And that's why we can't have nice things
Brace, brace. Brace for impact, because this is gonna be the most controversial post in the chain :-D
But that's the beauty and the limit of the cancel culture which is, ahem, all the rage these days. I've already been canceled, insulted in every possible way, and subjected to character assassination. It's not like I can lose my reputation twice if I say something now that rubs people the wrong way.
Why don't developers just add a simple VR mode to their AAA titles? Everybody would be happy, wouldn't they?
Well, no. Everybody would not be happy. And paradoxically, the people who would cry foul the loudest would be the ones within the VR community itself. And why on Earth would they ever do that? Do they love shooting themselves in the foot? No, they would do that because nobody taught them differently.
There are three major factors standing in the way of mass VR adoption. Rendering power, input interface, and coolness.
Rendering power (or, "AER sucks and it makes me puke")
Hardware requirements for perfect VR rendering are incredibly steep. Most people just don't realize that, and they set themselves up for certain failure by approaching the issue with completely unrealistic expectations.
It's just simple maths, though. A modern headset like the Meta Quest 3 requires at the very minimum a ~4K input image to avoid visible artifacts. [Yes, the panel resolution is just 2064x2208 pixels per eye, but due to the way VR rendering works and the huge magnification introduced by the lenses, the input resolution to the headset needs to be at least 1.3x-1.4x larger than the hardware resolution].
The minimum refresh frequency to avoid motion sickness is 72 Hz, and let's not forget that there are two eyes to be independently rendered. So the game needs to pump out a stable 144 fps at 4K resolution. Again, that's for the Quest 3, which many enthusiasts shun because it's considered "low quality". Headsets like the ones from Pimax, with huge FOV and much higher resolution panels, have exponentially larger requirements.
To put this in context, let's focus on a modern game based on the ubiquitous Unreal Engine 5, and to be optimistic let's select one that generally offers impressive performance compared to other, often stutter-prone UE5 titles: Clair Obscur: Expedition 33.
The most powerful graphics card available on the market, the Nvidia RTX 5090, can provide 4K gameplay for that title at the astounding frame rate of... 78 fps. About half of the performance required for VR. And that's average fps. If you look at the benchmark for minimum fps, which is more relevant in VR because random judder is much more visible and annoying in a headset, the number drops to about 64 fps. Remember, we would need 144 to satisfy the minimum refresh frequency of the Meta Quest 3.
That's why I spent so much time creating and perfecting my AER v2 solution, which allows you to play at game frame rates as low as 48 fps, while at the same time hitting the headset refresh frequency without frame drops. And that's why I later introduced my DL(S)SS optimization to make it possible to use DLSS upscaling even with stereoscopic rendering.
That's also why I always recommend to set the game graphics options very conservatively, especially if your hardware is not top-tier, and to steer clear of ray tracing or even worse path tracing, as they are brutal performance killers.
There are many people in the VR community who understand that VR needs super-powerful hardware, and that even with expensive GPUs it might be necessary to dial down the graphics options a little in order to achieve more consistent frame rates. Those are the people who say things like "CP2077 in VR has been my greatest gaming experience ever".
Unfortunately, there are also many other people who try my mods once (maybe having downloaded them from a pirate website), do not bother reading the instructions that I put up for every supported title, set each slider to 11 because "my laptop is perfectly capable of running all my games on Ultra", and then spend the rest of their time venting on every comment section on the Internet that AER is a stutterfest and it only made them puke.
Guess what the reaction of publishers (who only care about sales and reputation, and would never attempt anything that might ruin the latter so as not to impact the former) can be to that constant stream of complaints?
Dear VR community, sincerely: keep up the hate against any technology that can make VR feasible, albeit with some compromises, and you can rest assured that you will never have AA/AAA titles officially ported to VR.
It's just never going to happen. There is no silver bullet. Especially considering that new HW generations of headsets keep coming out at an absurdly fast pace, each with more demanding requirements, while at the same time GPU technology is stagnant, and the 5090 might very well turn out to be the last model conceived and marketed primarily for gaming.
Actually, everything now points in the direction of just rendering one frame once in a while, and have AI-driven framegen fill in the huge temporal gaps. See here for an example of what might be coming soon. But alas, framegen is not available in VR, because NVIDIA is hiding the generated frames from userspace. They only exist in the driver, and are not accessible to software stacks like mine (or even to the game itself).
By the way, since pixel math is inescapable, other VR conversion frameworks like UEVR suffer from exactly the same problem. UEVR is offered for free, and its implementation details are hidden from most users because they chose to use Discord for documentation, and for ordinary people who don't spend 12+ hours per day monitoring the servers and reading every message in each of the related channels, Discord is mostly a black hole from which no information can be extracted in finite time. So a sort of tacit consensus formed among people that UEVR has better tech than my mods, but it's hardly usable because UE-based games (especially UE5) have awful performance.
That is sort of true: of course having the full source code to the engine makes it possible to choose more optimized code paths for VR rendering. And yes, lately UE5 games are being published with huge performance problems that never get sorted out: see this YouTube channel (just as controversial as my blog!) for some uncomfortable but rigorous technical analyses of the reasons. But the end result of that is, out of the promised thousands of magically compatible titles, only a few dozens of them actually behave well enough to make a full playthrough in virtual reality feasible and enjoyable.
[Edit: After reading through your comments, I feel that I was unclear in the two paragraphs above. It's not at all my intention to attack UEVR, it works amazingly well. And yes it's free, you cannot beat free. But I did read so many comments everywhere that people who are not technically minded find the information on Discord (particularly as regards specific games) impossible to navigate.]
In summary: dear purists in the VR community, unless you want your game to look like it's running on PS2, please stop bashing technologies that allow you to match subpar GPU cards with the latest ultra hi-res headsets just because they require some tuning and exhibit a few artifacts. Or if you prefer, keep loudly complaining about "poorly optimized" stuff making you sick, and watch as exactly zero publishers hurry to make official ports of their most loved AAA games just so you can tear them apart in the comment sections.
