Today solo-developer Guy Godin released version 1.8 of Virtual Desktop which includes a wide variety of improvements and new content including improved VR latency, a performance overlay feature for VR game streaming, and compatibility fixes.
According to Godin’s comments on Reddit, this update should improve latency by about 10ms when streaming VR games to a standalone headset like the Quest or Quest 2. The “Performance Overlay” option allows you to monitor framerate and latency for anything you’re streaming. Compatibility issues should also be resolved when streaming VR games like Stormland, The Climb, Star Wars: Squadrons from Steam, and more.
Here are the full release notes according to Godin:
Added new Modern Apartment environments
Added Performance overlay option in the Streaming tab
Added Reset to defaults button in the Streaming tab
Reduced latency when streaming VR games
Displayed VR latency is now more accurate and represents the total motion-to-photon latency
Virtual desktop microphone no longer gets disabled on disconnect
Fixed game compatibility with: Stormland, The Climb, Star Wars: Squadrons (Steam), Hellblade, Rez Infinite, Bigscreen (Steam), Pulsar Lost Colony, Propagation VR
The most excited bit to me though is the new ‘Modern Apartment’ environment with three different ambient settings, including a fully animated cityscape background. Not even the backgrounds in Oculus Home are animated like this. If only there was a way to port this in as my default Oculus Home environment to replace Cyber City.
What do you think of this update? Let us know down in the comments below!
Today solo-developer Guy Godin released version 1.8 of Virtual Desktop which includes a wide variety of improvements and new content including improved VR latency, a performance overlay feature for VR game streaming, and compatibility fixes.
According to Godin’s comments on Reddit, this update should improve latency by about 10ms when streaming VR games to a standalone headset like the Quest or Quest 2. The “Performance Overlay” option allows you to monitor framerate and latency for anything you’re streaming. Compatibility issues should also be resolved when streaming VR games like Stormland, The Climb, Star Wars: Squadrons from Steam, and more.
Here are the full release notes according to Godin:
Added new Modern Apartment environments
Added Performance overlay option in the Streaming tab
Added Reset to defaults button in the Streaming tab
Reduced latency when streaming VR games
Displayed VR latency is now more accurate and represents the total motion-to-photon latency
Virtual desktop microphone no longer gets disabled on disconnect
Fixed game compatibility with: Stormland, The Climb, Star Wars: Squadrons (Steam), Hellblade, Rez Infinite, Bigscreen (Steam), Pulsar Lost Colony, Propagation VR
The most excited bit to me though is the new ‘Modern Apartment’ environment with three different ambient settings, including a fully animated cityscape background. Not even the backgrounds in Oculus Home are animated like this. If only there was a way to port this in as my default Oculus Home environment to replace Cyber City.
What do you think of this update? Let us know down in the comments below!
Author Ernest Cline is joining Bigscreen CEO Darshan Shankar for a conversation to promote his new book, Ready Player Two.
The sequel is due out on November 24th after 2011’s Ready Player One ignited imaginations with its vision of an 80’s-inspired future taken over by VR. The movie version, of course, came out in 2018 directed by Steven Spielberg. The Q&A session with Cline and Shankar will be streamed in Bigscreen on December 5th at 5 pm Pacific. According to Bigscreen, the event will be free to anyone with the Bigscreen application and a supported VR headset.
“Bigscreen is by far my favorite VR application and it’s also the one I’ve used the most this past year,” Cline said in a prepared statement. “I get together with my friends inside Bigscreen at least once a week to hang out, watch movies, and play games together, even though we’re scattered across the country. I’m so grateful to Darshan and his team for turning something from my imagination into a reality, and for doing it decades before I thought it would be possible.”
We’re interested to check out the new book and see how it stacks up to the original. There’s even been talk of a prequel as well that would explore the founding of the virtual Oasis that’s central to the story. It’ll be a little different reading the sequel in 2020, though, with VR headsets like Oculus Quest 2, HP Reverb G2, and Valve Index in homes around the world transporting people to virtual worlds.
Are you planning to give the book a read? Let us know in the comments.
Bigscreen, the social screen-sharing app for VR, is striding into new territory with its new green screen environment, which aims to let creators repurpose their avatars for anything from Zoom chats to YouTube videos.
The platform has a number of theater environments that are great for chatting, viewing videos and playing games; since there’s no user-generated environments, it can’t really be used for much else though.
