How to use Tridef with Rift CV1

[Blyss4226]

I just thought I'd make this thread to tell you guys how I managed to get Tridef working with CV1. It was kind of an accident that I discovered it, and I don't think many people(if any) know yet.

Basically you need the following things:
Tridef
Virtual Desktop ( http://store.steampowered.com/app/382110/ ) - I highly recommend having this anyway, it's awesome
Rift CV1
Latest updated Oculus Home and associated Oculus crap

So here's what you do. Set up Tridef like you usually would, set it to output in SBS mode. Make a profile for whatever game you wanna use it with and get that profile working. Once you've done that, here is the magic.

Virtual desktop can output whatever is on your screen DIRECTLY(i.e. unaltered) to the Rift. So if what's on your screen is already a SBS image like Tridef makes and you do that... well there you go. VD has two modes for this - normal and anamorphic, which are enabled by F6 and F7 respectively. Anamorphic works best in my experience.

So once you've set everything up, to get your Tridef output on Rift:

Start virtual desktop.
Start your game through Tridef Ignition.
Press F7.
Put on your Rift and profit!

Edit to add more information:
The mode I described above reprojects the image on to a virtual screen in front of you, but with depth. This might not sound as useful as it is until you realize you can curve the screen around you and set the portion of your FOV it fills. If the game allows you to change FOV, you can set it to it's max(or up to 180, over the doesn't work too well), set the screen to match and curve. This basically gives you a form of pseudo headtracking. It's hard to describe but it works pretty well.

You can also push the image straight into the headset(no virtual screen, just directly in) with F8 or F9. I always use F9, though there doesn't seem to be much difference. This will produce a full stereo image, but it's NOT headtracked. And if you've gotten used to Rifts excellent tracking, when it's suddenly not there it's very disorienting. Until we can capture Rift's tracking data and convert it to mouselook, we can't add headtracking this way. That's why I prefer the above way. But it can be useful for certain things, it really depends on what you are doing.

Any questions, feel free to ask! FWIW this method will work with IZ3D output as well. Basically anything that can output an undistorted SBS image can be pushed to Rift this way. This is one of the many reasons Virtual Desktop is a must have.

[Mace404]

I had massive hangs and crashes this way from the moment I enable TriDef.
VorpX works much better in my case and also getting better performance ingame.

[Blyss4226]

I don't know why you would get crashes or hangs - I don't. But it is tough on the performance yes. And yeah, VorpX is fine - for games it works with. But I have several that it doesn't where Tridef does. That's really what this is for.

[vfrhawk]

Can you use either of those to get Alien: Isolation working in CV1?

[Blyss4226]

@vfrhawk Well, Tridef has a profile for Alien: Isolation so it should work, yes:


BUT, VorpX also supports Alien: Isolation. As I said above, really this method is best for games not supported by VorpX.

[Percy1983]

Interesting, I do already have tridef for use with my 3D TV so will give this a go.

[Blyss4226]

Yeah, I already owned Tridef for my phone based headsets for using with Trinus. I also own VorpX as well but some of the games that work with Tridef don't work with it as I said. I wouldn't just outright buy Tridef for this purpose, certainly use the trial first if you don't already own it.

Tridef seems to work with more games than VorpX by far, but the ones that do work with VorpX work better in Rift than the ones that only work in Tridef.

Also for some games I discovered I have to run them in Windowed mode, as they will crash with the combination of fullscreen+Tridef+Virtual desktop. But if you make sure the window size is the same as your desktop size, it will still work this way.

[Blyss4226]

It's turned out that I do this WAY more than I use VorpX. IDK why but VorpX does not work well for me. In fact of all the games I've tried it with, only Fallout 4 works at all(and yes the games I tried have official profiles). Not sure what's up with that. But fortunately this Tridef way works pretty well.

[Murpheus77]

Sounds great,and it's nice to see people still taking an interest in Tridef, despite Tridef officially announcing cessation of support for all HMDs on their forum. Some of my best VR rapture moments were experienced on the humble DK1 and Tridef; they had a superior product that breathed new life into some fairly mature games. Watching that mountain crumble in VR in Crysis for the first time was quite a surreal and intense experience that required quite a few replays.

Couple of questions:

Does it provide headtracking from the Rift and can the Tridef settings menu be accessed in game?

Has anyone tested this on a DK2?

I'm 370 miles from my PC right now but I'm itching to get back to it to try out the Steam Hydra support and this new method for using Tridef.

Great news.

Edit: I presume this method doesn't use the Tridef plug in for the Rift?

[Blyss4226]

@Murpheus77 Yeah, it's a shame they said no HMD support. I think they are really just throwing away market share there. No it does not use the plugin.

No there is no direct head tracking. The way I did it like I said above with F7, it reprojects the image on a virtual screen in front of you, in stereo(i.e. with depth). But you have the option to make that screen curve around you and set the FOV it encompasses. If the game lets you set FOV, you can set it high(180 is good), set the screen to match and curve. Then you have "pseudo" head tracking that works pretty well. It's kinda hard to explain, but it does work well. I guess kinda imagine you are in a circular room with a giant floor to ceiling opening to the virtual world around you. You can really customize it a good bit and I find it provides a pretty immersing experience once you get used to the lowish vertical FOV.

But there is also F8 and F9 modes for SBS in Virtual desktop. They project the image directly into the headset(not on a virtual screen). By default this has no head tracking, and once you are used to the Rifts really good head tracking it's very jarring and nauseating when it doesn't happen. That's why I prefer the above mode, but maybe for people less inclined to sickness this mode would be good.

Edit: Oh and yes, the Tridef OSD works fine.

For reference here is an image of the config page of virtual desktop for those who haven't seen it. It kinda shows what all things you can customize(there is a few more with HMD connected but mine is put up for the night lol. Must protect!):


Anyways, if you could somehow capture the Rift's tracking data it would be useful, because then you could translate that to mouselook which would be super useful for older game VR conversion. That's really my main thing to do right now. I enjoyed Lucky's Tale a lot and can't get enough Radial G, but mostly it's older content that I wanna see in the Rift for now. Until there are good RPGs for Rift. And then... my real life will be over XD

For that matter I wish there was a way to expose to Oculus remote to external stuff. As it is, I find it useless and a gimmic. But if I could control things like Tridef Media Player(huge fan of it, it converts flat vids to stereo impressively well), VLC, Youtube with it then I'd find it pretty invaluable. Come on Oculus, no closed system!