What happend to VORPX

Post by **stevetb** » Fri Jul 26, 2013 12:35 pm

Evenios wrote:what happend is he completely dropped the ball on us thats what happend. Now im actually kinda wishing that MTBS3D didnt resolve that issue with him. I mean here is a good tip on how NOT to do development for the Rift ....Do not annouce a product thats supposed to be great and cool and make a lot of games work with the Rift with some nice featuers, provide people some demos to beta test it. have some people "review it" and then completely ignore your main fanbase by not bothering to update your blog for 3 months....and do not backpeddle and say "oh ooh VorpX should be out shortly after the Rift dev kits start shipping and..you shoudnt have to wait 4 months..." to 4 months later still sayng "when its done"/

.

Evenios,

I know a lot on here are flaming you for venting your frustration but I am glad you did. A lot of good points are brought up that are shared by many other members, many who have not commented on this thread, you are not alone here. It's easy to sit back and pick apart a 5000 word rant as many of the other users on this forum have done to you. But instead I want to tell you thank you for sharing your opinions and I think you are well in your right to do so. I read every word and I'm with you on most of it, I hope Ralf comes out of hiding soon and releases an update / demo / purchase.

Thank you again,
Steve

Post by **museumsteve** » Fri Jul 26, 2013 5:42 pm

stevetb wrote:
Evenios wrote:what happend is he completely dropped the ball on us thats what happend. Now im actually kinda wishing that MTBS3D didnt resolve that issue with him. I mean here is a good tip on how NOT to do development for the Rift ....Do not annouce a product thats supposed to be great and cool and make a lot of games work with the Rift with some nice featuers, provide people some demos to beta test it. have some people "review it" and then completely ignore your main fanbase by not bothering to update your blog for 3 months....and do not backpeddle and say "oh ooh VorpX should be out shortly after the Rift dev kits start shipping and..you shoudnt have to wait 4 months..." to 4 months later still sayng "when its done"/

.
Evenios,

I know a lot on here are flaming you for venting your frustration but I am glad you did. A lot of good points are brought up that are shared by many other members, many who have not commented on this thread, you are not alone here. It's easy to sit back and pick apart a 5000 word rant as many of the other users on this forum have done to you. But instead I want to tell you thank you for sharing your opinions and I think you are well in your right to do so. I read every word and I'm with you on most of it, I hope Ralf comes out of hiding soon and releases an update / demo / purchase.

Thank you again,
Steve

Are you serious?
Ralf owes nobody anything. He is working on a product for a new device.
Like most here, I paid for my Rift last August and when I paid for it it was due in December, I got it 22nd May.
The delay did not give me the right to be rude to Oculus, even though I paid hundreds of £'s for it 9 months prior and it was technically 5 months late.

vorpX has never had a release date and hasn't cost anyone a penny.
The frustration of delays is all very well but some of these posts, here and on vorpX's forums, go too far and are nothing but rude and incredibly immature.

As I said on the vorpX forums. If you read some of these posts, just imagine the grief Ralf would get if he released it and some people had issues with their fav games...the countless 'when is there an upodate, I've paid for it and it doesn't work properly' posts would be mind-numbing.

Post by **DonGateley** » Fri Jul 26, 2013 6:20 pm

[quote="stevetb"
Evenios,

I know a lot on here are flaming you for venting your frustration but I am glad you did. A lot of good points are brought up that are shared by many other members, many who have not commented on this thread, you are not alone here. It's easy to sit back and pick apart a 5000 word rant as many of the other users on this forum have done to you. But instead I want to tell you thank you for sharing your opinions and I think you are well in your right to do so. I read every word and I'm with you on most of it, I hope Ralf comes out of hiding soon and releases an update / demo / purchase.

Thank you again,
Steve[/quote]

Is this the steveb of Cool Edit Pro/Audition fame?

[edit]: Never mind, that's SteveG.

