You Can Use Vive And Rift Simultaneously On One PC

[kcarbotte]

The Vive and Rift have just barely hit customer hands, but people are already experimenting with what's possible. One industrious Reddit user discovered that you can play with a Vive and Rift on the same PC at the same time.

You Can Use Vive And Rift Simultaneously On One PC : Read more

 

[EddieF430]

Maybe don't run the gpu.s in sli but allocate each hmd to a separate gpu?

 

[kcarbotte]

Maybe don't run the gpu.s in sli but allocate each hmd to a separate gpu?

Tried that.
I still wasn't able to initialize either HMD from the other GPU.

We don't have matching cards though, so that may have something to do with it.

 

[hoofhearted]

4 player multiplayer??? Might be feasible for Oculus, but Vive? You would need 30x30 room. Tennis? Or even a throwback to Pong except in 3D, VR and Multiplayer.

 

[Simon Ayres]

How does Tom's hardware not know that when running SLI the ports on the second card DO NOT WORK! This is not new.

http://www.nvidia.in/object/sli-technology-multimonitor-in.html

 

[kcarbotte]

How does Tom's hardware not know that when running SLI the ports on the second card DO NOT WORK! This is not new.

http://www.nvidia.in/object/sli-technology-multimonitor-in.html

As I mentioned in the first reply, the second GPU didn't work regardless of SLI being on or off.
The HMD was detected, but it was not able to initialize. All variables were tried.


Edit: Also, to clarify, the SLI comments were to address what the original poster on Reddit who discovered this claimed.
His video states he's running SLI. My article shows that doesn't work.

Now he obviously actually has it disabled, but that still didn't work in my case.

 

[kcarbotte]

4 player multiplayer??? Might be feasible for Oculus, but Vive? You would need 30x30 room. Tennis? Or even a throwback to Pong except in 3D, VR and Multiplayer.

There's no way to hook up 4 Rifts to you computer.
This only works with one of each HMD. The key is the different store fronts allow the games to run simultaneously.

I am going to try local multiplayer on some seated experience games though.

 

[none12345]

"There's no way to hook up 4 Rifts to you computer.
This only works with one of each HMD. The key is the different store fronts allow the games to run simultaneously"

I assume this is not true. You can just run them in different virtual machines, and happily play 4x of either one. Well happily as in it should theoretically work. But you would probably need 4 accounts, and you would have a slideshow. I have no hardware to test tho!

 

[kcarbotte]

Maybe don't run the gpu.s in sli but allocate each hmd to a separate gpu?

Tried that.
I still wasn't able to initialize either HMD from the other GPU.

We don't have matching cards though, so that may have something to do with it.

 

[kcarbotte]

"There's no way to hook up 4 Rifts to you computer.
This only works with one of each HMD. The key is the different store fronts allow the games to run simultaneously"

I assume this is not true. You can just run them in different virtual machines, and happily play 4x of either one. Well happily as in it should theoretically work. But you would probably need 4 accounts, and you would have a slideshow. I have no hardware to test tho!

Unless you have 4 GPUs, I don't know of any cards that have more than one HDMI, which the Rift requires.
Vive's can be hooked up into DisplayPort ports, so your virtual machine solution could work there.

 

[kcarbotte]

Well, it appears I've made somewhat of a liar out of myself. (don't ever claim I don't verify things)

I went back after the comments about SLI to make sure I did in fact try all variables. While I was right about having tested with and without SLI enabled, I apparently only tried connecting the Vive through the second GPU. That definitely does not work on my machine. I get the compositor error that is pictured in the article.
The Rift on the other hand, does initialize when it is plugged into the second card (SLI off). I was able to confirm that the Vive will work with HDMI along side the Rift as long as the Rift is in GPU2.

 

[hoofhearted]

I am think 4-player multiplayer will be in the near future. If they work this out, once the price comes down on the units and they become more like a peripheral similar to a controller, this would be beneficial. Then people would find a way to justify Quad video cards. 4-play Twister in giant animal outfits in the VR world.

 

[kcarbotte]

I am think 4-player multiplayer will be in the near future. If they work this out, once the price comes down on the units and they become more like a peripheral similar to a controller, this would be beneficial. Then people would find a way to justify Quad video cards. 4-play Twister in giant animal outfits in the VR world.

That may happen in the future, but we'll need wireless HMDs before that ever happens.
We're likely to see standalone HMDs with thier own processing power take over long before we see 4 PC connected headsets.

 

[kcarbotte]

Please, never, ever display your graphs like that again. All it does it make readers angry.

I would love to display them in a better way, but we can't create the slideshows in the news feed like we do for the reviews. It's a limitation of the backend of the website.

 

[notsleep]

4 player vr?

rift: 4 x $600 = $2,400
vive: 4 x $800 = $3,200

...mother of god, that's expensive! 😛

 

[kcarbotte]

Please, never, ever display your graphs like that again. All it does it make readers angry.

