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metanoia
New Participant
September 1, 2014

Can't see all of desktop

I've had my DK2 a week now and I still can't get it to work properly. Some demos work fine in Direct mode. Helix rollercoaster works in extended mode, Elite Dangerous works fine once I've jumped through all the hoops!

My problem is I don't seem to be able to see my desktop in extended mode, I can only see a small portion of it, I can run some demos and they appear on my desktop but not the rift (they take up the whole screen in side by side mode, but my rift still just shows the small portion of blurry desktop). I've looked for days for a solution and spent hours looking at my screen sideways and upside down. I've got the Rift set as the left display, I've switched it to portrait in Nvidia settings, tried various resolutions, tried the screens extended and duplicated, just can't seem to get it right.

HELP please.

I have Windows 8.1
GTX 770

Rift is plugged into dvi via covertor and shows as monitor 1

    5 replies

    drewmaxon
    New Participant
    October 14, 2014
    Windows 7 for me.....I could have posted word for word what you are experiencing...did you find an answer somewhere else or is this question too dumb for someone to answer for us?
    mrcrisp
    Up and Coming
    October 14, 2014
    Your desktop is not stereo- so you can't view your desktop through the Rift in extended without having software to make your desktop VR compatible.
    PC Specs: i7-5820k, 16gb DDR4 2400mhz, MSI gaming mainboard, MSI GTX 980 4gb, Samsung Pro SSD, 2x1tb WD Black HDD, 700w Certified PSU, 3xAcer 27" monitor, 47" TV, Xbox360 Controller, CH Pro HOTAS, Fanatec Wheel+Pedals, Windows 7 64bit.
    cybereality
    Inspiring
    October 14, 2014
    If you run Direct Mode (and if it works) you won't need to worry about anything. Just open the game.

    In Extended mode you will have to rotate the screen orientation in Windows and make sure you are on extended desktop (not mirror/clone/duplicate). Then open the "DirectToRift.exe".

    In any case, the Windows desktop or 2D apps will not work. They will be split and oddly overlapping in the Rift. This is normal.
    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
    steveoz32
    Inspiring
    October 16, 2014
    It can be a bit of a horrible experience, a lot of apps seem to not use direct access well or at all.

    As a result I have found the same that extended needs to be used, and in a lot of instances set as primary.

    This results in the fun game of chasing windows from a cross eyed view in the rift , or closing one eye and using one at a time which is very unpleasant. You can get around it with some standard open windows which support ALT+SPACE+M or the windows + arrow combination, but many won't work with that trick.

    You can power off the rift, then launch something and power it on, but that can be hit and miss.

    I haven't found any user friendly way of navigating the Rift's screen in extended mode, Bilago's tool works sometimes but mostly I now use a third party tool to use keyboard shortcuts to quickly switch the Rift from accessory to primary if needed.

    Overall I feel the rift should never be used in extended mode, and it shouldn't be if the software is coded well. I can't really speak though as even the buggy demos I have seen that require jumping through hoops to work are much better efforts than I have managed so far!
    cybereality
    Inspiring
    October 16, 2014
    Windows + Shift + Left/Right Arrow will move a window from one screen to the next. It's handy.
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