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Cojawfee
May 31, 2006
I think the US is dumb for not using Celsius
Consumer VR has been out for several weeks now, so it's probably time for a new thread. The last thread was very old and was originally about using 3D glasses and monitors, not specifically VR. There are several different kinds of VR, so it's important to choose the one that's right for you. There are many different platforms and different headsets. There are many different opinions on which setup is best. I'll try to keep this as objective as possible and I won't compare my thoughts on which headset does what better. I will also request that you check any console warrior posts at the door. Criticism of a headset or platform is always welcome, but don't take it too far. The previous thread was already host to a few probations and a mod challenge due to people being console warriors for a computer peripheral.

Discord
Join the Goon VR Discord and you can talk to another human being once every few days.

Virtual Vocabulary
  • Virtual Reality (VR) - Thing we are talking about
  • Head Mounted Device (HMD) - The headset/goggles that you put on your face
  • Field of View (FOV) - How much you can see. It is measured in degrees either vertically, horizontally, or diagonally
  • Screen Door Effect (SDE) - When you can see the black void between pixels. Was very bad in early headsets, not as bad now
  • Shill - Anyone who says anything remotely nice or even someone who doesn't say enough bad things about a device you don't own



SteamVR

SteamVR is the headset agnostic platform by Valve. They aim to support as many headsets as possible which will make them the most money. If you use a headset on your PC, chances are SteamVR will support it at some point. It currently supports the HTC Vive, which it launched with, the Oculus Rift, and Hydra motion controllers. Steam has helpful icons in the store that will tell you what devices work with what game. It also lets you know whether a game is room scale, standing, or seated.

In order to use SteamVR, you have to go to steam and click the VR button to start it up. Once inside, the experience is pretty much as it says in the name. It's Steam just with VR. You can buy, install and play games all without leaving your headset. When you are in a game, you can access the Steam overlay by pressing your system button. You can customize SteamVR with environments using photospheres or fully 3D scenes. You can also have custom base stations, cameras, and controllers that show up to show where your various devices are.

Like with normal Steam, SteamVR games are kind of buy at your own risk with no guarantee on quality. Luckily there isn't much risk because refunds have been a thing for a while. What you are risking is your lunch. There's no vetting process so if someone gets their game on the store, you either have to try it or hope there are decent reviews. While there are great games on SteamVR, there's also some real stinkers that can give you VR sickness.

Oculus Home

Oculus Home is the proprietary platform for the Oculus Rift. It's very existence is a matter of controversy for some. Many people are upset that Oculus is trying to compete with Steam with what is arguably a worse product. Compounding this is the fact that Oculus store has exclusives as well as HMD specific DRM. In order to play a game with Home, you have to use an Oculus Rift. Some say this is akin to locking a game to a certain brand of monitor. It's currently a hot topic in the VR community. It is also sort of pointless as there are methods for making the games work on the HTC Vive as well.

Home is an "always on" experience. You simply place the Rift on your head, the screens turn on and you're good to go. While you can buy games from inside the headset and mostly install them, you still have to take the headset off and click a windows UAC prompt to fully install. It definitely has a lot less features than SteamVR. There is a friends list but it doesn't have much use. There's no customization so far. You are presented with a giant living room type setup with the store and library hovering in front of you.

Unlike Steam, Oculus Home has a comfort rating system for its games. It is not perfect but it will give you an idea of what to expect from the experience. The ratings are kind of arbitrary so take them with a grain a salt. Also unlike Steam, there are no refunds. Once you buy a game, that's it. Some people have had luck with truly bad games but it was made clear that they were given a one time deal to get a refund. Buy games at your own risk. And finally, there are no consumer ratings or reviews of games. There's no way to know how good a game is on the Oculus Store without looking it up somewhere else.

Playstation VR

Not much is known about PSVR as it does not come out until October. I include it here only because it is all but guaranteed to be the most popular VR platform as many people already have a PS4, some already have the motion controllers, and PSVR is the cheapest of the headsets. I can only assume that like Oculus Home and SteamVR, you will be able to buy games both on your TV and in the headset.




Oculus Rift

The Oculus Rift costs $399 USD. It comes with the headset, two tracking cameras, a remote, and two touch controllers. For people who previously bought a standalone rift, Touch can be purchased for $99 USD. It comes with the two controllers and another camera. Another camera can be purchased for $59 USD, and you can have up to four cameras. In ear headphones can be purchased for $49 USD, and they have the proprietary connector the current Rift headphones use. The Rift no longer comes with an xbox controller or wireless dongle, though some stores still might have old stock that does come with it.

