Introducing Vireio Perception (3D Driver for Oculus Rift)

[Drewbdoo]

Hey guys. Long time lurker of all things Oculus. I've been debating for a long time if I should throw down for a devkit or wait for what the consumer version will be, but I'm too much of a tech head to resist. My plans are to whore my free time out to anyone who needs extra oculus eyes

So, here's my setup and what I've found and I'm just wondering if I'm doing everything right as I am not seeing some of the performance hits I've heard from some others. Part of this may be part of my system. It had been about 5 years since building my last pc and about 1.5 years since I'd upgraded the video card so in anticipation of some tax money and some I'd saved up, I built a new rig - half inf pre-oculus anticipation, half as a video editing machine. I recently started playing around with skyrim with the vireio driver to see if my new computer was up to the task, etc. After some of the issues with getting the files in the right folder, I got it to run at 720p @60fps with aa and anti turned off, but otherwise ultra. AAx2 and anti at 8 drops me to ~50-55ish. I was thinking that my card would be a big bottleneck - here's my system:

i5 3570k oc'd to 4.2
16gb 1600 ram
120gb ssd + storage drives (skyrim installed on ssd)
ati 6850

I am sure my 6850 is still my bottleneck, but I was really wanting to ask a question about v-sync. The motherboard I have (gigabyte ud3h) support (and I have installed) the Virtu MVP hyperformance and virtual vysnc. I was curious how much this helps or will help in driving the 3d for the oculus and what the recommended settings would be in conjunction with the perception driver. In cyber's readme, it suggests turning off vysnc for better performance, virtu mvp says to leave it on ingame when using their virutal vsync. With skyrim's vync turned on, the percption driver going and the virtu mvp (with my "test" settings of ultra minus aa and anti), I get locked 60fps frames. This leads me to believe that the perception driver has some sort of 60fps vsync? I don't want to speculate on problems above my pay grade :-p I really am most curious the recommended setup when using virtu mvp (if it ends up helping my in the long run or not - would be nice to have my onboard gpu taking on some of the stereoscopic load).

Thanks for the info. It is nice to have some basis of places to start so I can find some of the sweet spots in game/system settings in anticipation of the rift

[Callezetter]

Yeah Sorry, i know the settings was wrong in that video.
It was just a quick check/show that it worked with my drivers really.
I dont have a DIY either, but I realise that vid might have been horrible for the ones
that do.

From catalyst info:

Driver Packaging Version 9.012-121219a-152192C-ATI
Catalyst Version 13.1
Direct3D Version 9.14.10.0945
Catalyst Control Center Version 2012.1219.1521.27485

Heres how it looks..i get around 35-40 fps with skyrim and Vierio. All settings on medium and AA off

The lighting and shadows look really wrong. Skyrim requires special settings:

Skyrim: Disable shadows by finding "SkyrimPrefs.ini" in "My Documents\My Games\Skyrim" and setting the following: "fShadowDistance=0.0000 fInteriorShadowDistance=0.0000 fShadowLODStartFade=0.0000". Open the developers console and use "FOV 110".

[cybereality]

@Drewbdoo: The problem with VSync is that the Perception app renders each frame sequentially (every other frame it renders either the left or the right eye view). So if you put VSync on at 60Hz, you will effectively be capped at 30FPS in 3D. With VSync off you have to potential to reach the full 60FPS (though you still may get some temporal artifacts, ie mis-matches between the eyes).

[Drewbdoo]

@cybereality a-ha, that makes sense now, thanks I also read your opinion on the lucid virtual vysnc. I'll definitely be playing around with that to see if it helps. So far, I believe it gives me some performance boost in games, though how and if that translates anything to the rift is to be seen.

