Confusion? SteamVR vs OpenXR?? OpenComposite??? 8)

[RealDCSpilot]

It drives me a bit nuts how people throw around the words and mixing stuff up adding more to the confusion. Let's try to clear this up:

- VR runtimes and VR APIs -

SteamVR can do OpenVR and OpenXR.
Oculus can do LibOVR and OpenXR.
Windows Mixed Reality can do WMR and OpenXR. (Microsoft couldn't find an additional name to distinguish between their VR runtime and VR API) :P

1. DCS now talks OpenXR
2. Before the latest patch DCS could only talk OpenVR (SteamVR's native VR API) and LibOVR (Oculus's native VR API).
3. DCS never could talk WMR, the Windows Mixed Reality API by Microsoft (Sadly HP chose WMR as main VR runtime for the Reverb series, here starts most of the trouble...).
4. Microsoft made a very bad "WMR for SteamVR plugin" so that WMR headset owners would be at least able to play VR games over SteamVR and it's OpenVR API because nobody really made VR games for WMR. This WMR plugin is basically a very underpaid translator, talking OpenVR to WMR, a bad choice of middleman software for popular headsets like HP's Reverb series.
5. So for DCS that means - it talked OpenVR to the WMR for SteamVR plugin wich translated everything to WMR. This wasn't working very well. Thank you Microsoft (good that they now finally stopped this). So OpenComposite came in for the rescue. It translates everything from DCS to OpenXR, the only other VR API that WMR understands. And OpenComposite put a lot of tuning options into it to compensate WMR performance troubles. It is the better translator.
6. OpenXR was developed by Khronos Group to end this mess - One API for ALL!
7. Guess what, SteamVR can also natively talk OpenXR. Oculus can also natively talk OpenXR.
8. OpenComposite is not OpenXR. Sadly a lot of people, mostly HP Reverb owners, refer to OpenComposite as OpenXR. That's not correct. It's also unfair to blame SteamVR for having bad performance if you plug a WMR headset to it via the inferior "WMR for SteamVR plugin".
9. For DCS now everything is about to change!
 

SteamVR native HMD -->
Oculus native HMD -->            OpenXR       -->      DCS
WMR native HMD -->

No more translators needed, finally. Each VR runtime has OpenXR included for quite some time already. If you have a myriad of VR tweaks installed, especially if you were going the OpenComposite route, just start fresh. Step by Step. In the coming months a lot is going to change. Most guides are already deprecated now. Especially for DCS and VR and HP Reverb owners.
(And no, DCS bought on Steam doesn't mean you have to use SteamVR. Steam as a shop and SteamVR as a system component are completely different things. You can now use DCS standalone or DCS from Steam with every VR runtime that is compatible with your VR HMD.)
 

[EAF51_Jimmi]

TY nice guide!

what do you suggest by sying to start fresh?

and as an alternative how do i get rid of OpenComposite?

 

[actually_fred]

Here’s a fairly technical post I wrote on this: https://fredemmott.com/blog/2022/05/29/vr-software-components.html

[actually_fred]

I mostly agree with your post, but in my experience it's unfair to put that much blame on WMR for SteamVR. Perhaps it truly is that bad for you - however, both SteamVR and the `openvr_api.dll` as published by Valve have a lot of bugs and performance problems which vary greatly between machines - and for some people, is just pathologically bad, regardless of headset. Maybe it particularly dislikes some drivers/motherboards/whatever, but WMR for SteamVR is not consistently hugely worse than other SteamVR drivers. SteamVR truly sucks at the most essential part of it's architecture: efficiently passing GPU textures between processes.

The exception is SteamVR-native headsets like the Valve Index and HTC Vive; by coupling so tightly to SteamVR, they're able to avoid a lot of its' issues.

[Dentedend10]

Thank you for your post , it really is so confusing.
So what does it mean when in SteamVR the runtime is set to SteamVR? Is that OpenXR or OpenVR?

sorry for making the confusion worse. I have a G2, and the only way everything works through SteamVR (including my motion sim) is if SteamVR runtime is set to SteamVR. I’m hesitant to tweak around it

[actually_fred]

SteamVR is both an OpenVR and OpenXR runtime. It assumes it's the only OpenVR runtime.