Post by **Marulu** » Fri Jul 26, 2013 6:54 pm

museumsteve wrote: Are you serious?
Ralf owes nobody anything. He is working on a product for a new device.
Like most here, I paid for my Rift last August and when I paid for it it was due in December, I got it 22nd May.
The delay did not give me the right to be rude to Oculus, even though I paid hundreds of £'s for it 9 months prior and it was technically 5 months late.

vorpX has never had a release date and hasn't cost anyone a penny.
The frustration of delays is all very well but some of these posts, here and on vorpX's forums, go too far and are nothing but rude and incredibly immature.

As I said on the vorpX forums. If you read some of these posts, just imagine the grief Ralf would get if he released it and some people had issues with their fav games...the countless 'when is there an upodate, I've paid for it and it doesn't work properly' posts would be mind-numbing.

+1

Post by **brantlew** » Fri Jul 26, 2013 10:46 pm

android78 wrote:WTF? Probably be nice to have, but he has no obligation to actually create the drivers in the first place, ... Has the average age of posters on this forum gone back by 10 years (or to 10 years old maybe) in the last 6 months, or is it just my perception?

No doubt. I seem to remember Palmer talking about his HMD for over a year before the Kickstarter and not once did someone here say something ridiculous like "shame on you Palmer for not finishing your device yet". I can't understand this sentiment at all. People should be congratulated and encouraged for working on these projects in their spare time. And if you aren't patient enough to wait around for others to create innovations, then do what we used to around here - learn to build your own creations.

Post by **LNQ** » Sat Jul 27, 2013 2:48 pm

I had gotten the image that this was a more serious commercial project for Ralf that he spent a lot of time on, considering there is a blog about VorpX, previews of the driver in media and release date estimations (I remember a comment of VorpX beta being released a few weeks after Ralf gets his rift). If VorpX is just something that he does a little bit of on his spare time, I'm disappointed that this wasn't communicated better. At least any temporary setbacks on the development of the driver could've been briefly mentioned on the blog.

If Ralf hadn't put up a price point to the product and advertised a list of games the driver supports ages ago, I would feel differently. This turn of events has a lot of vaporware / other eventual letdown signs.

Might just be my fault of setting too high expectations on VorpX.

Post by **MaterialDefender** » Sat Jul 27, 2013 8:15 pm

The image you got is most likely closer the truth than you might imagine. There was (and is) much more time invested into vorpX than a sane person should invest into a 'side project'. The thing is that being self-employed I can't always predict how much time my job takes. And since this job is usually paid pretty well, I can't turn away customers for a project that might or might not make serious amounts of money. If you were in my position you would understand, believe me.

That being said, I will continue to invest all the time I can into vorpX, which is a true work of love so to speak, until there is something worthy to present to a broader audience. That's the one thing you can be absolutely sure of.

Post by **thewolf20** » Sat Jul 27, 2013 9:35 pm

Hey

,

Im a german Youtuber (unfortunately with a small channel) and i want to review the Oculus Rift with most of the oculus ready games. Is there any chance to get a beta version of vorpx (like cymaticbruce)? I would pay for it.

Post by **LNQ** » Sun Jul 28, 2013 6:21 am

Ralf, thank you a lot for the response. That short post clears the situation up really well, I'm glad that your business is going well.

If you would like to understand why there is this many complaints going on, here's my take: You just disappearing for a long time without a single blog post (the last blog post is from end of april, that is 3 months ago!) makes it seem to us outsiders like you just decided to stop developing it out of getting bored. That is what happens to a lot of software & design projects; they find something more interesting to do. I'm glad to hear you really care about VorpX, because it would be quite a lot of fun to try out some of the old games with Oculus.

In a nutshell: I'm still holding off playing Bioshock Infinite until VorpX is out, so I hope you get to finish it someday.

Post by **Ryuuken24** » Sun Jul 28, 2013 7:50 am

Verieo 1.1.0 supports bioshock 1&2, sadly, someone forgot to add key functionality, so the software is as good as a brick on an unpaved road. Wait a month or so to get an update, then jump on it! Why wait for someone that is in for the money, to produce something we already have!?

