Virtual Desktop News

This is a small update which adds a screen brightness slider and fixes a number of issues that were reported by users.

Fixed crash after playing multiple 180/360 videos in a row
Fixed HDR monitors sometimes appearing black
Fixed Home Cinema screen becoming black when tilting head on Rift
Fixed Photo and Video thumbnail generation which prevented users from playing a video or seeing a photo until all thumbnails were generated
Fixed drop-downs in Videos tab to always be visible
Now saving selected decoding method for new videos after re-launch
Better positional audio in Computer Room

-Fixed repeated UAC prompts on launch for some users
-Fixed crash when rendering specific cursors on Windows 10 April update
-Fixed issue with Virtual Desktop being stuck running in Steam after closing the app through the SteamVR Dashboard
-Return to Desktop functionality is now disabled by default
-Other stability improvements

- Added a "Use Virtual Audio Driver" option (enabled by default). Uncheck this if you don't want Virtual Desktop to mess with the audio playback device. Unchecking the option might prevent you from using Positional Audio
- Fixed Transparency screen option to use additive blending on Windows 10 Creators Update or later (since alpha blending is no longer possible)
- Transparency now also applies to UI overlay when viewing 360 photos or videos


- Fixed crash when renaming photo or video file
- Fixed crash when audio options change and there's no connected monitor
- Fixed Virtual Desktop Service startup issues
- Fixed crash at startup on some Windows 7 machines
- Fixed crash at startup when the speech runtime installation is corrupt

- Fixed performance problems introduced in 1.13 with hybrid laptops and multi-GPU configurations
- Fixed darker colors issue on rotated monitors
- Now preventing Supersampling from exceeding 8K x 8K (if users also supersample in SteamVR)

Virtual Desktop now features an Audio tab where you can easily toggle Positional Audio and select the desired speaker configuration through a drop-down (Stereo, Quadraphonic, 5.1 Surround or 7.1 Surround); you no longer need to fiddle in the Windows audio dialogs to get the feature to work.

A configurable shortcut to toggle Positional Audio has also been added to the Bindings tab.

From the Audio tab, you can also change individual speaker volumes and tweak the frequency response through an equalizer. You can pick from existing presets or customize it yourself.



This new version includes a dedicated audio driver which prevents sounds from going into your regular desktop speakers. This driver also allows Positional Audio to work on all VR headsets (not just the Rift).


The previous positional audio implementation wasn't using HRTFs and was rather simplistic. This new implementation greatly enhances the sound quality and surround experience. It also works on Windows 7. You can try it out yourself with multi-channel audio experiences (this example only works with the Microsoft Edge browser).


The photos tab can now display 180° photos taken with recently released VR180 cameras. A distance slider is included to let you adjust pictures that appear too close. The same distance slider has been added to the Videos tab for 180 videos.


The controller interaction with the desktop has always been through simulated Touch Input on Windows 8 and 10. This allows multi-touch gestures such as pinch-to-zoom or swipe-to-scroll. Unfortunately some applications (such as Discord) or sometimes Windows doesn't work quite well in touch mode so there is now an option called "Use Touch Input" under Input Options which can be disabled if you experience such issues. When disabled, the controllers will perform regular mouse clicks instead.


- Fixed "Unable to connect to Virtual Desktop Service" issues.
- Fixed click offset issue on Virtual Desktop window when using multiple monitors with different scaling options after installing Windows 10 April Update. The bug in Windows is still present and might affect other windows so disabling touch input might be required if you experience issues.
- Fixed issue with clicks not working when HP Touch Point software is installed
- Fixed videos being stuck in Software Decoding mode when they refuse to play
- Improved startup time when users have multiple purchased environments in their library
- Stability improvements

Let me know if you experience any issues, thanks!