Now you’ll be able to replace your background with anything you like, opening Bigscreen’s possibilities beyond its use as a video-viewing social app.
Using Bigscreen’s Green Screen
Virtual environments make everything easier from a setup standpoint: you won’t need a physical green screen, web cam, or adequate lighting—that’s all taken care of in-software.
Firstly, the new green screen environment can only practically be used on PC VR headsets. This is because Bigscreen’s third-person ‘Selfie Stick’ and ‘Streamer Cam’ capture tools are only available for SteamVR-compatible headsets and Quest 2 via Link. The original Quest is said to receive the Selfie Stick tool in the future.
Bigscreen supports Oculus Rift, HTC Vive, Valve Index, all Windows VR headsets, Oculus Quest and Oculus Go. Find out how to download it for free here.
In addition to the obvious requirement of a SteamVR headset and VR-ready PC, you will also need a third-party capture tool like OBS, which is a free desktop recording tool with native chroma key software built in. There’s a quick tutorial from Elgato on how to use the chroma key function on OBS if you need help setting it up.
Make sure to have the latest update installed on Bigscreen, and go to the ‘Green Screen’ options under the ‘My Room’ tab, which is in the ‘Environments’ section. Set up either a selfie stick or streamer cam and start recording. And there you have it: your avatar superimposed on any background you like.
Bigscreen has added a green screen environment in its latest update, which opens many doors for content creators and has endless creative potential.
The update will be most useful on PC VR headsets (and Quest running via Link) where it can be paired with the selfie stick and the streamer camera tools for broadcasting or recording purposes. When using the streamer or selfie cameras in the green screen environment, users will be able to use broadcasting or editing software on a PC to key out the background and place themselves wherever they like.
This opens up heaps of possibilities for content creation — streamers will be able to broadcast using their Bigscreen avatar placed against a custom virtual environment, for example. You can check out lots more examples in the video embedded above.
The selfie and streamer cameras are not available on Quest, so the green screen environment is somewhat useless on those headsets for now. That being said, Bigscreen have said they want to add a selfie stick camera to Quest in the future.
Bigscreen says this update is the first of a couple that will focus on remote work and virtual office capabilities. Within the next 2 months, it also plans to launch a beta for a remote desktop feature. Similar to other comparable remote desktop apps, it will allow you to stream your desktop and control it on from within VR on standalone headsets like Oculus Quest. The feature will have ultra low latency (10-15ms) when streaming to Quest, according to Bigscreen.
The feature will also have social capabilities, with other users being able to see others’ desktop streams and collaborate from within VR. This will all be part of a big ‘Quest 2’ update, which the developers say is coming soon.
The green screen update is available now for Bigscreen.
Not ready to plonk down your first $100 on Quest 2 games? Thankfully there’s an impressive number of free games, experiences, apps, and social VR platforms to keep you playing before you’re paying.
We have however included App Lab games. If you want to see more, SideQuest’s search function is a great resource for finding free stuff and demos. Below you’ll find some of the top App Lab games in addition to those hosted on the official store.
Free Games
Population: One
Population: One is basically VR’s most successful battle royale, letting you climb, fly, shoot, and team-up with whoever dares. Once paid, the free-to-play game does feature microtransactions, but only for cosmetics, which is nice. It’s still a paid on game on Steam though, which makes sense considering developers BixBox VR were acquired by Meta. There is more than just battle royale though: you can play in the sandbox for custom maps and rules, team deathmatch with customizable loadouts, a 12v12 war mode, and more.
Once a paid game, this room-scale shooter is now free-to-play, letting you take on friends, family and foes in head-to-head 1v1 dueling. Refine your loadout and jump into the action as you scramble for weapons and send a volley of hellfire at your enemies, all the while Matrix dodging through this innovative bullet hell meets futuristic dueling game. Spend money on cosmetics, or don’t: it’s a massive slice of fun any which way.
There aren’t a ton of free-to-play shooters out there that promise multiplayer action, however Gun Raiders fits the bill with its multiple game modes that let you jetpack through the air, climbing from wall to wall, and shoot down the competition. There’s the same sort of microtransactions you see in bigger games, but it they’re all avatar skin stuff, so no pay-to-win here.