Post by **Virgman** » Mon Jul 29, 2013 9:06 pm

At this point, a release date seems justified. After a highly public preview campaign on multiple sights from multiple reviewers, it only makes sense that even a time window be made available. Especially after prior release claims have been made and not upheld with little explanation other than "stuff takes time." I welcome specifics. Is it constantly crashing? Is it breaking GPU drivers? These are only a couple assumptions someone can make with no specifics.

Post by **Gameinator** » Tue Jul 30, 2013 8:37 pm

It is starting to get a little annoying at how long it is taking to get at least a release date, especially seeing the You Tubers who got early access to the BETA.
Wouldnt it be better to release it sooner to the Dev crowd who understand that it wont be perfect to help with testing in order to bring out a better product in the end, would save a heap of time that is currently used for testing.

Post by **Evenios** » Wed Jul 31, 2013 12:59 am

all i know is the guy better get off his ass and release vorpx already because tridef is now on board in getting drivers to work with the Oculus Rift. their beta version is not perfect but its a start...if this guy doesnt hurry up and release VorpX already hes going to be left in the dust.

Post by **FR3D** » Wed Jul 31, 2013 1:01 am

Tridef released a beta ...

http://tridef.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=24&t=3907

vorpx was waiting to long with the release of their beta version - i will buy the tridef driver instead ....

best regards FR3D

Post by **Dakor** » Wed Jul 31, 2013 9:18 am

The tridef Beta is pretty neat, but there are still some things the VorpX Beta does better: Like it has a function that let you go through menus (no matter how they are designed) without switching to 2d mode and taking off the rift. This comes handy specially if you play games with traders or lots of ingame menus like Garrys Mod. It fixes the issue that buttons are often almost or completely outside your fov.
I hope tridef will implement a way to do this as well

Post by **stevetb** » Wed Jul 31, 2013 11:34 am

Yes, with Tridef support now I can see why Ralf basically stopped development. It will be hard to compete against Tridef since they are leaders in this market already with established resources behind them as opposed to one person.

I think Ralf gave it a good attempt as seen only through Beta videos by most. I can also see why Vireo Perception development has stopped as well, it will be futile to try really if Tridef is working on this.

With that said, competition drives innovation so a few more 3rd party drivers may come on the scene which would not be a bad thing and perhaps Vireo Perception or VorpX will make a second push to the market. If so, I am sure they would still have a lot of support behind them.

It however is a day of glory for Tridef, I can't wait to test this tonight on my Rift. It's been a long wait for a driver with polish like this.

-Steve

Post by **Valez** » Wed Jul 31, 2013 11:58 am

Neither Ralf or Vireio stopped developing. Please don't start/spread rumors.
And while Tridef is at the moment the best available solution, it leaves much to be desired.

Post by **MaterialDefender** » Wed Jul 31, 2013 1:53 pm

Steve, if stereoscopy is all you care about, you might most likely be good with what there is now. If you want something that is tailored specifically to the Rift in many ways, things might look different though.

Sorry for not being able to be more specific right now.

Post by **android78** » Wed Jul 31, 2013 6:37 pm

MaterialDefender wrote:Steve, if stereoscopy is all you care about, you might most likely be good with what there is now. If you want something that is tailored specifically to the Rift in many ways, things might look different though. Sorry for not being able to be more specific right now.

My main concern with vorpx is that it appears to be basically using the depth buffer post render to create the two views which, while being the most efficient in terms of processing, I don't believe is possible to do without artefacts since there is missing data due to occlusion. This is pretty much what games like crysis and assassins creed 3 use.
It has many advantages, such as speed (as mentioned), no delay between left and right viewpoint rendering, exact same scene rendered for both eyes (so you can't get shadows in only one eye), etc. But the issues are things like reflections and specular are rendered at the surface level of objects, partial transparencies (including fog/cloud) not being the correct depth, occlusion data has to be fudged, etc.
I can see the advantage to both methods and not sure that one can be considered better then the other, so if vorpx was to include the option of both, then that would definitely be my preferred option. For games that struggle to keep the frame rate up, I'd go with the vorpx method, but for all others the two discrete renders would be my preference.

