VR, Oculus Rift & Co

Man, i don't come here often, but there are some times i remember with a bit of nostaligia when i was an active wipeout HD pilot...

Guys(& girls), i tried an oculus rift dk2 some time ago with several game/demos ... and i pre-ordered a CV1 oculus rift (the retail version) a few weeks ago.
I saw in some thread with strange video for gear VR and some stuff( i am not personnaly convince the immersion in a gear VR is good, head tracking & stuff ... ) but i didn't find any proper thread to worship this new techno

The immersion you get in an Oculus rift is something i never experienced till i tried one. You guys should really try some as soon as you can. I guess it would be about the same feeling in the sony VR headset, or htc vive

I mean, simply beeing on a roller coaster is great, so ...I cannot imagine how amazing it would be able to play wipeout in VR... it would be mind blowing, it literraly would change everything, the speed sensation, the antigrav sensation, everything ...
bwaaaaaa maaaaaaaaan that would be soooooooooo goooooooooood !!!!!!

To me, Sony will have to resuscitate Wipeout for this, now guys, it's mandatory that one day, there is a wipeout in VR, you'll know when you try one of these VR headset :)
and this day, we will meet again in game, i know that !

cheers !
chboing

R8 have said that they want to eventually make Formula Fusion playable with a VR headset.

The problem [if you see it as a problem] is that the minimum graphic card power in PC spec's needed to run a Oculus rift are pretty high, a GTX 970 or AMD 290, which cost as much as a PS4.
Sony's VR headset is supposabley going to cost roughly the same as the Oculus, if it's as good as the Oculus, who knows?

Either way, forking out US$600 for either headset is going to put them out of the reach of most I would think, especially if you need to factor in the cost of a new PC built to the spec's needed to run the Oculus, you'd want to be a avid gamer.
Maybe not as painful on the wallet for PS4 owners though.

It might go the way of 3D gaming and not really take off, which although fun [I sometimes play HD in 3D ] is a bit tiring on the eyes after a while , and playing online you really take a performance hit to such an extent that it is pretty much impossible to come in the first 3, let alone win a race, I kind of expect the same would happen with Sony's VR headset running off a PS4.

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Originally Posted by chboing

I guess it would be about the same feeling in the sony VR headset, or htc vive

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Sony will have a hard time achieving VR-performance (e.g. 90 fps for two eyes) considering the PS4 was supposed to make 1080p a reality, but even them who have the fastest console can hardly have a stable 1080p@60Hz (for one eye). I mean real 1080p 3D rendering, not just the trick of 720p 3D + 1080p HUD (which, even in this case, don’t always run at 60 fps). Not to mention 1080p is barely enough for VR.

HTC Vive is a much better experience, but will be far more expensive and… you need a room exclusively for it.

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Originally Posted by chboing

I mean, simply beeing on a roller coaster is great, so ...

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Yeah that’s pretty much the apology of the technology. We have to be careful, though. For example you can find lots of 3D video clips that look great for the demonstration, but 3D movies rarely improve the filming experience (and sometimes even lower it). But I think racing games will be one of the very few gaming genres that can greatly benefit from VR.

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Originally Posted by chboing

it would be mind blowing, it literraly would change everything, the speed sensation, the antigrav sensation, everything ...

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One of the “convenient” things about human brain, is that most of the sensations comes from the inner ear. Which is both a blessing and a curse for VR.

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Originally Posted by blackwiggle

The problem [if you see it as a problem] is that the minimum graphic card power in PC spec's needed to run a Oculus rift are pretty high, a GTX 970 or AMD 290

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And the best part of it, even with this system you’re not guaranteed to have a good experience. We need to improve hardware and software to ensure (i) the framerate is steady (ii) the framerate is high and (iii) the resolution is high. Software usually tackle (ii) and (iii), for example by lowering graphics details. But currently the biggest —and most important— issue is the steadiness. New graphics cards will be released this year, and they shall improve it (with high-end hardware but also lower ends). Time will tell if this will be enough.