Input interface (or, "It's not real VR without ___")
This is where the jet fuel vapors really hit the sparks on the tarmac. "I hate Luke Ross mods anyway, it's just strapping a screen to your face". "It's not VR if I cannot swing my axe at the enemy". "What's the point of playing with a gamepad?". "Luke Ross and his face-aim can die in flames".
I already wrote at length about this point (see "Why I won't implement full motion controls in my mods"), so I won't repeat the same concepts here. But I do want to stress one very important thing. Keep up the entitled attitude where not only a studio needs to somehow circumvent all the technical problems I described in the previous paragraph in order to provide smooth rendering, but they also have to redesign every character animation and physical interaction in the game just so that you can do stuff with your hands instead of a gamepad, and watch as more and more publishers go on record saying that VR is just a fad and they can't wait for it to die.
It's a simple cause-effect mechanism. As in stories, the golden goose doesn't die because of old age. It dies because you ask too much of it.
That goes double for YouTubers. You speak from a position of power, and the larger your audience, the more people you influence. When all you put out is short videos where you swing your arms around and you proclaim "THIS is what VR is all about" while at the same time making fun of the implementation because the hits don't show where you aimed them but in random positions, yes, that does attract a few more views to your channel in the short term. And you already know that you won't actually spend dozens of hours with your hands in the air, playing through the whole game that way, because in the next video you'll be jumping onto a different title.
But don't say that you love VR, because all you're doing is just pushing developers and publishers into a corner, thinking "Damned if I want to invest years of work and millions of revenue just to end up being a laughing stock".
Coolness (or, "You look like a dork, and I'll beat you up for it")
And finally, possibly the hardest blocking factor to mass VR adoption: it doesn't look cool from the outside when you're using it (well okay, with the exception of girls in shorts playing Beat Saber, but let's not think about that for a moment). Where was I? Ah yes, it generally doesn't look cool. Just like smart glasses don't look cool, and nobody is wearing them despite Google and Facebook/Meta pushing so hard to make them mainstream.
Who has the potential to clear that hurdle?
Teenagers and young people today don't remember it, as their lives have all been spent with smartphones in their hands and pockets, but there was actually a time when smartphones not only were not universally present, they would indeed make you look kinda like a dork.
Before the iPhone was launched, in 2007, only business people and tech enthusiasts had smart phones. Suits had Blackberry's, and geeks had... well, geeky stuff. With a geeky stylus, and ultra geeky design.
Then Steve Jobs came like a Messiah, and he taught people that having a smart phone was COOL. Even if the tiny keyboard drawn on a smooth glass surface meant that it took you half a minute to write a short reply message. iPhone usability back then was nonexistent compared to Blackberry. But suddenly rationality didn't matter anymore. Steve Jobs had enough charisma that he could just tell people what was cool and what wasn't, and people would follow suit.
What is the biggest factor that until now has prevented VR from becoming mainstream? All the technical issues are important, and of course investors are scared off by abrasive vocal factions on the web, but the real problem is that nobody has ever taught people that VR is cool.
Palmer Luckey tried, but unfortunately, for all his $30 million house and car collections, he has no charisma recognizable by the masses. He sort of looks like a dork himself. John Carmack didn't even try. He's a builder, not a leader, and he's not interested in making other people bid to his will.
Mark Zuckerberg is uber-powerful, but the kids hate him. He has like, anti-charisma. And he only seems interested in building the metaverse. Sometimes I wonder if somebody at Meta (Facebook back then) once read "Ready Player One" and mistook it for an instruction manual, so they set out to build the dystopia described in the initial chapters. Of course people want none of that :-D
There is one huge thing that Meta could have done, though. Hell, they could still do it. They poured SO MANY BILLIONS into making VR a failure. If a tiny fraction of those billions had been funneled into creating something similar to what NVIDIA did with 3D Vision, or VorpX did later, or even myself on a much smaller scale; if they had created a framework to just (semiautomatically) convert AAA games to VR, without throwing in the insanely complex motion controls, and without requiring wildly risky investments from gaming companies, today VR gaming would be mainstream.
Meta is a giant corporation (one of the largest in existence), so of course nobody would have attacked them with silly arguments like "Oh but you're infringing on the publishers' rights, by allowing their games to be experienced in VR". And just by allowing games to be featured in their showcase, Meta would have attracted conversions by the dozens.
Instead, for some unfathomable reasons, they decided to push hard on the metaverse idea which everybody hated, and on the vapid mobile-like standalone experiences which many bought but nobody actually seemed to enjoy. I mean, I don't have the powerful market research tools available to Meta, and half the Internet knows for a fact that I'm as dumb as a doorknob. But even in my stupidity, I can easily see that mobile games are a success because every time you have 5 minutes to kill, you can pull your phone out of your pocket and start numbing your brain by color-matching candies. But who in their right minds would pull out a VR headset (complete with motion controls for maximum immersion, yeah!) and start shooting at zombies when they're waiting for the meeting to start, or for the bus to come by, or for the waiter to arrive with their burger and fries?
VR right now needs privacy, and people need to be eased into it. Longer, relaxing gaming session with games they already love and want to see in life-sized detail.
Realistically though, I'm skeptical that Meta can do it anymore at this point. I can't see them backtracking so much. But OMG the wasted chance. It would have been SO FREAKING EASY for them.
Some of you mentioned Valve and the Steam Frame. It is indeed promising that the controllers that come with it have the full set of buttons required to act like a gamepad, including the D-Pad. And they did build huge conversion frameworks like Proton. Ah, fingers crossed so hard 🤞🤞🤞
Comments (107)
Cyberpunk 2077 in the Luke Ross VR mod is peak VR gaming for me. It has literally ruined all other games. I have tried UEVR. I love the effort. I really do, but there is real jank in every title I have tried. The polish of the Luke Ross REAL VR mod is what is missing in the UEVR mod. Just my 2 cents. Love the REAL VR mod. Hope to see it keep going.