[Pablare]

amazing work really i am looking forward to playing skyrim and a possible future fallout 4 with the oculous rift

but i play skyrim with skse the skyrim script extender which starts skyrim from a different exe as it modifies the engines script function to allow mods to edit the game more
how do i make the driver run while starting instead of the TESV.exe the skse_loader.exe
and is this compatible with enb mods for skyrim if you know what that is

[Teeks419]

amazing work really i am looking forward to playing skyrim and a possible future fallout 4 with the oculous rift

but i play skyrim with skse the skyrim script extender which starts skyrim from a different exe as it modifies the engines script function to allow mods to edit the game more
how do i make the driver run while starting instead of the TESV.exe the skse_loader.exe
and is this compatible with enb mods for skyrim if you know what that is

Have you tried playing it with skse yet? Because for me it just worked and I also use skse. All I did was run it as administrator from the skse_loader.exe in the skyrim folder.

[Unclebob]

Cool, Callezetter. Thanks for the video.

You may want to turn shadows off, though. There are instructions in the read me.

Ok am reinstalling on my windows 7 machine.

Would really like to get it to work .... will post back

UB

Ok works on windows 7.

Have disabled shadows.

Thanks guys.

[Unclebob]

Hey guys. Long time lurker of all things Oculus. I've been debating for a long time if I should throw down for a devkit or wait for what the consumer version will be, but I'm too much of a tech head to resist. My plans are to whore my free time out to anyone who needs extra oculus eyes

So, here's my setup and what I've found and I'm just wondering if I'm doing everything right as I am not seeing some of the performance hits I've heard from some others. Part of this may be part of my system. It had been about 5 years since building my last pc and about 1.5 years since I'd upgraded the video card so in anticipation of some tax money and some I'd saved up, I built a new rig - half inf pre-oculus anticipation, half as a video editing machine. I recently started playing around with skyrim with the vireio driver to see if my new computer was up to the task, etc. After some of the issues with getting the files in the right folder, I got it to run at 720p @60fps with aa and anti turned off, but otherwise ultra. AAx2 and anti at 8 drops me to ~50-55ish. I was thinking that my card would be a big bottleneck - here's my system:

i5 3570k oc'd to 4.2
16gb 1600 ram
120gb ssd + storage drives (skyrim installed on ssd)
ati 6850

I am sure my 6850 is still my bottleneck, but I was really wanting to ask a question about v-sync. The motherboard I have (gigabyte ud3h) support (and I have installed) the Virtu MVP hyperformance and virtual vysnc. I was curious how much this helps or will help in driving the 3d for the oculus and what the recommended settings would be in conjunction with the perception driver. In cyber's readme, it suggests turning off vysnc for better performance, virtu mvp says to leave it on ingame when using their virutal vsync. With skyrim's vync turned on, the percption driver going and the virtu mvp (with my "test" settings of ultra minus aa and anti), I get locked 60fps frames. This leads me to believe that the perception driver has some sort of 60fps vsync? I don't want to speculate on problems above my pay grade :-p I really am most curious the recommended setup when using virtu mvp (if it ends up helping my in the long run or not - would be nice to have my onboard gpu taking on some of the stereoscopic load).

Thanks for the info. It is nice to have some basis of places to start so I can find some of the sweet spots in game/system settings in anticipation of the rift

Here is a link to Skyrim performance http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/sky ... ,3074.html

However I think you are worrying unnecessarily.

Firstly performance in Skyrim has improved dramatically. Secondly there are many tweaks you can do such as one which reduces the texture sizes of falling leaves...but I digress. A quick google seach will help with this. For example http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/337

So the plan should be to:

Update drivers
Update game
Optimize the game using the tweaks

At the moment no one seems to have posted any default launch settings in terms of the game. However. The target device on the rift is 1280 by 800. Rendering the game at this resolution will generate two screens 1280 by 800 each with the target acreage on the occulus of 640 by 800.

This seems an over kill and wasted computing power so rendering the game at 640*800 should give the correct image.

So rendering games for small target screen sizes should increase performance. So if the game works at 1280 by 800 well it should work for the Rift at 640 by 800.

The only issue here is graphic card drivers are optimised for higher screen resolutions....but that is nothing we can do anything about.

In short you have a great rig and should be able to enjoy the Rift when it comes out - although it is a dev kit and its the techie tinkerers that will have most fun.