I would love to display them in a better way, but we can't create the slideshows in the news feed like we do for the reviews. It's a limitation of the backend of the website.

The readers have only been complaining about this stuff for... I dunno..... years?

And it requires a website redesign to fix it. It's not a simple fix, and well beyond the scope of the writers to have access to change.

 

[cdabc123]

you can run 4 rifts at the same time if you have a decent 16 thread cpu and 4 gpus using a hyperviser.

 

[wifiburger]

well now ! somebody has spare cash to buy two VR kits

 

[beetlejuicegr]

You should have tried 2 totally different cards, perhaps one nvidia and one amd, that would be fun

 

[kcarbotte]

Please, never, ever display your graphs like that again. All it does it make readers angry.

I would love to display them in a better way, but we can't create the slideshows in the news feed like we do for the reviews. It's a limitation of the backend of the website.

The readers have only been complaining about this stuff for... I dunno..... years?

And it requires a website redesign to fix it. It's not a simple fix, and well beyond the scope of the writers to have access to change.

The only reason it would require a complete redesign is if Tom's doesn't do business with whomever built the back end in the first place.

Also, instead of doing tiny side by side pictures that require 3 clicks to actually see what is on it, why not do an animated GIF with 2 slides? Heck, it would even be better if you went old school and just did one picture above the other. I find it extremely hard to believe that the way the pictures are presented in this article is the best a tech site can come up with over the course of a few years living with this system.

Is content quality not a priority?

Animated GIFs don't work here either 🙁
I can't stack images that are square either.

I wish there was more that I could do, but as writer my hands are tied. There's a lot more to it than it seems.

Content quality is absolutely a priority, but I can't control how the website functions. I have to work with what's available to me.

 

[Simon Ayres]

How does Tom's hardware not know that when running SLI the ports on the second card DO NOT WORK! This is not new.

http://www.nvidia.in/object/sli-technology-multimonitor-in.html

As I mentioned in the first reply, the second GPU didn't work regardless of SLI being on or off.
The HMD was detected, but it was not able to initialize. All variables were tried.


Edit: Also, to clarify, the SLI comments were to address what the original poster on Reddit who discovered this claimed.
His video states he's running SLI. My article shows that doesn't work.

Now he obviously actually has it disabled, but that still didn't work in my case.

My point is, why even test in the first place, did you not already know that this was a limitation of SLI?

It should also be pointed out that you tested this with a different game, did it occur to you that this alone could be the issue?

I get that what I am saying may come across as a bit dickish but honestly, how do your editors not catch this stuff?

Testing methodology is important, if you use different parameter you can not conclude that it doesn't work, just that it doesn't work for you under your conditions.

 

[littleleo]

If they have the cash to buy two to four VR kits can't they afford their own computer too? It's not like you playing multiplayer game together. This is pointless unless you have two heads and want to play 2 different games at the same time.

 

[kcarbotte]

How does Tom's hardware not know that when running SLI the ports on the second card DO NOT WORK! This is not new.

http://www.nvidia.in/object/sli-technology-multimonitor-in.html

As I mentioned in the first reply, the second GPU didn't work regardless of SLI being on or off.
The HMD was detected, but it was not able to initialize. All variables were tried.


Edit: Also, to clarify, the SLI comments were to address what the original poster on Reddit who discovered this claimed.
His video states he's running SLI. My article shows that doesn't work.

Now he obviously actually has it disabled, but that still didn't work in my case.

My point is, why even test in the first place, did you not already know that this was a limitation of SLI?

It should also be pointed out that you tested this with a different game, did it occur to you that this alone could be the issue?

I get that what I am saying may come across as a bit dickish but honestly, how do your editors not catch this stuff?

Testing methodology is important, if you use different parameter you can not conclude that it doesn't work, just that it doesn't work for you under your conditions.

The issue was that Steam does not detect launch SteamVR correctly with the Vive plugged into any other GPU. It has nothing to do with which games are played. The purpose of the test wasn't to replicate the same games as the guy from Reddit, it was about verifying his claim of SLI being a bonus for VR headsets, which I demonstrated that it is not.

During testing I mistakenly forget to try the Rift in the second GPU and the Vive in the first GPU with SLI disabled. Simple oversight, and I updated the post once that test had been performed.

I'm not using the same CPU, GPU, motherboard or any other component of the other guy's computer. All I can do is verify my own conditions in any test, no matter what that test is. I'm not sure what you expect otherwise.

 

[icepick314]

will VR HMD support SLI in the future?

it looks like they only work on one GPU at a time...

 

[kcarbotte]

will VR HMD support SLI in the future?

it looks like they only work on one GPU at a time...

SLI doesn't work in VR the way it does for one screen, but Nvidia has created VR SLI which can use two GPUs to share the workload over the two displays inside the HMD.
This is currently not supported by any games that are out, but the tech is available to developers through GameWorks VR, so it's only a matter of time.