My only question is have they fixed the whole driver problem yet?
The Oculus Rift DK2 was a complete disaster. I understand it's a "dev kit" but if they are to release it for general use they will need to drastically change the way the driver installs, the way it communicates error messages and issues with the connection.
It took me several hours to release I needed to move the Oculus Rift "monitor" to the right. And it's working "fine" on my desktop - but I can't get it working on a laptop (and current Oculus Rift statements suggest they will never support it on laptops...).
The latest Oculus SDK (0.7.0.0) on Windows _absolutely_ fixes this mess. I have nothing but praise for the latest software and this is coming from someone who couldn't use his Rift since around November last year when the AMD drivers and the Rift's extended mode stopped working together.
Basically now the Rift is considered a proper HMD as a category of its' own and not a bastardized monitor. There is no more extended mode. Everything compiled with Oculus SDK 0.6.0.0 and above now works in Direct Mode only. The latency is noticeably better. With the latest AMD/Nvidia drivers, you just plug the headset in and there's no monitor-type configuration at all.
Note this is with Windows 10; I don't have first-hand experience with 8.1 but think it'd be much the same. It really is that much better.
Also, if you haven't checked out the latest VR Desktop (http://www.vrdesktop.net), you need to do this too. In addition to giving you a giant screen to see your desktop on, you can now play full-screen games in it, watch YouTube 360 videos properly in it and watch 3D movies encoded in side-by-side or top/bottom encoding. It's really really awesome :)
> The latest Oculus SDK (0.7.0.0) on Windows _absolutely_ fixes this mess.
Tried to use that to show it off to a friend on his desktop running Windows 10. Didn't work. The demo desk worked - but nothing else did. Also - didn't I read something where .7 is not backwards compatible with apps compiled for .6?
> AMD drivers and the Rift's extended mode stopped working together.
I find extended mode only works for me on my AMD card. And I think this is part of the problem - there appears to be a number of "it works for me"/"it doesn't work for me" threads all over the Oculus Rift forum from people with varying builds including threads of "if you follow this incantation and sacrifice a chicken while modifying your registry - this will make the Oculus Rift work"
> Also, if you haven't checked out the latest VR Desktop
I tried that out - but it crashed for me almost every time I tried using it.
For me the Oculus Rift has pretty much been a fail - I couldn't tell if the fail has been on my end (ie my desktop) or Oculus Rift's end. Though I really think if they hope to get a market share is to hire the guy(s) who has been working on JanusVR and make that a bundled "app". Right now that is the only reason why I don't just put it in a box and forget about it. Yes - I understand this is a "development kit" but I would like to know that it's functional before I develop for it. If people have to read out of the Necronomicon to use it - there is no point in developing for it. I feel like others share this opinion because I think Elite Dangerous implemented support but said that they won't update it until the Oculus Rift has a non-dev kit version.
I'm just frazzled because I purchased this $300 device expecting it to be somewhat stable - and it seems like something I would get out of a kickstarter.
The GearVR never had these issues, what they shipped was way more polished than DK2.
As for DK2, have you tried .7 release yet? They completely removed the "extend my desktop" piece you had issues with. It's way less fungible than earlier releases, but feels much more polished / simple.
The Oculus Rift DK2 was a complete disaster. I understand it's a "dev kit" but if they are to release it for general use they will need to drastically change the way the driver installs, the way it communicates error messages and issues with the connection.
It took me several hours to release I needed to move the Oculus Rift "monitor" to the right. And it's working "fine" on my desktop - but I can't get it working on a laptop (and current Oculus Rift statements suggest they will never support it on laptops...).