Larian Studios Forums Divinity: Original Sin 2 Divinity - Original Sin 2 - General VR support - seriously

A while back, Larian announced that they were planning to implement VR in D:OS2 as an April Fool's joke.

I am definitely on the VR hype-train and considering getting a HTC Vive instead of upgrading to 4K. Of course, it's hard to say how a fully implemented VR experience could work in D:OS2 given its isometric viewpoint.

But I would like to suggest that Larian seriously considers providing limited VR support -- essentially for a form of virtual desktop. Steam currently provides the backwards-compatible Steam Desktop Theater that should work with D:OS2, but it is a major weakness.

Essentially, it works by rendering a virtual monitor, and then as a second step it renders your viewpoint, instead of simply rendering in a single step. This means that the pixels being rendered for the virtual screen do not exactly match the pixels being rendered for your viewpoint, this is particularly evident when it comes to rendering text (also partly as a direct consequence of the limited resolution of the headset). You can also miss out on some of the features of the VR display, such as 3D.

Ideally, D:OS2 could be built with VR compatibility to the extent that it instead of providing a virtual screen, it provides a virtual window with a 1:1 relationship between what's rendered by the graphics card, and what reaches your eyes.

I can't say I know anything about the API for the Steam Desktop Theatre and the complexity involved, but I understand it should be relatively simple. I would be ecstatic if you can build support for it.

I know you want to justify buying a new toy, but it's a top-down isometric game. How is "VR support" going to enhance your experience?

I can't personally see VR working very well. AR on the other hand could be neat (having D:OS on your desk would be fun) but it would be nothing more than a gimmick and the resources should be put to more important things.

The cool thing about isometric VR is that you don't have the simulator sickness of more "immersive" first person adventures. You're floating like a god above the world and that is pretty cool.

It's absolutely justified. VR is not expensive if you compare it to the cost of buying a high quality computer monitor. Though personally, I'm quite disturbed by the $200 USD postage price to get the HTC Vive in Australia so I'm watching carefully at the moment. At this stage, the cost to obtain a HTC Vive in Australia is over $1300 AUD, which doesn't seem fair.

Stereoscopic 3D
Some people get expensive displays to be able to watch movies, etc in stereoscopic 3D. These are terribly expensive and the hype around these has slowed down somewhat, but it's easy for developers to support. After all, their games are usually already built in 3D. In fact, it's so simple that if you open the NVIDIA control panel, you can actually force games to display in stereoscopic 3D even if they haven't been designed for it. The catch, of course, is that it's imperfect when you're forcing it, especially when it comes to 2D elements like menus. Regardless, it's clearly not hard to support stereoscopic 3D.

Large high-quality display
While the HTC Vive has a very high resolution display, a lot of that is in your peripheral vision, so this generation can't compete with a 4K display directly, but it can certainly rival a HD display. You could easily sink $1000 AUD into a gaming monitor with similar results as the virtual desktop. It also would inadvertently solve an issue I have in my home of glare and help me to free up some desk space. With the HTC Vive, I can play Divinity: Original Sin 2 on the virtual display whether Larian build for it or not, but once again, there's a difference between having a virtual screen and having a virtual window. For the latter, the game engine needs to talk directly to the virtual desktop.


So let's be clear. At the current price, buying a HTC Vive is completely justified even if you only ever use it as a virtual desktop. If I didn't already have a great screen, then I would have bought a Vive already (my current screen was more expensive than the Vive). As it stands now, I'm keen, but I'm patiently waiting for the right moment to make the jump. It's just a question of when. (The killer app may be Fallout 4 VR or DOOM VR or even D:OS2 if Larian takes it seriously.) My home is actually quite small, so I'll also need something like the Virtuix Omni to play games that have been designed for full body presence.

The biggest issue with VR is control. I somehow doubt they can get it working in VR and you'll be able to control it. The game would be too complex to do without looking at your keyboard/mouse or controller.