Virtual Desktop 1.0 - Now available on Steam

[guygodin]

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

[cybereality]

OK, thanks. I'll be sure to check that out when I build a new computer (I'm waiting for the Haswell-E 8-core chip). Currently it doesn't make any sense to upgrade my old machine as I have too many things in the environment setup and working.

[Anonymous]

No luck for me, I get an error message "Rift detected but display isn't active."

Using an HDTV at 1080p for my primary display, Rift as secondary display in extended mode. Windows 8.1 64bit, Radeon 7950.

[guygodin]

Thanks mscoder for giving it a try. That message shows up when I can't match the DisplayDeviceName of the rift (from libOVR) to an output monitor in windows. At this point I guess I'll need a rift to test it out.. I'm coding against an imaginary device ><

[Anonymous]

If it helps any - there's display detection code for the Rift in the OculusRoomTiny demo, if you're not already using that.

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.

[guygodin]

"mscoder610" wrote:
If it helps any - there's display detection code for the Rift in the OculusRoomTiny demo, if you're not already using that.

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!!

[Anonymous]

Cool, that update fixed it for me.

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.

[guygodin]

Awesome, thanks for your help mscoder!

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).

[guygodin]

Turns out that if a game uses the DXGI_SWAP_CHAIN_FLAG_DISPLAY_ONLY (like Half-Life 2) when they create their SwapChain, I won't be able to duplicate the display. So it will work for some games and not for others.

- 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

[Anonymous]

This is great!

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!

[rubixcube6]

I get this error message when i try to run it. I'm running Windows 7 64Bit.