- This topic has 310 replies, 52 voices, and was last updated Dec 23, 2023 6:28pm by
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Heads-up that the next beta will be available on Sunday (this time for real). Should have been today, but I need today for adding another gesture and tomorrow for play testing. With the available set of gestures games can already feel *VERY* close to native VR games, more to come. Almost ridiculous how much more natural that feels compared to a gamepad or mouse/kb. Even seated and/or in cinema/immersive screen mode.
Worth noting that you never are forced to use gestures. You can switch back and forth between gestures and button pressing seemlessly any time. So there is no excuse for not swapping your gamepad for motion controllers. ;)
Noteworthy changes compared to the last beta:
- New gesture: secondary fire via 90° forearm rotation: swaps the triggers/mouse buttons while active, so works with any game that has primary/secondary fire mapped to left/right triggers/mouse buttons.
- New gesture: binoculars/night vision, largely self-explanatory, just hold your hands in front of the headset.
- New gesture: jump by flipping both controllers up at the same time.
- The virtual monitor automatically kicks in when you put on your headset while the desktop viewer is running. Much more intuitive than the original ‘turn-physical-monitor-off’ method. One of those things that took two hours to implement in a basic fashion and then three weeks to hone…
- Custom resolutions for the virtual monitor. Just in case the predefined resolutions aren’t enough.
- Reduced desktop viewer CPU usage. While this was just a cosmetic issue since other programs with higher demands could always override, it came up a few times in the past, so now your task manager CPU usage will look right.
- The desktop viewer can now display UAC prompts (the safety prompts Windows displays when you launch a program as admin).
- Various input glitches while using the desktop viewer fixed. No more hammering the recenter key five times until it finally registers. Yay.
- Cursor clipping at low resolutions in desktop viewer/video player apps fixed.
- Smoother EdgePeek transitions etc. at low game/app frame rates.
- Cinema mode magnifier aspect ratio computation didn’t always work right.
All this stuff sounds fantastic, Ralf.
I was wondering, with all the gestures… could you use the controllers as gyro aim controls?
In case you’re not aware… there’s a popular input method on Switch (and on PC with Playstation controllers) called ‘flickstick’.
Predominantly for fps shooters, you still use the gamepad mostly as is, but where your right stick was originally used for aiming. Instead, that is use only to point in the general direction you wish to turn, and then you tilt or turn the entire controller to do fine tuned aiming.
I feel like VR controllers would be as accurate, if not more so, than the gyro in a DS4 gamepad.
I have no idea if the functionality is there presently in Vorpx to use a VR controller’s physical movement to aim with (or assist aiming). I was just curious.There already is a generalized way to actually aim with motion controllers, BUT: it only works good enough for games where head tracking is handled by other means than mouse emulation. A bit difficult to explain, but if head tracking is done via mouse emulation, head tracking and hand aiming interfere with each other in unwanted ways.
Works great however when it’s possible, and I’ll add it everywhere I can for sure before the final 23.1.0 release. You can currently try it e.g. in the standalone Cyberpunk mod, which does head tracking by changing the actual game camera and thus can do true hand aiming.
This Switch method sounds super interesting though, might work in cases where true hand aiming doesn’t. I’ll definitely look into it. Thanks for the hint!
On a sidenote: as soon as there are general shooting gestures, you more or less automatically start to move your hands while aiming, just because it feels right. So the usual head aiming doesn’t feel too different. No excuse though for not doing actual hand aiming whenever possible, of course.
Hey Ralf! Sounds awesome!
Is it possible that we can get a gesture where you can hold down a button while swinging arms to move around like the NaLo (natural locomotion) steam app does it?
https://store.steampowered.com/app/798810/Natural_Locomotion/I played a few games with this and it very natural, it gets rid of the need to use thumbsticks to move. I don’t see a way to use this inside vorpx yet.
Thank you for the continued support and fantastic features!
