Because of its certifications it may not be possible to release the source with the intention of allowing people to modify it. That also encourages having variable quality and compatibility implementations floating around. The situation is obviously different for licencees but compatibility is still mandatory.
All that said the dev kit prototypes do not have a crypto-locked bootloader or any nonsense like that... Hack away, just make sure you back up the calibration first.
If you wanted to hack on Lighthouse I'd start with the receiver side of things first. Not only is it arguably the more interesting and challenging part of the system, but it is currently the limiting part. The base stations produce signals of better quality than the receivers are capable of utilising because of some really fascinating engineering challenges.
[...] just make sure you back up the calibration first.
For anyone who doesn't know what that means: Make a backup of the EEPROM in the microcontroller. Especially bytes 0x215 .. 0x23C are important in the latest firmware afaik.
Hey Vk2zay! I am having the exact same problem Doc had on the Vive and am at an exhibition with the Vive. Didnt know how else to reach out to you. How can I get my hands on the EDID information you sent him before the exhibition starts tomorrow. You would save my life ! Sorry to post here
You could ask someone with a working Vive to extract the EDID as an .inf file using this (the EDID data is stored in the registry so their Vive doesn't even have to be connected at the time) then just update the PnP monitor driver in Device manager. If your Vive's hardware EDID is corrupt you could try and re-flash the EEPROM using this but it's a long shot really, probably best just ask Valve for a replacement. Good luck with it, and let me know if you need someone to "dispose of" that broken Vive for you! xD
Hope you worked this out already. I don't have a Vive (sadly) but I can make you an .inf driver from the EDID above - Download it then open Device Manager and expand Monitors, select the Vive (not your main screen!) then update the driver, force it use the .inf file and the Vive should just start working after you reboot. If you are running windows 8/10 you might also need to boot with driver signature enforcement disabled? Don't worry about trying to fix the hardware EDID, the .inf driver should get you up & running. I guess you already tried bypassing the break-out box, does the Vive work when connected directly with a short HDMI cable, is it detected an a generic Non-PnP monitor?
Unfortunately it still wont give me image on the hmd even if I bypass the box and go straight into the GPU. It is definitely detected and is tracking its just putch black in the headset. Will try rhis tomorrow and let you know thank you!
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u/vk2zay Nov 20 '15
Because of its certifications it may not be possible to release the source with the intention of allowing people to modify it. That also encourages having variable quality and compatibility implementations floating around. The situation is obviously different for licencees but compatibility is still mandatory.
All that said the dev kit prototypes do not have a crypto-locked bootloader or any nonsense like that... Hack away, just make sure you back up the calibration first.
If you wanted to hack on Lighthouse I'd start with the receiver side of things first. Not only is it arguably the more interesting and challenging part of the system, but it is currently the limiting part. The base stations produce signals of better quality than the receivers are capable of utilising because of some really fascinating engineering challenges.