YEAH I will still use UEVR but I do like all the Customization levels and Polish on Luke Ross' software I hope that the attacks on it STOP now
So the latest version 27.0.0 is working with KCD2, CP2077 and BG3 for me. I decided to try Indiana Jones again but just cant get it to show up in the headset. I hear the game sound but no game image in the headset. Im guessing an update to the game since the last RealVR update broke it. Just curious if anyone else is able to run The Great Circle with RealVr 27_0_0? Just to confirm.
What headset?
Hey Luke I hope your doing okay man. Know that there are many of us that truly appreciate what you have done for VR. You should definitely refrain your terminology and not call it a mod. It could be referred to as middle wear like 3dtv play or vorpx. I am still subscribed as will remain as long as you are working on things for your community I will remain. I fewl Sorry that you have had to go through this and hope you can start the no mans sky style redemption ark. Content is king just frame it as middlewear going forward. If nvidia can do stereo 3d and Ralph at vorpx can do middlewear vr conversion then so can you.
I totally agree, I will support your work as long as I am able
Anyone else super excited for season 2 of the live action adaptation of One Piece!?
In summary, what truly matters is that Luke sees that his community is here and ready to support him no matter what happens. It’s not just about the project itself, but about making sure he knows he’s not alone. His work has a huge impact, and many of us genuinely appreciate what he does and are willing to stand behind him moving forward, whatever challenges may come.
Are you sure threat intractive offers "rigorous technical analyses"? I watched videos from game developers that were very critical of their knowledege and competence. I am unable to determine who is right because I have not idea what they are talking about, but from the outside the channel smells like grift to me. This guy seems very arrogant and combative. Has he actually shipped anything ever?
Hi Luke Hi Brandon, I don't know if you can open this page, https://www.tgcom24.mediaset.it/mastergame/news/videogiochi-open-world-benessere-mentale-studio_92338421-202502k.shtml. Maybe you've read something similar in the U.S.A., too. If you can't open the page and translate it, I'll summarize it for you: "Open-world" video games like Zelda can increase mental well-being. So, how much do open-world video games in VIRTUAL REALITY increase mental well-being? Of course, much more! So, Luke, why not become DOCTOR LUKE ROSS and open a "mental well-being clinic"? Then you wouldn't charge to "play," you'd charge to receive treatment and benefits thanks to your work! I'd ask my lawyer a question like that! I know...I'm crazy, but damn, EVERYONE should experience the BENEFITS and sense of peace one gets from riding, for example, from Valentine to Annesburg!
I saw on Reddit that Pimax contacted you. I would love to see a Pimax / Luke Ross collab. I think the only way VR hardware companies can grow their industry is by sponsoring VR mods for AAA games. This is probably the only way VR will survive.
Yes i have a Pimax Crystal and I want also want a collaboration between him and Pimax
Will you keep supporting games from non-shitty companies? REAL VR is the best VR mod and I don’t want it to go away.
I hope Luke continues his work, but his latest posts are not very helpful. He will not change the minds of the haters. He should not even care about the haters. He should stick with the people who support him and find a solution for the future. He has a lot to lose too so I think he will try to find a way. His supporters just want to know if he will continue and how. Letting them wait with useless posts could turn them against him.
I find it really counterproductive of him to frame any and all criticism as "hate" as well as framing all of his supporters that have an issue with his behavior as "haters". He seems to have given up completely on trying to go forward with his mod, and he's instead divesting all of his energy to throwing himself a pity party and trying to convince everyone he's been right all along. It's really depressing to watch such incredible talent flush itself down the shitter.
This has been and will be a problem for pcvr and vr in general and is unavoidable. Not only is it a small niche overall but it's a niche of passionate enthusiasts only, and as a wearable, replaceable reality, what vr is about is personal and thus the already tiny niche is split into even tinier sub niches, each passionately endorsed as the one true way. To one niche, vr is only about total room scale immersion with motion controls and no wired headset should exist. To one, sims is what is all about and fov is what matters and tiny headsets are a fad. To one comfort is all that matters and large headsets are dinosaurs and wireless is a compromise. And the there's our tiny niche that wants to bring big worlds to life, played with normal controllers. To each that's the best part of vr. And the internet being the internet means to each that one is the only true one. All we can do is enjoy our niche for what it is with the the relatively tiny size it is and get the best from it and watch it keep getting better (we hope). We aren't going to change the mainstream any time soon. We're not even going to change the pcvr niche which is mostly vrchat and simulators any time soon. Our niche is just our niche and thankfully we can enjoy it in peace, as long as we can avoid dmca conflicts. We aren't changing the vr world. We're just living in our little piece of it which, no small thanks to Luke, has been getting better and better. Now, Luke is trying to build up some drama with these partial posts but I've noticed the pause ended and billing resumed. I don't think Luke would be taking donations for work he's NOT doing, so I'm feeling optimistic that this isn't the end and he's leading to restructuring the package a bit and continuing. Could be overly optimistic, but Luke's always enjoyed building up the suspense for announcements!
I mostly agree with that, but I don't think Luke was trying to build up drama or suspense. I think he was honestly sharing his experience and perspective on the situation with the community. It certainly has built up suspense though, whether intentional or not 😂
So, is that it? It's over, my friends?
That is the burning question isn't it 🫣 Hopefully he will post an answer to that soon 🤞
I hope you find some way to partition your framework to continue generating well-deserved revenue ($10/month is a meager contribution, considering the thousands of hours you have invested). Many more people need to experience the incredible immersion in games like Baldur's Gate 3 (no upscaling/DLAA interpolation) and Cyberpunk 2077. Your HFOV and VFOV optimizations are superb. After extensive comparison, I preferred using your FF7 Rebirth version to UEVR's version (when I tried to share this opinion in the UEVR Discord, I was dismissed). Your version had a little better visual quality and much better performance.
Well, saying you prefer a REAL version over the UEVR version on their discord would draw the ire of certain people for sure :) There are some reasonable people on there as well though. 2 or 3 of the admin/modders even use/prefer AER V2, or, the worst VR offense you could commit (according to some) Mono mode 🫣
word!
