DreamDesk VR Reviews

lag galore, unusable

This is still very early access but is being actively worked on. The devs are very responsive in the discussions and open to ideas and suggestions. The one feature that definitely sets this apart from any of the others I've used is the ability to popout windows. You can make any desktop window, app or game appear in it's own floating window and move it to any location in the 3D VR space. It does have some bugs but what early access doesn't? The devs quickly address any bugs that users report. I highly recommend this, just know you are not getting the final product, you are essentially paying to help bug test. But I believe it will be worth it.

Finally a virtual desktop that works with laptops! I'm using an alienware graphic amplifier with a GTX1080, not 100% sure if it will work for everyone but it works for me so check it out if you have a similar set up. The breakout feature is still not working 100% and I'm still crashing out every now and then but for early access this is excellent.

**Update:** It's been a few months and while I don't use this often, I haven't had any issues whatsoever unlike many others seem to be experiencing. Sure, there's a bit of a learning curve to understand how everything works but I pretty much had it figured out without any reference material within an hour. I like having my webcam & vive cam active while I'm working with 2-4 other windows up (just because) and it's never crashed on me even with a lot of resource intensive processes running. If the devs are still working on this, one thing I would love is a choice of environments like Bigscreen and the new Steam VR home environment. And I have had some minor issues finding the right resolution to ensure readable text but I think some of these people just haven't bothered tweaking settings outside of Dreamdesk to get things working to their liking. ***Original comments*** I'm giving this a thumbs up solely for the fact that its the first semi-usable desktop client I've been able to find for my GS63VR. Bigscreen is my goto for desktop usage but for mobility purposes I opted for a laptop and have been looking for some way to browse the internet mid-VR sessions without having to take off my Vive. It's absolutely not worth $40 in it's current state but I will come back to it from time to time with the hope that the devs don't just get lazy and abandon it; Because while it's not particularly great or even very good yet, the potential is there and even some minor tweaks would make this a viable option for laptop VR usage.

I've had this for awhile. It _kinda_ works but it's not user friendly or workflow friendly. I'm not really sure if the dev is still developing it either. Definitely wait for an actual release and more reviews on that.

I spend 20 minutes trying to get this to work. Following all of the, very unhelpful, video hints. A video that I could not pause or rewind. I could not even break out a window. THe vive controller spport is a joke and I do not understand why you have made everything so complicated. There are NO text popup explaining what anything is. There seems to be several commands for different features, and none of them work.

I had really wanted this to work. It looked like it would be awesome but it didn't make a very good first impression on me. It's supposed to be like having an array of virtual monitors to display all of your content Instead what I was met with upon loading it up was a mostly black screen (some stars too so it's not an error) and then this tutorial window pops up. I look at all the stuff you can do according to the tutorial and it seems to work ok. After the tutorial I see an infinite mirror of everything I'm doing and I have to question why. http://images.akamai.steamusercontent.com/ugc/107354018504271602/B1AF03D37B0AF770CE2E2AC65CC48B8F14136DC3/ That's a huge turnoff right there. I tried to turn that off and then there was nothing to do but look at a severed hand floating around in front of my face. Where's the ability to open a window? Do something like they show in the video? It's very poorly explained. I remove the headset and look at my monitor and apparently that's showing me on my 4kTV everything that I'm doing, and bringing up the desktop is showing me that over and over. I couldn't get it to minimize so I could see my actual desktop. I had to remove the headset, load up a page in my browser, then make sure it was on top of the fullscreen view of what was going on inside dreamdesk, then I put the headset back on, watched a video with TONS of lag. Audio came through 1/3rd of a second before the video. Everything was horiibly aliased and hard to read (Virtual desktop sorta suffered from this problem as well). There were no options to increase the resolution. I think it was basically taking a crappy resolution and then upscaling it poorly to fit the virtual screen. All in all it was a wreck...a disaster. A dream? No, a nightmare... Ok, no it wasn't that bad... but I felt like it was a waste of money. $15 for the promise that this eventually won't suck...I don't think I have that kind of patience. I'd rather pay $25 for something that doesn't suck now than $15 for something that might not suck later (or might suck worse). Pros: [list] [*] It has a lot of promise if they can ever live up to it [*] Everything the tutorial promised I could do was pretty easily doable, though it still requires a mouse and keyboard [/list] Cons: [list] [*] It's horribly unpolished [*] It is confusing to try to get some real use out of it [*] Laggy [*] Poor resolution so that text is hard to read unless you zoom the screen up to a huge size [*] Clunky interface with the half-assed vive controls [/list] If you have faith and patience, go ahead and spend $15. If you want something that works well right now, then look elsewhere. These guys need a lot of work. As I said before, I'd rather pay more now for a good product than less for a product that may or may not work well in the future. Steam refunds, here I come...

I waited weeks debating on getting this app, only to have it crash, every time I try to start it. So, as for a review, I would have to say purchase at your own risk. I have payed less for VR games that work right out of the box . Are the Dev's still working on this app ? I have yet to see a recent review,

It doesn't seem to be compatible with VMware workstation use. To be honest, I'm a Systems Engineer and I've sat down with this twice, making a concerted effort each time to bend it to my will... I'm not sure if it's the fact that I always have a VM running, but my desktop never appears. The background only repeats itself in a mirroring effect. Controls are still in the very awkward phase, also. All to be expected in Alpha... just a warning that power users may want to wait until the product is more mature. It's a great concept and I think it will be great when the kinks are ironed out... but for me, for now, Virtual Desktop and, more so, Bigscreen Beta (which is free) are much more useful.

Early access shouldn't be negotiated as "kick start a napkin idea/tech demo". - Won't start with dual monitors - Crashes easily on Vive - Desktop is not real time and suffers with a very low fps even on a GTX 1080 - Usability is very primitive (focus on windows positioning and no attention to seamless real usage, controller support, non intuitive arbitrary key combinations, missing help) - Currently suffers of terrible (none) AA sampling. Unreadable, windows at fixed distance (or no obvious way to change that) Based on Unreal Engine 4, this application is bound to be a buggy sensitive resource hog - not something you want for a desk that should be just supporting the real applications. The positive part is only in the description that states it would allow the layout of several windows beyond your monitor resolution real estate. But that stays more in the theoretical field. I couldn't do it, and even if I had, it would be unusable because of the low fps and being unreadable. In no way comparable to BigPicture.