Announcement: VorpX - Rift 3D Driver

Post by **Pingles** » Mon Feb 25, 2013 10:28 am

Well, I better check out my game budget. Not only will I be buying this but it looks liek I may be buying a lot of the supported games as well.

It's going to be interesting to get people's input on which games really shine through the Rift.

Post by **Paladia** » Mon Feb 25, 2013 10:51 am

In Carmacks keynote speech for Quakecon 2012 he mentioned that the distortion seen by a user of the Rift could be lessened by rendering a distorted and abberated view for each eye. Is that being done with the VorpX drivers?

Post by **twintips382** » Mon Feb 25, 2013 11:45 am

MaterialDefender wrote:
@twintips: I haven't looked at iRacing so far, but I might. However, rFactor is already supported when it comes to serious racing.

MD: First of all, I really appreciate you responding to almost EVERYONE on here. It's impressive considering all time you're spending on development as well.

Please oh please give iRacing a try. if you do, you will quickly realize that "Serious" racing isn't even close to achieved by games like Project Cars/rFactor/rFactor2. iRacing blows the other two away when it comes to immersion and low peripheral latency. The game is very well optimized for quality frame rates. I have a medium grade set up (mac book pro, 1 generation old, 2.2ghz i7 with ATI 6750M card) and I can run 100-130 fps with a majority of quality graphics settings enabled. With rFactor2 and pCars still in beta development and not optimized well, I can average 27-34 fps measured with fraps.

MOST interesting to find out about iRacing v.s. others is that all iRacing tracks are laser scanned and as I've read, VR experiences are very much improved with worlds that are correct and to scale (cars/characters/track ribbons/objects on tracks all laser scanned to be correctly to scale). I would love to see how this experience compares to rFactor2/pCars and other games. My inkling is that iRacing is already set up for the most part to be an incredible VR experience for this reason alone.

Thanks for considering my favorite game

Post by **zeroxygen** » Mon Feb 25, 2013 7:19 pm

Since iRacing is an online game, wouldn't they have some sort of anti-cheat mechanism to keep people from modifying their clients?

Post by **ElMatarife** » Mon Feb 25, 2013 8:27 pm

It's possible but I just can't think of what kind of graphics tweak would really represent an unfair advantage. Possibly some sort of racing line overlay? It isn't like an FPS or RTS, where transparent walls or map reveals would be a huge advantage.

iRacing is a pretty popular title with an absolutely fanatical following. I assume making VorpX work with it would sell a lot of licenses. After all, these are guys that are spending hundreds of dollars on realistic wheels and pedal setups, along with shifters in some case.

Post by **cerulianbaloo** » Mon Feb 25, 2013 8:39 pm

@MaterialDefender: Hey any plans to include support for Crysis 3? I was doing some benchmarking earlier and was surprised how well it performs and scales the quality at the lower graphical presets, certain areas actually seem like they might be playable on the Rift! Not to mention it's the most drop-dead gorgeous game I've ever seen. Now the gameplay...

Post by **twintips382** » Mon Feb 25, 2013 8:41 pm

yeah, taking a quick look in the forums there are some open portions of the folders and (some code i think?) you can work with in iRacing, but I don't know enough about that side of development to know if it's enough. i'm using this smiley cause i just saw it and it's amazing.

Post by **superbike81** » Mon Feb 25, 2013 10:09 pm

zeroxygen wrote:Since iRacing is an online game, wouldn't they have some sort of anti-cheat mechanism to keep people from modifying their clients?

There won't be any problems. Companies like Nthusim support iRacing with their warping software meant for multiple projector setups. Also we have members that have developed simulated automatic head-tracking and other such things. iRacing's API is open enough to where this won't be a problem.

Post by **twintips382** » Tue Feb 26, 2013 12:20 am

superbike81 wrote:

There won't be any problems. Companies like Nthusim support iRacing with their warping software meant for multiple projector setups. Also we have members that have developed simulated automatic head-tracking and other such things. iRacing's API is open enough to where this won't be a problem.

What he said!

Post by **Lilwolf** » Tue Feb 26, 2013 4:34 am

So, in your driver, will you be seperating the gun/shoot/forward direction and visible direction? So your aiming one way, and looking the other?