Arm swing locomotion is on the list, but frankly with a fairly low priority. To tweak that right will almost certainly require a substantial amount of time that I don’t really have ATM. It became a victim of the virtual monitor for now if you want, which wasn’t planned at all originally. The driver itself, the installer, and finally the desktop viewer integration/auto enable manangement with all its safeguards – together that did cost me almost eight weeks that I now have to get back somehow…
Long story short, the priority gesture wise for now is getting things as close as possible to what you usually see in native games. There are still a few things missing in that respect. Arm swing locomotion is cool and will happen at some point, but I don’t know when currently.
The next beta is now available. Note that this is still a BETA in the true sense of the word. So expect one or the other rough edge. Full changelog a few posts above.
Highlights:
1. New Gestures
With the newly added gestures the arsenal is now large enough to make certain games feel fairly close to native games. Especially shooters with their limited set of interactions, but pretty much every action oriented game can benefit hugely. For now there aren’t many games with predefined gestures though, which will be one of my tasks in the upcoming weeks.
If you don’t want to configure gestures yourself (easy, check the video in the original post), but still would like to try, try Cyberpunk 2077 (powerful PC required) or Aliens: Colonial Marines (decent PC should suffice).
Cyberpunk extra hint:
The Cyberpunk profile now comes with all the extra goodies of the standalone version. vorpX will ask you to install a dedicated mod when you launch the game the first time with vorpX hooked. This mod is necessary to make things work, it communicates with vorpX to enable AFR3D, positional tracking, VR optimized vehicle cameras and context sensitive gestures, i.e. the profile not only has gestures, but even can switch between gesture sets depending on gameplay context, e.g. whether you are in a car or on a motor cycle, or are holding a rifle or a pistol.
ACM extra hint:
ACM was my most recent gesture testing ground. Don’t let reviews put you off, the game has been massively improved after its flawed launch. Almost more important: story driven, straight forward shooters without much fluff like this one lend themselves well to VR/vorpX.
Make sure to run the DirectVR scanner when entering a level for roomscale tracking and FOV. and don’t forget to check the instructions shown in the headset. The game’s FOV slider has to be set to minimum, otherwise vorpX’s FOV calculation doesn’t work right. BTW: Also one of the games with automatic weapon hide, so no face gun.
2. Virtual monitor / desktop viewer integration
The virtual monitor added in the last beta now automatically kicks in when you launch the desktop viewer and put on your headset. Now you may think: great, thanks. But I already have a monitor and am about to play in VR anyway, so why on earth would I want that?
First and foremost: No more tinkering with custom resolutions to play games at higher resolutions than your monitor can display. This is a no-click one-size-fits-all solution that works for any GPU (AMD included) and any game you may intend to throw at it. That alone is reason enough to use the virtual monitor even if you don’t plan to use the desktop viewer for anything else than launching games. The virtual monitor has a large set of resolutions tailored for use with vorpX predefined that your monitor can’t display. If you want, you can add even more in the config app. Shouldn’t really be necessary though.
Secondly: If you occasionally play games using the desktop viewer without vorpX hooking into them, the virtual monitor has the huge extra benefit of running at your headset’s refresh rate. So provided the game you want to play can run at the full headset refresh rate, there won’t be any micro stutter from the normal monitor/headset refreshrate mismatch you get when you capture your actual monitor. Make sure VSync is enabled in games for that to work, also make sure there is no 60fps or so limit set in the game options. VSync alone is what you want. If you want a desktop capture app optimized for playing games, this is officially the one you want to use.
Added bonus: Probably not many will, but if you actually want to do general PC stuff using the desktop viewer, you can now do so on an ultra-ultra-wide 32:9 display surrounding your head. Judging from recent Star Trek TV shows that’s the future. So, welcome to the 24th century. :) The virtual monitor’s desktop resolution can be set in the Windows display settings.