I DMed this one to Luke, but I should have known better. Those times when Luke could answer every single DM are long gone :D Here goes: Hello Luke! It's a damn shame what's happening to you and your work. I wish there was something we could do to help. I assume you followed a lot of different ideas and approaches to it, but maybe. as you correctly pointed out, instead of calling this a "mod", you could refer to it as a "VR translation layer". I bet translation falls under a complete different segment of law and is not prosecuted by default.
I was just listening to an interview with NVIDIA Jensen Huang about why they initially focused on the game industry. He stated 3D games "are virtual worlds, and who doesn't want to go to a virtual world?" Oh the irony.
😂 indeed
So they charge my card and we still get nothing????
To the people who saw my post and that I responded to about the month pause. I was totally wrong. The pause was actually the free month you shouldn't have been charged for. So, your membership charge should not have been taken out during that month. For some reason, my dumb brain read; "You don't need to unsubscribe: I paused the billing cycle for one month so that your pledges will NOT be renewed automatically, and those of you who are already subscribed will have their access extended for one month without further payments." As a pause, but if you had already had your payment come out for January, you would not be charged for Feb and then March would be the free month. That was incorrect. Sorry for any misinformation or issues caused on my part :(
So payments resumed? I just got charged but we dont have access to any REAL VR downloads or support pages for installs right?
My understanding is that if you were subbed before the pause, you would get a free month after. Maybe Luke has to do something in order for that to take effect...... I'll ask.
I'm still wondering "where do we go from here?"
round and round like a carousel baby the fun never ends
easy solution to your haters.. say "go fuck yourself" and do want you want. We live in a time where people are going to complain because we now live in an attention based economy. Don't think for a second that if you did anything people demanded that they would be happy. They wouldn't. They would complain about something else. Chase whatever type of project you want, and people will follow. People will complain regardless. Those people don't matter. Those people aren't passionate about anything. Those people have never done anything that matters, and probably never will. Block em all, and say "go fuck yourself". No reason to let whiny crying children to get you down. Don't let those scumbags win.
Not only will they still complain but they will try their best to twist and omit things to support whatever they want to complain about. It is shocking to me how little some people seem to care about understanding what someone was truly trying to say sometimes, before they decide to disagree and paint it however they want.
Luke, your post is a rare dose of lucidity and truth. Thank you for reminding everyone that AAA VR is a matter of mathematics and compromise, not magic. Your vision regarding Meta’s failures and the need to make VR accessible through the games we already love is spot-on. You’ve built a bridge that multi-billion dollar companies failed to see. For many of us, your mods are the only reason our headsets aren't gathering dust. We’d much rather play a masterpiece with a controller using your brilliant AER tech than not play it at all. Don’t let the vocal purists or the 'all-or-nothing' crowd stifle the incredible innovation you’re bringing to the medium. You're doing the work they're too afraid to touch
LONG LIVE THE NON-CORPO DEV! Like I said on reddit yesterday, we're rooting for ya buddy.
There is a lot of uncomfortable truth in that. I am still somewhat disgruntled about the VR community in general (not the AER folks), about demanding too much too early, making the whole technology a risky enterprise for any developer. But I hope, that a least the FPS developers will sooner or later understand, what the simulation developers already learned. VR gives you additional customers and the only question is, will it be enough of them to justify the additional cost. I think, with simulation the answer is a clear: Yes it's worth it. MSFS, Il2 and DCS will never go back to 2D only. And maybe there is enough communication between the different game developers, that in a next step a minimalistic VR implementation becomes a standard for FPS too. Time will tell.
I actually think your version of aer2 looks just as good as full steroscopic. And just because you dont use motion controllers doesnt make not vr. I guess no pleasing some. Some people would cut off their nose to spite their face. Hope you keep up the good work. Another thing that luke does, if there is a problem or update on game that breaks it then it is always normally ironed out quite hastely. Help is normally at hand aswell for issues.
I don't know why user's are stating only a 30% ratio with UEVR. UEVR is just as good Luke's mod and it's free there is also there is a program called UEVR easy injection is very easy to use. I own 100's of unreal engine and only one doesn't work. I fully support Luke's mods and UEVR both are keeping VR alive.
I think you will find that it depends on the user and there will be some people that find UEVR to be a hassle and some that don't. Some people will be fine with UE5 performance in general and some won't. Just like I am totally fine with using Legacy AER and some people are not. The sub par performance is a thing though and it is not hard to prove at all. You can find plenty of people talking about poor performance of UE5 releases in the game channels of UEVR. When you account for what Luke is saying about having certain expectations like 144fps to have a true 72fps experience, it makes sense. Playing at 45fps with Native rendering is pretty similar to playing at 90fps Legacy AER in my experience. There may be some technical differences but, in the end, it looks the same to me essentially. You still end up with reprojection/motion jitter in both. And some games look terrible in UE5 and you have to, hopefully, disable game /graphical effects to make them look better. The UE5 engine look is a thing. Lumen often reminds me of using real time rendering in blender on my 1060 GPU back in the day. I think the mistake is taking it as some kind of absolute truth for all games, situations and user experiences using UE and UEVR. Instead of a general point about performance issues and VR overall, given certain expectations and performance parameters. For example, how many of those AAA or non-low budget UE games can you run at 72fps Native while maxing out your headset resolution? And even then, do you have to make major graphics sacrifices or changes?
I built the ultimate vr system and for them to try to destroy Luke's mod even tho he used non of their code or intellectual properties. UNACCEPTABLE, specially the smear campaign by the media and uninformed users. I have no need for a 5090 without VR, whats the point, might as well give up gaming.
I haven't played a game with controllers since Arizona Sunshine, and that was many months ago. Most VR titles are cheap and suck. But Luke's VR mods has made me stick with VR even considering spending 2000$ on the new Pimax Dream Air. But no more mods? Why bother? Guess some people just want VR to die!