I'm worried my neck can't handle the quick motion that my mouse can. Plus I want to be able to check my blind spots in while mowing down a doorway in bf3

Post by **Okta** » Tue Feb 26, 2013 4:54 am

Lilwolf wrote:So, in your driver, will you be seperating the gun/shoot/forward direction and visible direction? So your aiming one way, and looking the other?

I'm worried my neck can't handle the quick motion that my mouse can. Plus I want to be able to check my blind spots in while mowing down a doorway in bf3

No. That would require a specific game mod. This is a wrapper that will use a games x,y,z information to create a side by side stereo view and warp it to match the Rift. It will also use the Rifts head tracker for aiming where appropriate. Its for games with no 3d stereo built in (and for some that have other methods).

Look up the DDD tridef game wrapper for 3d displays. That will give you a better idea of what this is about.

Post by **jf031** » Wed Feb 27, 2013 3:25 pm

Would be very cool to see support for Dear Esther. I just bought the game today (on sale in Steam for $2.50), and it would be perfect for the devkit Rift. No jumping, ducking, or fast action, just walking around a very detailed landscape (the polygonal nature of the world is obvious much of the time, though). I really would love to experience it in "truer" first person.

I'm buying your drivers, either way. As I have an outdated rig (Core 2 Duo 8400, Radeon 5770, 4 Gigs of slow RAM), I'm looking forward to using the depth-buffer stereo method for the more demanding games.

For those of you thinking about buying Dear Esther with older computers: on mine, it runs >120 fps in 1600x900 with no anti-aliasing, 8x anisotropic filtering, highest settings; ~60 fps with settings the same except 4x anti-aliasing. If you like to explore virtual environments, I'd say Dear Esther is worth the $2.50 even while viewed through a monitor (I'm so ready for the Rift, jeez).

edit: 100+ fps @ 1280x800 w/4xAA, lowered vegetation distance. I think the AA might be required, given the amount of foliage (very noticeable pixelation without anti-aliasing).

Post by **Drewbdoo** » Fri Mar 01, 2013 10:45 am

MaterialDefender wrote:I work best under pressure. But I have enough already.

Pricing hasn't fully decided yet, since I haven't chosen a payment service which might influence the final price. The price will be competitive and most likely there will be an early bird discount for the first month or so.

Just quoting you to remind myself that you offered us a discount, cause you know we're all getting it as soon as you release it

MaterialDefender wrote:VorpX has a freely configurable (via an ingame menu) virtual hotkey system to tackle this issue. At the touch of an easy to reach button, <SHIFT> middle mouse button per default, a semi transparent menu pops up in front of you, All you have to do then is to look at the button you want to "press" and release the mouse button. Extremely useful, pretty natural, and it can't get easier.

Has someone been watching Sword Art Online?

Seriously though, I like the little touches you're adding. I'm very curious to try out your focusing algorithm as I've had DoF style solutions for focusing and convergence bouncing around in my head for a while.

Post by **MaterialDefender** » Fri Mar 01, 2013 11:20 am

Hey guys,

I just wanted to inform you that I won't be able to answer any questions or keep you otherwise posted here anymore - at least for the time being. Absolutely nothing has changed in regard to vorpX though.

If you want to find vorpX, you might have to take an educated guess, shouldn't be too hard. Considering other threads here I'm not sure why this is necessary, but I'd rather not post a URL myself.

So, for now thanks for all your helpful feedback. I will stick around reading what you have to say, and I will continue posting in other threads whenever I feel that I have anything valuable to add. Just this particular discussion unfortunately has to go on without me. At least for now.

Post by **Valez** » Fri Mar 01, 2013 11:29 am

MaterialDefender wrote: If you want to find vorpX, you might have to take an educated guess, shouldn't be too hard. Considering other threads here I'm not sure why this is necessary, but I'd rather not post a URL myself.

Regarding this, I found an interesting website!

http://www.vorpx.com/

Post by **2EyeGuy** » Fri Mar 01, 2013 11:30 am

MaterialDefender wrote:Hey guys,

I just wanted to inform you that I won't be able to answer any questions or keep you otherwise posted here anymore - at least for the time being. Absolutely nothing has changed in regard to vorpX though.

