1. fraggler

    fraggler A Happy & Busy Life

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    Has anyone played around with mobile AR/VR platforms? I toyed around with Google Cardboard a while back, and was thinking of taking a baby step up to either Google Daydream or Samsung Gear VR (I have a Note 8).
     
  2. Kattefjaes

    Kattefjaes Mostly Harmless

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    I have both Daydream and a Vive, and have owned Rift DK2 and CV1, for what it's worth.
     
  3. Elnrik

    Elnrik Super Friendly

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    Not to derail his question, but Vive vs Rift... Which is better?

    I'm kind of waiting for a improved Rift, but I'm not sure why.
     
    Last edited: Jan 24, 2018
  4. SineDave

    SineDave Friend

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    Right now, it's a tossup. Rift wins in comfort, Vive in immersion/tracking for me. I think the Vive Pro, or the Pimax 8K are the real cool products on the Horizon.
     
  5. Kattefjaes

    Kattefjaes Mostly Harmless

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    They're both good, they both have their downsides. Assume I'm talking about the default Vive, not the new one, but here's the executive summary:

    Rift:

    • Lighter, more comfortable.
    • Built-in headphones*
    • Slightly less "screen door effect" around pixels
    • Tracking is finicky, and more limited.
    • Ideally needs a third sensor. Needs two USB-3 and at least another USB-2 socket, and an active USB repeater for rear sensor.
    • Rift touch controllers are light and comfy, and very usable

    Vive

    • Heavier and more clunky.
    • Less comfortable with the default floppy strap, pressure on cheeks and no built-in headphones*
    • Ideally needs "deluxe audio strap" added to be usable
    • Sensor system vastly superior, better coverage and easier setup. Lighthouses just need a mains socket and sync wirelessly**
    • Lighthouses make a high-pitched whine, so you'll want them switched off when not in use.
    • Vive controllers are clunky and somewhat annoying- but the "knuckles" in development look interesting.


    Having tried both, I preferred the Vive, with the deluxe audio strap. Tempted to get the new Vive. However, the Rift is decent too, if you can cope with the ballache of getting a decent setup running- and it's cheaper.

    Hope that's slightly helpful, at least.



    * I know, we're audio freaks, but it's worth a step down, trust me. Fighting with the wires and dodgy connections with third party headphones makes using them a chore. Been there, done that. Weirdly, it's a dealbreaker.

    ** It's weird, they are basically the opposite- the Rift sensors are cameras, the kit is covered in IR LEDs. The Vive kit is covered in sensors and the lighthouses bathe the room in IR lasers.. but that works, it's more or less millimetre accurate, and very low latency.
     
  6. Kattefjaes

    Kattefjaes Mostly Harmless

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    I wouldn't touch the Pimax with your bargepole, frankly.
     
  7. Jh4db536

    Jh4db536 Friend

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    Can't wait for them to remaster DukeNukem3D, Doom, wolfsenstein3D, and Metro2033


    Need the interactive environment like Arktika1 and teleportation of RoboRecall. They need content first!!
    They could take this to the next level real quick.
     
  8. Kattefjaes

    Kattefjaes Mostly Harmless

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    Except that you don't just "remaster", nor is it "real quick", sadly. It requires a lot of work, often rebuilding the UI and interaction from the ground up as well as sometimes needing to revise content. If you just do the bare minimum, you end up with a poor product- and the bare minimum is still a lot of work and time. Some really simplistic stuff like the Serious Sam games more or less survive this process, but most don't.

    Even attempting to rework from the ground up with some shared assets can be hit and miss. Doom VFR is an excellent (massively disappointing) example of that. Superhot VR (which may still be one of the greatest VR games to date) is a rare example of one that made the leap- but it was heavily transformed in the process.

    (Seriously, everyone with a decently-tracked VR setup should try Superhot VR. It's really absorbing.)

    No, fundamentals of interaction, locomotion and presentation are still being hashed out. There's not even a proper playbook to crib from. Some of the better VR games have been ones which thought long and hard about the mechanics and built the content around them. There's nothing quick or easy about that, sadly. Shortcuts will just produce fiddly, awkward and vomit-inducing games.

    Stuff like "In Death" or "Sprint Vector" are signs of hope for truly entertaining VR gaming. They are blazing their own trails, largely, though.
     
