How in the F does one get TF2 and Half Life 2 to work

[mayaman]

With the RIFT? for being the two main games talked about in all the youtube videos, you need a PHd in hacketry to make this function. How does a regular person get to play this?

Please be as detailed as possible, pretend you're trying to teach a monkey to play, as thats what I feel like after spending hours trying with zero luck.

I've set -vr in the HL console, I've opted into the steampipe beta, I've started TF2 but there are no options for the RIFT. There has got to be a better GUI for normal people.

Thanks

[Jalaman]

-vr should be set in the launch options rather than the console. Both games will then start up in rift mode.

[Norb]

With the RIFT? for being the two main games talked about in all the youtube videos, you need a PHd in hacketry to make this function. How does a regular person get to play this?

Please be as detailed as possible, pretend you're trying to teach a monkey to play, as thats what I feel like after spending hours trying with zero luck.

I've set -vr in the HL console, I've opted into the steampipe beta, I've started TF2 but there are no options for the RIFT. There has got to be a better GUI for normal people.

Thanks

You said you opted into Steampipe Beta already, so that and adding -vr to launch options should be enough. Once you start it, it won't distort until you get to the main menu, the loading screen will look normal. It starts windowed so you'll need to set it fullscreen.

The various commands with VR mode and instructions can also be found here:

http://wiki.teamfortress.com/wiki/Oculu ... User_Guide

[mayaman]

Ooh Ooh thanks. I think I did that already but it still won't show a synced image. I set it to full screen as well. I have the displays duplicated, because when I try extended HL never even comes up. Weird. I'll keep trying.

also, as far as the Hydra and Novint Falcon. HL and TF see the Novint Falcon but don't show the Hydra. Is there a trick to getting the Hydra to work with anything? I just got it today.

thanks

[mayaman]

When do I add this? "vr_viewmodel_offset_forward"

Is there a tilda console like old PC games? I've been away from serious PC gaming for years and don't remember poop.

Just need to know where to add all these strings. The same place I entered -vr?

again, thank you for understanding. I'm a console gamer looking to get back into PC. Main thing I use my PC for is driving sims with my Dbox motion platform.

[mayaman]

Unfortunately, no matter what I do, HL2 won't go into 3D for RIFT. I'm following the directions exactly.

[mscoder610]

I posted a couple of notes on TF2 and HL2 over here:
http://www.mtbs3d.com/phpbb/viewtopic.p ... 40#p136278

For both games, set -vr in the Launch Options dialog, which the posts above illustrated in a screenshot. Setting your monitor + Rift to be duplicated displays is the easiest way to get things going. Once the game is open, and you're at the Main Menu, you should see a doubled image on your monitor.

"vr_viewmodel_offset_forward" and similar settings would go in the developer console if you want to change them in-game. Go to Options, Keyboard, Advanced Settings, Enable Developer Console. Then hit your `/~ (tilde) key to open the console.
Any console command can also be applied in a config file so it's automatically applied when the game starts. See my other post - these commands could go in the autoexec.cfg that you can create in the directory I specified in that post.

Razer Hydra: I'd recommend installing MotionCreator 2 if you haven't already:
http://sixense.com/products/motioncreator
To use the Hydra in HL2, you can try out the MotionCreator profile I linked in the other thread. Copy it to My Documents\Sixense Entertainment\MotionCreator 2\configs.
Then open MotionCreator, hit Rescan, and scroll down to Half Life 2. Uncheck the built in configs for HL2, and choose the one you downloaded. It should look something like this:
http://i.imgur.com/4oI7pPO.jpg
You'll also need to make sure your key bindings in HL2 match the ones that the MotionCreator profile is expecting. WASD for movement, Q jump, E crouch, Shift run, Alt walk, R reload, Spacebar use item, Z suit zoom, etc.

Using the Hydra in games is completely independent of using the Rift. If you want to use both, I'd get the Hydra set up and tested in the game on your regular monitor (VR mode off) first, before using it with the Rift. It'll be easier to tweak key bindings and such, if needed.

[mscoder610]

Unfortunately, no matter what I do, HL2 won't go into 3D for RIFT. I'm following the directions exactly.

Once you turn on the -vr option, either the game should start in 3D / doubled/ rift mode, or you'll get an error before the game even starts up (saying no sensor was found).
If you do get an error, make sure any other Rift programs are closed, including the Rift configuration/ IPD application.

[mayaman]

Thanks, I'll keep trying. PC gaming has to become more simplified. In my driving sims I usually just click "race" LOL

Is there any way to get the Hydra left nunchuck or a Sony Move Nav controller to act as my WASD? Meanwhile I'll control the aiming with my Noving Falcon, which already is working brilliantly in HL.

thanks

[BANNED USER]

Well I got my rift today, and the best thing I figured was to launch TF2 in -vr mode and then go into the console and put vr_calibration in it. It's so you can set your visual spacing for the screen. Once the settings are saved you can exit. Go into your tf2/cfg/config.cfg and copy the vr_ commands. Open the same config file but in the HL2 folder, and paste your new settings over the ones in there. Once you run HL2, you should have everything setup really well.

[mayaman]

One weird thing I'm noticing is that every time I start HL2 it says "updating HL2 and it downloads something" what the hell?

[mayaman]

OK starting to get the hand of this. How do I reset the VR calibration to default? I totally screwed it up messing around with it.

[TheHolyChicken]

Thanks, I'll keep trying. PC gaming has to become more simplified. In my driving sims I usually just click "race" LOL
...
There has got to be a better GUI for normal people.

PC gaming is incredibly simple usually; for most games, you simply go to the game on steam and hit play. Your problem is that we're not yet at the 'gaming' stage; we're at the development stage! You've bought a bit of hardware that's in its infancy, all the software is in its infancy (some game devs don't even have their kits yet!), and so of course many things aren't yet smooth. Why do you have to jump through some hoops to get Half-Life 2 working? - because the audience are supposed to be game developers, for whom setting a launch parameter is trivial. I'd rather have immediate access to content than have to wait for them to make "a better GUI for normal people" before releasing it.

The pleasing GUIs, the polished experiences, the ease of use, will all come later. Right now you have to expect to get your hands dirty. This isn't because it's PC gaming, this is because you've taken a shortcut and are peeking at things that are over a year from being "ready".

[mgood]

The more complex solution for resetting VR settings is to open config.cfg with WordPad and delete all the lines that start with vr_. I don't recommend using Notepad since it doesn't break up the lines on my computer. The file will be somewhere like c:\Steam\steamapps\common\Team Fortress 2\tf\cfg\ (yours might be under Program Files or the like).

If nothing else you can delete the entire config.cfg file. The config.cfg should be recreated when you restart. You can rename it to something like 'earlier config.cfg' instead to be safer

[mgood]

And yeah, overall, expect to run into stuff like this right now. Most game companies haven't even added beta support to anything yet. Luckily there are plenty of developers willing to make new content or adapt earlier stuff, even now at this early stage.

[Tankshell]

There has got to be a better GUI for normal people.

Thanks

You do realize this is a devkit right?