WMR DEBUG TOOL - cross eye alignment

[BIGNEWY]

 

Hello everyone For those of you having problems with windows mixed reality and cross eyes the team have enabled a debug tool for the next update.

 

To enable you will need to add this line to your autoexec.cfg

 

force_cross_eye_recovery_tool = true

 

 

The autoexec.cfg can be found here C:\Users\yourname\Saved Games\DCS.openbeta\Config

 

If you do not have one create one using notepad++ and save as .cfg Once enabled the window will appear when you start DCS in VR then adjust to your own preference and click save and close. this will place a VR preference file for your headset in your saved games DCS folder.

 

 

The debug window will not return unless you remove this file from your saved games if you wish to adjust again. We hope this will help some of you using windows mixed reality who are experiencing problem with miss alignment. Thank you.

 

 

 

autoexec.cfg

[Eaglewings]

That is a good one and thanks to the team.

I have the Samsung odyssey plus and I have this tool popping up occasionally already where I get to align the eye.

This new tool wouldn't be any different so I do not duplicate things

Cheers

[BIGNEWY]

That is a good one and thanks to the team.

I have the Samsung odyssey plus and I have this tool popping up occasionally already where I get to align the eye.

This new tool wouldn't be any different so I do not duplicate things

Cheers

 

Correct, this is the same tool, but enabled for other WMR headsets.

[Manilva]

Hi

Is this tool just to only DCS Open beta users?

Any plan to make it available also for the release version?

 

Saludos

 

 

Enviado desde mi iPhone utilizando Tapatalk

[BIGNEWY]

Hi

Is this tool just to only DCS Open beta users?

Any plan to make it available also for the release version?

 

Saludos

 

 

Enviado desde mi iPhone utilizando Tapatalk

 

Hi, yes we should see this move to the release version also in a future update.

 

Thanks

[PowerBlade34]

This is great news. I took delivery of a Reverb last night, but couldn't use it due to the cross-eye effect. I use the Odyssey previously, so it will be welcome to see this debug tool available for additional HMD's.

[twistking]

hey BIGNEWY,

it would be very interesting to get some technical information about this.

what's the reason for the cross eye effect and how does the debugger resolve it?

i'm still trying to get a better understanding of how vr integrates into a game engine generally and specifically into dcs.

maybe we can get some in depth blog/newletter on vr technicalities some days?

[kato217]

Thanks for the update.

 

In the mean time, if you can't wait for the update, I have a solution that works for my setup to get rid of the mis-alignment on my HP Reverb here...

 

https://forums.eagle.ru/showpost.php?p=4051963&postcount=26

[boedha68]

Thanks, great news! :D

[BIGNEWY]

hey BIGNEWY,

it would be very interesting to get some technical information about this.

what's the reason for the cross eye effect and how does the debugger resolve it?

i'm still trying to get a better understanding of how vr integrates into a game engine generally and specifically into dcs.

maybe we can get some in depth blog/newletter on vr technicalities some days?

 

Sorry I don't have any technical info.

 

Users have been experiencing cross eye on some WMR headsets so the team wanted to enable this debug tool to help those users out.

 

It allows the user to align the left and right eye independently of each other or symmetrical, and save those settings.

[twistking]

Sorry I don't have any technical info.

 

Users have been experiencing cross eye on some WMR headsets so the team wanted to enable this debug tool to help those users out.

 

It allows the user to align the left and right eye independently of each other or symmetrical, and save those settings.

 

thanks.

but i what i ment more was some in depth information like a whole blog post from the devs not about this specific issue, but generally the state of VR in dcs, what problems they are facing, what they are working on and how the various VR headsets interface with dcs, assessment of different hmds, assessment of possibility of vulkan-based rendering optimization like complex projection on a per headset basis, etc.

 

might have been the wrong place to post it. consider it a wishlist item;)

[Foxmike]

would be much easier if we could just put left and right ipd as you get it from the optician into 2 fields. well, I will try it and play around with those fields now.....

[Baldrick33]

I recently had a replacement Reverb (the face plate was peeling otherwise working fine). The second one feels ever so slightly off alignment wise in DCS compared to the first. Using this utility and setting the symmetry option (either right or left seems ok) makes it feel more comfortable.

 

 

Thanks!

[Magikarpdrowned]

Hi there BigNewy!

 

I followed the instructions (I had to make the autoexec.cfg file) but this window will not appear when I launch DCS in VR. I am on the latest beta branch, and I have verified the autoexec.cfg file several times. Can you offer any assistance?

