Thursday, March 17, 2016

Dev Update #2

Update: Some people report crash with following message when accesing VRidge tab:
Object reference not set to an instance of an object. 
Hotfix will be deployed in few hours. is now deployed. 

We have received a lot of feedback from you and the positive reactions exceeded our expectations. We even have multiple major VR hardware manufacturers shipping their HMDs to us so we can make VRidge work with their hardware. Last week was amazing but we were also working hard to fix all the stuff you reported. 


Patch notes


USB Tethering works and it's awesome

USB Tethering can now work without disabling other interfaces/restarting RiftCat. Set up your USB router by going to [Settings -> More > USB Tethering] on your Android device and try it out. Latency is much lower and encoding artifacts/frame drops much less frequent.

Please keep in mind that:
  • USB Tethering will allow apps on your PC to use your mobile data. Disable mobile data if you are on limited plan.
  • USB Tethering performance varies greatly across different USB controllers, mobile phone models and drivers. In some cases WiFi may be better

Added connection selection dialog

You asked us for a way to choose connection (USB Tethering, WiFi Direct, Ethernet) that will be used to link your phone and PC.


Direct connect by IP option added

Some of you had trouble pairing your mobile device with PC. We added some extra ways for devices to find each other but anything automatic may fail so you'll be able to enter IP address on your phone.

GeForce M Series now work

NVidia Optimus technology no longer starts vridge on integrated gpu. "Catastrophic failure" message should no longer appear (assuming you don't use outdated GPU below minimum requirements). Special thanks to Jakob Daníel Vigfússon for figuring it out!

Unity 5.3.x games now work.

Few developers asked us why their games do not work with VRidge. Our Unity hooks were working up to version 5.2.x but now it should work with the most recent Untiy games too.

We really care about compatability :)

Fixed multiple connection crashes identified by messages:

  • Only one usage of each socket address (protocol/network address/port) is normally permitted
  • A message sent on a datagram socket was larger than the internal message buffer or some other network limit

Secret super silky smooth setting

You can create empty file named "unlocksmooth.cfg" in {RiftCatInstallationFolder}/Config directory. If this file exists VRidge should run without any ghosting. We want to enable it by default but it sometimes causes artifacting.

Major known issues


Attempting to reconnect/restoring connection

Many people still experience this error loop. We are still investigating.

Screen dimensions wrong (picture too small)

You may try tapping cogwheel at the bottom part of streaming screen on your mobile. You can scan QR code (if present on your cardboard) and try to configure lens/ipd this way but sometimes it does not work. We use a mix of cardboard api configuration parameters and display parameters and some combinations do not work well yet.


You can find more known issues at our helpcenter.


We will try to deploy a new version every Thursday. Emergency hotfixes may appear more often.

7 comments:

  1. got the:
    "ExceptionMessage": "Object reference not set to an instance of an object.",
    Eagerly awaiting HotFix :)

    ReplyDelete
  2. happy to see that USB is working.
    However with OneplusOne I do have much more artiphacts and bad quality , than with 2.5 ghz band wifi.

    ReplyDelete
  3. how do we disable mobile data with usb tether? impossible i guess lol?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Are you using Samsung by any chance? If so then try using your phone in Airplane mode and also specifically choose usb tethering in desktop client.
      It looks like there is 1 more person who has this issue. You can read the conversation about it in the link below. https://www.reddit.com/r/GoogleCardboard/comments/4jbqfj/vridge_turn_your_google_cardboard_into_an_oculus/d35vttu

      Delete
  4. This is a big problem with android 6.0 as you cannot disable mobile data AND have usb tether enabled....

    ReplyDelete
  5. Object reference not set to an instance of an object
    how to fix

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Send log files as described in the article below:
      https://support.riftcat.com/hc/en-us/articles/208781529

      Delete