ingame menu (be aware that this distorts the image)

[adisplinter]

One very important thing regarding the “zoomed in” effect, that almost everyone misses, including me, is calibrating IPD in vorpX’s ingame menu. So do calibrate your IPD following the on-screen instructions, trust me…it does wonders to the resulting image both for FOV and 3D depth and presence feeling.

I tried a few games like Crysis, Fallout 3, BF3, BF4 etc and no matter what methods I used for improving FOV, including FOV enhancement tools and vorpX’s FOV options and zoom, it still felt a bit “zoomed in”, especially on close range objects.
So after finishing the whole BF3 campaign using Flawless Widescreen set to max FOV, Letterbox 1 aspect ratio, 2D FOV-Enhancement and 85 % image zoom, I started BF4 (same settings) which had better 3D definition but after playing for a while, the “zoomed in” feeling became kind of annoying and broke the immersion. Besides that I also got some blurry vision for half an hour after playing, until my eyes readjusted.

Then I started messing with Calibrate IPD option from page 2 (display) and found that 64.00 which is the default average for most males was wrong, so I re-calibrated using the on-screen instructions and ended up at 60.75 where the cross was perfectly visible and most clear (I do not suffer from any vision issues, I see very sharp, near and far).I was stunned by the result as the “zoomed-in” issue was completely gone, the FOV was just like as in an Oculus native supported game like Alien Isolation or HL2. I was stunned even more when I instantly noticed a huge improvement to 3D depth, the distance from my face to every object in the 3D environment was very clear which is a huge boost for presence feeling. And after playing for a couple of hours without any pause, when I exited, the blurry vision was greatly diminished and it completely disappeared in 1-2 minutes.

So this is the most important thing to do besides setting the FOV. You might end up higher than me, closer to 62-63…in my case, might be the VR Cover cloth which I applied over the DK2 and puts a bit of higher distance between the lens and the eyes, although the VR native games didn’t gave me any problems with the 64 IPD default setting in Oculus profile. I’m not sure how that is possible, maybe it differs from one game to the next, but the result is amazing ;)

[Ralf]

That’s a good hint, thanks. Adjusting the FOV is indeed important in many ways.

[adisplinter]

As I suspected, it differs from game to game and from one 3D reconstruction method to the other (Z-buffer/Geometry 3D). After finishing BF4 campaign, I started setting up Metro 2033 and tried to apply vorpX settings from BF4.

Metro 2033 allows Geometry 3D in DX9 mode, which is a way better 3D reconstruction method than Z-buffer and setting IPD to 60.75 (as in BF4) was completely off, I had a cross-eyed / double image, so I had to re-calibrate and 64 (the default male average) was where I ended up being the best value, as for any native VR supported game. As for the other settings, I had 3D-Strength to 2.00 and 3D FOV Enhancement to 0.30 (besides setting 90 FOV in user.cfg file) and that resulted in a perfect scale / FOV, absolutely no “zoomed-in” effect. No image zoom or 2D FOV Enhancement were required as in BF4’s case.

So having the ideal settings for the best scale / FOV and resolving the “zoomed-in” issue, depends on the game you’re playing, 3D reconstruction method, personal preference and perception. And of course setting the FOV from game’s options (if any) or using an external tool is an absolute must. The fact that vorpX has all these useful options to set the best possible VR image is goddamn amazing! So thank you Ralf ;)

[feathers632]

adisplinter wrote:

One very important thing regarding the “zoomed in” effect, that almost everyone misses, including me, is calibrating IPD in vorpX’s ingame menu. So do calibrate your IPD following the on-screen instructions, trust me…it does wonders to the resulting image both for FOV and 3D depth and presence feeling.

I tried a few games like Crysis, Fallout 3, BF3, BF4 etc and no matter what methods I used for improving FOV, including FOV enhancement tools and vorpX’s FOV options and zoom, it still felt a bit “zoomed in”, especially on close range objects.
So after finishing the whole BF3 campaign using Flawless Widescreen set to max FOV, Letterbox 1 aspect ratio, 2D FOV-Enhancement and 85 % image zoom, I started BF4 (same settings) which had better 3D definition but after playing for a while, the “zoomed in” feeling became kind of annoying and broke the immersion. Besides that I also got some blurry vision for half an hour after playing, until my eyes readjusted.