As it stands, I'll likely have to install both and just hope they don't interfere with each other.

Either way, I look forward to seeing the results of both. A bit of competition should be good!

Post by **MaterialDefender** » Wed Jul 31, 2013 10:53 pm

vorpX also has two camera 3d for many games, and you can switch between both modes on the fly. In many cases the depth buffer method shows far less annoying artifacts btw.

Post by **museumsteve** » Thu Aug 01, 2013 4:03 am

What TriDef's release seems to have shown is that some people will buy any solution right now on the chance it may work with some of their fav games. I still have confidence that vorpX will be the best solution for me but I bought TriDef last night anyway to keep me going

Post by **TheHolyChicken** » Thu Aug 01, 2013 5:49 am

android78 wrote:so if vorpx was to include the option of both, then that would definitely be my preferred option

VorpX DOES include the option of both. You can even swap between them on the fly, apparently.

Post by **baggyg** » Thu Aug 01, 2013 6:07 am

I am not one for harshly shrugging off a piece of software just because a competitor has emerged. From what I have heard of VorpX it does feature some good Rift specific features. However there is certainly a case for "striking while the iron is hot". The TriDef support will, hopefully, continue to evolve and could very likely introduce a host of new features that truly would rival what vorpX is doing. Already there are plans for having a hotkey to make the HUD viewable as well as ingame custom HUD placement. I hope for the sake of the community vorpX does get released within a realistic window and before a competitor truly does cover the whole market.

Post by **android78** » Thu Aug 01, 2013 6:33 am

@MaterialDefender - thanks for the reply, that is good news! I look forward to giving it a shot.

Post by **FR3D** » Thu Aug 01, 2013 6:46 am

baggyg wrote:I am not one for harshly shrugging off a piece of software just because a competitor has emerged. From what I have heard of VorpX it does feature some good Rift specific features. However there is certainly a case for "striking while the iron is hot". The TriDef support will, hopefully, continue to evolve and could very likely introduce a host of new features that truly would rival what vorpX is doing. Already there are plans for having a hotkey to make the HUD viewable as well as ingame custom HUD placement. I hope for the sake of the community vorpX does get released within a realistic window and before a competitor truly does cover the whole market.

ok maybe vorpx has some rift specific features, because the vorpx development is just older. I'm sure the community will help tridef to develop the driver into a perfectly driver for rift also. Tridef has more manpower and is willing to learn from the community.
Ralf don't wants to improve his driver with help of the community (he don't wants to release a beta) - therefore he will need much more time for beta testing than tridef, because we all are playing beta tester for tridef - so tridef will overtake vorpx in a very short time - i'm very sure - they will takeover the market and ralf will loose his leadership he maybe has today soon.

best regards FR3D

Post by **museumsteve** » Thu Aug 01, 2013 7:10 am

FR3D wrote: ok maybe vorpx has some rift specific features, because the vorpx development is just older. I'm sure the community will help tridef to develop the driver into a perfectly driver for rift also. Tridef has more manpower and is willing to learn from the community.
Ralf don't wants to improve his driver with help of the community (he don't wants to release a beta) - therefore he will need much more time for beta testing than tridef, because we all are playing beta tester for tridef - so tridef will overtake vorpx in a very short time - i'm very sure - they will takeover the market and ralf will loose his leadership he maybe has today soon.

best regards FR3D

lol..you're not playing beta tester for TriDef, you've become a paying customer in the hope it becomes a solid solution for Rift owners.
Most people are disappointed vorpX isn't available yet..and yes perhaps the TriDef release may speed things up or at least show Ralf that people are prepared to pay upfront for something that's unfinished but you shouldn't compare the products. TriDef is a quick fix and a smart move by them to gain new paying customers, vorpX is built from the ground up with just the Rift in mind.
..and Ralf has released a beta lol, just not to the public