If you want to find vorpX, you might have to take an educated guess, shouldn't be too hard. Considering other threads here I'm not sure why this is necessary, but I'd rather not post a URL myself.

So, for now thanks for all your helpful feedback. I will stick around reading what you have to say, and I will continue posting in other threads whenever I feel that I have anything valuable to add. Just this particular discussion unfortunately has to go on without me. At least for now.

You can find the VorpX website here: http://www.vorpx.com/
There's also the wiki page here: http://vr.wikinet.org/wiki/VorpX

(And strangely, if you try to post the main URL without url tags, it won't let you, it looks like this: http://www.vorpx.com probably just an overactive spam filter).

Post by **Dakor** » Fri Mar 01, 2013 11:54 am

2EyeGuy wrote:
MaterialDefender wrote: (And strangely, if you try to post the main URL without url tags, it won't let you, it looks like this: http://www.confirmwithMTBSbeforeposting.com probably just an overactive spam filter).

And I thought your intention was to say that VorpX.com could be fake so you better confirm it's real before you post it here

B²T: Can't wait to see some Media on the Website

Post by **bobv5** » Fri Mar 01, 2013 1:54 pm

MaterialDefender wrote:Hey guys,

I just wanted to inform you that I won't be able to answer any questions or keep you otherwise posted here anymore - at least for the time being. Absolutely nothing has changed in regard to vorpX though.

If you want to find vorpX, you might have to take an educated guess, shouldn't be too hard. Considering other threads here I'm not sure why this is necessary, but I'd rather not post a URL myself.

So, for now thanks for all your helpful feedback. I will stick around reading what you have to say, and I will continue posting in other threads whenever I feel that I have anything valuable to add. Just this particular discussion unfortunately has to go on without me. At least for now.

What an odd post. Anybody got any ideas? Something to do with comercial stuff on MTBS maybe?

Good look with whatever wierdness has befallen you MD.

Post by **Pingles** » Fri Mar 01, 2013 2:02 pm

bobv5 wrote:What an odd post. Anybody got any ideas? Something to do with comercial stuff on MTBS maybe?

Good look with whatever wierdness has befallen you MD.

That's all I can come up with besides being hired by Oculus.

Post by **geekmaster** » Fri Mar 01, 2013 2:18 pm

Pingles wrote:
bobv5 wrote:What an odd post. Anybody got any ideas? Something to do with comercial stuff on MTBS maybe? ...
That's all I can come up with besides being hired by Oculus.

It is great that the best and brightest among us get hired by Oculus (if that is indeed what happened here), but not at the expense of great ideas or products getting taken from us. At least cybereallty donated his project to us as open source. I sure hope we can see more of that around here when good people get sucked into the void at Oculus (but then they can to great things there too).

Vague non-specific "going away" posts like being discussed here are more than a little disquieting.

Whatever happens with VorpX (commercial product, or open source), I was hoping to use it with my Rift. I guess it is time to wait and see...

Post by **jf031** » Fri Mar 01, 2013 2:31 pm

geekmaster wrote:
Pingles wrote:
bobv5 wrote:What an odd post. Anybody got any ideas? Something to do with comercial stuff on MTBS maybe? ...
That's all I can come up with besides being hired by Oculus.
It is great that the best and brightest among us get hired by Oculus (if that is indeed what happened here), but not at the expense of great ideas or products getting taken from us. At least cybereallty donated his project to us as open source. I sure hope we can see more of that around here when good people get sucked into the void at Oculus (but then they can to great things there too).

Vague non-specific "going away" posts like being discussed here are more than a little disquieting.

Whatever happens with VorpX (commercial product, or open source), I was hoping to use it with my Rift. I guess it is time to wait and see...

He specifically stated that VorpX has not been affected, so the chances that he was hired by Oculus is near-zero.

edit: and there we go. Looking forward to posting on your site's forums, MaterialDefender!

Post by **MaterialDefender** » Fri Mar 01, 2013 2:32 pm

Guys, please no speculation. Thanks.

A little bit of rumor control from my side. I won't get into details, I hope that's understandable, just that much: it has to do with rules regarding commercial posts here. I'm absolutely sure there was good will on both sides to find a viable solution, but sometimes that is just not enough. Those things happen every day. Nothing is set in stone, as far as I'm concerned, and there are absolutely no hard feelings on my side, this is just normal business stuff.