Then I started messing with Calibrate IPD option from page 2 (display) and found that 64.00 which is the default average for most males was wrong, so I re-calibrated using the on-screen instructions and ended up at 60.75 where the cross was perfectly visible and most clear (I do not suffer from any vision issues, I see very sharp, near and far).I was stunned by the result as the “zoomed-in” issue was completely gone, the FOV was just like as in an Oculus native supported game like Alien Isolation or HL2. I was stunned even more when I instantly noticed a huge improvement to 3D depth, the distance from my face to every object in the 3D environment was very clear which is a huge boost for presence feeling. And after playing for a couple of hours without any pause, when I exited, the blurry vision was greatly diminished and it completely disappeared in 1-2 minutes.

So this is the most important thing to do besides setting the FOV. You might end up higher than me, closer to 62-63…in my case, might be the VR Cover cloth which I applied over the DK2 and puts a bit of higher distance between the lens and the eyes, although the VR native games didn’t gave me any problems with the 64 IPD default setting in Oculus profile. I’m not sure how that is possible, maybe it differs from one game to the next, but the result is amazing.

Looks like you’re right! Every game has been massively zoomed-in and even after I spent hours last night following the advice to change FOV in game, in vorpx or by modding game ini, it made absolutely no difference. So after finding your advice here I went in to metro ll and adjusted the IPD (haven’t used the in-game calibrate yet – i simply increased the IPD and now the game doesn’t look zoomed in anymore. Also changed the z-buffer mode and increased 3d effect. So many people are posting here about zoomed-in problems and the standard advice to mod FOV isn’t working. Well done for sorting it out!

[Ralf]

Of course changing the FOV (field of view) makes a difference, it actually makes THE difference. The latest post on this thread before yours was from June, 7th. If this was an unsolvable issue, there would probably a lot more posts about this.

If you can’t see a difference, something went wrong. If a game normally uses an FOV of 75 for example, it looks very narrow and zoomed in, but if you set the FOV to 120 successfully, you have an FOV that is equal to what see in native Rift applications, nothing is zoomed in anymore afterwards.

That is possible in many games, but not all. vorpX also provides workarounds if it’s not possible in a game.

From best to worst here is what you can do (taken from the Essential Game Hints in the vorpX help):

1. Set the game FOV directly in the game if it provides to dial in an FOV of 120°.
2. Set the game FOV directly with the vorpX Game Settings Optimizer (vorpX config app) for games that support it.
3. Set the game FOV to 120 manually through an ini tweak or external tool (avaliable for many games, google FOV + game name).
4. Set the game resolution to a 4:3 or 5:4 aspect ratio mode. 1280×960 for example. In many games this helps with FOV.
5. Use the 3D FOV Enhancement in the vorpX ingame menu (availabe in Geometry 3D games).
6. Use one of the letterbox aspect ratio modes in the vorpX ingame menu and/or ImageZoom.
7. Play the game in Virtual Cinema Mode (can be enabled in the vorpX ingame menu).
8. Use the 2D FOV-Enhancement in the vopX ingame menu (be aware that this distorts the image).

[feathers632]

Ralf wrote:

Of course changing the FOV (field of view) makes a difference, it actually makes THE difference. The latest post on this thread before yours was from June, 7th. If this was an unsolvable issue, there would probably a lot more posts about this.

If you can’t see a difference, something went wrong. If a game normally uses an FOV of 75 for example, it looks very narrow and zoomed in, but if you set the FOV to 120 successfully, you have an FOV that is equal to what see in native Rift applications, nothing is zoomed in anymore afterwards.

That is possible in many games, but not all. vorpX also provides workarounds if it’s not possible in a game.

From best to worst here is what you can do (taken from the Essential Game Hints in the vorpX help):

1. Set the game FOV directly in the game if it provides to dial in an FOV of 120°.
2. Set the game FOV directly with the vorpX Game Settings Optimizer (vorpX config app) for games that support it.
3. Set the game FOV to 120 manually through an ini tweak or external tool (avaliable for many games, google FOV + game name).
4. Set the game resolution to a 4:3 or 5:4 aspect ratio mode. 1280×960 for example. In many games this helps with FOV.
5. Use the 3D FOV Enhancement in the vorpX ingame menu (availabe in Geometry 3D games).
6. Use one of the letterbox aspect ratio modes in the vorpX ingame menu and/or ImageZoom.
7. Play the game in Virtual Cinema Mode (can be enabled in the vorpX ingame menu).
8. Use the 2D FOV-Enhancement in the vopX ingame menu (be aware that this distorts the image).