The Touch controllers each have a trigger, a grip button, two face buttons, a joystick and an Oculus Home button.



HTC Vive

The HTC Vive costs $599 USD. It comes with the headset, two motion controllers, two base stations, and a lot of cables. It also comes with a breakout box. The breakout box sends power to the headset and will also convert minidisplayport to HDMI. With its motion controllers, Accesories are available on the HTC Vive website. This includes replacement controllers ($129.99 USD each), base stations ($134.99 each), a deluxe audio strap ($99.99), facial interfaces and cables.

Each motion controller has a trigger, two grip buttons on the side (though both act as the same button), a menu button, a system button for opening the SteamVR overlay, and a trackpad that can be just a trackpad or four separate buttons.

The Vive also has a forward facing camera. It can be set up so you can press the system button twice and a tron-like image appears on screen which shows a camera feed of what is in front of you. You can also set it up so it shows up as a normal color image attached to your controller while in the steam overlay. This is helpful for finding where you need to put your controllers down to take off the headset or if someone is in the room and you need to see them.

Those are the two main first generation headsets that are currently out. Each has pros and cons with the hardware and software. They both have the same resolution of 2160x1200, run at the same framerate of 90hz, and mostly do the same things. They are both pentile screens and have somewhat of a screen door effect. In the end it doesn't really matter, they both play VR games. Buy whichever you think is best. The following headsets aren't out yet (or maybe ever?) but have been announced.


PSVR

The PSVR will be released in October 2016 and costs $400 USD. You get the headset, two of the playstation motion controllers, and a PS4 camera. It also comes with a breakout box like the Vive, though it seems to do more than just transmit power and signals. The PS4 will be doing all the heavy lifting with VR while the breakout box will send signal to the headset as well as an unwarped image to the TV. While this headset is only 1080p compared to the 2160x1200 of the other two headsets, it is full RGB stripe and is 120hz vs 90hz. This means there shouldn't be much of any screen door effect, color range should be more balanced and a smoother picture. Because of the ease of entry, this is likely to be the most successful of the three headsets despite technically having some weaker specs. While the other two headsets are great, this is the headset that needs to gain traction with average consumers if VR is going to take off for real this time. There are rumors that the PSVR might also work on PC. If this is true, expect it to also be supported by SteamVR.


Open Source VR

OSVR is releasing a new version of their headset, HDK 2.0, in July, and it will cost $399. This new headset has a lot of parity with the two major headsets currently out. It has a 2160x1200 resolution across two screens, 90hz refresh rate, an a 100hz tracking camera. They are also applying a coating to the lenses which is supposed to lessen screen door effect. It also appears they are adding some sort of per eye focusing. This seems to be a great way for someone to get a headset that is pretty close to the experience afforded with the more expensive headsets at a more affordable price. They currently have no motion controller solution but there are some third party controllers that should work with the OSVR software.


Acer/Starbreeze StarVR

StarVR is aiming to be a high end headset. Like the Vive and Rift, it has a separate screen for each eye except the screens are laid out in a landscape orientation. This gives a 210 degree field of view. Due to the high resolution, this headset will need a monster of a machine to run. While Acer is said to be designing desktops and laptops to run StarVR, it is most likely going to be used mostly in theme parks and VR arcades. If it makes it to the consumer market, this should be the most immersive headset available, if you have a PC that can run it.


Fove

The main feature of this device is foveated rendering which is basically eye tracking and dynamic resolution. This headset tracks your eye movements which it then sends to the SDK which changes the resolution of whichever part of the screen you're looking at. The basic idea is that only a very narrow range of your vision is actually sharp. Your peripheral vision is very blurry and can't see details. This can be used to render the entire scene at a low resolution to save on graphics power and then render whatever you're looking at at a higher level of detail. This allows for better performance and higher quality graphics than a normal headset can offer. It features a single 1440p display running at 60 hz and it does eye tracking at 120hz. No word on what kind of positional tracking will be used whether it be SteamVR Lighthouse or Oculus Constellation or even their own tracking.

This headset started off as a kickstarter and is currently in waitlist stage. According to the timeline on their website, it should have already started shipping developer kits. It could end up being vaporware at this point. I only include it because of the foveated rendering. This is an important technology that the other headset manufacturers are already working on which hopefully will be available in the second generation HMDs. If this headset ever makes it to market, it will be interesting to see how eye tracking works out.