Post by **FR3D** » Thu Aug 01, 2013 7:19 am

museumsteve wrote:
FR3D wrote: ok maybe vorpx has some rift specific features, because the vorpx development is just older. I'm sure the community will help tridef to develop the driver into a perfectly driver for rift also. Tridef has more manpower and is willing to learn from the community.
Ralf don't wants to improve his driver with help of the community (he don't wants to release a beta) - therefore he will need much more time for beta testing than tridef, because we all are playing beta tester for tridef - so tridef will overtake vorpx in a very short time - i'm very sure - they will takeover the market and ralf will loose his leadership he maybe has today soon.

best regards FR3D
lol..you're not playing beta tester for TriDef, you've become a paying customer in the hope it becomes a solid solution for Rift owners.
Most people are disappointed vorpX isn't available yet..and yes perhaps the TriDef release may speed things up or at least show Ralf that people are prepared to pay upfront for something that's unfinished but you shouldn't compare the products. TriDef is a quick fix and a smart move by them to gain new paying customers, vorpX is built from the ground up with just the Rift in mind.
..and Ralf has released a beta lol, just not to the public

No i was not paying - i just installed the 14 days testing version.
Tridef has ton's of games running in 3d. They only have to adapt the oculus rift sdk to get things working. Ok without rift specific things - but that is a lot ....
if this is done properly the hud and game specific things will be adjusted. (I would do it in this row) ...

best regards FR3D

Post by **museumsteve** » Thu Aug 01, 2013 8:34 am

FR3D wrote:
No i was not paying - i just installed the 14 days testing version.
Tridef has ton's of games running in 3d. They only have to adapt the oculus rift sdk to get things working. Ok without rift specific things - but that is a lot ....
if this is done properly the hud and game specific things will be adjusted. (I would do it in this row) ...

best regards FR3D

Fair enough...but as vorpX wont be out in the next 14 days one would assume you'll still pay for TriDef

Post by **museumsteve** » Thu Aug 01, 2013 8:39 am

oooooh and on the plus side:-

http://www.vorpx.com/forums/topic/annou ... ouncement/

Post by **stevetb** » Thu Aug 01, 2013 9:13 am

museumsteve wrote:oooooh and on the plus side:-

http://www.vorpx.com/forums/topic/annou ... ouncement/

Good find. Still not a fan of his marketing techniques (or lack thereof).

-Steve

Post by **museumsteve** » Thu Aug 01, 2013 9:20 am

stevetb wrote:
museumsteve wrote:oooooh and on the plus side:-

http://www.vorpx.com/forums/topic/annou ... ouncement/
Good find. Still not a fan of his marketing techniques (or lack thereof).

-Steve

Look on the bright side mate, once it's released and we're all in our virtual worlds it wont matter

Post by **MaterialDefender** » Thu Aug 01, 2013 10:44 am

As soon a as the first gazillion of copies is sold, I'll hire someone for the marketing.

Post by **stevetb** » Thu Aug 01, 2013 1:39 pm

Ralf,

I'd help you for free. My wife and I both have business degrees. Hers being in Marketing. Free help if you need it.

-Steve

Post by **Likay** » Thu Aug 01, 2013 2:05 pm

There's some either/or talk about when it comes to tridef/vorpx. Practically there will be differencies between the two: performance, visual quality, the function of headtracking etc. So it may actually be feasible to have both to choose from. It has parallells with stereowrappers. In the old times there was nvidia, iz3d and tridef. I bought all of them (choosen nvidiacard for nvidiastereo, bought iz3d and tridef) to be able to choose the best experience. Needless to say that the situation has changed today though. :/

Post by **Fredz** » Thu Aug 01, 2013 3:24 pm

TheHolyChicken wrote:VorpX DOES include the option of both. You can even swap between them on the fly, apparently.

