Virtual Desktop News

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!

The video player now has 3 decoding options: DXVA 2.0 (the old method), Direct3D 11 (the new option) and Software (which forces the use of installed codecs). If you have a powerful GPU, you can select the Direct3D 11 option to offload more work to the GPU and improve playback smoothness with high resolution videos. The original method (DXVA 2.0) is still recommended for most users.



Note: If you are on the latest Windows 10 Fall Creators Update, make sure to download the HEVC Video Extension to get the best hardware decoding performance. It used to be part of Windows but is now a separate download.


There is now an option to show or hide controller contacts on the screen.


- Fixed service installation issues caused by anti-viruses on some machines
- Fixed crash when a 360 photo or video was renamed
- Fixed issue with UI re-appearing when controllers were fading-out
- Voice commands will no longer cause tab changes in video compact mode
- Improved photo and video thumbnail generation speeds
- Other stability improvements

As always, let me know if you experience any issues. Enjoy!

Today's beta update adds functionality to the Photos and Videos tab as well as a few requested features and bug fixes.


The Videos tab now displays thumbnails of the files in your 360 Videos folder and lets you play them with a single click. You can sort them by name, size, date or recently played. Videos can be marked as hidden. You can also toggle stereoscopic 3D with videos like you can with photos.



You can now sort your photos by name, date or size.


You can now bind a key or button to toggle dimmed lights in Model environments.


- Video settings are now properly saved/restored across sessions
- Dashboard mouse buttons now follow SteamVR's input system
- Portrait orientation fixes in Dashboard
- Stability improvements

Note: Virtual Desktop now uses .NET 4.7.1 instead of 4.5.1 and should install it as needed on your next launch. If the update gets stuck in the Steam download queue, simply uninstall and re-install Virtual Desktop.

Today's beta update adds functionality to the Photos and Videos tab as well as a few requested features and bug fixes.


The Videos tab now displays thumbnails of the files in your 360 Videos folder and lets you play them with a single click. You can sort them by name, size, date or recently played. Videos can be marked as hidden. You can also toggle stereoscopic 3D with videos like you can with photos.



You can now sort your photos by name, date or size.


You can now bind a key or button to toggle dimmed lights in Model environments.


- Video settings are now properly saved/restored across sessions
- Dashboard mouse buttons now follow SteamVR's input system
- Portrait orientation fixes in Dashboard
- Stability improvements

Note: Virtual Desktop now uses .NET 4.7.1 instead of 4.5.1 and should install it as needed on your next launch. If the update gets stuck in the Steam download queue, simply uninstall and re-install Virtual Desktop.

Model environments such as the Home Theater and Home Cinema now support cylindrical and quad layers (with Rift) to render the desktop. This provides the maximum image quality even when Supersampling, MSAA and Environment Mip Mapping are disabled. The Environment Editor has a new option to enable it in user-created environments.


All monitors, connected to any GPU should now render correctly in any orientation (Portrait, Landscape, etc.). Previously, some monitors appeared washed out, transparent or would cause the application to crash.

• Fixed issue with fullscreen games appearing frozen after Fall Creators update
  
• Fixed 360 video cube projection appearing black in the Mirror Window
  
• Fixed Play with Virtual Desktop contextual command
  
• Fixed multiple crashes

I've been working hard on fixing some bugs that have been around for a while but that I couldn't easily reproduce. The app should feel more stable with each update. Thanks again for reporting any issues you encounter!