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Originally Posted by blackwiggle

and playing online you really take a performance hit to such an extent that it is pretty much impossible to come in the first 3, let alone win a race

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Talking about online, a funny point that’s been overlooked is that netcodes will screw VR sometimes. There is an interesting insight of framerate vs. fairness in online games : http://guidescroll.com/2015/07/heroe...ation-and-fix/ (see section So why does it make my game stutter?). The article is focused around FPSes and MOBAs but can be applied to any game. Be it because of stutter or because of rubber-banding, those discrepancies are awful in VR. Stutter makes you sick (everyone knows about it), and rubber-banding draws attention (which is bad because there isn’t eye-tracking yet).

With my last PC build [i7 4790, Nvidia GTX 970 G1 gaming card, 32 GB RAM, Samsung 850 pro SSD's ] It happens to fall into the "Oculus Rift ready"... more a coincidence than anything else, as I built it for processing and merging large photographic files that were taking ages to do, this was before the Oculus ready specs were released

The fact that the Oculus needs 3 free USB 3 ports plus a HDMI port makes me suspect that it isn't just the graphic card that is going to be taxed.

Nvidia have been releasing new tweaked drivers for GTX 970 cards and it's even more powerful cards, specifically for the Oculus according to my update notes, on average about every 45 -50 days [at least it's painless, as the software does it automatically ]

Currently playing Formula Fusion with none optimised code at the highest quality setting I get around 1200 to 1300 FPS [I'm just posting this now in case I forget ]
If Formula Fusion does get VR support [ from what I understand, games made VR compatible will have to be a separate version of the game, rather than just being able to turn VR On or Off in PC settings], and I actually bother to buy into this stuff, I can come back to this post and do some comparisons of what the actual frame rates are.

As for that Frame rate V's Fairness article.
The point made about ISP's basically over subscribing is my current problem.

I initially setup a internet account with a ISP called Netspace back in Feb 2005, which was a premium service ....everything was fine with them for 5 years, then they sold out to another larger ISP called iiNet in 2010...things stayed pretty much the same while under them, until they got in a massive legal fight with motion picture group over them wanting iiNet to cut off internet access to people it claimed had downloaded things via Bit Torrent....to cut a long story short, during this time iiNet's biggest rival TPG bought a 15% stake in iiNet ...... come to June 2015 and TPG now owns iiNet, and since then my internet has suddenly gone down the toilet.

They sent me a Email saying, thanks for being a loyal customer for 10 years, we are now updating you download limit to 500GB per month.....my internet is now so slow I doubt I could download 500GB over a month.

And is the reason I don't play online any more .....needless to say, I'm looking for a new ISP that isn't likely to be taken over by TPG.

I think your PC will do fine for the 2nd and 3rd issues I mentioned (framerate and resolution). I don’t know about steadiness. Since you are way above the top, it could be good, but I don’t know what the GTX 970 can *guarantee*. This word is the key. Currently most graphics cards are acceptable because if you drop a frame every now and then it is still okay with LCDs, but they can not guarantee the steadiness and in fact it happens pretty often even with the fastest configurations (for example AMD had a lot of stutter with their Crossfire technology until recently). With VR, if you drop just a frame every 10 secs it can be a pain. But I may be pessimistic, maybe the current gen (like your GTX 970) is able to guarantee it.

I feel sorry for you, man. I don’t know much about ISPs in Australia but it sucks. What’s more, Online gaming outside North America and Europe usually tends to be crappy because the most servers are hosted in the US or Western Europe, and the distance plays a major role in network connections.

here they comes, VR racers wipeout style :)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8UmKHgYDxAw
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V3Vk25D5NHQ

AG racers are alive and kicking ! That's just fantastic, although i don't think i'll make the jump to VR yet (rig not powerful enough for VR and i don't wan't to spend 2000-2500€ on a rig and VR headset if i'm not sure about using it).

Looks like a mix between F-Zero and Ballistics.

Looks so much more intense than... Formula Fusion.

I just received a Email if I wanted to pre-order a Sony VR headset, release is slated for October.
Price in Australia is $549 from JB HiFi [Aus wide the biggest electronic hardware seller]

One caveat is you need the Sony camera for the PS4 for it to operate, that's another AUS $84
So ATM Aus $630 for the system.

