Gear VR / Oculus Rift

[KristenMoon83]

Hi everyone. So I know that Second Life now supports the Oculus Rift DK2 , but what about the Gear VR ? It's a collaboration unit with Samsung, Is there a way to get VR support for the Gear VR ? Or maybe Linden Lab would consider making an official app ? You have no idea how happy that would make me, lol. 

[Elrik Merlin]

The question to answer would be how you would get the audio/video feed into the Gear VR unit. It essentially needs to be able to be streamed to the phone so it's not going to be as straightforward as the Rift would be connecting to a graphics card. 

My expectation is that you would have to use a streaming system that could stream the SL Viewer output to the phone. I wonder if Bright Canopy could do this, for example. Obviously they would have to support the Gear VR format but in theory at least you are using a web browser to see a remote Viewer screen so I would have thought it would be possible - if Bright Canopy want to support it in that way.

[Kaito Bonde]

Stop me if i'm overstepping boundaries, LL, but considering how they haven't even officially released their own 3D viewer smartphone app, I highly doubt that they would release an official app to do Gear VR or Cardboard for that matter. (not trying to rain on anyone's parade).

There was a post here that contained information on how to use google cardboard with the SL. I have seen a few videos showing methods for getting cardboard compatible apps to work on a Gear VR with little to no extra required. I'm planning on running my own tests combining this info and the oculus rift viewer to see if i can't get this to work with my own Gear VR (but it won't be delivered til after the new year). I'm not expecting it to be perfect but It would be interesting to see if this works in any way shape form or fashion.

 

If that doesn't work there might be a bit of hope using Moonlight Game Streaming on a Google Play Store compatible device and a computer that has a nVidia Video Card in it. If you set up your GeForce Experience to add RDP as an app then run the Oculus compatible viewer, and set it to HMD mode. you should be able to make it work that way. (that is unless you are required to have an oculus connected to go into HMD mode.)

 

[Orchid Arado]

So has anyone gotten the Samsung VR Gear to work with SL yet?

[Spookdoctor]

I ma sure that Lumiya android app will be the first to be compatible with Samsung gear and SL... AT LEAST I HOPE SO! Anybody else have any good news with developments around Samsung gear VR  and SL?

[Rolig Loon]

If you look at other threads on this topic, you'll find that LL abandoned VR for SL over a year ago.  The experimental VR viewer is no longer available. Average frame rates in SL are simply not high enough to make it feasible.  If you want VR, wait for Sansar.

[Nalates Urriah]

On 8/29/2016 at 8:42 AM, Orchid Arado said:

So has anyone gotten the Samsung VR Gear to work with SL yet?

Yes, once upon a time. No, the Lab is not currently supporting it. However there are work-arounds. 

http://www.hypergridbusiness.com/2016/06/how-to-set-up-your-new-mobile-vr-viewer/

http://blog.nalates.net/2016/07/31/second-life-vr-how-to/

Is the viewer fast enough for VR? Depends. There are computers running SL at 100+ FPS rates. So, we can safely say it is marginal...

Since VR requires TWO images, left and right eye images, and a minimum frame rate of 90 to avoid certain simulator sickness, we considered a computer incapable of a consistent 180FPS for single images as unsuitable for VR. Tech has advanced. The NVIDIA 1000 series cards change that. They can make the second image from the context of the first image, thus disposing of the 180FPS idea.

Future cards will do an even better job.

The majority of older computers (2-years+) are incapable of providing the power for enough speed to avoid making people sick. Today most of the SL users fall in that range. So, the Lab has decided to withdraw their VR support. You can choose to hear the between the lines comment 'for now' or not.

As more people use VorpX, the Lab may be come more interested.

As it is now they are working to rebuild the computers and system support back end of SL. The last couple of years have seen lots of SL modernization on the viewer and viewer support side. Recent comments by Lindens suggest something similar is happening on the server backend systems.  Is that being done without any thought toward VR? The Lindens are not saying. But, I suspect VR colors all game developers' thoughts these days. Only time will tell.

Edited May 10, 2017 by Nalates Urriah