How to Play PC VR (Oculus/VIVE) Games with Your Mobile Headset
In the past 5 years, Virtual Reality technology has gone from a Kickstarter campaign to the hottest addition at CES 2017.
Plus, Virtual Reality will be one of the most disruptive and life-changing technologies that will fully emerge in the future.
The industry is just getting started and no one really knows what the outcome will be. The only certainty is that Virtual Reality right now will be much more different than in the next 5 years.
At the moment VR hasn’t hit mainstream audiences. There are many factors why this is and part of the reason is the lack of VR content. Despite this, there are many amazing applications & games. However, due to the current state of technology, only powerful and expensive hardware is capable of running most of the most immersive programs the virtual reality industry has to offer.
You can check out the graph below that displays Virtual Reality users Worldwide by type of Device in 2016.
Virtual Reality users Worldwide by type of Device in 2016 (Source: Statista)
Almost 46% of VR users use a PC for their experience. You need a much stronger computer than most people have to run any kind of virtual reality application. On top of that, you also need to shell out another $600–1000 depending on the Computer VR Headsets you choose.
Therefore; we can conclude that the only reason why the majority of VR users play on PC is because of the strong technological capabilities that it has to play all of the worthy VR games.
But, what if? What if you could play these same games on your phone with a much more affordable Mobile VR Headset? You are probably telling yourself, wow that would be much easier and would save me a ton of money. Luckily, a solution exists.
Introducing the VRidge software by RiftCat. This software will extend your Mobile VR Headsets’ capabilities by utilizing the power of your PC. VRidge will make your PC think that your phone is a PC VR headset. Play PC virtual reality games on your mobile VR headset with VRidge. VRidge is the most affordable entry point to PC VR gaming by far on the market today.
1. A smartphone with Android 5.0 or newer.
2. A desktop PC with:
- Windows 8.1 (with AMD card) or Windows 7 (with NVidia card)
- I-2500 CPU or greater
- 4GB RAM or more
- NVidia GeForce GTX 650 video card or greater with NVENC support or AMD
- Radeon 7750 with VCE 1.0+ support or greater.
3. Mobile VR Headset. You can get one here if you don’t have one.
4. A WiFi router.
After making sure that you have the necessary equipment, you can start connecting the pieces together.
First, you have to visit VRidge and install the desktop server. It will do all the processing on the PC side and send the game stream to the phone. After the installation, you have to log into the RiftCat platform. Creating the account is completely free and you can login with your social media account as well.
The next step is downloading the application to your phone. Get the application from Google Play and install it on your phone. While both RiftCat and VRidge are active, you should select the Automatic option in RiftCat server. After a short while, your phone should connect (make sure that your phone and PC are in the same local network). Confirm the setup on your phone by pressing the YES button and that’s it.
Your phone and PC are now connected. To try things out, use the “Play RiftCat Games” button and try several games that the RiftCat platform is offering. Those are tested games that surely work with VRidge.
Keep in mind, that the free version of VRidge is time limited. It will allow you to play a game for 10 minutes and after that time the game will disconnect. Unlimited version of VRidge costs 14.99 EUR at the Early Access stage and it’s a one time fee. You can also watch a video tutorial on how to setup VRidge properly:
Originally published at www.vudream.com on January 20, 2017.