SteamVR's runtime option sets SteamVR as the active OpenXR runtime.
Oculus, PimaxXR, and WMR's runtime options set themselves as the active OpenXR runtime.

OpenComposite's (which you generally don't want with DCS now) runtime switcher lets you choose between OpenComposite and Steam as the active OpenVR runtime.

[RealDCSpilot]

@Dentedend10 The "Current OpenXR Runtime" setting tells Windows which "handler" is managing OpenXR. If it's set to SteamVR, SteamVR is the "handler".

 

6 hours ago, actually_fred said:

but in my experience it's unfair to put that much blame on WMR for SteamVR.

The problem is that WMR was a bad idea! Valve and Oculus were pretty close at the beginning, OpenVR could have been the unified API for VR and we never would have seen all this chaos. Then Facebook interfered and caught Oculus and thought it would be a good idea to build a closed platform within Windows, looking for domination on this tiny, much to young market. Later Microsoft had the same idea and transformed it's Hololens API WMR into a third VR API also trying to win a war here. They flooded the market with cheap half-assed WMR VR HMDs by Lenovo, Samsung, Acer, HP and more. This coup flopped hilariously, no developer needs a third API to waste more time and effort when he already needs to work for two other APIs. Today, years after this, Microsoft has finally pulled the plug on that idea.
And you look at SteamVR in the wrong way, they are the only ones who still try to support as many HMDs as possible while Facebook gives a sh!t. Or are you able to play a Oculus exclusive game by simply starting it for your HP G2?
With OpenXR we now have a second chance to get rid of this nonsense.

Edited January 27, 2023 by RealDCSpilot

[actually_fred]

> OpenVR could have been the unified API for VR and we never would have seen all this chaos

No.

"Open"VR was always a branding exercise. It was always the Valve VR API. It has always been fully under Valve's control, Valve have always been in control of which bugs get fixed and which headsets get optimized. It was never truly open or cross-vendor.

Every vendor had the ability to opt in to being fully controlled by Valve; that doesn't make it an open API.

Edited January 27, 2023 by actually_fred

[actually_fred]

Yes, it would be possible to fork "Open"VR with changes that aren't approved by Valve - but if Valve don't adopt them, it's irrelevant.

Even Valve assumed no-one else would ever implement "Open"VR - which is why SteamVR has no option to set SteamVR as the "Open"VR runtime.

And the ideology is largely irrelevant as the Valve-distributed openvr_api.dll is the only one that's whitelisted in anti-cheats. It's also slow and leaky (megabytes of RAM every time you ask it "is "OpenVR" (*cough* steamVR) running?")

[RealDCSpilot]

OpenVR was the first VR API. Valve was already working on VR before Palmer Luckey popped up. If the Oculus thing wouldn't have gone wrong who knows what exercise OpenVR would have become... Well, makes no sense to speculate more about this. The real problem is the disruption that all this early greediness brought for the PCVR market.

[actually_fred]

> With OpenXR we now have a second chance to get rid of this nonsense.

I *almost* agree with this - with OpenXR, we have a first chance to get rid of this nonsense; OpenVR could potentially have been a first chance if it wasn't actually just "the SteamVR API" and trying to get everyone into the Steam ecosystem.

It's telling that even now, SteamVR assumes that it's the only OpenVR implementation, and has no support for setting SteamVR as the active OpenVR runtime. It was clearly designed to lock headset owners into steam.

Edited January 27, 2023 by actually_fred

[some1]

Yep, as usual the ultimate solution to multiple standards and APIs, was to create yet another API (OpenXR). 

At least, as you've said, this time it looks like there's a chance to make it right.

