cancel
Showing results for 
Search instead for 
Did you mean: 

TriDef VR

JohnnyDioxin
Expert Trustee
This has been released as a demo for those who own MSI hardware (as MSI coughed up the sponds to pay for the dev). I have an MSI GTX1060 6G so I got a 3 month trial.

This evening I tested it with ArmA 2, Call of Duty 2 and Far Cry 3. I have recorded these games, though it isn't ideal and is in 3D SBS "direct from Rift" mode, and will edit and upload the videos tomorrow.

First things first - this is NOT VR. It's a screen in front of you that looks exactly the same as the one in Virtual Desktop, even with the same galaxy style backdrop. It does fit squarely into your view, but is fixed in place.
The game is displayed on this screen in 3D. So it isn't VR, it's 3D.

Having said that, it is very good, and fun. I only had a couple of issues - it crashed whilst playing Far Cry 3. It also couldn't find Steam when I tried to start CoD2 - but that didn't matter because I started the game directly from Steam and it went into TriDef no problem.

The last problem was a real shame - I had to turn off the shadows in ArmA 2, because they were very poor in TriDef VR. They seemed to be in front of other objects (like my rifle). Once I switched the shadows off, the game was much more fun. The only difficulty here is when aiming down the sights. There is a knack to hitting the target, due to seeing two dots. It ain't that easy with the iron sights, either, but as I say, there is a knack, and once you have it, you won't have any problems.

As I said, overall it is good fun - but whether it will be worth buying or not is dependant on how much they will charge for it.

I used TriDef 3D to do exactly what this does - the difference being that in TriDef VR, all the settings and fiddling is taken care of for you - so it's probably worth splashing on if you already have the 3D version. It claims to work with all 900 games on their list, so there will almost certainly be a few there for everyone.

Vids will be up tomorrow sometime - but the actual screen image is not that big and like I said, it's SBS, so best using a mobile/cellphone and 'VR' headset or an app such as DeoVR.

Get the MSI trial here:

https://www.msi.com/Landing/the-4-Extraordinaires

Otherwise, you'll have to wait for the commercial release. They have a trial for 3D, so they may well do one for VR as well.


i5 9600k @4.5GHz; 16GB DDR4 3200; 6xSSD; RTX2080ti; Gigabyte Z390D Mobo
Rift CV1; Index; Quest; Quest 2
10 REPLIES 10

cybereality
Grand Champion
Cool, I want to check it out. Converting normal games to full VR with a driver based solution is extremely hard and there are challenges that can't really be overcome without source code access. But a stereo virtual movie theater sounds like it could work, I'd like to see for myself. 
AMD Ryzen 7 1800X | MSI X370 Titanium | G.Skill 16GB DDR4 3200 | EVGA SuperNOVA 1000 | Corsair Hydro H110i Gigabyte RX Vega 64 x2 | Samsung 960 Evo M.2 500GB | Seagate FireCuda SSHD 2TB | Phanteks ENTHOO EVOLV

JohnnyDioxin
Expert Trustee
Here is the ArmA 2 video - the screen is much larger and more stable than it appears in the recording. If you've used apps like Virtual Desktop, it's the same as that (but not curved), and you can zoom in and out as you like.

https://youtu.be/v8pCx4gI9bM

CoD 2 video is uploading...


i5 9600k @4.5GHz; 16GB DDR4 3200; 6xSSD; RTX2080ti; Gigabyte Z390D Mobo
Rift CV1; Index; Quest; Quest 2

JohnnyDioxin
Expert Trustee
Okay, Call of Duty 2:

https://youtu.be/BKwj6URAxOc

I'm just uploading the Far Cry 3 test, which is very short, as it crashed soon after starting. I'll give it another go later today, and I will test as much as I can of the compatible games that I own.

It's a shame that the recordings with D3DGear in Oculus Rift mode are always recorded at maximum zoom-out. Nothing I can do about that. I will probably just record some 2D vids of using this utility, just so peeps can see exactly how much of the view is filled with the game screen.


i5 9600k @4.5GHz; 16GB DDR4 3200; 6xSSD; RTX2080ti; Gigabyte Z390D Mobo
Rift CV1; Index; Quest; Quest 2

JohnnyDioxin
Expert Trustee
Here's the last one - Far Cry 3. Like I said, it crashed, so not long at all, but gives you an idea.

It may have been that I have the settings a bit high - everything is maxed - so I will try lowering a setting or two - including VSync, and see if that stops the micro-stutter I experienced at the start of play.

https://youtu.be/nMMRBjCX948


There are several progs running at once here - Oculus Home, TriDef, Steam and SteamVR, Uplay and the game being the main ones, and if anything has the slightest hiccup, it's going to crash.