UB

[Pablare]

amazing work really i am looking forward to playing skyrim and a possible future fallout 4 with the oculous rift

but i play skyrim with skse the skyrim script extender which starts skyrim from a different exe as it modifies the engines script function to allow mods to edit the game more
how do i make the driver run while starting instead of the TESV.exe the skse_loader.exe
and is this compatible with enb mods for skyrim if you know what that is

Have you tried playing it with skse yet? Because for me it just worked and I also use skse. All I did was run it as administrator from the skse_loader.exe in the skyrim folder.

Doesn't work for if i load it from the standard launcher all the fancy 3d effects are applied but if I start the skse_launcher.exe it jsut starts normally but not in side by side or anaglyph or what ever i set it to

[cybereality]

You can try editing the profiles.xml to include the skse launcher.

For example, adding something like this:

Code: Select all

<profile game_name="Skyrim" game_exe="skse_launcher.exe" game_type="601" separation="0.00357999" convergence="0" yaw_multiplier="25" pitch_multiplier="25" roll_multiplier="1" />

[Pablare]

You can try editing the profiles.xml to include the skse launcher.

For example, adding something like this:

Code: Select all

<profile game_name="Skyrim" game_exe="skse_launcher.exe" game_type="601" separation="0.00357999" convergence="0" yaw_multiplier="25" pitch_multiplier="25" roll_multiplier="1" />

i did that i only changed it to

Code: Select all

<profile game_name="Skyrim" game_exe="skse_loader.exe" game_type="601" separation="0.00357999" convergence="0" yaw_multiplier="25" pitch_multiplier="25" roll_multiplier="1" />

because the is named like that but it doesnt work
i tried replacing the skyrimlauncher line and just adding it doesnt work either way

[cybereality]

You can try running as admin (both Perception and the game), or copying the d3d9.dll from the Perception/bin folder into the Skyrim folder.

[Unclebob]

Hi

in terms of game set up with the driver.

Do you set it up to render at 640 by 800 the driver then generating the SBS view of two 640 by 800 images?

From past experience of stereo 3d the native resolution of the game is the biggest performance issue.

Thanks

UB

[shiva]

has anyone got any feedback on using vireio and skyrim with mods?
not many, just the better ones (HK2K & extended flora overhaul for ex). Does it work with the driver?

[baggyg]

has anyone got any feedback on using vireio and skyrim with mods?
not many, just the better ones (HK2K & extended flora overhaul for ex). Does it work with the driver?

Hi Shiva,

I have tried the driver on Skyrim using the standard Nexus Mod manager (with about 15 mods on including Flora / Fauna, HD texture packs, new faces bodies etc). I used Side by Side mode and viewed on a 3d tv. The shadows (as described) are an issue but the mods work perfectly fine. Run Nexus Mod Manager and perception as an Admin.

[Unclebob]

has anyone got any feedback on using vireio and skyrim with mods?
not many, just the better ones (HK2K & extended flora overhaul for ex). Does it work with the driver?

Hi Shiva,

I have tried the driver on Skyrim using the standard Nexus Mod manager (with about 15 mods on including Flora / Fauna, HD texture packs, new faces bodies etc). I used Side by Side mode and viewed on a 3d tv. The shadows (as described) are an issue but the mods work perfectly fine. Run Nexus Mod Manager and perception as an Admin.

Don't forget that a 3d TV has a much larger resolution than you will get on the rift.

Most 3d Tvs are 1920 by 1080.

The rifts acreage will be 640 by 800.

The benefits of high resolution texture packs were because at higher gaming resolutions textures started to look blurry because of the extra resolution available...

UB

[baggyg]

Don't forget that a 3d TV has a much larger resolution than you will get on the rift.

Most 3d Tvs are 1920 by 1080.

The rifts acreage will be 640 by 800.

The benefits of high resolution texture packs were because at higher gaming resolutions textures started to look blurry because of the extra resolution available...
UB

Absolutely! Although in the case of Skyrim it was not just a case of universally increasing textures, since there were a lot that were very low (skylines etc). Once everyone has their rift it will be interesting to see the perceived differences. Skyrim is probably an ideal candidate to quickly compare.

[shiva]

has anyone got any feedback on using vireio and skyrim with mods?
not many, just the better ones (HK2K & extended flora overhaul for ex). Does it work with the driver?

