[RockerC]

I was wondering if another possible use-case idea for RetroPlayer could be VR game-streaming from an high-end gaming-PC to an Android or iPhone smart-phone that is mounted into a virtual reality HMD (head mounted display stereoscopic-googles a'la Google Cardboard) which can send back input in the form of three-axis rotational tracking to the game-streaming server?

I know that RetroPlayer game-clients that will do low-latency game-streaming from a desktop-PC (or game-cloud) have already have been brought up with Moonlight (that is based on NVIDIA's GameStream protocol).

To better grasp this extended concept for VR based on that same idea, please checkout this article about the similar idea behind "VRidge" which is a new Android app and desktop-PC companion software that does this to try to achive wireless virtual reality game-streaming from a high-end gaming-PC.

http://www.theverge.com/circuitbreaker/2...oard-phone

I would think that other than translating three-axis rotational tracking data from the smartphone gyro to the desktop in the form of low-latency input, the main issues with this concept will be video latency of the game-stream, as too much high latency on input or game-streaming video playback in VR can give you sea-sickness symptoms.

Since there is already a long-term plan to make RetroPlayer into a low-latency video player, and game-clients being for RetroPlayer being able to transfer input data to a game-streamig server over the network, could the concept of VR game-steaming be on that to-do list for RetroPlayer game-clients?

[garbear]

A fine goal, to be sure. Low latency is one of my goals. You'd be surprised at how much slow code has already been dropped

[natethomas]

Out of curiosity, why would you need the high end PC in the first place? The vast majority of retroplayer content can be easily played by a typical high end phone or other device these days. The bigger problem, as far as I can tell, is creating an environment where Kodi becomes a window in the VR environment. Virtual Desktop does a fine job accomplishing this on the PC. I don't know of a comparable piece of software on mobile devices.

[RockerC]

Out of curiosity, why would you need the high end PC in the first place?

I'm not talking about playing retro-gaming in an emulator here, and I am not talking about Kodi's own GUI in VR. I'm reall only taking about game-streaming high-end PC games in low-latency, which means running and streaming the PC-game from your own local gaming-PC at home over your local wireless network to a other device in your home.

If you have an Nvidia Shield device then checkout for example Nvidia GameStream https://shield.nvidia.com/game-stream and Moonlight (an open source Nvidia GameStream client) http://moonlight-stream.com

Game-streaming means the GPU/CPU demanding game itself is actually running on a relatvly powerful PC, as you would primary use game-streaming for gamers that portable devices are not powerfull enough to run nativly themselves, (or games that do not run on Android or iOS). And the client device would normally just be in a other room in your home so the streaming would be done over your own wireless network at home, thus giving the possibility of achieving low-latency.

The graphics-processor VPU on the PC records and encodes the game to H.264 (or HEVC) video in near real-time and streams it to a client device which can be a example an Android smartphone, and the client device only sends the gamepad/joiystick input commands to the PC, also in near real-time, as you in are in fact only watching a video on the game you are playing, but as both input and video are both streamed in near real-time the low-latency respons makes it feel like you are playing the games locally on your client device.

In the specific case of my request you need a high-end PC to play high-end virtual reality games that maybe was originally made for Oculus Rift and HTC Vive, which are are you might know VR HMDs desktop-PCs. And you would only ever need to see the game in stereoscopic view, not Kodi in VR.

Slightly off-topic; both Sony and Microsoft have also embraced this concept of game-streaming with the PlayStation and Xbox game consoles, which you can now stream games from to a PC in your home.

[Scourge]

Steam already does this for pc's as well. Works fine for most offline games.

[natethomas]

I think I figured out what your goal is. You don't want to buy a $1000 HMD like the rift or the vive, so you'd like to use the moonlight capabilities that were written for Kodi in last year's GSOC to use Retroplayer and something like Google Cardboard or a Samsung Gear VR to play those VR games instead?

The thing I missed from the original post was that you want to play VR games while avoiding the cost of a more expensive VR HMD. At issue, I guess was "VR game-streaming" which can be interpreted as "streaming VR games," but I interpreted as "playing any streamed game in a VR environment."

[RockerC]

Steam already does this for pc's as well. Works fine for most offline games.

Yes, Valve has their "Steam Link" device, and Sony also have something similar with their "PlayStation TV" but I don't believe neither game-streaming protocol that have been reversed engineered yet, as have not seen an open source clients for those yet anyway.

http://store.steampowered.com/app/353380/

https://www.playstation.com/explore/playstation-tv/

I think I figured out what your goal is. You don't want to buy a $1000 HMD like the rift or the vive, so you'd like to use the moonlight capabilities that were written for Kodi in last year's GSOC to use Retroplayer and something like Google Cardboard or a Samsung Gear VR to play those VR games instead?

Correct! The point with this idea would be to wirelessly stream high-end (or made for Windows/Linux) VR games from a PC to a smartphone mounted in a low-cost VR HMD.

Main benifit would be not having to buy a high-end "made-for-desktop-PC" VR HMD such as Oculus Rift and HTC Vive, and as a bonus you get to use it as a wireless VR HMD.

The thing I missed from the original post was that you want to play VR games while avoiding the cost of a more expensive VR HMD. At issue, I guess was "VR game-streaming" which can be interpreted as "streaming VR games," but I interpreted as "playing any streamed game in a VR environment."

Sorry about the confusion,. Even if that idea is also cool on its own I don't think that is really related to Kodi or RetroPlayer and in any case was not what I was requestiing here.

[RockerC]

Wow! Google have just announced their official 'Android VR' mobile platform (which they call "Daydream") that will come bakes into Android N:

https://vr.google.com/daydream/

The Google VR NDK for Android provides a C/C++ API for developers writing native code.

https://developers.google.com/vr/android/

https://developers.google.com/vr/android...et-started

With this news I think that the idea of real-time game-streaming of VR games from PC to RetyroPlayer makes even more sense now.

More links below with info for end-users here about how huge this news will be for VR using (Android) smartphones in stereoscopic HMDs:

http://www.theverge.com/2016/5/19/117161...guidelines
http://www.theverge.com/2016/5/18/116835...-n-io-2016
http://www.engadget.com/2016/05/18/andro...de-google/
http://www.theverge.com/circuitbreaker/2...-google-io
http://www.engadget.com/2016/05/18/googl...ontroller/
http://www.theverge.com/2016/5/18/117041...2016-specs
http://www.engadget.com/2016/05/18/googl...r-section/
http://www.theverge.com/2016/5/18/117034...ufacturers