Wireless Rift using Steam In-Home Streaming Guide (working)

[TheVividLight]

Hey Everyone,

Background:
I received access to the Steam In-Home Streaming Beta last Friday and I have discovered a pretty cool way of making your Oculus Rift Wireless and it doesn't require much as far as hardware goes. I have a very crappy laptop that I had received years ago, but have a quite beastly main desktop PC. While using In-home streaming this past weekend, it occurred to me that this solution may be viable, with the rift hooked up to my laptop and streaming to it via in-home streaming. My current latency between my pc and laptop when gaming is 7-9ms and gets a consistent 58-60fps (limit of the stream) without any noticeable input lag. While there are a few "jerks" right now when gaming, it isn't anything that really pulls you out of the experience.

For background: my laptop barely runs the rift on its own, but w/ in home streaming, but sense in-home streaming uses all the graphics processing is off-loaded onto my main desktop -- You can basically think of the laptop as being used as a wireless video and usb hub.

What you need:
*Oculus Rift or DIY Rift
*Steam with In-Home Streaming beta
*Back-pack with two pouches preferably and a chest-strap for stabability
*Wireless Xbox 360 controller, Wired controller, or some other kind of controller. XBOX 360 is easiest to use since it has native support with most games.****optional supplies: Top Shot Elite with wii motion plus/hillcrest/yei sensor or Razer Hydra(untested w/ hydra)***** Truthfully, you dont want any more wires if you can help it (at least while testing and getting it all set up the first few times).
*laptop (mine is extremely low grade. 2GB ram, very low end i5, onboard graphics, etc.)
*25ft (or whatever length you need) extension cord or battery pack
*Wireless N router -- preferably dual band for the in-home streaming. (my desktop is hard wired to the router)

How To:
1. Set up your laptop
*Make sure steam is set up with in-home streaming on your laptop and that its working well.
*make sure whatever controller you are using works on your laptop.
*make sure your rift is set up as a duplicate 2nd monitor or pimary monitor on your laptop
2. For our example, get half-life 2 running in VR-mode on your laptop, close the screen, put it in or attach it to your backpack (separate from the pouch with all your cables for airflow).
3. Put all the wires from the rift into the 2nd pouch of your backpack
4. I then electrical taped my oculus rift and laptop power plugs to the extension cord to haphazardly protect myself from electrocution. hurray. -- it should be noted, i have the extension cord plugged into the wall using a surge protector.
* this part could be completely replaced by using a portable battery pack, I just wanted to take one piece of the puzzle out of the equation while I tested this idea.
5. Grab your controller and put your rift on, you should be set.

Future Improvements to Test:
1. Hook in ceiling to run extension cord through or "hoola-hoop" - type "fence" around your feet -- you really start to "drift" after playing for a while... not a bad kind of drift, but you definitely forget that you are probably moving around your house/your garage/into a busy street while playing -- some type of makeshift solution could solve the problem.
2. constants improvements to latency with steam in-home streaming are being made from Valve's end, however I have not had any problems. Hopefully I am not in the minority. I will keep looking for ways to improve the hardware setup I have and see if I can make any improvements.

Experience thus far:
There is very very little lag or input latency thus far. Right now Steam in-home streaming can stream at a native 1080p w/ 60fps. In the next few days ill upload pictures and edit the guide for clarity based on everyone's comments/questions (if there are any). I can also test any ideas you all have for improvement if I have the supplies. just let me know!

Look forward to hearing feedback from you guys!

[zalo]

It sends Rift headtracking data over the Steam stream?

Interesting Valve would add explicit support for that...

[cybereality]

This sounds awesome!

Does it work for random Rift demos (like from Share) or does it have to be a Steam title?

[Popopinsel]

I don't get what's streamed between which devices.

You said to launch HL2 on the laptop and to put it then into the backpack. So you're just running the game on a mobile PC, aren't you? Or is the game being streamed from within some Steam cloud?

[TheVividLight]

This sounds awesome!

Does it work for random Rift demos (like from Share) or does it have to be a Steam title?