Hyper Dash is a multiplayer shooter that basically fills in where Echo Combat never could (never mind that Echo Combat was never on Quest, and is now entirely defunct on Oculus PC). Letting you quick dash, sprint, and rail grind around, Hyper Dash manages to serve up an impressive number of modes, including Payload, Domination, Control Point, (Team) Deathmatch, Capture The Flag, and Elimination. You can also take on both Quest and SteamVR users thanks to the inclusion of cross-play.
Ultimechs should look pretty familiar: it’s basically Rocket League, but instead of driving around in cars, you’re given rocket-powered fists to punch balls into the goal. Online multiplayer includes both 1v1 and 2v2 matches, offering up tons of opportunities to earn cosmetic gear that will let you outfit your battle mech into something unique. There are also now two paid battle passes too, offering up a ton of cosmetics to set you apart from the competition.
Battle Talent is one of those fighting sims that let you go ham on ragdoll baddies, which in this case are wily goblins and loads of skelingtons. This physics-based roguelite action game lets you climb, run and slide your way through levels as you slash, shoot, and wield magic against your foes.
Cards & Tankards is a pretty addictive social collectible card game, letting you collect and battle friends with over 180 cards. With cross-play against SteamVR headsets (also free on PC), you may consider hosting your regular game night playing more than a few rounds in the game’s characteristic medieval fantasy tavern.
Ever wanted to play Counter-Strike on Quest? Pavlov Shack offers up a pretty comparable experience, as you play in either deathmatch or co-op mode. It’s got all of the realistic gunplay and much of the fun of the paid PC VR title, but it’s still going strong with a free open beta on Quest.
Still in open beta, this 4v4 arena-scale shooter requires space and Quest 2 (or Quest Pro) owning buddies—both of which you may not have. Still, it makes for an incredible time that is basically the best version of laser tag you’ve ever played. You’ll need SideQuest to download this one since it disables Quest’s guardian system, but it’s well worth jumping through the hoops to get working if you have everything else.
This humble game of tag started out life on SideQuest and App Lab, offering up an infectious bit of gameplay that’s now available for free on the official Quest Store. You’ll be lumbering around a tree-lined arena using its unique grab-the-world locomotion style that lets you amble around like a great ape. Chase the other apes and infect them or climb for your life as the infected chase you. Pure and simple. Make sure you’re far from TVs, furniture, babies, and pets because you will punch something in the mad dash for sweet, low-poly freedom.
No real cash gambling here, but PokerStars VR not only let you go all-in on games of Texas Hold’em, but now a full casino’s worth of table games a machines that are sure to light up the dopamine starved pleasure centers of your brain. It’s all free play, so you won’t be risking real cash unless you buy in-game chips, which cannot be turned back into real money: it’s only to keep your bankroll flush for free play.
Gym Class – Basketball is the solution if you’re looking to shoot some hoops and dunk like you probably can’t on a physical court. Online multiplayer lets you go head-to-head for a pretty convincing game of b-ball thanks to the game’s physics-based and full-body kinematics.
This plucky roguelite dungeon crawler is still in beta (still!), but there’s a reason it’s become an App Lab favorite. Explore a vast dungeon to explore, housing plenty of baddies just asking for the steel of your sword, knives, and arrows. You’ll climb over deep pits, dodge lethal traps, and search for hidden treasures. Smash all the pots and crates you can before it officially launches on Quest sometime in the near future.
Would-be wizards, this is your time to shine. Explore a magical laboratory and take on the job of apprentice wizard. The lab is full of gadgets and magical stuff to mess around with; as one of the games that natively supports Quest’s hand tracking, you can put your controllers down and get experimenting with this little slice of the dark arts.
Since the recent Fishin’ Buddies update, this classic VR title has gotten a whole new lease on life as a multiplayer VR fishing game that lets you sit back and crack a cold one with the boys as you reel in the big’uns. The additional social areas also let you sit back between your fishing adventures to take part in casual mini-games.
Gods of Gravity is an arcade-style RTS game where you compete in an epic showdown of between celestial gods (2-8 players). Scoop up ships and fling them to capture a nearby planet, or open wormholes to teleport them across the solar system. Hold planets and moons to boost your production. Mine asteroids for the powerful resources within. And if you dare, capture the sun for the ultimate buff. Then send a massive fleet to conquer your enemy’s home planet. Last god standing wins.
