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Virtual Desktop 1.0 - Now available on Steam
Virtual Desktop is a little utility that improves your VR experience on the desktop. By efficiently replicating your desktop into the Rift, the application allows you to see your desktop on a giant virtual screen. You can browse the web, watch movies or even play non-VR games. It also allows you to launch VR games and resume from them without having to take your headset off.
After you launch Virtual Desktop, a tray icon will appear in your taskbar. From there you can manage your list of games, change your settings.
You can also drag & drop executables or shortcuts to add more games to your list.
Requirements
- Windows 8 or 10
- Oculus 1.3 Runtime
Latest Changes
- Added ability to browse 360 photos
- Added mirror to monitor feature
Follow the link below to access the store page
Official website
After you launch Virtual Desktop, a tray icon will appear in your taskbar. From there you can manage your list of games, change your settings.
You can also drag & drop executables or shortcuts to add more games to your list.
Requirements
- Windows 8 or 10
- Oculus 1.3 Runtime
Latest Changes
- Added ability to browse 360 photos
- Added mirror to monitor feature
Follow the link below to access the store page
Official website
Virtual Desktop Developer
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After installing on Win8 64-bit, I switched to Extended mode, Rift is on and showing the non-icons part of my desktop, and then run Virtual Desktop. I see the eye icon in my system tray but when I mouse over it, it disappears. If I run it again, same thing. Looks like it's crashing?
The MSI has been updated. You should just need to install and it will take care of updating. Let me know if that solves your problem.
Guy
Also note that I had to first uninstall what was already there to get this error message to show up -- installing again over the old one wasn't sufficient.
Gigabyte RX Vega 64 x2 | Samsung 960 Evo M.2 500GB | Seagate FireCuda SSHD 2TB | Phanteks ENTHOO EVOLV
drash and AntonieB, I've updated the app to correctly detect the desktop / rift outputs and warn you if it detects an incompatible configuration. Just uninstall the old one and install the new one and you should be able to get it to work
I'm still on Win7, but I would consider upgrading if there were significant gains.
Gigabyte RX Vega 64 x2 | Samsung 960 Evo M.2 500GB | Seagate FireCuda SSHD 2TB | Phanteks ENTHOO EVOLV
I personally hate the whole app store and metro UI though. I turned it off completely. I'm using this Start8 program that brings back the start menu and disables the annoying hot corners.
Gigabyte RX Vega 64 x2 | Samsung 960 Evo M.2 500GB | Seagate FireCuda SSHD 2TB | Phanteks ENTHOO EVOLV
Using an HDTV at 1080p for my primary display, Rift as secondary display in extended mode. Windows 8.1 64bit, Radeon 7950.
If I build and run the OculusRoomTiny demo that comes with the SDK (v0.2.5), the DisplayDeviceName returned for me is "\\.\DISPLAY1\Monitor0". There's code in RenderTiny_D3D1X_Device.cpp, UpdateMonitorOutputs() that uses that name and matches it to the correct output.
Oh sweet! Thanks for the info, I wasn't aware that they were appending a \Monitor0. I've updated Virtual Desktop, can you try it again, thanks a ton!!
I should have more time to test it later, but some initial thoughts:
- I couldn't get fullscreen game duplication to work (I tried Half Life 2 which is DirectX, and EDuke(3D) which is OpenGL based.)
- Performance does seem really solid, as you mentioned. I watched a 60FPS video in Windows Media Player, and played a little Half Life 2 (in windowed 1920x1080, since full screen didn't work for me), and both were captured very fast/ smoothly to the Rift.
- I couldn't do anything closer than a Screen Distance of about 16.1cm without the display becoming doubled / hard to converge, and at that size it's hard to read text. I'd probably add a "zoom" option in addition to the screen distance. So, instead of just bringing the screen closer or farther away, you can increase/ decrease the screen size at whatever distance away it is from you.
- An option to flip how the headtracking maps to looking around the screen on each axis would be nice. (Right now, looking up on the Rift tilts you toward the bottom of the screen - so this toggle/ option would make you look towards the top of the screen instead).
