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Half-Life 2 (official) Rift support

joe
Explorer
We just shipped a beta for Half-Life 2 that includes Oculus Rift support. To get it, open the properties for HL2 in Steam by right-clicking on the name of the game in your library. Set your command line to "-vr", and opt-in to the SteamPipe beta. This should ship to everybody in a few weeks.

Edited to add:
*** NOTE! The Steam Pipe beta shipped in summer of 2013. You don't need to opt into that beta anymore. ***

This port is a bit more raw than TF2 was when it shipped, so we would appreciate hearing about any bugs you find. Just like in TF2 this mode is experimental, so we really want to hear what you think.

A few known issues:

  • If you clone your desktop monitor to the Rift it won't work very well. You can work around this by picking full screen in the video options.


All of the convars are the same as they were in TF2 with two additions:
vr_viewmodel_offset_forward - Moves the viewmodel back so the elbows are harder to see and it feels more attached to your body.
vr_viewmodel_offset_forward_large - Same as vr_viewmodel_offset_forward, but for the Gravity Gun.

I find these convars to be useful in the game itself, so consider setting them:
hud_quickinfo 1
hud_fastswitch 2

Edited to add this:

The calibrator isn't up and running in HL2, but you can use the one in TF2 to generate the appropriate values. You should definitely do this to avoid eye strain and make the whole experience more pleasant.


  • Run TF2 and calibrate using vr_calibration.

  • Look at the vr_separation_user_inches convar and remember what it is set to

  • Run HL2 and set that convar to the same value.

  • Set vr_separation_toein_pixels to 0 in HL2



You should launch TF2 and run vr_calibration. See what vr_separation_user_inches is set to and set the same
1,137 REPLIES 1,137

Frakur
Honored Guest
Awesome, can't wait to try this. Thanks!

Portal 2 next please 😄

Boone_x
Honored Guest
Yeah the 3d feel and FOV in this native implementation is a huge improvement right off the bat, even with vireio configured pretty well you still lose a lot of vertical fov in HL2 and the extra sense of immersion is definitely noticeable. If we can get this integrated into the HLVR mod I can focus on things like positional headtracking and more unique ways to integrate hydra interactions. Really cool stuff, I just spent like 5 minutes slack-jaw staring at the scanner drones after getting off the train 🙂

rcmaniac25
Honored Guest
Definitely awesome. I know it was said that it's rough, but for some reason, I just don't feel the immersion that TF2 and the other Rift demos have within HL2. Maybe it's just some tweaking I would need to do.

Also, during a loading screen, if you tilt your head, the screen rotates the opposite direction.

jack
Protege
OK, I've spent the last hour or so playing this and it is seriously amazing. This is easily the coolest thing I've played on my Rift yet.

tmek
Protege
It is really good. The little flying drones that take flash pictures are mesmerizing to watch flying around.

My issue is that the default IPD settings must be way off for me. When I come out I am all cross eyed. And there doesn't seem to be the vr_calibration command like in TF2.

Anyone have info on how to calibrate IPD?

sorensilk
Honored Guest
Yet another thing to add to my very long list of reasons to love Valve...

Foreigndevil
Honored Guest
Very...VERY cool!

LathspeLL
Honored Guest
Hey joe, do you guys have any plans to add Rift support into the Source SDK? As adoral84 also said, for HLVR Gun tracking mod and for the other mods out there, it's quite important to implement the same support to the sdk.

Anonymous
Not applicable
"tmek" wrote:
It is really good. The little flying drones that take flash pictures are mesmerizing to watch flying around.

My issue is that the default IPD settings must be way off for me. When I come out I am all cross eyed. And there doesn't seem to be the vr_calibration command like in TF2.

Anyone have info on how to calibrate IPD?



This was the first thing I tried. But only Gman in the intro looked off. The actual game looks great even without calibrating, much better than Vireio calibrated to the best of my ability.

tmek
Protege
In terms of feedback....

I'm noticing that I seem to be seriously straining/crossing my eyes pretty hard to converge the stereo images.

As i mentioned earlier after playing several minutes when I took off the rift I noticed would be fairly crosseyed and having trouble converging my eyes on real world for a few seconds. I haven't had this problem using any other demos so far (I've played the MinecRift mod for long sessions and do not come out feeling crosseyed after. I have a measured IPD of about 65mm. This convergence issue I seem to be experiencing seems much more significant than just the IPD being off by a few mm.

To try to put it into reproducible results, if I look at a trashcan or something that should be a meter or so away from my character my eyes are having to converge as much as they would if I were looking at my finger just a few inches from my face. I can lift the Rift up down switching between looking at something in the game a meter away and then something in real life about meter away and my eyes have to uncross significantly. I'm using the world "uncross but it may be the opposite, my eyes may be diverging out to converge the stereo images, all i can say for sure is that going from game to reality my vision is doubled for a few seconds.

This may or may not be related but when starting a new game I could not converge at all on G-MAN during the opening sequence. The separation of the images was so far apart my eyes couldn't converge on his face.

Anyone else having similar experiences?
Are you able to converge on g-man's face in the opening sequence?
Can you raise and lower the Rift from your face switching from looking at a real world object and and an in-game object about a "meter" away without having your eyes feel like they're uncrossing?
Do you feel like your eyes have trouble uncrossing viewing reality after a few minutes of play?