In my opinion, the old adage is true: You get what you pay for. My success rate in getting games to run smoothly with UEVR is about 20-30% tops. With R.E.A.L. VR it’s more like 90%. And when there is a problem, I much prefer dealing with Brandon vs. digging through Discord trying to find someone with the same issue. I’m hoping for an eventual win-win solution that enables Luke to continue his magnificent work for all of us to enjoy.
fk motion controls, nonsense holding slippery uncomfortable controllers for hours and pretending to pick up and swing at things and hitting your screen while at it. what losers prefer to play Last of us with motion controllers and complain its not implemented? Thats why I am so upset that Hitman got a pathetic controller VR mod so we dont get it now with headaim and controller. those ppl can play Beat Saber honestly what a waste of time trying to convert (UEVR) games to controllers like its a magic wand, its bshit. so much time wasted on this. Controller and head aim ALL THE WAY Luke!
I'm with Tomo
Anyway I just finished a playthrough of Far Cry 6 and loved it! Ubisoft never would have sold me the game if you hadn’t made an injector for it. My fear is that if you do turn away and end development and updates all the games out there now will stop working. I hope you find a way to continue, but if you do decide to stop, I beg you to release the code so others can keep it updated when game updates are released. It would be terrible to see all the great experiences you created disappear. If you do play your swan song, please at least leave your legacy behind.
Oh look, a rational take on technical limitations and business goals! The hatefest is unwarranted and uninformed. Would I prefer motion controls? Of course! Would I prefer magical 90fps stereo rendering? Definitely! Would I prefer companies to include VR? Absolutely! Are any of these practical or feasible or profitable? No! So we use LR and VorpX and UEVR to get at least the visual look of being inside the 3D virtual world, because it’s better than flatscreen and it’s what’s possible. So much of the complaints are about wanting fantasies that are wholly impractical with today’s technologies and user base. And now these people demanding their fantasies be made real are driving away people who are creating the possible. It’s a terrible state for VR adoption. Very sorry to see it go this way.
Guaranteed all the haters combined hate doesn't even equal like 1% of how much we love you sir.
The AER v2 and the DLSS fix are both in the Pantheon of best coding ever done. They make the whole idea of AER more than just a gimmick or a hack. They are genuinely wonderful nuggets of coding. I hope they are not lost.
Hey Luke, First, I just want to say thank you for the incredible work you’ve done for the VR community over the past few years. I’m also sorry to hear about the amount of hate you’ve received online. From where I sit, there are just far too many angry people on the internet, and the calm, reasonable voices never speak as loudly or as often. I completely agree with you that the VR community has been unforgiving when it comes to development. I’ve been playing VR since the Oculus DK2, and back then every experience made me sick — but I understood it was early tech and that it needed time to improve. I remember when Borderlands 2 VR came out. I was super excited and played through the whole thing. Sure, there were bugs here and there, but I genuinely enjoyed the experience. Then I saw the wave of hate and anger directed at the title, and that’s when I knew VR gaming was going to struggle. From a developer’s perspective, why would you bother? The negativity from the community damages the brand far more than a few extra thousand copies sold could ever justify. You’ve been one of the main driving forces keeping the VR community going. Without your mods, our VR experiences would have been so limited — we’d have been waiting around for just a handful of titles each year that actually had depth and could hold our attention for more than 30 hours. A lot of people don’t fully grasp what you’ve contributed, but those of us who do appreciate you on a much deeper level. I believe the modding market will only thrive when creators are free. It’s the same principle everywhere — look at what happens in countries where entrepreneurial freedom is taken away; creativity and innovation disappear with it. I personally don’t understand why some people think modders shouldn’t be allowed to charge for their work. Your patrons are willingly spending their own money — they buy the games themselves and then choose to pay for the mods you’ve spent your valuable time creating. That’s fully consensual from both sides. As a consumer, I don’t pay any less for the base game. On top of that, I choose to spend my money supporting you to make these mods. Taking that choice away from me actually harms my rights as a consumer
I have just read the bunch of posts and a bit on reddit, I don't understand the hate you get. I just think people are mad that you don't work for free. I believe it is your right to ask for money and people buy or don't buy. They can always code themselves if they are not happy. I'm a software dev, I took a look at the files you provided and I was surprised to see that there is little that is game-specific. So based on that I think that the DMCA is unjustified. It like making a driver for a game controller. But it is probably better to avoid a Streisand effect. I would advise less answering as people seems to take the opportunity to complaine about the price. Resolve the issue with a lawyer rather than public opinion. If it is too costly, maybe give up on that game. I had a great time playing horizon and star wars outlaw with your mode and I'm looking forward to play other games, I wish you the best, good luck.
I have said this before Luke and I will say it again, you are the main reason why I can game. Please keep working on your VR injector (let's call it that) adding great game after great game, old and new. The VR world would shrink quite considerably without you, don't forget you are the mod (shit mustn't call it that) vrinjectfather! (really doesn't sound the same but it's the best I could do)
Oh..... yeah..... I guess Modfather has got to go now 🥺 Inject-father just sounds like someone is the product of artificial insemination. REAL-father sounds like we are on Jerry Springer. I'm just gonna stick with Modfather and not put it out there publicly 😉
Luke, keep your focus on the good you’re creating. So many people genuinely appreciate your work and the way you show up — that matters more than the noise. It’s true that negative voices are often the loudest, but volume doesn’t equal truth. What you do has value, and it makes a difference. Stay the course, keep going, and don’t lose sight of the impact you’re having.