    Last edited: Feb 25, 2018
  9. fraggler

    fraggler A Happy & Busy Life

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    Mixed feelings about this. DukeNukem3D was the first networked multiplayer I ever played. Such fond memories of screaming at others down the hall of my freshman dorm as we played on the LAN. That said, I have tried several times to play it again and nearly always get nauseated within a few minutes. I hope they do A LOT of rework so that I am not projectile vomiting immediately.
     
  10. Cspirou

    Cspirou They call me Sparky

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    Star Wars: Dark Forces always made me nauseous. Most FPS are okay, but I eventually reach a point where I get nauseated. It's part of the reason why I avoid them and prefer RTS like Starcraft.
     
  11. bengo

    bengo Friend

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    @Kattefjaes because they're a new/unknown brand, or some other reason?

    I've experienced the (original) Vive at a friend's place, once you got past the obvious SDE it was very cool and immersive. I'm more interested in the immersive video side but gaming not so much.

    I'm still on the fence for buying any VR kit myself, if you don't already have a high-spec PC then it's quite a big upfront cost - and that's before you think about even a 2D 360 camera rig. I find it hard in general to start off with budget gear, have a bad tendency to quickly go all-or-nothing when getting into a new hobby...
     
  12. Kattefjaes

    Kattefjaes Mostly Harmless

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    A mixture of things. First, the unit itself is somewhat sucky. The optics and/or the undistort convolutions are off, it looks unpleasant in the periphery. It's all a bit of a lash-up too, prone to latency and instability. It doesn't work very well at all. It feels like they're over-extended, over-promised and flailing somewhat. I really hope that changes. I'd love to have my pessimistic expectations completely overturned.

    The second is the skeevy claim of being 8k. No, two 4k displays isn't how you do 8k, where's the other half of the pixels? That's just a personal dislike of shady kickstarter salesmanship though.

    Lastly, and most importantly, upping physical resolution without upping temporal resolution, let alone at the cost of temporal resolution is bad. The product of the two combined is called the "dynamic resolution", and reflects the display's ability to depict detail in motion. Essentially, if you increase the resolution, if you want motion not to look like shit, you need to increase the framerate. It's why 4kp25 looks terrible- I'd much rather see 1080p100 for fast motion like games for example.

    This is a basic feature of how displays work, even if we don't start considering gnarly stuff like the filter function of the eye, but it's super-important for VR. Because it's your entire visual input, right in yo' face, problems like that are really obvious. Moreover, the holy grail for VR is called "presence", where things work well enough that your brain stops acting like it's watching a screen. It's hard to pull off, requiring a balance of spatial rez/temporal rez and display persistence/shuttering (too short and you unmask the saccading of your eyes and stuff flashes weirdly, too much and it looks like mush. One thing is for damn sure, though, having shitty temporal resolution hurts it a lot more than crappy spatial resolution, or the SDE.

    If you don't believe me, trying the ILM-backed "The Void" VR thing, with higher res, slightly laggy displays with crap framerates.. completely free of that spooky magic you get when you're playing Elite Dangerous at 90fps on a Vive, and you shove the throttle on your desk, and your in-game self opens the throttle.. and your brain falls for it :)

    It's one of those things that people who have never experienced it don't get- which you probably know from trying to describe the benefits of really good audio to a civilian.

    If it were me, and I was looking to spaff slightly too much, I'd consider a Vive Pro when they're on sale (soon), assuming no big gotchas emerge- so far so good.The ecosystem looks pretty solid still, and the pro has the integrated strap/headphones, similar to the audio strap on the Vive, which makes it roughly as comfy as the Rift (if a bit heavier).

    Don't discount the built-in headphones, either. From experience, there's more immersion in not having to fight with external "good" headphones, and just dropping it onto your head. It's sufficiently irritating that it may actually stop you using the headset in the end. This might be one of the few use cases where you or I would be wise to settle for "good enough" audio. Works fine, in context.

    Do bear in mind, however, that the Dunning-Krugerrand enthusiasts have caused an approximate doubling in the cost of high-end graphics cards, so budget that in. You'll want a nice fast machine in general to do it justice, in fact.

    Well, you did ask!

    Edit:

    One more thing, if you're tempted by a wireless connection, I'd suggest getting that after a month or two of using it all wired. The reason for this is that you'll be better placed to judge if the unpleasant compression artifacts and added latency are a good tradeoff for the blissful freedom from that annoying cable. Try and get used to your new setup, and then if poss, find a place demoing the wireless stuff, so you can see if you can live with the trade-offs.