Anyway, no point in <profanity>ting on WMR for SteamVR so much. It had its share of problems in the past, but these were solved and nowadays the performance is on par with other options. Now it's mostly a matter of preference of which tools and features you prefer to use https://forum.dcs.world/topic/177566-windows-mixed-reality-discussion-only/?do=findComment&comment=5127608 

 

[RealDCSpilot]

7 minutes ago, actually_fred said:

trying to get everyone into the Steam ecosystem

They only use their ecosystem to distribute the software package, because it's well accepted (and they started 10 years before everyone else thought about distributing software online). From which source you get your VR game is not depending on this.

Edited January 27, 2023 by RealDCSpilot

[actually_fred]

4 minutes ago, some1 said:

Yep, as usual the ultimate solution to multiple standards and APIs, was to create yet another API (OpenXR). 

At least, as you've said, this time it looks like there's a chance to make it right.

Anyway, no point in <profanity>ting on WMR for SteamVR so much. It had its share of problems in the past, but these were solved and nowadays the performance is on par with other options. Now it's mostly a matter of preference of which tools and features you prefer to use https://forum.dcs.world/topic/177566-windows-mixed-reality-discussion-only/?do=findComment&comment=5127608 

 

OpenXR is the first standard.

 

OpenVR was a single-vendor product, branded in the (apparently successful ) hope that people would think that putting “open” in the name actually meant something, even though the name itself means nothing.

Edited January 27, 2023 by actually_fred

[RealDCSpilot]

Looks like you weren't there in 2014. When Zuckerberg got the brain fart he needs to wage a war about VR to be able to rule the world of the future.

[actually_fred]

I’m not going to consider “maybe they’re working on this in the background but no 6dof headsets or games released - and neither openvr or even the original rift were released” relevant to this discussion. That said, at in 2014, the oculus sdk was out for a year and openvr wouldn’t exist for another year.

20 minutes ago, RealDCSpilot said:

They only use their ecosystem to distribute the software package, because it's well accepted (and they started 10 years before everyone else thought about distributing software online). From which source you get your VR game is not depending on this.

 

Still requires a valve-controlled API and uses a valve-controlled api loader.

Edited January 27, 2023 by actually_fred

[RealDCSpilot]

Well, you weren't there:

Whatever SDK was publicly accessible back then didn't matter. Everything changed way to quickly and wasn't mature enough. Couple months later the situation changed to getting bad for us.

Edited January 27, 2023 by RealDCSpilot

[actually_fred]

No, I admit I did not see the release of “the first VR API” as you put it in 2014, after seeing the release of the oculus API in 2013.

Edited January 27, 2023 by actually_fred

[mbucchia]

31 minutes ago, RealDCSpilot said:

OpenVR was the first VR API.

 

 

1 minute ago, RealDCSpilot said:

Well, you weren't there:

 

 

Dude just stop. You are incorrect on so many levels, and very clearly do not know what happens behind the curtains.

[RealDCSpilot]

20 minutes ago, mbucchia said:

 

 

 

Dude just stop. You are incorrect on so many levels, and very clearly do not know what happens behind the curtains.

Yeah sure. I only need to look at what happened to PCVR within the last eight years... A VR headset is a peripheral device and should be nothing else. Like a monitor, game controller or keyboard and mouse.
Maybe we should be thankful that Samsung didn't had the idea to open a Samsung games store, with games that only run on Samsung monitors.

Edited January 27, 2023 by RealDCSpilot

[mbucchia]

5 minutes ago, RealDCSpilot said:

Yeah sure. I only need to look at what happened to PCVR within the last eight years...

Your message has absolutely no substance. There were other people in VR in 2014, and even before, you know. Unless you are also going to claim being the inventor of VR?

Sure, some of the things you wrote above are accurate, but mixed in so many twisted "facts" and inaccuracies that are very clearly biased by your uber-negative opinion of the vendors being discussed.

It was a great idea for you to start a post to try to clarify the current situation after today's update, it's only too bad that it turned within a few words into anti-Microsoft, anti-Meta, anti-everything propaganda with absolutely no backing facts. This thread could have been helpful if it wasn't for that.

[RealDCSpilot]

9 minutes ago, mbucchia said:

Unless you are also going to claim being the inventor of VR?