 

Many Thanks!

[oz555]

This fixed my eye strain problems with Reverb. Thanks.

[Baldrick33]

Worked for me.

 

For info I have both a Saved Games\DCS and Saved Games\DCS.openbeta folders having originally installed stable and later openbeta versions.

 

The autoexec.cfg I put in the DCS\config folder (I didn't have a config folder under openbeta) and it worked on loading DCS the next time.

[obious]

I'm not sure if this has been mentioned anywhere before but are the left and right displays supposed to match up (in terms of the values that are displayed in the 'EYE LEFT' and 'EYE RIGHT' sections of the tool)?

 

I only ask as I thought/very slightly noticed that I was experiencing a bit of discomfort after putting my Reverb headset on for the first time in about a week (probably didn't notice it before when I used it for a few days after taking it out of the box because I was so giddy about the increase in clarity) and decided to boot up using the tool out of curiosity.

 

Simply put, my values original values were (note that I wasn't able to grab decimal values 4,5 and 6 using the tool so just added 'xxx' below):

 

EYE_LEFT = {

L_OUT =1.108xxx,

L_IN =0.9474xxx,

L_TOP =1.002xxx,

L_BTM =1.010xxx,

}

EYE_RGHT = {

R_OUT =1.106050,

R_IN =0.947433,

R_TOP =1.001386,

R_BTM =1.013335,

}

 

 

and my new values after I clicked the 'make symmetric using right' eye button:

 

EYE_LEFT = {

L_OUT =1.106050,

L_IN =0.947433,

L_TOP =1.001386,

L_BTM =1.013335,

}

EYE_RGHT = {

R_OUT =1.106050,

R_IN =0.947433,

R_TOP =1.001386,

R_BTM =1.013335,

}

 

 

I noticed a slight improvement in comfort but to be honest I'm not sure if I was having a placebo effect or if I was able to genuinely improve the situation; I guess only time will tell.

 

Do other peoples' values match up?

[gesusc]

Does anyone have a good way to actually use this tool to validate that it's fixing anything? I understand that I can use the symmetry buttons or adjust the sliders until the view feels "ok" but that still doesn't really help. While DCS feels a little better after adjusting the values it's still cross eyed. It would be nice to have some visual aids as I play with the debug tool to help me validate the settings I am changing.

 

Also I notice for example my VR Recenter button is not centered to the display so I wonder if that also is caused by this crosseyed nonsense.

[oz555]

Could do with a bit more clarity on how to properly use this tool. Whilst the auto buttons help reduce my eye strain, I can't help feeling it's still a bit off and the possibilities for manual adjustment seem limitless without any point of reference.

[RedX]

Trying to solve the misaligned eyes -issue by using the debug tool provided gave rather good results but not perfect when simply copying the settings of one eye over to the other and saving the conf file.

 

 

I think that I found the solution / bug (?) at least in my case after trying to figure out what exactly to tune in order to make things truly match. Now I have minimal eye strain and practically no need to adjust the IPD setting in DCS VR options menu.

 

 

 

The best values I found by experimenting are reached simply by just resetting to defaults and swapping the top/bottom screen edge values for both eyes. After that the DCS display matches perfectly with the SteamVR and overlay displays. Note that the perfect matching requires for me that the forced IPD adjustment is clicked off in DCS VR options.

 

 

See attached screenshot. Note that this is for Valve Index.

 

 

Apparently the calibration values carried by the headset are reported with vertical limits in reversed order (or DCS reads them reversed). This might vary from headset model to another, as many people have no issues with misalignment. Alternatively, maybe only some of the headsets have sufficiently asymmetric calibration that it gets messed up noticeably. (I'm just speculating here.)

 

 

 

In case of remaining IPD mismatch, further tweaking may be possible by changing both DCS IPD setting and the screen edge values synchronously (or maybe not). Or perhaps something in steamvr. I did not pursue this further as I'm within 1mm of the DCS default IPD of 70mm.

 

 

 

My current good configuration was found and verified by turning on the steamvr boundary (i.e. chaperone) and setting the view centerpoint / seat position so that the chaperone seems to be sitting on some detailed feature of the cockpit. The chaperone can be forced on at: SteamVR menu - Developer - Debug Commands - collision_bounds_toggle. Now, if the configuration is correct, the chaperone lines crossing the cockpit dial remain accurately fixed on top of each other in any position, rotation or tilt of head while wearing the headset. Even a small miscalibration can be perceived by looking e.g. at a cockpit dial down and to the side and turning and tilting the head around as in some head orientations the relative positions of the cockpit dial and chaperone lines appear to be different from other head orientations or positions. When config is good, changing head orientation causes no shift in the apparent relative positions of cockpit dials and chaperone lines.