GearVR

GearVR was the first mobile VR device. It is made through a partnership of Oculus and Samsung that only works with Samsung phones. It uses its own version of Oculus Home and has some onboard IMUs which are better than the IMUs already installed in phones. The resolution and pixel density is that of whichever phone you place inside it. There currently is no positional tracking solution for the GearVR so it is a seated only experience with only rotational tracking. You can either use the controls on the headset or a bluetooth controller.

Google Daydream

Google recently announced Google Daydream which will be a VR platform for the new version of Android. It appears to be a beefed up cardboard. They have shown off that there will be a device that is expected to work with the new Nexus phones and maybe other phones as well. There will be a controller that appears to be a more powerful Oculus remote. It has a couple buttons, a touchpad and some rotational tracking built in. Daydream will also include a home screen much like SteamVR and Oculus Home that allows you to find and access content.

Cojawfee fucked around with this message at 18:22 on Nov 16, 2017

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Cojawfee
May 31, 2006
I think the US is dumb for not using Celsius


Motion controllers

Motion controllers are by far the best way to interact with a game in VR (unless it is the type of game that lends itself to a different piece of niche hardware like a joystick or steering wheel). This is how you get true immersion because you can interact with the virtual world by picking things up and hitting buttons and switches in the world.

The Vive is the only headset with official motion controllers out at the moment. The Rift will have Touch when it releases later in the year. There is also the Razer Hydra which was released years ago. You can use this as a hacky way to have motion controllers with the rift while using SteamVR. There could maybe be the STEM Sixsense some day which is basically a better hydra. To be honest though, their ship seems to have sailed. By the time they release, Touch will probably already be out and there won't be much demand for third party motion controllers.

Gamepad/Joystick/Steering wheel/Oculus Remote

For games that don't necessarily require motion controllers, you can use any other kind of input device that other games would use. While this is a no brainer for flight sims and racing sims, there are some games that seem like they really should have used motion controllers but were released with gamepad support instead. The Oculus remote is just a D-Pad, and a few buttons. It is most useful if you are watching a movie with your Rift and need to do something but you don't want to turn a controller on. It is also great for using with the joystick or steering wheel. It's always on so you can quickly hit the oculus button to switch to something or reset tracking.

Leap motion

Leap motion is a way to turn your hands into motion controllers. It is a stereo IR camera that you mount to the front of your headset. While the tracking isn't perfect, it is pretty good and lets you have very accurate finger tracking. The big downside is that it only tracks your hands while you look at them.



There are two main types of tracking, inside-out and outside-in. While these methods are used for positional tracking, the main tracking is still done by IMU on both major headsets. IMUs have a higher refresh rate and are a lot more accurate than the various tracking solutions. The only problem is that they suffer from drift. Over time they will lose orientation and will drift away from center. Each tracking solution corrects this drift but neither is as fast as the IMUs.

Lighthouse

Lighthouse is the tracking technology created by Valve and is used by the HTC Vive. It is also free to be used by anyone else who decides to make a headset. It is inside-out tracking. There are two base stations that each flash IR LEDs and lasers. The headset and controllers have sensors that pick up the IR light and use the timing to figure out where in the play area they are. With this setup, mulitple sets of HMDs can use the same play area as the light house base stations do not communicate with the PC (except via bluetooth for starting up and shutting down).

As each base station is placed on either end of the play area, this allows for 360 degree tracking. This can end up with some occlusion issues though. The Vive only has sensors on the front of the HMD, so if you block too many sensors with a controller or your arm, you will lose tracking.

Constellation

Constellation is the tracking technology created by Oculus and is currently only used by the Rift though it may be possible for other hardware to use it as well. It is outside-in tracking. The headset and controllers are covered in IR LEDs. Each LED flashes out a coded ID number over time which is picked up by the tracking camera.

Constellation allows for 360 degree tracking of the headset with just one camera. The Rift has LEDs on both the front and the back of the headset allowing you to turn around while using it with just one camera. When touch is released, it will come with a second camera. Oculus has stated that this second camera will also be placed in front of you and not on the other side of the tracking area, unlike the Vive. While this will allow for more accurate tracking while facing front, this leaves no tracking for the controllers if you happen to turn around and they get occluded. Some unofficial testing as shown that the cameras work just fine when set up like a Vive, but it is not offically supported by oculus.

