Cheap VR setup with Google Cardboard

[andredavanz]

Hi all, I am new to the forum, but not new with the game, sorry if I'm posting in the wrong section, and sorry for my bad english.

Please MOD correct my title's prefix in "How to", I can't select it while writing the post; if needed resize my screenshot.

So, I've found a virtual reality setup with minimal cost and great potential!

BOM:

Android smartphone (currently my personal smartphone is LG G2) with screen somewhere from 4,7" to 5,5" (google cardboard limited)

Google cardboard (from 4€ to about 20€)

Trinus VR app for Android (full version at 6,5€)

and I'm using Tridef to make side-by-side stereoscopic 3d, but this can be replaced if someone write a proper mod (because it cost 40$)

actually I'm using Tridef with setting for Tom Clancy's H.A.W.X. 2

Trinus VR app is to setup correctly with sensitivity, lens dimension, etc... but is really easy to use, currently I'm using it connected via USB to PC.

The program chain is: KSP->Tridef->Trinus VR

These are some screenshot taken from PC side (above) and smartphone side (below), the PC side in reality is like the smartphone side without the lens correction, don't know why the screenshot taken is with 1 eye only:

There is some interface problem, because the button are too small and the position doesn't help in seeing them.

I'm sure that if someone will write a mod to correct these little problem the VR experience would be better.

Hope to hear positive feedback!

Edited November 14, 2015 by andredavanz
Error in Prefix

[Rade Krman]

I'm a bit late to the party with this, but it really interests me. My android is too old for this, so I can't try it. Whoever tries it...

a) does it really need 5 processors? I only have 4

b) how well does it work with ksp IVA?

c) can you turn it on and off at will so you can build in regular screen and fly with cardboard?

[Snark]

Not directly gameplay related-- moving to the Lounge.

[Rade Krman]

Okay

[FyunchClick]

Hi all, I've got a Gear VR coming in the mail, and I'm definitely going to try and get KSP running on it in 3d stereoscopic VR. I just wanted to touch base and see if the above setup (KSP->Tridef->Trinus VR, and perhaps some SideLoadVR to get around the automatic starting Oculus app) is still the best way to do it, or if there's anyone out there who's figured out a beter way to handle it?

[FyunchClick]

Small update for who's interested. My gear VR arrived finally. Addendum to above post: to disable the oculus sw automatically booting when inserting the phone into a Gear VR, there's an app called CB Enabler (which costs about 77 euro cents or presumably one buck).

To get a flat image out to the phone, trinus works fine, however, I'm trying to get TrackIR working with KSP (there's some settings to enable it in the KSP setup menu I noticed), but there may a bug in trinus at this moment according to a forum message there so hrm. I'm going to give tridef a spin next (which is paid), and also look at Vireio (which is free and open source), see how that works out for stereoscopic.

[Rade Krman]

Awesome, keep us posted

[FyunchClick]

1 hour ago, Rade Krman said:

Awesome, keep us posted

Well, you asked for it...

Ok, bit of running commentary here. I'm not there yet, but I am making some headway. First of all, my HW is a Gear VR, Samsung Galaxy S7, and on the PC side an aging AMD Phenom X4 with ATI Radeon R9 200.

WRT to getting KSP to run in side-by-side 3d

I've failed to get Vireio to work so far, but I'm guessing I'm missing something fundamental not mentioned in the guides (or at least, in the first few pages), probably to do with creating a profile of some sort(?), so I may have to go forum delving there. It sees the KSP launcher executable, and runs that in SBS 3d, but when that launches the game propper, it's back to 2d. There's apparently a new version beta out which focusses on FO4 to iron out the kinks. As luck would have it, I have that, so I may try and get it up and running with that first and work my way to KSP from there.

TriDef has apparently stopped supporting their product, but they are offering a 14 day trial version of what they got (which is $40 normally), and when using the Tom Clancy's H.A.W.X. 2 profile like @andredavanz suggested (thanks for that buddy, if you went through all of them in the list before figuring out this one works you did one heck of a job ), I can get the x64 version of KPS 1.1.3 to boot up with SBS 3d. load a save game, and I can have a look in the tracking station. Note, since I'm just trying to get seperate components working at this point, I haven't tried anything else in KSP; no comments on stability yet, but I can say it's not doing too much for my framerate at this point though. Still, it works so it has that going for it.