Edit: btw guys and gals, I am happy to test any game in TriDef VR that I have, which is on their compatible list. I can just let you know how it plays or make a video - 2D or SBS as these ones.

The games I have which are available in TriDef VR:

Alien Isolation
ArmA (1)
Battlefield 2
Battlefield: Bad Company 2
Black Mesa
Call of Duty MW2, 3 and WaW
Crysis
DayZ
Dead Island
Dirt & 2
Fallout 4
Far Cry 1 & 2
Frontlines: Fuel of War
Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter
GRID & GRID 2
GTR 2
GTRevo
Half Life 2 - complete series
Medal of Honor AA
Metro 2033
Metro Last Light
FSX
Need For Speed (I only have two of them, tho)
Op Flashpoint: Dragon Rising
Race Room Experience
rFactor 1 & 2
Richard Burns Rally
Rise of Flight
STALKER Call of Pripyat
Unreal Tournament III
Return To Castle Wolfenstein

This is not a full list of compatible games (there are 900) - just the ones that I own. So, I'm happy to test any of these.

i5 9600k @4.5GHz; 16GB DDR4 3200; 6xSSD; RTX2080ti; Gigabyte Z390D Mobo
Rift CV1; Index; Quest; Quest 2

JohnnyDioxin
Expert Trustee
Just to update this - I've played quite a bit of ArmA 2 in 3D with TriDef VR. What I have found is that, although it seems desirable to zoom in to the gaming screen as much as possible, to try and get "in the game" and have a more immersive experience, actually the more zoomed-in I play (i.e. the larger the virtual screen) the worse I feel.

I can play for some time with the screen just filling my field of view in the headset, though this makes you completely aware you are playing on a screen. It's still a good experience, though, playing in 3D.

If I enlarge the screen so that I need to move my head to see the edges (such as the ammo count etc on the HUD in ArmA 2), I find that after one or two missions, I feel quite sick.
This has nothing to do with locomotion, but a lot to do with resolution, imo.

i5 9600k @4.5GHz; 16GB DDR4 3200; 6xSSD; RTX2080ti; Gigabyte Z390D Mobo
Rift CV1; Index; Quest; Quest 2

FieldOfVision
Heroic Explorer
Realistically though, is this any better than playing on a flat screen? I still haven't tried anything like this, but I feel that the resolution would be very low and also it may not be very practical. But I definitely want to try it so I can tell for myself! So thanks for posting all the information. 

 
Latest VR game: Crazy Kung Fu
Other games: www.FieldOf.Vision

JohnnyDioxin
Expert Trustee
You're welcome.

I've asked myself the same thing and I think it varies from game to game. ArmA 2 looks pretty good, but I'm not convinced it's better than on a decent monitor.
rFactor, once set up properly, was a lot of fun, and that (and any other racing games/sims that don't have native VR) I would definitely prefer the TriDef VR version.

This morning I tested Dead Island (video up later on YT), and even though it has a good 3D effect, it has some graphics anomolies, a bit like the horrid interference you used to get on analogue TV (with the black lines, either horizontal or wavey). When I was in action, I forgot all about them, but when I was just moving around, they looked pretty bad.
Call of Duty 2 was really fun in this mode.

So, it will probably not only vary from game to game, but also depend on what people expect of their gaming.

i5 9600k @4.5GHz; 16GB DDR4 3200; 6xSSD; RTX2080ti; Gigabyte Z390D Mobo
Rift CV1; Index; Quest; Quest 2

FieldOfVision
Heroic Explorer
Interesting! I'll give it a try then. I don't really have any expectations other than it being a cool experience rather than something that'll just hurt my eyes and make me feel sick. 

I have tried Tridef before for full VR conversion, on Outlast for example on DK1. It actually worked pretty well, but the resolution was so bad, and most of it is in the dark with night vision so it kind of added to the spook. Oh! The good old days of DK1... 

Call of Duty 2 would be amazing! One of my favourites. 

 
Latest VR game: Crazy Kung Fu
Other games: www.FieldOf.Vision

JohnnyDioxin
Expert Trustee
The Dead Island video turned out to be quite large (it's half an hour's gameplay, including tweaking the settings for TriDef) so it will have to get uploaded tomorrow.

As I mentioned, how large/close you have the display screen is, I find, a deciding factor in any particular gaming experience. What looks pretty ordinary at default size can look amazing when zoomed-in and vice versa. It's worth playing around with those basic settings to try things out properly.

You can also adjust the 3D depth - though I haven't really noticed any difference. You can also choose to run in either "Force 3D" or stereoscopic.

Have fun, anyway 🙂

i5 9600k @4.5GHz; 16GB DDR4 3200; 6xSSD; RTX2080ti; Gigabyte Z390D Mobo
Rift CV1; Index; Quest; Quest 2