PSVR

PSVR tracking is much the same as it is with the sony motion controllers. It uses a color camera to track the location of the colored balls on the controllers as well as the colored faceplate on the headset. As it only has one camera, the PSVR will only ever support a forward facing environment. This means that many games will probably be designed from the ground up to work natively with PSVR/Oculus and have room-scale tacked on for the Vive/maybe Oculus.


You have a few choices for your play area limited only by how much physical space you have.

Room Scale
This is the most immersive of the three choices. You define your tracking area based on how much room you have in your physical space. Now you can walk around this area in VR to interact with your game. This is great for games that don't require you to move around a lot. You're going to want at least a 2 meter square area for this.

Standing
Like room scale but you just stand in place. You can move around a little bit don't don't stray too far. This isn't so much an option as it is a last resort. If you have the room, set up room scale. If you don't, then set up standing only.

Seated
This is more for games where you will be using more traditional controller. Third person camera games and cockpit games. Games using this play area will either keep everything in front of you, or you will need a swivel chair to turn around to look at other things.



Hardware
The Rift and Vive both take a different stance on audio. The Rift provides you with removable headphones. They are decent enough quality for use but they are on ear and not over ear. This means that sounds from outside the headset will creep in. They are also a proprietary connector and there is no onboard audio jack. If you want to roll your own audio on the Rift, you will need to either use wireless headphones or run a cable all the way back to your computer which means another cable.

The Vive comes with some questionable quality earbuds and a cable that comes out the back of the Vive that you can plug whatever headphones you want into. Keep in mind that this jack is on the headset, so if you have a long headphone cable, you have to find your own way to deal with that. Either get a shorter cable or use wireless headphones.

Software
When you launch a game in Oculus Home, it automatically sends the audio to the Rift headphones. If you want to use your own headphones that don't use the proprietary connector, you'll have to mess with some settings to get the audio to your headphones.

By default, SteamVR doesn't reroute any audio, it just comes out your normal speakers. If you use wireless headphones, no problem, you're good to go. The SteamVR settings allow you to have it change your audio settings when it starts up and shuts down. When SteamVR starts, you can have it set the default audio device to your headset. This does not mean "whatever headset," this means whichever headset you choose to be the audio device. If you have more than one headset and you have SteamVR change to the vive audio and then you try to use your Rift, it will still try to send audio to the Vive until you change the setting. This isn't ideal.

Microphones
Both the Rift and Vive have a microphone built in. I personally haven't used the Rift microphone but I have tried the Vive microphone. While it was decent enough quality, it's location meant it kept picking up my breathing as if I was blowing into microphone. Maybe that was just me though.



For running the PC based headsets you will need a modern i5 and a GTX970 equivalent or better. The new Pascal cards by Nvidia claim to have a lot of VR related features so that might be the biggest bang for your buck if you wish to focus on VR.

The Rift requires two USB3 ports (and a compatible USB3 chipset), and HDMI port and a USB2 port if you want to use the included xbox one controller. If you don't have a compatible USB3 chipset, you will have to buy a USB3 card that works with the Rift. Setup is pretty easy. Install the software, place the camera on your desk, go through the setup process and you should be running within minutes.

The Vive requires a USB 2 or 3 port (though you will want to use USB3 if you want to use the onboard camera), HDMI (or mini displayport, but bring your own cable), and three power outlets. Setup is not as easy as the Rift. You will have to mount the lighthouse base stations which requires drilling into your wall, mounting them to tripods, clamping them to something high, or using double sided tape (which has been known to fail). Once you've done that, you have to go through room scale set up which can take some time. SteamVR is a bit buggy and you might have to go through set up a few times. Vive setup can take anywhere from 30-90 minutes.

Hardware Issues

I don't really want to add this section but it might be useful information for people who are trying decide which headset to get. There have been some issues with each headset hardware wise. Some rifts have been shipped out with red tinted screens. Some people have both screens red tinted, others have only one screen red tinted. This can cause headaches and Oculus isn't exactly being very helpful with solving the problem. Another issue is with there being stuck vertical lines on some screens. This seems like an even bigger nobrainer RMA, but people are still having issues getting it fixed.

The Vive is also plagued with issues. Some people are reporting dead and stuck pixels. You might be thinking "it's just a dead pixel, who cares?" But then imagine your monitor has a dead pixel and then it's blown up to be 10 times its original size. A dead or stuck pixel in the center of your vision on a VR headset is going to kill your experience. While some people have gotten RMAs for it, others are still having trouble. Some HTC support reps are using a monitor dead pixel policy where just one isn't going to get you a replacement. While one dead pixel on a monitor might not be a big deal, one dead pixel on an HMD is a huge deal. There have also been reports of people receiving broken controllers but that's an easy RMA.