Hi Shiva,

I have tried the driver on Skyrim using the standard Nexus Mod manager (with about 15 mods on including Flora / Fauna, HD texture packs, new faces bodies etc). I used Side by Side mode and viewed on a 3d tv. The shadows (as described) are an issue but the mods work perfectly fine. Run Nexus Mod Manager and perception as an Admin.

Don't forget that a 3d TV has a much larger resolution than you will get on the rift.

Most 3d Tvs are 1920 by 1080.

The rifts acreage will be 640 by 800.

The benefits of high resolution texture packs were because at higher gaming resolutions textures started to look blurry because of the extra resolution available...

UB

great! thanks for your answers guys

[Pablare]

You can try running as admin (both Perception and the game), or copying the d3d9.dll from the Perception/bin folder into the Skyrim folder.

thank you running perception as an admin worked can't wait to play skyrim with the rift
say does skyrim support to the arms independent headtracking?

[Drewbdoo]

@Unclebob - Most of what you said I do know - I have spent countless hours modifying bethesda games' varies settings, ini's, etc mostly from the necessity of getting mods to work. Skyrim has always been an interesting beast to me. I had a slightly older pc when it came out - q8200 core2quad cpu at i think 2.4ghz, 4 gb budget ram and I got the 6850 I'm still using to be able to run skyrim, which I could run on vanilla ultra with no problem. Pretty much as soon as mods started coming out, I started seeing what it could take, etc. Even with that setup, there were some enb's that I could run, all be it at an annoying framerate (or if a dragon shows up near a town, forget about it).

I think what baggyg said is correct, that skyrim is going to be a good comparison for a lot of people. I've seen it at so many different resolutions with so many different visual mods - I'm curious to know do all that again in VR. I didn't really think about things like the hd texture pack I have running and other various mods/settings that might be unneeded or overkill for the rift's resolution when considering my current rig.

Also, I like to think I'm a techie tinkerer too! I just fall more into the enthusiast/early adopter camp than the developer camp. I think that the amount of content to enjoy is getting vastly underrated and I feel like there will be a wealth of things to enjoy when I get my dev kit. Though I'm not developing anything, I want to contribute what I can to making the best experience. It always helps to have an extra set of eyes to try out that new thing someone is tinkering on, or to find solutions you weren't even thinking of. I fully intend to whore out my free time as a beta tester for anything *cough*Namielus*cough* :-p

edit: also, anyone planning on playing skyrim with the rift needs to look into this mod - iHUD Immersive hud http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/3222
it makes the compass a hotkey and only shows the crosshair when looking at an item or using a ranged weapon/spell.

[baggyg]

edit: also, anyone planning on playing skyrim with the rift needs to look into this mod - iHUD Immersive hud http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/3222
it makes the compass a hotkey and only shows the crosshair when looking at an item or using a ranged weapon/spell.

Thanks for the link - even on 3D Vision the cross hair can become annoying. Nice find!

[Pablare]

there are a whole lot of mods that will increase the immersion of skyrim that will work awesome with the rift
im certain when fallout 4 comes which will then already have the creation kit there already will be the rift available and there will be ton of mods coming every week right from the beginning it will be awesome

[Arni1984]

Hi cybereality! Please describe where to unpack your driver VIREIO?
I installed the game SKYRIM ... What you need to do to VIREIO earned the game?
3D VISION off for?

[cybereality]

@Arni1984: You don't need to install the software, just unzip it wherever you like. Ideally you should just run the Perception.exe and start a game (like Skyrim). In practice it doesn't seem to work that well, and I am not sure why it works on some computers and not others. 3D Vision should be turned off. Hope that helps.

[Arni1984]

@Arni1984: You don't need to install the software, just unzip it wherever you like. Ideally you should just run the Perception.exe and start a game (like Skyrim). In practice it doesn't seem to work that well, and I am not sure why it works on some computers and not others. 3D Vision should be turned off. Hope that helps.