Goodness, what are you trying to make of it now? Read the news, a lot of bad decisions were made by those companies. And ten-thousands of employees have to take the bite for it now.

Edited January 27, 2023 by RealDCSpilot

[Hunter Joker]

8 hours ago, RealDCSpilot said:

It drives me a bit nuts how people throw around the words and mixing stuff up adding more to the confusion. Let's try to clear this up:

- VR runtimes and VR APIs -

SteamVR can do OpenVR and OpenXR.
Oculus can do LibOVR and OpenXR.
Windows Mixed Reality can do WMR and OpenXR. (Microsoft couldn't find an additional name to distinguish between their VR runtime and VR API) :P

1. DCS now talks OpenXR
2. Before the latest patch DCS could only talk OpenVR (SteamVR's native VR API) and LibOVR (Oculus's native VR API).
3. DCS never could talk WMR, the Windows Mixed Reality API by Microsoft (Sadly HP chose WMR as main VR runtime for the Reverb series, here starts most of the trouble...).
4. Microsoft made a very bad "WMR for SteamVR plugin" so that WMR headset owners would be at least able to play VR games over SteamVR and it's OpenVR API because nobody really made VR games for WMR. This WMR plugin is basically a very underpaid translator, talking OpenVR to WMR, a bad choice of middleman software for popular headsets like HP's Reverb series.
5. So for DCS that means - it talked OpenVR to the WMR for SteamVR plugin wich translated everything to WMR. This wasn't working very well. Thank you Microsoft (good that they now finally stopped this). So OpenComposite came in for the rescue. It translates everything from DCS to OpenXR, the only other VR API that WMR understands. And OpenComposite put a lot of tuning options into it to compensate WMR performance troubles. It is the better translator.
6. OpenXR was developed by Khronos Group to end this mess - One API for ALL!
7. Guess what, SteamVR can also natively talk OpenXR. Oculus can also natively talk OpenXR.
8. OpenComposite is not OpenXR. Sadly a lot of people, mostly HP Reverb owners, refer to OpenComposite as OpenXR. That's not correct. It's also unfair to blame SteamVR for having bad performance if you plug a WMR headset to it via the inferior "WMR for SteamVR plugin".
9. For DCS now everything is about to change!
 

SteamVR native HMD -->
Oculus native HMD -->            OpenXR       -->      DCS
WMR native HMD -->

No more translators needed, finally. Each VR runtime has OpenXR included for quite some time already. If you have a myriad of VR tweaks installed, especially if you were going the OpenComposite route, just start fresh. Step by Step. In the coming months a lot is going to change. Most guides are already deprecated now. Especially for DCS and VR and HP Reverb owners.
(And no, DCS bought on Steam doesn't mean you have to use SteamVR. Steam as a shop and SteamVR as a system component are completely different things. You can now use DCS standalone or DCS from Steam with every VR runtime that is compatible with your VR HMD.)
 

So exactly what You mean with "start fresh"...I'm a G2 owner with Opencomposite and the openxr.dll manual substitution under the bin folder (never happened to me that it worked automatically...)

1) Uninstall Opencomposite?
2) Delete the openxr.dll manually installed (1.8mb) with the default one inside DCS folder (about 500Kb)?
Or something other?
I'm a bit confused...

Thx.

 

[mbucchia]

5 minutes ago, RealDCSpilot said:

Goodness, what are you trying to make of it now? Read the news, a lot of bad decisions were made by those companies. And ten-thousands of employees have to take the bite for it now.

 

I don't know, you seems pretty proud to "have been there in 2014" and keep repeating that like it was a privileged that none of us had? I don't get the point of it.

Also, read the news too, the layoffs have been affecting all of the tech industry for many months now... it has nothing to do specifically with the XR industry. Many of the people laid off have absolutely nothing to do with XR.

I am only pointing out that a lot of your so-called "facts" are ill-informed, and the way you are putting them out without backing information and all your negative langage clearly shows your bias, and ultimately your lack of credibility.

[Lurker]

This is all nice and everything but how does it help someone who just want's to play DCS World in VR using a native WMR headset, like Reverb G2?