Luke, I have to disagree. I love your mods, but UEVR can do wonders with free config files. Alien Fire Team Elite third-person coop alien horde killing game. With the config file, it becomes an inside-person 6-DOF game, it's incredibly immersive. Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 ran perfectly on a 4070ti. The config for Alters was made so that when you were out on the planet, you were inside-person, and when you went into the base, you were in a side-view! You can set a lot more things than you can. I'll say it again, I love your mods, but in about 10 minutes you can learn how to load a config that othersh ave honed it to perfection, and you only need to do it once, UEVR remembers it from there, so it takes 10 minutes once, 2 minutes for more advanced players, and it will be a really great game that can be enjoyed completely in VR. They modify the UNREAL engine, so game publishers can do almost nothing against them. I play a lot of games with it, and I patronize them every month. The shame is that there are 339 patrons with 1600 subscribers, and not 1600 people use UEVR, but orders of magnitude more. And it's free!!! And publishers can't get their mouths in it, and 6 DOF! I patronized you too, but UEVR saved PCVR. You also contributed greatly to making VR a real experience, but it really doesn't matter whether you do something for money or for free and accept support. I can still recommend that you separate it into free and non-free, upgrade the free ones only when you have time, keep the rest, build yourself a server and put it there, I don't think you'll have so much traffic that a cheap machine can't handle it, and then when publishers come with their demands, you can respond to them right away. Don't sulk in the corner like a little kid who's had his lollipop taken away and write 234234102122213 character posts. In the time you spent on this post, you could have split the mod in half, and the website would already be up and running and you could be working on the next title. The easiest way is to split the bat in half, and then if the garbage user puts it back together, it's not your problem, it's theirs. Then you can talk about the real separation. Start working on a really good title, and don't post nonsense, because what you wrote about UEVR is complete nonsense, and it's like you're sourcing the competition. There are channels on that discord server as a game where they help if you get stuck on something, there are always the best configs among the posted messages, and it's really just a move to import it and never have to deal with it again. You also have to run realconfig.bat, it's not much harder or more time-consuming.
he wont listen to reason dont bother yourself just move on
How long until AI can analyze Luke's REALVR code and copy it, modifying it for most/all flatscreen games? Serious, academic question. Not trying to open up an ethical can of worms, but just wondering how long off we are based on current technology. I have only a cursory, headline-only understanding of artificial intelligence.
It cant , its closed source , you are better off going with vr framework , its a fork from re framework , an open source fully documented , and use an ai agent to guide you to make it for any game
"CP2077 in VR has been my greatest gaming experience ever". I stand by that statement. Luke's work contributes to VR gaming. I bought RDR2 just because we had that mod available (at the time). Thanks for hours of fun using your mods bud, big W from me.
In 2016, motion vs pad gaming was already discussed.(Oculus vs vive) never understand why choose one. Both can live together. I had a blast with Chronos, lucky s tale ... It s hard but you must focus on ppl who like your work , understand why you patreon it and ignore bashing. Im on Horizon dawn, and i have a blast with the beauty of certain landscape. I played 15mn in flat 2 y ago , and will never do it if it was not in vr. Again a memorable moment with your framework... I bought a meganeX and 5090 for your mod, i m not rich but it s my hoby and again i have blast every time. It s just normal you ask pay subscription for this framework ...Pretty cheap for infinite content . Ppl are dumb sometimes Hope you ll continu
all this here just because of cd projekt red....one of the best vr games ever.the best vr games i have ever played are luke`s mods !! uevr is nice but lukes games works perfect. i really hope this is not the end here. vr is not the same without luke !! i dont want to play indie games ! luke i hope you will go on !! i will always support your work and i think many many other people here too!!!!
All true, and it should only take a few counter examples to show VR-reluctant AAA devs that VR on AAA titles is possible at amazing quality : RE4 og and Batman on Quest, RE4 remake and RE-Village on PS5, and HL-Alyx on PC.
Luke, your work has made for some amazing gaming for me, someone with like 37 years of hardcore gaming experience. I have been one of those people saying since forever that Cyberpunk in VR was one of the greatest gaming experiences I have ever had. I just finished Ghost of Tsushima in VR on Sunday and it was yet another unforgettable gaming experience, made possible by your mods. I'm going to play Elden Ring, FFVII Rebirth, and KCD2 next, before anyone else decides to try and take your masterful work away from us. Don't let these haters deter you from doing amazing work -- us fans truly appreciate what you have created.
There’s a glimmer of wishful thinking that Valve will launch the Steam Frame with along with Half Life 3; a title hopefully designed for both 2D and hybrid VR to kickstart the market again. If people can’t accept this for VR we are all doomed to game streaming platform subscriptions and micro transactions with some weird metaverse AI thing. As far as the cool factor, my cat sits on my legs VR headset or not. 😆
Yup, I think the best course of action, is to just stop caring if you look cool. Just enjoy the life you have while you have it. Who cares if all the people in the waiting room are uncomfortable with me wearing a headset. Who cares if I let my dog lick my ice cream cone. If I am not doing anything to interfere with your life and freedom thereof directly, get over it. Sometimes I will just go out for the day in pajama pants and a nice sweater. I call it comfy-casual.
Man, nailed every point about the VR community. A LOT of closed-minded people ... From the group that says "I just don't see the point of playing flatscreen" to the folks that tout "VR without motion controls is not VR" sadly missing the point, which is the insane level of variety and choices to play and enjoy in your device. And ~77% of that is thanks to modders. I engaged in a lot of discussions a few weeks ago, and as suspected, tons of 'haters' either never tried REALVR, assumed the mod was exclusive for 2077, or didn't even own VR ... One person whom I followed for a while in X, (GigasVR) blocked me immediately for simply correcting posted falsehoods. Another person after a heated discussion, confessed that they were curious about the BG3 mod and bluntly asked me to share it after bashing the REALVR for most of the exchange, lol. In conclusion, our dear community is not the nicest, brightest, nor the most informed. But there are always those that are helpful, cordial, and happy to share the excitement of VR with you. Many of those I suspect are here, so kudos to you fine people!
Luke's VR mods are the most engaging, visceral, emotional VR experiences available. The only real VR game that comes close is Half Life Alex. Playing The Last of Us, Cyberpunk 2077 and others with Luke's VR mod is nothing short of astounding. I'm up close and personal with the characters. I can see and feel the emotion in their faces and actions. I care about them. When something happens them it happens to me, I laugh, I cry, I hurt with them because I'm there with them, in that world, a part of them. If that's not worth paying for I don't know what is. Also, excuse me but using a regular controller in VR is awesome. I don't need to emulate my arms and legs in every VR game. It's fine for some game but I prefer the controller for most AAA games. It gives me Director and Actor control of the environment. I can pan the camera and move the actor to create emotional tension like a director would in a movie. Regarding UEVR, I've used it before but it's a pain and discord is crap. Luke's VR mods are better and make my life much simpler. If Luke goes away it will be a sad day for VR and it seems like VR enthusiasts has no one to blame but themselves, so sad.