Post by **jhouff** » Fri Mar 01, 2013 2:35 pm

I can almost guarantee that he can no longer continue on this thread because of forum rules on commercial products / software. Since Vimeo is free, it was not effected.

Post by **Paladia** » Fri Mar 01, 2013 2:37 pm

MaterialDefender wrote:A little bit of rumor control from my side. I won't get into details, I hope that's understandable, just that much: it has to do with rules regarding commercial posts here.

That much was pretty obvious from the start. I don't agree with it however. Oculus Rift is a commercial product to begin with, that doesn't mean that Palmer shouldn't be allowed to post anything about it, in fact, the opposite, his posts are some of the most interesting. As so are yours which are related to your product.

Post by **geekmaster** » Fri Mar 01, 2013 2:59 pm

Paladia wrote:... I don't agree with it however. Oculus Rift is a commercial product to begin with, that doesn't mean that Palmer shouldn't be allowed to post anything about it, in fact, the opposite, his posts are some of the most interesting. As so are yours which are related to your product.

My thoughts too. Do you need to be a moderator to talk about your (soon to be) commercial product here? Why such lopsided enforcement of rules? At what point does a concept stop being allowed to be talked about, when it grows enough for the creator to want some financial compensation for some of his time?

Is JanVR a moderator yet? If not, then when will his threads be banned? And for that matter, when will the WizDish be banned? Are only software projects banned when they go commercial, or does this rule affect hardware products too?

How big can a project grow towards a REAL commercially viable product before it gets banned here?

This "rule" will certainly make us miss out on some great information if we spend too much time here...

Rules and rulers:

Post by **jhouff** » Fri Mar 01, 2013 3:25 pm

Geek, you brought up some good points I didn't even think about. Maybe Neil can give us some insight, otherwise its not really fair the VorpX and MD can't continue posting here.

Post by **geekmaster** » Fri Mar 01, 2013 3:31 pm

jhouff wrote:Geek, you brought up some good points I didn't even think about. Maybe Neil can give us some insight, otherwise its not really fair the VorpX and MD can't continue posting here.

Chasing a project (and its followers) away from here only harms the community.

What good can come of it?

Post by **bobv5** » Fri Mar 01, 2013 3:43 pm

EDIT: Ninja'd by the guys above. Doh. I suspect it was MD's choice though, as other, even purely software projects, such as "The Gallery" are allowed to remain. Clarification would be good.

Where can I read these rules? I was looking the other day for an unrelated reason and coud not find them.

original post bellow.....

"Absolutely nothing has changed in regard to vorpX though."

"That's all I can come up with besides being hired by Oculus."

Sounds like he is still making it, but can't or won't talk about it here for whatever reason. If he had been hired by Oculus, that would either have no effect on vorpX, or prevent him from talking about it anywhere.

Something to do with MTBS is the only thing I can think of that would prevent him discussing it here but not elsewhere. "confirmwithMTBSbeforeposting.com" also sugests that scenario. Seems strange, as Neil has been promoting the use of MTBS blogs for game developers. Perhaps it is just a forum admin thing, and he will be allowed to post it on MTBS but in a different area.

Neil- Have any comments on this? I'm sure if it is an MTBS thing the intentions are good but on the surface the effects seem negative.

Post by **MaterialDefender** » Fri Mar 01, 2013 4:11 pm

Bobv5,

as said above, I'm absolutely sure there was good will on both sides to find a solution. Some things about the whole matter I found as surprising as you do. This definitely wasn't my decision, but I'm respecting Neils wishes. After all this is his place.

Post by **cerulianbaloo** » Fri Mar 01, 2013 4:23 pm

MaterialDefender wrote:Bobv5,

as said above, I'm absolutely sure there was good will on both sides to find a solution. Some things about the whole matter I found as surprising as you do. This definitely wasn't my decision, but I'm respecting Neils wishes. After all this is his place.

So are you even allowed to tell us when it's available? Or do we need to keep checking the vorpx site?

I'm curious if Neil will hold Denny to the same standard when he launches his kickstarter.

Post by **VRus** » Fri Mar 01, 2013 5:02 pm

Why am I allowed to follow JanVR's Virtux product development, while being suddenly banned
from following/discussing MediaDefender's VoprX? It starts to smell hypocrisy... badly

Moderators care to explain to the community?

