Oculus Rift Catch-All

Their reactions are fascinating...

Seems the Oculus VR is more universal than I had anticipated.

Oculus introduces the Samsung Gear VR Innovator Edition

IMAGE(http://s3.amazonaws.com/static.oculusvr.com/website/2014/09/blog_hero_withLogo.jpg)

The culmination of that work is Gear VR Innovator Edition, an add-on to the new Samsung Galaxy Note 4, using the phone’s GPU/CPU to power the device and the Quad HD low-persistence 5.7 inch 1440p AMOLED screen as the display. One of the best aspects of mobile VR is the completely untethered, easy-to-use experience: you connect the Note 4 to the headset, you put it on, and you’re in.

Gizmodo has a review of it

Huh, that's interesting. I wonder how much the thing will cost. I also wonder about how it'll do with the phone handling all the work. I was under the impression that it was going to take a pretty beefy computer to power the Rift at the 1080p/60fps you really need. This thing's going to require pushing even more pixels.

Excellent! Now you can take your goofy awkwardness out into public!

3d movies and some low key 3d experiences and games should do quite well on such a device. I seriously doubt you'll get any astonishing visual experiences though. If you look at top of the line FPS's on mobile. Now picture having to (basically) render it twice and never-ever let the FPS go below the refresh rate of the phone (Im assuming 75hz because Im pretty sure thats the same exact screen as in the Rift DK2).

I doubt even the Bioshock remake runs that well.

Chaz wrote:

Huh, that's interesting. I wonder how much the thing will cost. I also wonder about how it'll do with the phone handling all the work. I was under the impression that it was going to take a pretty beefy computer to power the Rift at the 1080p/60fps you really need. This thing's going to require pushing even more pixels.

Not if you are providing a different experience.. this isnt going to run Elite or other PC games which will require that horsepower.. this is probably more for media and light mobile type gaming.

True. I'm interested to see what they come up with. It has the potential to make flights a heck of a lot easier to deal with. Settle down, put on your phone VR thing and some headphones, and watch a movie on a giant virtual movie screen. Until your battery dies.

Chaz wrote:

True. I'm interested to see what they come up with. It has the potential to make flights a heck of a lot easier to deal with. Settle down, put on your phone VR thing and some headphones, and watch a movie on a giant virtual movie screen. Until your battery dies.

and then use it to beat the person in front of you that tries to recline their seat?

Chaz wrote:

True. I'm interested to see what they come up with. It has the potential to make flights a heck of a lot easier to deal with. Settle down, put on your phone VR thing and some headphones, and watch a movie on a giant virtual movie screen. Until your battery dies.

Then you put in another $10 battery out of your pocket. The advantage of swappable batteries

I really can't see playing games with this, but I could see watching video on it.

JC wrote:

Gizmodo has a review of it.

With a 2560 x 1440 resolution on a 5.7-inch Super AMOLED display, the Note 4's screen hits an astronomical 515 PPI. That's dumb high, second only to LG's G3. It's also higher than the display in the (fantastic) Oculus Rift DK2, which actually uses a re-purposed 386 PPI Note 3 display. The +100 jump in PPI makes for a screen that looks fantastically high quality—the best VR screen I've laid eyes on so far—but it's not quite perfect yet. There's still a very noticeable "screen door effect" where you can see edges of black around the pixels. It's not damning or anything, but it's still very noticeable, just about as noticeable as it is on the Oculus Rift DK2.

Interesting. So it's not just about pure resolution then. The final screen for the Oculus is going to need to be a custom job because it cannot have the touch screen layer on it. I'm pretty sure that's part of what causes the screen door effect.

At the end, you get Carmack saying Carmack stuff.

I finally got to play with an Oculus this weekend and thought I'd add my impressions.

A friend wound up with a DK1 after his brother upgraded to a DK2, so all of this is from the first one. I don't know how much the DK2 improves things but as of right now I'm less excited than I was.

He started me off with Titans of Space. This was fine, though I didn't really feel as if I was in a 3D environment. It felt more like looking at something on a low-res screen. The screen door effect (and dust on his screens) were also distracting. The oddest thing to me in it was looking down and seeing my "legs" and "arms" but my "arms" weren't doing what my actual arms were doing.

Then he fired up Technolust. This is your standard dystopian cyberpunk adventure. I was fine at the start when my character was just sitting at a desk. The immersion was impressive; I could look around, look out the window, see dust motes floating in the light from the window. Seemed good.

Then I started moving.

Moving in a straight line was fine, but the instant I turned my character in game (as opposed to turning my head to look in a different direction) my stomach started complaining. I played for a while but after about 15 or 20 minutes I had to stop and take the headset off. I never got sick but my stomach was definitely complaining by that point. Someone else took over and had a similar problem in even less time.

After a bit I tried again. This was a different game the name of which I can't remember; it was an underground dungeon/maze that I had to find my way out of. I played long enough to see the first "monster" then had to stop again. I didn't try again and it took me about an hour to get back to "normal".

So I don't know how well Oculus and I are going to get along. The resolution didn't bother me. Looking around didn't bother me. But the second I turned my character in-game without physically turning in reality as well my stomach immediately started complaining. The person whose unit I was playing with seemed to think the DK2 would be better at that since it tracks head movement better but I think it was the lack of head movement corresponding to in-game movement that was giving me problems.

