Viewing Desktop in VR ?

[RJK_]

Hello there,

I am looking for an app which let me view my desktop in VR throug steamvr. I havent tried bigscreen desktop viewer ect. because i am not shure if they can really help me out.

I simply want to view my desktop in VR, then (this is mportant) with running vorpX in the background start a game, play it in VR (not emulated on a screen or virtual environment or so !), then when shutting down the game the desktop must come back up so i can continiue working with it in VR. Taking on and off VR glasses is very distressing , especially while testing things.

any Ideas ?

[Ralf]

What about the desktop viewer that comes with vorpX? If I understand what you want correctly, it works exactly the way you want it to work (Windows 8/10 required).

[RJK_]

Hey that was fast. Thanks for the hint. I read about that earlier in the forum but i didnt know what you were talking about. – Sadly i only have WIN7. Is there a reason that only Win8/10 is supported ?

[Ralf]

Windows 7 doesn’t provide the desktop capture API that is used.

[RJK_]

Oh i understand. I was not updating yet to WIN 8 because i am afraid of many “older” games possibly not working anymore on that system.

So i am guessing there wouldnt be any other tool which can do that on WIn7.

[RJK_]

In the reddit forums i read the following.

I’ve used Virtual Desktop on Win7, and it’s fine. It doesn’t have good performance for more esoteric stuff like looking at Ansel images, or 3D video playback, because Win7 doesn’t support the latest desktop imaging APIs. For normal use as a launcher and modest web browsing, it works well,

Could the vorpX Desktop Viewer at least be used for “For normal use as a launcher and modest web browsing” under WIN7 ? (May be inofficial ? Or would that make no sense at all ?

[Ralf]

That would require a totally different capture implementation and also work relatively poorly due to the way the capturing would have to be done. While certainly possible I think there are more important things on the plate that will benefit more users.

Let’s face it, the time when Windows 7 becomes outdated for good is near, it soon reaches the (IT-wise) biblical age of nine years.

I take great care to not break any vital vorpX features on Windows 7, but the desktop viewer is the one thing that requires something reasonably modern.

[RJK_]

Thanks for explaining in detail Ralf, in understand. Hope the rest of vorpX will remain WIN7 compatible. (looking at all those older games which cant be run under WIN8/10 but are equipped with DX9)

[okone9]

thank you for explaining from me as well, amount of work required vs. achievable quality and time served – probably not worth it (even if I’d like it to be)

I would, however, pin this post somewhere or have this in the FAQ/ right where its explained that Win7 is not supported, since a number of people won’t understand why this isn’t implemented, which included me before finding this post

Maybe mention official Microsoft support runs out in 18 months. Most people would rather have an explanation somewhere official than having to search the forum

[Ralf]

vorpX works perfectly fine with Windows 7. Just the desktop viewer, which comes as a free bonus add-on, doesn’t.

[okone9]

I was referring to the desktop viewer, but yes, thanks for making it clear

[Author]

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