It's a solid start, definitely.
Those are great suggestions.
- I'll double check with Half-Life why full screen duplication isn't working. I only tried with Hearthstone and assumed it worked for all games heh
- I'll add a screen size slider, excellent idea. I think the optimal settings will differ based on the resolution of people's desktops. Perhaps I could come up with default settings for each resolution in addition to the sliders.
- The inverted vertical head tracking wasn't intended. I probably just messed something up converting the RoomTiny sample to C#
Thanks for your input, I really appreciate it. I will hopefully be able to get my hands on a kit by next week so I can fine tune the experience. I also plan to support multiple displays (essentially replicating the user's desktop configuration).
- I've added a screen size slider in addition to the screen distance. It does seem to offer a different zoom experience, perhaps it will be more noticeable with a rift.
- I think I've fixed the inverted pitch
- Fixed some stability issues when switching in & out of games
Or it will soon be great.
I have some feedback. I just now downloaded and tried it from the link at the top. System is Win8.1 with gtx690.
Headtracking up-down is reversed (still) so that you have to look up to see the bottom of the screen.
Calibration and making a profile worked well.
There should be an option to change your lookoutpoint. As it is now, from the default position, I would love to have a way to step back so that I see the whole screen, I would like to be able to step up down right left in a grid of 3x3 steps, and I would like to step forward (zoom in) and then scroll left right up down.
This would need 6 hotkeys.
Actually I dont think you should bother with it. You know, the DK2 is just around the corner, and that has positional tracking.
What I would like is that you implement the solution Teddy has in this demo: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yYvwMd4JCIM
Base it on the absolute position of the headset, so that if I look closer the screen scales up, and if i move the head sideways I scroll, and if I am looking close I will scroll faster when moving sideways. That solution should be perfectly smooth and intuitive, without needing any hotkeys.
(Or for this solution it might be good with one hotkey that freezes the scale you have at a particular distance, so you can move your head closer or back without scaling up or down at the same time, but the program should at all the time keep track on where your scale would suppose to be if it was not locked, so that if you hit the hotkey again the scale pops there and becomes dynamic again. Did that make sense?)
Great work!
Edit: No. I put it in extended mode.
Thanks for trying it Axel, I won't implement camera movement since DK2 will allow 6DOF as you mentioned. I can't quite figure out why the pitch is inverted. I've tried something else, no sure if that will work. That amplified movement approach looks really cool!
I've added basic supersampling which helps make text a bit more readable.
Nice demo though the option to invert the tracking would make it a lot better.
It would be great to be able to curve the desktop slightly, like SteamVR.
Also, it seems that the head turning is off. When I turn my head left, it seems the opposite intended effect happens, and same with turning my head right. Strange feeling, and is really the only thing holding me back from actually finding a use for this.
Looks great, though! Nice and crisp.
1) A keystroke to reset Rift orientation
2) A curved screen, instead of a flat plane. Similar to Steam's VR Big Picture Mode.
Thank you so much for this, Deskope is pretty terrible when it comes to framerate - this pulls a steady 60FPS always.
One question, you have said that DirectX 11.1 gots native stereoscopic 3D.
Do you think if it will be easy to mix this native stereoscopic 3D with the "output duplication" fuction?
I mean, It will be totally amazing to play sterescopic 3D games in a giant vistual Screen at 60 fps.
this can be one of the killer apps for oculus rift.
thak you for your great job
I'll add a keyboard shortcut to reset Rift orientation (something like F12?, is there a common key used by other apps to do this?). Curved screen is on my todo list.
Update: What if Your position to the screen drifted relative to the way you looked? Ie. I'm in the center of the screen reading some text, I look to the X in the upper right corner and my position drifts up until I'm centered and looking straight ahead at the X. The more extreme the angle of the look the faster the position would accelerate. There may also be a way to handle zoom with head movement as well.
IC
I just added a button as well as a global hotkey to reset orientation (F4). Eventually the global hotkey should be configurable as it may interfere with certain programs.