+1000
Hej
This post is like a perfect summary of all my thoughts on VR over the last couple of years! Except I wouldn't say UEVR is just about a dozen of games - I already finished dozens of them in EUVR and I have countless more and they keep coming (and the amount of money I've spent on those games simply seeing that they are supported in UEVR and maybe I could play them one day after finishing hundreds of others first perhaps... it speaks for the sales impact, I guess). The performance there is also great for the quality it provides. I'm sorry, but I compared a couple of games, most notable Hogwarts Legacy on my previous RTX 4080 and it was lagging a lot on REAL, while being quite playable (with some spikes, but then again I could lower the settings further) in UEVR. And it looked better in UEVR for the same framerates (I played around with resolutions in both). And also it doesn't have the artifacts that one gets on lower PPD with anything other than Mono. That being said, after the upgrade to RTX 5090 I am completely speechless on how great games look with REAL on 30+ PPD, the setting that I didn't dare going to with my previous card, of course. Not only it's pretty much crystal clear and smooth in most games, but also the artifacts are either not there, or maybe I lost some eyesight from crying after paying for the GPU. I just don't see these semi-transparent layers around characters and objects that I used to see on 22-25PPD. And I'm talking about games like Indiana Jones and Spiderman 2. So what I want to say here is while yes, currently GPUs are not there at all to support this experience to the max, the potential you can already see when you push it hard enough is insane. And the sad part is that you need to experience it yourself and with the hardware prices alone it's not going to be mainstream any time soon, I'm afraid. UEVR shows how much of a performance boost you can get when you access the engine directly, but even then you still need a beasty PC. But the experience is so great I seriously think all these 40+ games would still be a lot of fun to play in VR in the next 10 years, some of them maybe even more than that. And in the future we'll get to a point where headset res is not too far from what GPUs are ready to render at high FPS, so... Let's just do what we can to keep it going! Fingers crossed for Valve indeed, as they have a reputation of a truly smart and client-oriented company that pushes the entire industry forward. There just must be a way to build something great out of it!
I have personally found UEVR difficult to use as no one gives a damn about head tracking it's all about motion control profiles. I have found one game ,reternal, that worked straight away, all the others I have tried have been very problematic. For me Luke's 'injecter' is so so much better and easier to use.
I would completely understand if you decided to step away from all of this. After a long break, I dug out my Valve Index again. I was really excited and looking forward to all the new VR-Mods (or opportunities to experience AAA games in VR). I bought again the games, that you are added to your RealVR-Display-Driver 😉. I ordered (since my Index) the Dream Air 🤩 – and now: What a shame! I'm kind of ashamed of the people who hate you because you're perfecting your project and everyone can use it optionally for a small fee. It's all voluntary, no one has to. And then the behavior of the studios...🙈🙄 Despite all your explanations, it's somehow incomprehensible to me. You're probably right about the cycle! How sad, actually... Thank you for all your hard work, and I hope you get the recognition you deserve! 🙏👊
- I agree with a lot of this (not everything, but a lot). One thing I do want to point out though is that UEVR also has an AER / AFR mode, so players can toggle between the two and see which one they prefer. Also that UEVR is not primarily in Discord, but online. https://uevr.io/ , profiles can be downloaded on https://uevr-profiles.com/ or https://github.com/oduis/UEVRDeluxe that automatically fetches the best profiles for games. The Discord is great to ask for help or to collaborate with others to build profiles or mods.
How is your pitch to CDPR going for an official mod to CP2077 (with motion controllers) ? Any response from their side yet ?
i cant direct message you. i need a refund. i forgot to cancel my sub :(
Did it charge you this month? Brandon was telling people that there wouldn’t be a charge until April, so that’d certainly be concerning
Nice. So, do you realize that you had MANY supporters that also use UEVR? I’m on UEVR discord and many people loved your mod but you throwing shade at UEVR for no apparent reasons has made most of us loose support for you and from what I’ve seen you’ve lost a bunch of Patreon support including mine. Good job. Stop being selfish and get off the internet. You went from having trolls to now alienating your own community and supporters. Please get help, take a break and maybe some support will return.
I did not see his commentary on UEVR as “throwing shade.” He simply called it how he saw it - even though I mostly disagree with his assessment due to my own experience, I also find it highly unlikely that Luke has any direct experience with UEVR, and is just putting together what he knows about Unreal’s VERY typical optimization issues with his own experience creating what he creates.
How is anyone gonna give this man hate??? All he did was work his ass off for us and bring joy. The hate Luke is getting right now is just proof to me that we have a social media based mental illness crisis.
At this point he’s doing it to himself. I vehemently defended him when all this started. Even got fuxing banned from Reddit for a week! Now he’s even alienated his own community and supporters of vr in general.
This is just gettin’ plain depressing to watch. He’s completely given up on everything else but complaining, and he seems more than willing to trash on his own community if they don’t 100% agree with his rants and ramblings. Thank you for all of the beautiful experiences, LukeRoss. I hope one day you can recognize and learn from all of the mistakes you’ve been making nowadays.
Preach brother
I’m not going to tell you it doesn’t feel absolutely awful, but I think you’re confusing loud with significant. Haters are very much gonna hate, and haters very much aren’t the people who support you here on a scale of years. The most successful authors and showrunners have learned to not read the comments, because while people can have perfectly valid criticism, there’s just a hate machine shitting on what others might like. Thank you for all you’ve done, and hopefully you can find a form in which to keep doing it. The legal analysis seems to have some very promising avenues.
There is definitely a place for VR games without motion controls. Do I prefer motion control support, sure. It's one of the reasons I love VR. With that said, it's nice being able to sit down with a controller and be in that world. I agree with a lot of what you said here. Not every game has to be VR AF. Sometimes being able to just see that world in VR is enough.
Yeah. It’s stupid that he’s preaching to us his subs. lol. We obviously enjoy game pad vr. He’s talking to Reddit through his Patreon. And I’m done with it.