@Cybereality: Right now you can run any game even if its not a steam title. you just have to add it to your steam library. If i remember right, you just go to the bottom left hand corner of steam when you're looking at your library and add the game you have. (i.e. battlefield 3/4, etc.). They just added the functionality in the last update.

It sends Rift headtracking data over the Steam stream?

Interesting Valve would add explicit support for that...

@Zalo: I dont think valve added explicit support for that -- but it works just fine just like any other controller or kb/m you might have plugged into your laptop/steambox

I don't get what's streamed between which devices.

You said to launch HL2 on the laptop and to put it then into the backpack. So you're just running the game on a mobile PC, aren't you? Or is the game being streamed from within some Steam cloud?

Sorry I should have been more clear. you basically are creating an account link between both computers running steam. you login using the same info on both computers. When linked in the in-home streaming beta, the main pc now has an option to launch a game OR stream the game to the other pc you are logged into (as long as they are on the same network). On the other hand, if you are just on your laptop you have the option to stream the game from the main pc (you dont have to even install the game on your laptop)

[Attreyu]

Sorry if I'm not getting this right but from what I gather, there's no wireless Rift.

You're streaming from the PC to the laptop, but the laptop is still wired to your Rift.

[virror]

Well, its a bit more wireless than before : p
The same thing can of course be done with a more powerful laptop only, but most ppl have a good pc and not a powerful laptop.
Im also curious on how the headtracking is working with this setup?

[yomer]

What about Hydra compatibility? Do you just install the driver on the laptop?

[Lookforyourhands]

This is a great discovery !! Thank you to the original poster. I plan on using my 11" Macbook Air i5 ...
Is it still possible to get in on that Steam In Home Streaming Beta ?

[smsithlord]

Oh, now I understand what the topic means. That is awesome dude! I'd love to see a video of you walking around your house while in VR land.

[TheVividLight]

I was stranded at the hospital (where I work) for the past few days due to the snow... lol. Sorry for the delay in responses. I'll try to get a video and pictures up this weekend!

To answer a few of your questions:

This is a great discovery !! Thank you to the original poster. I plan on using my 11" Macbook Air i5 ...
Is it still possible to get in on that Steam In Home Streaming Beta ?

I believe your Macbook would work fine as long as you can get your controllers/Oculus rift working on the machine. Like someone mentioned before, the laptop is really just acting as an intermediate device to link you to your main computer for the graphics/cpu processing. You're running the game installed on your main pc (windows I would assume), and the game doesnt even have to be installed on the laptop.

What about Hydra compatibility? Do you just install the driver on the laptop?

I currently don't use a hydra I use a gun-controller that I built using a few different components + a YEI sensor attached to a paper-towel roll. (lol, its a long story... I'll hook up to something nicer looking when I film me walking around... I was doing a proof of concept for a VR gun-controller that I'm working on, and I figured if I could make everything run and be consolidated to fit in a paper towel roll, then I could fit it into anything.). Sorry for the long excerpt, but to get back to your question: I am not sure how the hydra is processed? Does it need a pretty beefy computer to use?

The previous question fits into the Oculus Rift processing question too:

....Im also curious on how the headtracking is working with this setup?

The actual head movement data is processed by your laptop just like a controller movement would be if you attached it to your laptop. From what I've seen, this is very lightweight and you can et an idea of exactly how little processing power it takes by coding it yourself (one of the starter tutorials on developer.oculusvr.com). The actual graphical representation is done by your desktop, and you don't have to use v-sync because the in-home streaming beta is limited to either 30fps or 60 fps. From the benchmark you can run in the in-home streaming beta (it looks like a fancy version of Net_Graph 1, if you are familiar with that from the valve games) -- actual latency between the desktop pc and my laptop floats between 6ms-9ms, fps floats between 58.8-60.0fps, etc... So in my case I'm adding 6-9ms lag to the oculus.

[yomer]

That latency is so low compared to what some people in the beta are getting with gigabit lan connections.

What wireless setup do you use? 802.11n, or ac?

[TheVividLight]

I'm using just wireless N, its an old laptop -- but I've never spiked above 15ms even for just a split second. I got lucky I guess? Main PC running windows 8.1 and windows 7 (dual boot) / Laptop running Windows 7. Tenda router.

