Where are we at with software and drivers etc?

[Si_Crewe]

Hi folks.

Finally gotten around to building myself a bit of a HMD using a "repurposed" 720p LCD and one of those cheapo viewers off eBay with some IR LEDs bolted to it so it works with FacetracknoIR (with the, erm, IR plug-in).

As a starting point it's okay and I've deliberately tried to make it "modular" so that I can upgrade it when funds and/or new technology allow.

Anyway, the thing that seems apparent to me is that there doesn't seem to be any kind of "basic standard" which can allow people like me to easily make a homebrew HMD do anything useful.

I mostly use my PC for playing racing sims and flight sims and I've always been surprised at how many of these games natively support software like Freetrack, FreePIE and FacetracknoIR etc.
Seems like it'd be handy if developers could start offering a basic "halved screen with barrel distortion" mode in their options or, even better, somebody could come up with a DirectX tool which'd work in a similar way (perhaps even with menu options allowing people to twiddle IPD, FOV and tune the amount of barrel distortion required etc).
Alternatively, perhaps there'd be some way to create a butchered version of an NVidia/AMD driver so, when it was selected, it would split the screen in half, duplicate the image and apply some barrel distortion?
Course, the latter wouldn't actually generate a 3D image but it would, at least, make it easier to get some mileage out of a HMD.

Point is, although devices like the OR are terrific things, they're rather "specific" in that any software designed to work with an OR is going to control the screen, the motion tracking and, apparently, the sound and so that software isn't going to drive any other HMD.
Seems like what the rest of us could really use would be a more generic option which only produce a screen mode suitable for display on a HMD and then leaves us free to run whatever other add-ons we want to use as well.

Course, I'm still pretty clueless about most of this stuff so maybe some of this is already happening?

[cybereality]

This is why I started the Vireio project, and it would fulfill that need if it worked better (though, I guess, for some games it does work well).

Unfortunately I don't have the resources to keep working on it, but it would make sense for other people in the community to build off that base (rather than try to reinvent the wheel with another injector).

Getting developers to support ranges of different DIY hardware is probably a losing battle.

[konstantin_lozev]

Alternatively, perhaps there'd be some way to create a butchered version of an NVidia/AMD driver so, when it was selected, it would split the screen in half, duplicate the image and apply some barrel distortion?
Course, the latter wouldn't actually generate a 3D image but it would, at least, make it easier to get some mileage out of a HMD.

Have you tried Trinus Gyre? It does have "fake 3d" option, which does exactly that, both in the pc window and in the cloned feed to the phone/tablet.

[deggial]

I find Fortran's shader work pretty reliable together with Tridef Ignition in DirectX games...it just works as intended. My HMD is a simple second display, no particular drivers installed. I didn't manage to see Vireyo Perception working yet though, but that day is closer