Cardboard VR headset with DiY strap. The strap is essential to play on PC. © WholeWideWorld
With the virtual reality headsets such as Oculus Rift or HTC Vive that cost €700, playing in VR isn’t yet in everyone’s budget. Except if you follow these recipes to embark on a gamer experience with a smartphone.
The first Oculus Rift headsets used the screen of a smartphone, well hidden in the casing. As a result, Google released, not without malice, a cardboard headset that allowed you to insert any smartphone in order to experiment applications in stereoscopy. Although access to content is a problem especially when you are dealing with PC games. Smartphones are limited to their respective application markets (dominated by Android and iOS, i.e. Google and Apple, not Windows…).
However, there is software that allows you to make a bridge between a phone and PC games. They are developed by small publishers such as TrinusVR or VRidge for Android smartphones and Windows computers. Both (free) emulate the screen of your PC in your smartphone in stereoscopy and use the gyroscope of the phone as a position sensor.
The youtuber Dr. N00Bz explains how to use Trinus VR, we go over the different steps for you.
Equipment
– a computer under Windows with an Internet connection.
– a phone under Android with a gyroscope. For better viewing (number of images per second), use a phone that you can plug by USB.
– a helmet like Google Cardboard or a casing like Open Dive (that offers the advantage of having a strap). You can also make the strap yourself.
– a video-game controller, like Xbox 360.
Connections
– download the Trinus VR Lite application (free) and the server on the PC from the Trinus VR website.
– connect the smartphone to the PC via USB, open the application Trinus VR and connect the Trinus server of the PC.
– start a game (here on the Steam platform)
– place the casing equipped with the phone on your face, get hold of the video-game controller and you’re all set to go.
Best of all, the application also works with games that were not designed for VR! In fact, software exists to improve the stereoscopy, such as Vireio (open source) that can be used in combination with these emulators.
VRidge, another VR emulator for smartphone, the tutorial from RiftCat:
The opposite of these tutorials is also possible! If you are lucky enough to possess the Samsung Gear VR luxury casing and that you want to use it outside its application market, there is an application that allows you to use it as a Cardboard.