TriDef has supported this from the start in their driver, it's called Virtual 3D / Power 3D and is activable by a hotkey as well.

museumsteve wrote:TriDef is a quick fix and a smart move by them to gain new paying customers, vorpX is built from the ground up with just the Rift in mind.

It may be a quick fix for now, but these guys have a working stereo 3D driver since 2009, competitive with NVIDIA 3D Vision and that supports 790 games out of the box. If there is a market for this, I guess they'll invest the required resources to support the Rift correctly.

Post by **android78** » Thu Aug 01, 2013 7:40 pm

Likay wrote:There's some either/or talk about when it comes to tridef/vorpx. Practically there will be differencies between the two: performance, visual quality, the function of headtracking etc. So it may actually be feasible to have both to choose from. It has parallells with stereowrappers. In the old times there was nvidia, iz3d and tridef. I bought all of them (choosen nvidiacard for nvidiastereo, bought iz3d and tridef) to be able to choose the best experience. Needless to say that the situation has changed today though. :/

So long as there isn't any conflict between the drivers, this would be good. I'll have to wait and see though. I like competition to keep the drivers progressing. Imagine the race when a new game comes out to get well adjusted game profiles.

Post by **baggyg** » Fri Aug 02, 2013 2:45 am

Fredz wrote:
TheHolyChicken wrote:VorpX DOES include the option of both. You can even swap between them on the fly, apparently.
TriDef has supported this from the start in their driver, it's called Virtual 3D / Power 3D and is activable by a hotkey as well.

Thanks, for the tip. Sounds exactly the same as the VorpX method:

Power 3D is another innovative feature of TriDef 3D Ignition that is not available in other commercial stereoscopic game drivers. By default TriDef 3D Ignition is configured to render the same scene twice, with a small viewpoint shift (in the same way most other drivers operate). This produces the best quality results but is very resource intensive and quite inefficient.

The Power 3D mode is a faster method of approximating a viewpoint shift based on the principles of image based rendering. There is a trade-off in terms of 3D image quality, which may be noticable at the edges of objects but it is likely that you will get a significant increase in frame rate if you switch to Power 3D mode.

Post by **cybereality** » Fri Aug 02, 2013 5:04 pm

I think there is room for multiple software solutions in this space. That is why I have always setup my systems to support different options (Nvidia, DDD, and IZ3D). Some games will work better with one software than another, so it is great to be able to choose. We've lost IZ3D, but now we will have VorpX (and I guess Vireio, even though it's pretty buggy).

Post by **quietboy** » Fri Aug 02, 2013 10:18 pm

my biggest concern is the side effects of using oculus for hours straight. as a journalist in kotaku said ....

"In the end, I have mixed feelings about the experience. The immersion I felt while playing Episode 1 was an unreal experience and I wouldn't give that up for the world. But the side effects make me worry. When the game was action packed and I was kept busy, I didn't notice the negative side effects much. But when the game slowed down, I would start to focus on just how horrible I was feeling. While I never vomited, my stomach was never happy. In fact, even now, days later when I think about playing the Rift some more, my stomach ties itself in knots. As it stands now, I probably wouldn't want to use it anymore once the novelty of the experience eventually wears off.

Thankfully, the Rift as I have experienced it is far from the final product. Newer development kits have better screen resolution and the final product is likely to be better still. Moreover, as more and more games are made specifically to work with the Rift, I am optimistic that a lot of the problems I experienced will become things of the past."

http://kotaku.com/i-played-the-oculus-r ... -987568701

Post by **Valez** » Sat Aug 03, 2013 5:24 am

Yeah, but he was playing only for his second time.
4 hours non stop while you are not yet used to VR and playing through headache and nausea is
not how you should do it.
Aside from that he played an entire hour Dishonored with bad driver support before this.

There is no problem spending hours in the Rift when you already got your VR-legs.