Let me see if I understood the concept of Virtual Monitor correctly:
1. Launch desktop viewer
2. Put on your headset –> Virtual monitor kicks in, now Windows runs on a new monitor with the same refresh rate of your headset (which is good to avoid conflicts when your physical monitor has a different refresh rate) and a resolution set by the user (to be able to match it in game without messing around with custom resloutions)
3. Run a game –> vorpX hooks into the game normally (for supported games) like without virtual monitor, with the added bonus of being able to set the resolution in game to whatever you set as your resolution in Windows monitor settings. Plus having the game run on a monitor that has the same refresh rate as your headset greatly improves syncing issues and micro-stutters.Is this correct? Cause so far I’ve been able to to make the virtual monitor work, but vorpX doesn’t hook and the game doesn’t even start (I tested Rocket League which is definitely supported and working on 21.3.3). If I pause the watcher the game just runs on Steam Theater mode and not in Desktop Viewer (my monitor reactivates and I see the game there too).
So I either understood wrong the utility of Virtual Monitor or I need to find a fix for the inability to hook…When vorpX hooks into a game, it overrides VSync anyway, so in that case the major advantage of the virtual display is making it much, much easier to run games at higher resolutions than your monitor allows. Prior you had to manually add a dozen of resolutions to your GPU driver, and with bad luck had to repeat that after each driver update. Also there is no way to freely add resolutions for AMD GPUs. Now you don’t have to know or do anything about that anymore. You don’t even have to know about the virtual display. Things just work as intended by firing up the desktop viewer and putting on your headset.
May sound a bit unsexy for tech savvy 4K display owners among you for whom adding resolutions to their GPU driver is a matter of course, but is in fact the biggest improvement in terms of user friendliness since ages because it removes a major hurdle you had to not only know about, but also (tediously) overcome before you were even able to use vorpX in the best possible way.
The refresh rate topic is an added benefit for playing games with the desktop viewer itself. e.g. when you want to play games that can’t be hooked because they have some form of anticheat or when you want to use an external 3D solution. There are quite a few desktop capture apps, but as far as I’m aware none tackles this issue. Getting that right just wasn’t possible at all before, so this one is also of interest for those of you who might have fallen asleep when reading the above. ;)
As far as your hooking issue is concerned, that should indeed just work as always. Can’t recommend anything else than always in such a case. Check the trouble shooting guide in the technical support sub forum for potential conflicts you might want to look into.
vorpX doesn’t even start anymore since installing this update, it briefly appears in the icons tray and then just closes.
Sounds like it could be some antivirus program having a bad day. If you happen to use anything else than Windows Defender, remove the third party AV program. Windows Defender will kick in instead. Excluding the vorpX program folder may also help, but some AV programs make that extra complicated, so removing is your best bet.
If that helps, please let me know which third party AV program you were using, that way I could check whether something can be done.
If the issue ocurs without a third party AV program, it might be a bug. In that case please create a trouble shoot archive in the config app and send it to support at vorpx com.
You can go back to the last regular vorpX by reinstalling with the normal web installer. If you didn’t keep that, you can find a link in the first post of this thread.
I only use Windows Defender, I can’t even open the config app, I did try reinstalling it and this time Windows Defender popped up and said something about the file needed to be checked, so I clicked on it and it took me to a web page but it wouldn’t load and my internet stopped working, I had to restart my PC to get it back, I tried again reinstalling and this time Windows Defender didn’t pop up with anything but vorpX still doesn’t work, I will have to try installing the old version again.
You can also exclude the vorpX program folder in Defender, not just in third party AV apps. Defender hasn’t caused issues in a while, and doesn’t for me, but who knows.
Excluding the vorpX program folder from any AV app is a good idea anyway to avoid potential issues. AV programs in general don’t really like programs that hook into other programs, which vorpX obviously has to do to work. You can do that in the Defender settings and the folder you want to exclude is usually ‘C:\Program Files (x86)\Animation Labs\vorpX’ unless you installed vorpX elsewhere.
@petey53 For me the same happened as long as I has vorpX set up to run as admin. I unchecked it from the config app and now it launches properly
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