Without a doubt one of the most fun, and most expansive VR titles out there… and it’s free. Sure, you can pay real cash for in-game tokens to buy spiffy clothes for your avatar, but that’s really up to you. Gads of mini-games await you in both first-party creations such as the ever so popular co-op Quests—that could be games in their own right—to user-created stuff that will keep your pocket book gathering dust. It’s social VR, so meet people and have a ball for zero dollarydoos. Fair warning: there’s a ton of kids.
If you’ve been anywhere near the Internet in the last few years, it’s likely you’ve already heard about VRChat, the user-generated social VR space filled with… well… everything you can imagine, re-pro games included like Among Us, Mario Kart, and even a version of Beat Saber. Fashion your own avatar or download the millions of user-generated avatars out there so you can embody SpongeBob, Kirito from Sword Art Online, or any one of the million anime girl avatars that you’re bound to see there.
Horizon Worlds is still taking baby steps, although recent efforts have brought more tools and user-generated content to the platform which has rounded out things to make it more competitive with Rec Room and VRChat. You may want to check in just to see the state of Meta’s first-party VR social platform—and then check right out again—but at the price of ‘free’, you may just find an environment or community you really gel with, which is the whole reason behind social VR in the first place.
A report and recommendations prepared by a U.S. House of Representatives subcommittee on antitrust law suggests Facebook may be anticompetitive with its Oculus Quest 2 account requirement. The report suggests that Congress should clarify that “conditioning access to a product or service in which a firm has market power to the use of a separate product or service is anticompetitive.”
The 449-page report prepared by staff for the investigation of competition in digital markets looks at Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Google, with an appendix included that lists the major acquisitions and mergers of each company. Among them is Oculus VR, the 2014 Facebook acquisition which grew into Facebook Reality Labs and which will, next week, ship the Oculus Quest 2 standalone headset for $299. That price may be unmatchable by competitors. And the kicker? Quest 2 will be the first new headset from Facebook to require a Facebook account from the get-go.
“Facebook has also maintained and expanded its dominance through a series of acquisitions of companies it viewed as competitive threats, and selectively excluded competitors from using its platform to insulate itself from competitive pressure,” the report states. “Facebook has also maintained its monopoly through a series of anticompetitive business practices. The company used its data advantage to create superior market intelligence to identify nascent competitive threats and then acquire, copy, or kill these firms. Once dominant, Facebook selectively enforced its platform policies based on whether it perceived other companies as competitive threats. In doing so, it advantaged its own services while weakening other firms.”
The report only mentions virtual reality a limited number of times, focusing more on Facebook’s “monopoly power in the market for social networking.” However, the language above seems to apply to Facebook’s recently announced requirement attaching Oculus Quest 2 ownership to the use of a Facebook account.
The document is lot to take in but we’d recommend giving it a read if you have time. It offers significant new context for some of the ongoing conversations we’re having with developers like those behind SideQuest, Virtual Desktop and Bigscreen. Each of those services bump up against Facebook’s policies toward VR developers in different ways. I’ve embedded recent discussions we’ve had with those developers in our virtual studio.
The conversation regarding market dominance in VR is ongoing and we’re covering it on an ongoing basis. We’ve asked Facebook for comment on this topic and will update if we hear back. In the meantime, let us know in the comments below if you find anything else interesting in the report!
Oculus Store apps must use Facebook’s payments system for any and all transactions. Bigscreen CEO Darshan Shankar points out how this makes it impossible for some developers to succeed.
That’s because the fee for that mandatory in-app payment system is 30%. For that, users get the convenience of using their existing saved payment methods, and the peace of mind that no card details need to be shared.
Bigscreen loses >100% for every dollar of revenue, while Fandango can make money in VR.
Sucks that I've poured 6 years into building software for the Oculus Platform.@ID_AA_Carmack gets to bring Fandango into VR, but Facebook won't help devs that have been here from day 0
But how do companies sell products or services with a lower than 30% margin? Bigscreen offers 3D movie rentals. Shankar claims movie studios take 60-80%, so that leaves between a 10% profit and 10% loss for Bigscreen- not a sustainable business.
Facebook presumably makes special deals with big companies like Fandango and Netflix, exempting them from the rules it holds most developers to. These companies can be profitable in VR, while small companies simply can’t compete. Worse yet, Facebook offers its own movie rental service.
Taking a 30% cut of a 10GB game can be argued to be a fair exchange for hosting, serving, and promoting it. But these justifications fall apart when applied to in-app-purchases.