Post by **Neil** » Fri Mar 01, 2013 5:10 pm

Hello everyone,

Our commercial expectations are outlined here:

http://www.mtbs3d.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?f=140&t=10449

There was a question about why Palmer is allowed to post here. In addition to investing his own personal time for years, Palmer Luckey and Oculus financially contribute to MTBS via The S-3D Gaming Alliance as members. Long before Oculus was famous, I offered and agreed to give him the promotional and posting rights in our forums and site with a gentleman's agreement that if it was successful (more than successful! That he left his day job!), he'd give back to the community. He is honoring that arrangement, and the existence of this forum is partly credited to Oculus' financial investment.

Cybereality originally intended to have commercial drivers and later chose to make them open source. However, I was ok with it because he has invested countless hours in helping keep this place running. If we could help him out, great.

The mandate for S3DGA, a non-profit organization, is to promote S-3D game compatibility, and we often let developers post here as part of their S3DGA membership. We haven't publicized it yet, but most game developers are honoring this which is why they are still seen in the forums.

All commercial entities have been welcome to post in MTBS' forums from the beginning; just not for the purposes of promoting their own products or bashing others. Yes, we've caught some companies pretend to be customers to bash their competitors. We've seen it all! Not being able to self promote and being banned from posting on MTBS are different things. Nobody has been banned here. In fact, the one person who really did get banned on MTBS is back on the forums years later under a different name. You have to do something really nasty to get banned on MTBS.

Commercial entities are denied self promotion on MTBS' forums because an arrangement or good-faith arrangement for when products are successful isn't arrived at. If you aren't sure where you stand, feel free to PM me. Instead of just getting a forum thread, you might get an article with a dedicated forum thread attached. This is all about going through the right channels.

As of today, MTBS is six years old which is a long time when you consider the age of modern 3D and VR technologies. Our decisions aren't always going to be popular, but it's the difference between having a well maintained forum and website, and being spammed up with Google ads and pron links.

If you have further questions and/or concerns, feel free to PM me.

Regards,
Neil

Post by **Neil** » Wed Jun 05, 2013 12:01 pm

Hello everyone!

I want to go on record that the business disagreements between VorpX and MTBS are resolved and I'm very happy with the positive turn of events. Everyone is again welcome to post on MTBS about VorpX and their future innovations.

Ralf and I continue to talk as always, and I'm very happy that we were able to get through this in a positive manner. Maybe this will spark new ideas and new ways to work together.

Furthermore, I'd like to thank Ralf for diligently working with us to help find the best outcome to this impasse:

http://www.vorpx.com/forums/topic/vorpx ... has-ended/

Best wishes,
Neil

Post by **Mystify** » Wed Jun 05, 2013 12:10 pm

Glad to hear it. I want to see how the VorpX fares, and this is my news source for such things

Post by **langmyersknow** » Wed Jun 05, 2013 12:11 pm

Let me just say that I'm excited for VorpX. I never had vr before, and oculus rift would be the first time. And I just love that this will be working out of the box for existing steam titles.

I'm actually I'm kinda glad that I didn't get my oculus rift yet until probably August or September, by then there should be more oculus rift stuff that comes out.

- Lang

Post by **crespo80** » Wed Jun 05, 2013 12:28 pm

Well done! That mostly private controversy was not understandable at all by we fellow members, and was really getting ridiculous! I'm very happy you both came to a gentlemen agreement

Post by **Paladia** » Wed Jun 05, 2013 12:44 pm

Glad to hear that the issue is resolved. Looking forward to hearing new Vorpx news on these boards.

Post by **oculusfan** » Wed Jun 05, 2013 1:00 pm

Can't wait for VorpX to release. I'm holding off on playing Dishonored until I can get some decent Rift action.

Post by **blazespinnaker** » Wed Jun 05, 2013 1:01 pm

ok Vorpx is now officially boring again.

I much prefer the OS approach

Post by **baggyg** » Wed Jun 05, 2013 1:27 pm

Well done guys. This is great news. I've seen a lot of VorpX lately (think there was a few demos used in the Virtuix Omni video) so glad this will get the mtbs3d community support. .

Looking forward to further news