I also came across VorpX, which seems to be doing something similar to TriDef, and is actively supported, but at $30 without a trial version I'm going to have to give the alternatives a try first.

WRT getting it streamed to my phone

Trinus seems to be doing most of what I'd want from it (apart from the TrackIR which I need to look into further, as the problem could also be with KPS or something else). It's even going so far as to detecting KSP was running in SBS 3d and automatically switching from outputting the active application to both eyes to splitting up the image and serving one side to each eye. In this mode, I'm not seeing the barrel lens distortion, which may mess up the image once in the gear VR (I'm running with the phone in my lap at this point as I'm switching in and out of applications all the time), so I'll be looking into that as well.

I did run into intugame, which may be a cheap (free) alternative to Trinus, but I looked at it to briefly to tell if it supports TrackIR, which I really think I want in KSP.

That's it for now, I'll update once I've got the chance to try some more stuff.

 

[Rade Krman]

Well... potential is here, obviously. I still live with android 2.3.3 so I can't be much help :/

 

[FyunchClick]

So, one more update:

WRT Trinus, the problem may be with KSP, according to this post, but I wasn't really able to get the work around mentioned there to work either.

However, I think I'm going to leave it at that for now, because what I've also discovered is that even if I'd have managed to get trackIR working, I probably wouldn't be able to play it like I'm doing now anyways, and the reason is UI.

• All UI elements are much too tiny for a VR headset display, and tucked away in corners where it's hard to see them, even with the barrel distortion. Streaming also makes them a bit grainy (milage may vary, my gear VR doesn't let me tether, only WiFi allowed). That's a problem.
• However, even had the image been crystal clear and in full view, it's still not ideal. What I probably really want to do is look around in some virtual console, where if you look down, you see a big ole nav ball, if you look left, you see your staging icons, etc, be able to focus my attention on part of the display like I do with a PC screen. I don't need a 4k headset, I need to have a headset that lets me look around on a 4k console, if you will.
• So, with the current setup of KSP where head tracking moves the camera position but the UI just stays where it is, that's not really going to happen.

So, for me personally, my conclusion is that the UI of KSP, which works just fine for a big PC screen, doesn't really work for me for this format, in it's current form. It could be fun if you just want to do a bit of flight simming (eyeballing most of it), but it makes the other components of the game I like (like designing craft, setting up manouvering, finnicking dV budgets, doing suicide burns etc.) really hard. If I really want to get my 3d (which is admittedly not the same as VR) on in KSP at this moment , I'd probably go looking for a cheap (passive) 3d monitor and just use Vireio, TriDef or VorpX.

[Rade Krman]

But but but, what about VR in IVA? Could that work?

[FyunchClick]

Honestly, I didn't really try that out much. I rely an awful lot on KER AP/PE readouts, air intake, TWR indication, surface distance, dV, fuel status etc, and I'm not really seeing that happening in IVA, unless you can make those figures pop up on rasterpropmonitor (haven't used that in a while). Still,you could probably have a good time flying around a jet and just seat of your pants it, provided you worked out all the design kinks beforehand.

[Rade Krman]

So it's semi-viable if someone were to put a bunch of mods and set up a two player game where one is doing the math and other is inside the cockpit with the joystick? Awesome!

[Rade Krman]

I finally have a better phone and my cardboard just arrived

 

After fiddling with KSP resolutions and trinus VR, I got it to work nicely. Good speed, no sickness

 

Issues:

- Console is hard to read, except the navball. It probably works better on bigger phones and better computers that can push better textures

- You can't look 360, it gets stuck after you turn your head about 90 degrees

But it works and I had fun

[Rade Krman]

Ah yes, drifting is terrible (drifting is when your vr turns on it's own), but I can always fix that with the mouse