I know others have had similar problems. Has anyone tried both the original and the DK2? Any feedback on reactions between the two?

From everything I've read, the V2 is a massive step up from the first one. Increased resolution means less screen door, but they say it's still there to some level. Keep in mind the DK1 is 2 years old.

I read some blurb recently (I can't remember where) that mentioned a solution for the motion issues that cuts out some frames or something from the image when it moves.

Saw this at PAX, and I don't think anyone had mentioned it here yet. I didn't do any hands on since I was generally avoiding lines.

Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes.

I wish someone at oculus would create a video display that didn't split the screen. As a watcher on a regular screen the double picture does nothing.

They're not for watchers on regular screens, I think.
My only 3d solution at the moment are clip-on red/cyan glasses, so I'm none too motivated to look up what to do with them.

JC wrote:

I wish someone at oculus would create a video display that didn't split the screen. As a watcher on a regular screen the double picture does nothing.

I was watching an Elite Dangerous Rift video on Tested's YouTube channel and they had one screen displayed as well as an exterior shot of the player playing and speaking commentary. It was kind of nice in a way and I hope becomes the default way people make Rift videos.

I can tell you, watching a video of something recorded in the rift by watching it in the rift is VERY disorienting. You have to watch someone move their head from the perspective of their eyes. Your eyes tell you you're moving your head and the rest of your brain disagrees. It's ... challenging

New prototype shown. This one called "Crescent Bay". Lighter, 360 degree tracking, headphones with 3D audio, etc.

IMAGE(http://s3.amazonaws.com/static.oculus.com/website/2014/09/oculus-crescent-bay-prototype2.png)

Hurry up and take my money.

MannishBoy wrote:

New prototype shown. ...360 degree tracking, headphones with 3D audio, etc.

They just added 360 deg tracking?
This is as shocking as when I learned they decided to put in positional tracking.
I'm glad they're taking the time to do this right at least, I really want to get one.

edit: They may not think the Gear VR will sell phones, but I've got a flip phone and people (my mom) keep telling me to get a smartphone....

RolandofGilead wrote:
MannishBoy wrote:

New prototype shown. ...360 degree tracking, headphones with 3D audio, etc.

They just added 360 deg tracking?
This is as shocking as when I learned they decided to put in positional tracking.
I'm glad they're taking the time to do this right at least, I really want to get one.

edit: They may not think the Gear VR will sell phones, but I've got a flip phone and people (my mom) keep telling me to get a smartphone....

I assume they just added IR emitters to the back to get the 360 degree tracking in. So the dots on the back of the straps.

IMAGE(http://s3.amazonaws.com/static.oculus.com/website/2014/09/oculus-crescent-bay-prototype3.png)

Not surprising that they're gradually extending/improving stuff they'd included before. These are prototypes, after all.

1440p or 4k. I know wishful thinking but that screen door effect kinda stinks.

Remember that driving two 1080p screens at high settings with low latency will take a beastly video card. Dual 4K would take SLI for sure, and even then you might not like it very much.

IMAGE(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/ByBq9gcIcAAKQdy.jpg:large)

Sounds like the Dev2 kits ordered by my work have been delivered. If everything goes according to plan I'll get to take one home to play with. I'll need to demo them at the tech conference we're hosting for our client districts. Equal parts excitement and dread.

As of 3 days ago, my DevKit2 was processing for delivery. w00t!

My DK2 finally showed up yesterday. Initial impressions were underwhelming until I got it dialed in correctly and changed the lenses. Then it became extremely convincing.

That said, apparently I'm particularly sensitive to the screen door effect because I could instantly see it and it never really went away. I demoed it for about 4 other people and they were less bothered. One of them couldn't even see it. Conversely, I don't seem to have the negative reaction to framerate drops that other people have. As long as it was humming along at 60 or above, I was totally fine with not getting the locked 75fps Oculus recommends.

As for motion sickness, I felt woozy for about 5 minutes when I was playing Half-Life 2. There is an adjustment period for non-seated experiences, I guess because the disconnect between what you're doing IRL and what you're doing in the Rift is so great. On the other hand, the seated/stationary demo "Don't Let Go" was incredibly convincing and definitely conveyed "presence."

Another thing: I really think that developers need to optimize a lot better before the consumer version comes out. I have a 660ti (which I knew would be inadequate, but I wanted to try) and I cannot get above 30fps on some of the demos, which is beyond the threshold for even me.

Joe and Jane Consumer aren't going to want to spring for a GTX980 to play this thing. It's fine to crank everything up to 11 for the devkits to show off all the pretties you made, but seriously...more people need to keep the hardware demands in mind as we get closer to release. I'm definitely going to upgrade in the next month or two to take better advantage, so I guess I'll be fine either way...but if this thing is going to have even a decent adoption rate, it's going to be incumbent upon developers to tone down the graphics a little.

As for the experience of being in the Rift, everyone who tried it agreed it was amazing. It's going to be difficult to describe what it's like to people without raising expectations to the point where they expect to be transported into the Matrix, but it's also hard not to go right for top-shelf hyperbole. There is no analog out there for this. People just need to try it.