 

 

Hope this helps.

 

 

EDIT:

Late note for anyone who found this post by googling etc. The short version is below:

 

All I'm doing nowadays is the following. First, I use the cross-eye tool (add the line in the above post to autoexec.cfg in Saved Games\DCS\Config), then click "SWAP TOP AND BTM" on both left and right, and then click to save the config file. Now DCS will not ask for it again.

 

Second, I've adjusted the IPD to match my eye distance in real life in SteamVR's settings in C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\config\steamvr.settings (default location).

Of course this second part does not work if you don't use SteamVR. In any case, the line to change is near bottom:

 

"ipdOffset" : -0.0064999999999999997,

 

The value is difference of your IPD to 63mm in units of meters. E.g., in my case my real IPD is 69.5mm which is 6.5mm = 0.0065m more than the default (63mm = 0.0063m) so I enter the figure -0.0065 (larger -> negative value) here. Someone with 61mm real life IPD would enter the number 0.002. Steam automatically rounds the value to some multiple of something, it does not matter (that's why so many figures "9" in there).

 

At least in my case everything matches after that and I can keep the custom IPD option in DCS options off.

Edited October 21, 2019 by RedX

[LordBane]

Thank you for this thread!

 

Thank you for this thread!

I picked up a HP Reverb over the weekend, and for the first two days, it was a case of "This is amazing!!! But sucks at the same time"

 

Now after tinkering with these settings provided by this tool, it's just flat out amazing!

[BIGNEWY]

Thank you for this thread!

I picked up a HP Reverb over the weekend, and for the first two days, it was a case of "This is amazing!!! But sucks at the same time"

 

Now after tinkering with these settings provided by this tool, it's just flat out amazing!

 

Good to hear you have found it useful, enjoy :)

[oz555]

Trying to solve the misaligned eyes -issue by using the debug tool provided gave rather good results but not perfect when simply copying the settings of one eye over to the other and saving the conf file.

 

 

I think that I found the solution / bug (?) at least in my case after trying to figure out what exactly to tune in order to make things truly match. Now I have minimal eye strain and practically no need to adjust the IPD setting in DCS VR options menu.

 

 

 

The best values I found by experimenting are reached simply by just resetting to defaults and swapping the top/bottom screen edge values for both eyes. After that the DCS display matches perfectly with the SteamVR and overlay displays. Note that the perfect matching requires for me that the forced IPD adjustment is clicked off in DCS VR options.

 

 

See attached screenshot. Note that this is for Valve Index.

 

 

Apparently the calibration values carried by the headset are reported with vertical limits in reversed order (or DCS reads them reversed). This might vary from headset model to another, as many people have no issues with misalignment. Alternatively, maybe only some of the headsets have sufficiently asymmetric calibration that it gets messed up noticeably. (I'm just speculating here.)

 

 

 

In case of remaining IPD mismatch, further tweaking may be possible by changing both DCS IPD setting and the screen edge values synchronously (or maybe not). Or perhaps something in steamvr. I did not pursue this further as I'm within 1mm of the DCS default IPD of 70mm.

 

 

 

My current good configuration was found and verified by turning on the steamvr boundary (i.e. chaperone) and setting the view centerpoint / seat position so that the chaperone seems to be sitting on some detailed feature of the cockpit. The chaperone can be forced on at: SteamVR menu - Developer - Debug Commands - collision_bounds_toggle. Now, if the configuration is correct, the chaperone lines crossing the cockpit dial remain accurately fixed on top of each other in any position, rotation or tilt of head while wearing the headset. Even a small miscalibration can be perceived by looking e.g. at a cockpit dial down and to the side and turning and tilting the head around as in some head orientations the relative positions of the cockpit dial and chaperone lines appear to be different from other head orientations or positions. When config is good, changing head orientation causes no shift in the apparent relative positions of cockpit dials and chaperone lines.

 

 

Hope this helps.

 

 

This was really helpful. Thanks for putting it together.

[ariyaner]

does the funktion also works with pimax5k - in hope to uncheck parallel projection in pitool ?

thx

[RedX]

does the funktion also works with pimax5k - in hope to uncheck parallel projection in pitool ?

thx

 

I have no idea, sorry. I dont have access to Pimax gear.