With SKYRIM - did not help ... 3D VISION disabled. Other games have not yet installed ...
Win 7 64 RUS, gigabyte Z77-D3H, GTX580

[baggyg]

With SKYRIM - did not help ... 3D VISION disabled. Other games have not yet installed ...
Win 7 64 RUS, gigabyte Z77-D3H, GTX580

@Arni1984

Make sure you are running both the Skyrim launcher and Perception in administration mode. I have practically the same system as you and works fine. 3d vision should not click in unless you run a compatible resolution so if you set it up for 1920x1080x60hz should be fine.

Start perception first in admin mode.
Then start Skyrim launcher.

[Arni1984]

cybereality\baggyg:
You mean run as administrator? That's what I'm doing ... 3D VISION disabled. Tried with different resolutions. Unpack the driver in different places. Zero reaction! May be necessary to change something in the properties SkyrimLauncher? Or may be to blame for Russian version of the game and operating system?

[Arni1984]

Earned! It turns out to disturb HELIX MOD ... Tried to run Mirror s Edge ... Feels like, 24 frames per second. The screen is dark. Only visible interface.

[cybereality]

You probably want to turn VSync off.

[Teeks419]

cybereality\baggyg:
You mean run as administrator? That's what I'm doing ... 3D VISION disabled. Tried with different resolutions. Unpack the driver in different places. Zero reaction! May be necessary to change something in the properties SkyrimLauncher? Or may be to blame for Russian version of the game and operating system?

Did you drop try dropping all the .dll files that are in the bin folder into the main skyrim folder?

[baggyg]

Earned! It turns out to disturb HELIX MOD ... Tried to run Mirror s Edge ... Feels like, 24 frames per second. The screen is dark. Only visible interface.

For clarity Perception is completely incompatible with Helix mod. If you have downloaded a helix modified d3d.dll then perception will not work. Ideally you want to delete the d3d.dll and the shaderoverides folder (or whatever files you downloaded from the helix site) from the main skyrim folder and then try again.

[Arni1984]

V-sync off in the game and in the driver, HELIX-MOD deleted, but is still low frame rate and a black screen. Displays only the interface elements and sound.
I'm talking about the MIRROR S EDGE game .

[shiva]

Hi guys
The vireio driver works like a f*cking BOSS, thats some serious performance!! cudos to Cyber
Quick question, I don't own an HMD quite yet (I'm just setting up the perfect environnment in anticipation of OR), so I was wondering if this warping effect I get in skyrim is normal?

[Callezetter]

That distortion is outside of what you can see in the rift.

[shiva]

gr8! problem solved. Thanks man

[2EyeGuy]

Hi guys
The vireio driver works like a f*cking BOSS, thats some serious performance!! cudos to Cyber
Quick question, I don't own an HMD quite yet (I'm just setting up the perfect environnment in anticipation of OR), so I was wondering if this warping effect I get in skyrim is normal?

Some of the demos use black there, others like vireio or the unreal integration, use clamping there to stretch the nearest pixels out. You may be able to see some parts of it on the rift, but it would be far out on the left and right edges near the top and bottom. Without those parts it would look like a rectangle on the Rift. Those parts become pincushion shaped bits sticking out from the corners of the rectangle.

[Pablare]

http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/6002 this mod looks very promising it would make player head-tracking in skyrim possible
I mean that you could move your head and your hand separately

[Arni1984]

Guys! Realties who still tried to run MIRROR "S EDGE through Vireio??? Problems arise?

[RangerOne]

This is a neat application. I sounds like, since all the imaging splitting and morphing with this is done outside the game application, I could technically modify this to work with a yet unsupported game by simply adding a new profile to Vireio. The only true in game interface that could need to be change are how you chose to integrate head tracking via existing or modify control schemes.

I am interested in trying modify a profile to work with X-Wing Alliance as that game to my recollection allows the user to freely move their head in the cockpit with the mouse, so the OR could add near full immersion. The only problems are foresee are the responsiveness of the tracking and the inability to see the joystick or key board while in game. I was thinking hot keying in some voice commands to fix this with something like a Kinect. That and the game is so old is performance is sketchy on multi core PCs.

Is Vireio up for purchase or download? Or have you switched to taking donations.

[cybereality]

Download and source can be found here:
http://www.vireio.com/