To make that relative, a new 1TB PS4 bundled with games costs Aus $549

It would seem that Sony has realised that the PS4 in it's current guise isn't going to be powerful enough, graphic processing wise, to run it's new VR helmet properly [or do 4k gaming - which I doubt we shall see anytime soon anyway]

It's answer to the problem.... release a new PS4 version.

Expect a announcement from Sony before Oct.
http://www.gamespot.com/articles/new.../1100-6436054/

I imagine those who have pre ordered a Sony VR helmet are going to be pissed off when finding out they now also need to update a recently bought console to use it properly, plus the need for a PS4 eye and two move VR controllers.

Dispite this problem, the Sony from reports I have from those that have tried it against the final release version of the Oculus Rift say the Sony is smoother visually.

The Australian gaming show "Good Game" recently did a pretty good review of the Sony VR helmet, see from 5.40 into this video to watch it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ozcg...U8ighB&index=7

I'll be trying out the PSVR at EGX Rezzed tomorrow, will let you know how it is

Ask about the new PS4, somebody should know something.

Everyone is aware of the low performance of the “new generation” (PS4/XONE) which was expected to provide a full-HD experience, namely 1080p@60Hz. Apart from a few exceptions, this is not the case, and now we are looking for 2×1080p@60Hz —which we know isn’t even enough for a comfortable VR experience— so it is pretty obvious we have a problem, Houston.

I won’t go into the many rumors that have popped up over the past few months, we will see soon enough what Sony (and others) have to offer to fix this. What we do know, however, is that a VR-compatible game runs on the PS4 with graphics quality lower than usual in order to make sure the framerate is stable. Many people talk about PS3.5-ish to describe this quality.

Just got back, and I have to say I am very impressed. Mind you, I'm easily impressed with this sort of stuff anyway but still... ;)

I was given the London Heist demo to try out. First thing I should say is that the depth is amazing. Forget all the old 3D glasses bollocks, I have one dodgy eye so that never worked for me. This does, and it does so very well. Motion tracking was spot on, and the framerate was high enough and steady enough that there weren't any motion sickness issues. The image did seem a little blurry to me, but I'm putting that down to the dodgy eye. Naturally the image does look a bit pixellated, and that's simply down to how close your eyes are to the screen.

I would have liked to have a look at the Vive as a comparison, but the queues were enormous.

It seems there is a trade off to be made regarding detail or pixelation with both the Oculus Rift and Sony.

Sony have decided to opt for larger pixels that show less detail, but makes the visuals seem smoother when so close to the eye, where those who have compared it to the Rift have said the Rift is more detailed, but also more pixelated.

I think a new type of screen, 8k OLED type probably. would be needed to help sort this problem, but then it's implementation, apart from just price, would cause just as many new ones with the needed processing power to run it at any decent frame rate, plus the fact that OLED screens suffer the same problems of early Plasma screens showing static images.... screen burn in, and video games would be one of the worse offenders for that.

The only way I could see a way around the screen burn in problem would be if there was a separate information section [LED type] at the bottom of the screen like you see in a digital camera, that would mean all games made would have to pretty much conform to a standard regarding in game feedback of the players status.

I was tempted to pre order a Sony headset, but then remembered how many other times I've been bitten as a early adoptee.[I've got a trunk full of different controllers, steering wheels etc bought over the years and hardly used]
And I also remember how long it was before any half decent games were released for the PS4, nearly 18 months, some would say still waiting ..... add to this that it's quite possible that a new more powerful version of the PS4 will be needed to run this headset....Argh.. No thanks, not at the moment.

I wonder what the 'Dead Pixel" policy on a Sony VR headset is, it would want to be zero tolerance, as any dead pixel would absolutely ruin the experience... I'm sure we will end up reading tales of woe regarding this, and if Sony is true to form it will either not acknowledge the problem, or will be very slow to fix it, and then make it a convoluted procedure to get a faulty unit fixed or replaced ..... sorry Sony, I just don't trust you to do the right thing any more.

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Originally Posted by blackwiggle

OLED screens suffer the same problems of early Plasma screens showing static images.... screen burn in, and video games would be one of the worse offenders for that.

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Granted that all games that run on the headset will track your head orientation, you should hardly have static images. At worst the User Interface will be problematic but then you just need to design a dynamic UI to lower significantly the issue. Most modern FPSes already use dynamic UIs.