    Hope that helps.
     
    Last edited: Apr 5, 2018
  13. bengo

    bengo Friend

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    Holy shit, what a good answer though, thanks!

    I was considering one of the multitude of Windows AR compatible things - purely as a stop gap which can maybe handle video (no gaming) on my current modest IrisPro rig. I think the panel is in many cases identical to the Vive Pro, but I'm not sure the Vive subsystem will even attempt to run without an ATi or Nvidia card. So going the Vive route really would be an all or nothing at the moment for me.
     
  14. Kattefjaes

    Kattefjaes Mostly Harmless

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    Yeah, you need a proper beefy video card to do VR well. Realistically, I'd look at a 1080ti (annoyingly, as they're massively inflated now, and noises about a new gen have started).

    Also, be aware that even with a good video card, compatibility with the OpenVR/SteamVR stuff can be a bit hit and miss with the Windows Mixed Reality stuff, plus the controller tracking tends to be pretty poor, being "inside-out" style from the headset, suffering from inaccuracy and lots of occlusion issues. (You know you'd be tempted to try to run games/experiences on it, don't deny it!)

    That said, if you just want to watch 360 video (which is kinda underwhelming, tbh), you could also do that in Daydream or GearVR if your phone supports it. Obviously a chance of being lower quality, if the panel on the phone isn't crazy- but that's less of an issue, as a lot of 360 video looks heavily compressed, and obviously comes in at a pants framerate too. It's a much more disappointing experience all-round, but 360 video is fairly underwhelming even on a high end PC VR rig. It doesn't really scratch the itches very well.

    (There are a few semi-cool Daydream things. Virtual Virtual Reality is a standout title, in a sort of Stanley Parable/Job Simulator way)

    There are also standalone headsets kinda equivalent to Daydream/GearVR paired with a good phone on the way fairly soon- both HTC and Oculus have stuff in the pipeline. I'd be tempted to look at those for your first intermediate, once they come out- they will probably be a bit better as an overall experience than WMR via Iris graphics - assuming you don't want to go full fat right away.
     
    Last edited: Apr 5, 2018
  15. zerodeefex

    zerodeefex SBAF's Imelda Marcos

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    I work in the industry. Honestly, the only decent displays today (I've used them all) are the Samsung Odyssey and Vive Pro. I stole the Vive pro headset from work one evening to take home and swap into my Vive setup and it was damn nice.

    In terms of content, I'd argue that PSVR is just wrecking today. There are some fun experiences here and there but Moss and Wipeout VR are by far the two best games I've had the pleasure of playing in VR.
     
  16. BenjaminBore

    BenjaminBore Friend

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    How is PSVR overall now, have they managed to get better results out of those MOVE controllers since launch?

    Judging from a youtube video alone the PS4 Pro seems to have had a noteworthy improvement on image quality.
     
  17. Kattefjaes

    Kattefjaes Mostly Harmless

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    The tracking is awful, but there's a solid library of interesting mostly indie stuff that mostly makes it work OK. This is a nice little read about the PSVR for the indie gaming funsies:

    https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/...n-vr-is-beginning-to-feel-a-bit-like-the-vita

    Also, it's comfy as hell. The industrial design is on-point.
     
  18. zerodeefex

    zerodeefex SBAF's Imelda Marcos

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    Tracking is hot garbage, tracking + controllers only work when the camera can see the headset and controllers (so no turning all the way around), even the ps4 pro is underpowered as a computer powering VR, and the move controllers feel super rudimentary compared to other solutions.

    But it is super comfy, works well with glasses and has the best content library among the competition. I’d say if I left the space and liquidated my headsets, it’s the only gaming one I’d keep
     
  19. fraggler

    fraggler A Happy & Busy Life

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    Since my girlfriend has taken over the TV binging on Chinese dramas in the evenings, I was thinking about getting something to use with my Note 8 to watch movies on. Are most sets like the Daydream and Gear VR basically just magnifying glasses like the Cardboard? Any recommendations on best comfort with glasses?
     
  20. Kattefjaes

    Kattefjaes Mostly Harmless

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    More or less, yes, with a tiny bit of extra smarts (NFC, a controller, and in the case of the Gear VR, some extra tilt sensors).

    For what it's worth, the Daydream 2 fits over glasses just fine. I don't recall problems with the Gear VR either, though it has been a while.
     

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