I think you kind of misrepresented UEVR as being more complicated than it really is, the whole user profiles thing makes it very user friendly and the argument that its all hidden in discord so its hard for users to access doesn't really fly when you have to use patreon and scroll through endless pages on a pretty poor interface to find help for your mods, ironically I've found the most useful support for your mods on the Flat2VR discord in the Luke Ross section. I love your mods I play KCD2 all the time like literally every day ( even with the horrific culling issue that was never fixed sadly) and really what your mods offer is the opportunity to play things in VR that would likely never receive any kind of official or community support and I am extremely grateful for that but right now your anger and bitterness is coming through way too much in your posts and you are doing yourself way more damage than good by throwing shade at other VR communities and tools. all people care about on here really is what are you going to do going forward, if there is even a forward? Things obviously aren't just going to go back to how it was before so it just seems better you focus your energy on how you can move forward and still get paid.
Yeah. This is really bothering me and I cancelled my Patreon.
Speak your truth man don't let what's going on around you determine what needs to be said. I'm super grateful for what youve built regardless of where this is heading... Stop worrying about everyone else and just be yourself.
Interesting you bring this up. Before I got on to your "mods" I would try to play native VR games and found them incredibly gimmicky with the hand motions. I remember frequently saying "this is ridiculous". All I wanted was to experience being inside the game, but control it in the way I'm used to, with a gamepad. Once I found your stuff, it was perfect in that regard. But I know everyone doesn't feel this way. As for the motion sickness, yes, this takes some time to overcome. I remember when I first played Skyrim VR on a PSVR1, I couldn't do smooth turning and could only play for 15 min at a time. I slowly built up to a couple hours and eventually was able to turn on smooth turning. Now, years later, with a Beyond 2 and RTX 5090 I can play for hours, run around Hogwarts castle or anywhere else, camera shaking, whatever. No problem at all. But I'm a tenacious bulldog when it comes to what I like and want. I doubt non-VR people would stick it out. My daughter loves Harry Potter and I had her try it and it was simply "NO THANK YOU". So, yes, it's a real thing.
Tip for your brother - Ginger my friend. Especially ginger beer. No more vomiting. Quick relief.
The arguments are solid, but one absolutely crucial point is still missing: motion sickness. And this is not a minor issue. It’s a major, physiological, and largely uncontrollable problem. Let me give a very concrete example. I can play 4 hours in VR without any issue at all. My brother plays 2 minutes and starts vomiting. That’s the core of the problem: motion sickness is violent, immediate, and deeply personal. And once you vomit in VR, it’s like alcohol after a really bad hangover. Your brain permanently associates the experience with rejection, and in most cases, you never want to touch it again. This is not a settings issue. It’s not a hardware issue. It’s not just about “poor optimization”. It’s a biological reaction that neither developers, modders, nor users truly control. But there is another huge problem that often gets ignored: content regression. Take GTA-like VR-native games such as Viper City. Technically, yes, they are “made for VR”. But visually and in terms of scope and ambition, it feels like going 20 or 30 years backwards. Compared to modern AAA games, it’s like playing a Game Boy-era title. And that’s simply not what most people want. This is exactly why VR mods are such a good thing. Playing real AAA games like GTA or Cyberpunk in VR, even with a gamepad, is absolutely mind-blowing. The scale, the density, the level of detail, the atmosphere… once you experience that in full life-size VR, there is no going back. You can release all the nice-looking VR-only productions you want, but compared to full AAA worlds experienced in VR, they still feel limited and average. For me, at least, they simply don’t compare. As long as VR triggers strong physical reactions for a significant portion of people, and as long as native VR experiences represent such a massive technical and artistic compromise compared to flat-screen AAA games, mass adoption will remain out of reach.
I support
Wow.......Luke, I've been with you for a long time, even though I'm here under a new name..........a while ago (maybe 3 years?) I "argued" with two Italian YouTubers (experts!!! and VR lovers!!!) because they criticized your mods.....with one in particular because he criticized the fact that controllers weren't allowed in Cyberpunk.....well, in the end, my last response to this "character" was this: "Social media gives the right to speak to legions of imbeciles who before could only speak at the bar" Umberto Eco..... As I've written to you many times, especially under the other name, I will NEVER stop thanking you enough for your WORK!
Fuck facebook !!!! The metaverse is comming in Star Citizen !!!!
Well....... I have indeed put my headset on in waiting lobbies and shot zombies while waiting for my wife or kids. And yes, nobody thought it was cool. They were quite embarrassed. But the waiting time sure flew by in VR 🙂
Ha! Agreed! Not in lobbies for me, but in airplanes. Every flight I've been on for the past four years, I've watched movies in my Quest 2/3 headset. Still haven't seen anyone else on a flight use theirs, but man do I love watching y 3D Blu Ray ripped movies on 4XVR player
Having done some coding myself I am amongst those who do understand what it took you to get these games to run well in VR. So many things go into running it smoothly. Even things like not keeping both VR headset and the PC cooled properly will lower performance.
Why bring attention to UEVR. Why bring eyes on another mod? We don’t need anymore scum dmca cunts looking into UEVR. Not cool…..
he is gonna wreck the community at this rate
no more novels , focus on solutions or quit
Dude, I think you are losing it buddy. Long time sub but you making it harder then it needs to be. Take a vacation man you deserve it with all your hard work. My father always taught me. You should really walk away from stuff You really care about when in a situation like this, pick it back up with a clearer head.
could you not release the software as a pay once model with user profiles similar to Vorpx? that charges like 50 buck and while it offers a different experience to REAL VR people seem to be fine with that kind of model
simple question : are you gonna continue or no , do you see your supporters here or no
do you see us here as mindless cattle here or no
Someone needs a time out. Please get off Reddit! Post to your community and not Reddit! U are posting these and then waiting for someone to post it on Reddit and then you’re reading all the Reddit comments and then posting responses here and then going back to Reddit to read people reactions…..this is like definition of insanity.
What is happening!v
:D
So, let's just make a triple A quality VR game ... fuck em. I'll help.