Working with the latency tester

The Oculus latency tester is a device that allows you to empirically test the time it takes between issuing the commands to render something on the Rift screen and the screen actually changing in response.  Someone on the Oculus forums recently asked why there weren't any test applications that you could download in order to use the device.  The reason for this is that such an application would defeat the purpose of the device, which is to allow you to measure the performance and latency of your program on your hardware.

Specifically it allows you to measure the amount of time you should be using in the sensor fusion prediction mechanism.

A complete, cross-platform Oculus Rift sample application in almost one file

There are few things as dispiriting as finding a blog on a topic you're really keen on and then seeing that it withered and died several years before you found it.

Dear future reader, I'm totally sorry if this happened to you on my account.  However, you needn't worry about it yet; I have lots more to write.  In fact, today I will vouchsafe to my readers (both of them) a large swath of code, representing a minimal application for the Rift, in a single file C++ source file.  Aside from the main source file, there are six shader files representing the vertex and fragment shaders for three programs.

The program uses four libraries, all of which are embedded as git submodules in the project, so there's no need to download and install anything else.  All you need is your preferred development environment, and CMake to generate your project files.

I've attempted to make minimal use of preprocessor directives, but some small platform differences make it unavoidable.

Troubleshooting the SDK: Accessing the Head Tracker Data

For myself, people on the Oculus Developer forums who report issues and request help boil down into two main categories: people with display issues, people with tracker issues.  Display issue people are having problems with display splitters, monitor cloning, or getting the output to the correct window, or even getting the rift display to show any output at all.   Tracker issue people are having issues getting the tracker to properly represent the orientation of the Rift and convey that information to the application.  Today we're going to focus on tracker issues.