I'm typing this review in virtual reality. I have an Oculus Rift strapped to my head, and I'm staring at a giant text editor on a curved screen floating in front of my face. I can do this thanks to Virtual Desktop ($14.99), an app by Guy Godin. It's a fantastic way to use your VR headset, even if you don't have any VR-specific software for it. The idea behind Virtual Desktop is simple: Take your PC's desktop and project it as a virtual display through your VR headset. This may be an obvious concept, but using the app really shows that possible uses of VR headsets extend far beyond gaming—though you can use it to play non-VR games, as I'll explain. 

Valve is planning to tackle the idea in a much more gaming-specific way in SteamVR's upcoming Desktop Theater Mode. And Sony will offer a similar feature for non-VR PlayStation 4 content with PlayStation VR. But Virtual Desktop got here first, at least for PC users who own the HTC Vive or Oculus Rift.

Running Virtual Desktop

When you launch Virtual Desktop, which you download from Steam, you're prompted to choose between running it in SteamVR mode or Other VR mode. SteamVR mode activates the SteamVR interface, if it isn't already running, and then runs Virtual Desktop. Choosing Other VR mode simply launches Virtual Desktop through your non-SteamVR headset (which, currently, is only the Oculus Rift until other SteamVR headsets are released). Since the Oculus Rift automatically runs the Oculus VR interface when you use it and can use SteamVR as an additional interface layer, both modes worked perfectly with our test Rift. The software also ran without a problem in SteamVR mode on our HTC Vive.

After you choose the mode, Virtual Desktop opens to your preferred display settings. The default setting is a curved screen that takes up 115 degrees of your view, displayed as though it were 2 meters away. It also places you in the center of a purple nebula, with pleasant ambient music playing in the background. All these things can be easily changed within the Virtual Desktop settings, which appear in the middle of the screen when you run the software.

Display Options

You can choose between a curved or flat screen, adjust the size from 15 to 360 degrees, and set the simulated distance at half a meter to 10 meters. The distance doesn't affect the screen size at all, but rather adjusts the 3D effect to give the impression of it being closer or further away. You can also set the software to display side-by-side 3D (for older and more esoteric head-mounted displays that require manually adjusted video outputs), show a variety of performance charts, and mirror what the headset is seeing to a separate window on the computer's monitor. That last option is handy if you have more than one monitor, but it can produce a dizzying hall-of-mirrors if you look at it from your headset. You can also re-center the virtual screen based on wherever you're physically looking with a button. 

The most compelling setting to play with is Environment. The default is the aforementioned purple nebula, a colorful, 360-degree starscape that reminds me of the opening credits to Star Trek: The Next Generation. You can switch this background for two different black-and-reddish starscapes, the rings of a planet, a grassy hill at sunrise, a photo studio, or a home theater. You can also simply turn the backgrounds off and use Virtual Desktop as a screen floating in a sea of blackness.