Dev update #13

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UPDATED - Known issues:

• Increasing render scale decreases image quality instead of increasing it. Oops.
• New SteamVR installation may fail with Compositor error (400).
• Workaround: Try changing quality settings to anything else than defaults. Automatic hotfix will be available in 1-2 hours

Working on it. 

Client update 0.5.4.5a deployed with fixes to both above problems.

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This week we've been mostly working on new layout in preparation for 1.0 release. In this update we include several fixes, tweaks and new option for even better image quality.

New options in update #13

Mixed tracking mode (FreeTrack position + phone orientation)

You can now select new tracking mode that will take FreeTrack positional data but will keep using phone rotational data. This is useful when you have low-framerate tracking setup (30FPS camera for example). This way you can have 30 Hz positional tracking with smooth 60 Hz rotational tracking.

Render resolution no longer hardcoded to 1440p (SteamVR)

Until today everything was always rendered at 2560x1440 and then downscaled to streaming resolution. Sometimes it was a huge waste of resources because if you have 720p phone it was rendering 4 times as many pixels as could be displayed. After this update it should render at stream resolution (with optional supersampling, see next paragraph).

This way 720p phone users should see huge performance increase (75% less pixels to render). 1080p phones will see lesser but still visible performance increase (~45% less pixels to render).

Render Scale (SteamVR)

Thanks to the previous change we can now provider further tweaking options to image quality.

You can now increase render scale up to 200% of stream resolution. This is sometimes called supersampling/SSAA. Please note that increasing this can drastically reduce your performance (framerate).

If your PC can barely handle VR game in its native resolution leave it alone. But on the other hand if you have GTX 980 Ti SLI you should be able to use it to the fullest, right?

Small changes

• Removed gyroscope requirement from Play Store and added pop-up warning user that external tracking (FreeTrack) will be required.
• Fixed custom (high) bitrates crashing Android streaming from time to time. The higher the bitrate the more likely it was too crash and lead to restoring connection loop.
• Simplified SteamVR driver installation. Everything should be done automatically in 1-click now. If no SteamVR is found it will open SteamVR installation window from Steam
• Fixed FreeTrack axes being mixed (yaw and pitch).

Preview of layout changes

It will be probably pushed live next week. We unified settings window. We're going to update Android looks too with nice sidebar and integrated FAQ. Website will see some changes too. We'll remove store as a part of website and all games will be simply downloadable from library. We're going to bring back custom games too if you want to add your favourite games to quick launch list.

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