Well actually I did most of that last night. I applied the vorpx optimisations to each game. I was able to press F4 in Dishonored and that worked. Metro LL no way. No amount of FOV modding (including the .ini) made even the slightest difference. The games that are zoomed in look normal (good) in theater mode) or when using the peek feature (mouse M).

I had also used vorpx FOV controls and that helped slightly but Borderlands and Metro LL were still far too zoomed in.

As soon as I adjusted IPD in-game vorpx on Metro LL it looked normal for the first time. Increased stereo depth too.

By the way… I’d also changed the vorpx aspect ratios last night and none of them helped the extrem zoomed-in look.

So now the game is set to 90 via .ini and adjusted IPD and it looks good. As I said.. setting the FOV to 120 via .ini last night didn’t help at all.

[Ralf]

If it fails for some reason, choose one of the many workarounds. ImageZoom, Using a 4:3/5:4 resolution, the 3D FOV Enhancement (for Geometry 3D games), virtual cinema mode if all fails etc.).

When you choose one of the letterbox aspect ratio modes, the image is zoomed out a bit, creating a larger field of view. I’m not sure how this cannot help to be honest. It may not be enough, but as the instructions say, you can also combine this with the image zoom.

There is not a single game where you can’t get rid of the zoomed in look. Often in a perfect way, in other cases in a non-perfect way.

From best to worst here is what you can do (taken from the Essential Game Hints in the vorpX help):

1. Set the game FOV directly in the game if it provides to dial in an FOV of 120°.
2. Set the game FOV directly with the vorpX Game Settings Optimizer (vorpX config app) for games that support it.
3. Set the game FOV to 120 manually through an ini tweak or external tool (avaliable for many games, google FOV + game name).
4. Set the game resolution to a 4:3 or 5:4 aspect ratio mode. 1280×960 for example. In many games this helps with FOV.
5. Use the 3D FOV Enhancement in the vorpX ingame menu (availabe in Geometry 3D games).
6. Use one of the letterbox aspect ratio modes in the vorpX ingame menu and/or ImageZoom.
7. Play the game in Virtual Cinema Mode (can be enabled in the vorpX ingame menu).
8. Use the 2D FOV-Enhancement in the vopX ingame menu (be aware that this distorts the image).

[feathers632]

But…. maybe it’s a vision thing? If the FOV steps u detailed work for most people.. perhaps my IPD is out of normal range then? After I set my oculus calibration some weeks ago that shows 67 IPD. Default vorpx IPD is lower than this. Upping the FOV using vorpx in-game was dramatic. For the first time the zoomed-in look has gone and it looks pretty good now.

I reckon if I go back to Dishonored with the correct IPD for me then that too will look better.

I did a combination of the steps u listed last night and as I said… didn’t help.

The one step that did work was putting the games in cinema mode but that defeats the purpose. I think cinema mode is great for some games (especially 2d ones) but for any game with 3d support on vorpx I want non-theater mode.

[Ralf]

You can always combine setting the FOV with the image zoom on the image page of the vorpX ingame menu. If you feel 120° are still not enough for whatever reason (provided they were set successfully), you can simply zoom out a little bit (at the cost of minor top/bottom bars).

If setting the FOV fails completely, you can also use the image zoom (at the cost of larger top/bottom bars).

The instructions pasted in multiple times above REALLY contain everything you need to know to get rid of the zoomed in image.

[feathers632]

But I was using a combination of modded FOV to 120 and vorpx FOV and image zoom last night. I zoomed out to the point where I could see the bars at top/bottom. The only way metro looked correct in zoom was when Mouse M peek was used or in cinema mode.

So why do you have IPD calibration in vorpx in-game menu if it’s not a factor in setting up correct image?

I tried all the steps u listed and FOV still too zoomed for metro LL. Dishonored looked much better with the steps but not Metro.

I think the default IPD is fine for most eyes but I guess not mine.

[Author]

Posts