I haven't had a single issue with it at all. My desktop is nice, but nothing too crazy. here are the specs: i5 3570k, gtx 660Ti, 16gb ddr3 1600mhz, wired gigabit connection to pc, all games run off of 2ndary 7200rpm drive (again nothing crazy, not ssd). The laptop is core i5 (really low end one, 1st generation), nvidia NVM graphics (for business apps), 2gb of ram, etc. pretty bad tbh.

I will definitely post a video this weekend showing you guys what I've done, hopefully it will clear up some of the questions:) The weather this week kept me away from home and whatnot and I've been pretty busy. Sorry for the delay!

[yomer]

Great, I can't wait to see it. Here's hoping I get an invite to the beta soon.

[TheVividLight]

Make sure you are part of the In-Home Streaming group on steam, and start saying your "praise lord gaben"(s) 3x every night before bed and it should help. I think that could have something to do with why my in-home streaming works so well, while others are struggling with disconnects? I'm a biologist/researcher, not an expert in all things VR, but I think I may be on to something

[yomer]

I did join a couple of days ago. I'll start with my prayers ASAP.

[Marulu]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gIL71Q6eJ2Y

In this video they are testing the limits of Steams streaming technology.
They get 4k video streaming between 12 and 20 FPS.

They conclude that it should be able to push more then 60 FPS at 1080p.
It seems like 60 FPS is just a limit valve added to the software.

[vrdude]

Just signed up for the beta... Hope I get picked because this sounds extremely interesting..... My rift will be arriving sometime next week Great find OP.....

[Lookforyourhands]

I just got access to the Beta this morning !

I'll post a video when I get all this setup. I want to go fully wireless so all I need is a portable
battery pack for the rift.

[Marulu]

I also just got a beta invite, it works surprisingly well.
But the frame rates are weird, Half Life 2 runs at 60 fps, while games like Duke Nukem only run on 30 fps.

[Lookforyourhands]

I'm still working on making my Rift powered by USB. Ordered one of these cables http://cgi.ebay.ca/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vie ... 0849574156
which everyone says seems to work. I tried making my own but the Rift powers off after about 4-5 seconds. Anyway got the In home streaming going last night
and it's pretty impressive. You don't really 'feel' the latency at all at least gaming directly on the computer and hopefully it's the same in the Rift. I'm going to make
myself a big play space I can walk around in by strapping two wiimotes to my legs for walking motion. Can't wait for STEM haha.. Thanks again to the OP for this find it's really awesome.

[TheVividLight]

Yea, you really wont notice the lag that much -- at least I didnt in my case. the only "latency" issues you might get here or there are little frame stutters or hiccups. They are very infrequent for me.

I have a video filmed, and I'm procrastinating editing right now. lol. I'll get it up this weekend... I know I've said that for the past 2 weekends, but I swear this time!

[3dvison]

So what do you guys think would be the cheapest Laptop,Tablet I could buy for the Rift end of this type of setup ? It will need to have a HDMI or D-Sud output correct ?
Hope there is something dirt cheap that can work well with it.

[bizarrobrian]

Did you have to do anything specific to get the head tracking working? Even though Tracker DK shows up in my devices, I'm not able to use head tracking in games like Aaaaaaaaaaa for the Awesome. When I try to switch to VR mode in TF2, it says that the rift isn't present/recognized.

[yomer]

I installed and enable in home streaming on the laptop and Half Life 2 VR and Episode One VR disappeared from the list. I can see them on the desktop, but not on the laptop. Has anyone had this problem?

[Lookforyourhands]

I got everything working. Playing with a wireless rift is such a great feeling. Using my macbook air 11" and a usb to barrel cable to power the rift.
Going to make a video and post it for you guys. This is really great stuff. If you're having problems with steam try reinstalling your client and make sure
you're opted into the beta updates in the settings.

EDIT: lol. Spoke too soon. I thought I had everything working, it's 95% there but I don't have any head tracking.

The latency is a non issue though, it's great. I can tell the experience will be near seamless if I can get the head tracking going..

[Kazioo]

I don't have any head tracking.

The latency is a non issue though, it's great.