Shankar spoke about this a few weeks ago on Twitter, and on our from-VR podcast The VR Download. We’ve clipped out the segment here:
He called attention to the fact that not only does this make digital services unprofitable, but physical retail too. What if a furniture company made a VR app letting you see their offerings in true scale? To actually let you buy, they’d need to fork over 30% to Facebook each time.
Apple has been facing similar criticism on requiring the use of its payments system. Companies like Epic Games, Spotify, and Netflix want to let customers make purchases & subscriptions directly to avoid the same 30% “tax”.
Like Apple, Shankar says Facebook isn’t budging on its position. Developers can distribute apps over SideQuest with any payments system, but that requires a PC and forgoes automatic updates- for now. WebXR apps also have this freedom naturally, but entering details in VR isn’t a great experience. The open standard Payment Request API (which Facebook is contributing to) seeks to solve this kind of problem on the web, so in the future we might see convenient open payments via Oculus Browser.
Oculus Store apps must use Facebook’s payments system for any and all transactions. Bigscreen CEO Darshan Shankar points out how this makes it impossible for some developers to succeed.
That’s because the fee for that mandatory in-app payment system is 30%. For that, users get the convenience of using their existing saved payment methods, and the peace of mind that no card details need to be shared.
Bigscreen loses >100% for every dollar of revenue, while Fandango can make money in VR.
Sucks that I've poured 6 years into building software for the Oculus Platform.@ID_AA_Carmack gets to bring Fandango into VR, but Facebook won't help devs that have been here from day 0
But how do companies sell products or services with a lower than 30% margin? Bigscreen offers 3D movie rentals. Shankar claims movie studios take 60-80%, so that leaves between a 10% profit and 10% loss for Bigscreen- not a sustainable business.
Facebook presumably makes special deals with big companies like Fandango and Netflix, exempting them from the rules it holds most developers to. These companies can be profitable in VR, while small companies simply can’t compete. Worse yet, Facebook offers its own movie rental service.
Taking a 30% cut of a 10GB game can be argued to be a fair exchange for hosting, serving, and promoting it. But these justifications fall apart when applied to in-app-purchases.
Shankar spoke about this a few weeks ago on Twitter, and on our from-VR podcast The VR Download. We’ve clipped out the segment here:
He called attention to the fact that not only does this make digital services unprofitable, but physical retail too. What if a furniture company made a VR app letting you see their offerings in true scale? To actually let you buy, they’d need to fork over 30% to Facebook each time.
Apple has been facing similar criticism on requiring the use of its payments system. Companies like Epic Games, Spotify, and Netflix want to let customers make purchases & subscriptions directly to avoid the same 30% “tax”.
Like Apple, Shankar says Facebook isn’t budging on its position. Developers can distribute apps over SideQuest with any payments system, but that requires a PC and forgoes automatic updates- for now. WebXR apps also have this freedom naturally, but entering details in VR isn’t a great experience. The open standard Payment Request API (which Facebook is contributing to) seeks to solve this kind of problem on the web, so in the future we might see convenient open payments via Oculus Browser.
The Bigscreen team has shared some updates on new content and features coming to the platform in the next month, including the addition of three Dragon Ball movies.
On Sunday, September 12, the three latest Dragon Ball anime movies will premiere in Bigscreen:
Dragon Ball Z: Battle of Gods — 10am PT
Dragon Ball Z: Ressurection ‘F’f — 3pm PT
Dragon Ball Super: Broly — 7pm PT
In addition to the premiere screenings, the movies will be available to rent on-demand from Bigscreen’s movie rental catalog. The Dragon Ball films will be available for users in the US, UK, Canada, Ireland, Australia, and New Zealand for $3.99 each.
There’s also a tie-in Dragon Ball contest with some tickets to the Dragon Ball screenings up for grabs. To win, users simply need to find all seven Dragon Balls in the mini game posted to the Bigscreen Twitter and Facebook pages at 8am PT on September 2. The first to complete the game and the person to complete it the fastest (on their first attempt only) will win a free ticket to the screening.
However the Dragon Ball movies aren’t the only titles being added to the rental catalog — Bigscreen is expanding its partnership with Paramount Pictures and adding over 30 new movies available as on-demand rentals. This includes the legendary Godfather trilogy and the Mission Impossible series, as well as Jackass 3D, which will be the first 3D movie to premiere in the United Kingdom.