Oculus Screens

If the screens on your Rift look like they have a lot of backlight bleeding through, that could be due to the mura used to fix black smearing. If you want to get rid of this, try the following.

Steps to follow:
1- Disable OVRService from Task manager (Services tab)
2- Open Regedit.exe and go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE > Software
3- Right click on the Software folder > New > Key and name the new folder "Oculus"
4- Right click on the Oculus folder > New > DWORD 32bit Value and name it UseSpud
5- Set the value to 0
6- Start OVRService again and put on your headset
7- (Probably) be amazed at how everything looks clean and black
If it doesn't work for you or don't like it just delete the UseSpud file from Regedit and reboot

Keep in mind that editing your registry is done at your own risk. This shouldn't really damage anything, but always be careful.



There are already so many games available that it would be difficult to list all the good ones. I would list some, but after a few months there might be some even better games to start out with than the ones available now. It's best to just look through the catalogs of whichever storefront you wish to use and check out videos and reviews. To be honest, you just can't get an idea of how a game will play in VR until you actually play it in VR. A lot of games that seemed totally stupid when the concept was explained or when shown off in a video are actually a lot of fun when played.

I know I promised to remain objective but in this case, I think it's for the best. If you want to buy a game and it is available on both Steam and Oculus, buy it on steam. Some games sold on steam also give you the option of getting a key for the Oculus Store as well. Steam is just a better storefront at the moment. It is safer for you as a consumer because it allows for refunds.

Thanks to the wonders of nerds on the internet, there is now hacked in support that allows Rift users to use a Leap Motion or Hydra to play Vive games and Revive allows Vive users to play games made for the Oculus SDK. While the former is somewhat official, the latter is super unofficial and maybe somewhat illegal. Revive was designed to just let people play Rift games (that were purchased legally) with the Vive. Unfortunately, Oculus added in headset DRM which blocked an earlier version of Revive. The creator of Revive has since bypassed the DRM which allows Vive users to play Rift games again though this technically allows for piracy now. Before it only bypassed the headset check, now the check is built into the DRM so now it also bypasses the actual game DRM. The creator didn't want to do this but had to in order to allow Vive users to play games they legally owned.

Hopefully over time this all gets sorted out and HMDs will stop being treated as consoles. Once Touch comes out, the Rift and Vive should be about equal and all the console warriors can go away for ever. After all, locking a game to a specific HMD is almost a dumb as making an entire thread for one brand of monitor.

Cojawfee fucked around with this message at 20:57 on Dec 19, 2017

Cojawfee
May 31, 2006
I think the US is dumb for not using Celsius
Here is a list of current popular games as of July 2017. Thanks to mellowjournalism and Tom Guycot for doing the legwork of compiling it.


Apps/Social:
Google Earth VR Steam | Oculus | Google - (Free)
Star Trek: Bridge Crew Steam | Oculus - (PC/PSVR crossplay)
Werewolves Within Steam | Oculus- (PC/PSVR crossplay)
Iron Wolf VR Steam
Rec Room Steam | Oculus - (Free, PC crossplay)
VRChat Steam - (Free, PC crossplay)
Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes Steam | Oculus - (PSVR supported)
SportsBar VR Steam | Oculus - (PSVR supported)
Kingspray Graffiti Steam | Oculus

Vehicles:
Elite: Dangerous Steam | Oculus | Frontier
DiRT Rally Steam | Oculus - (PSVR supported)
Eagle Flight Steam | Oculus- (PSVR supported)
X-wing VR Mission PSVR - (PSVR exclusive, requires Battlefront)
Everspace Steam
DCS World Steam | DCS - (F2P, you pay for vehicle modules)
Project CARS Steam | Oculus
Assetto Corsa Steam
iRacing Steam | iRacing (Subscription based, signing up on their website is most preferable)

I deleted the old post because it had a bunch of old games no one cares about anymore. Here is a list of games compiled by mellowjournalism

mellowjournalism posted:

Apps/Social:
Google Earth VR
Star Trek: Bridge Crew - (PC/PSVR crossplay)
Werewolves Within - (PC/PSVR crossplay)
Iron Wolf VR
Rec Room - (Free, PC crossplay)
VRChat - (Free, PC crossplay)
Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes - (PSVR supported)

Vehicles:
DiRT Rally - (PSVR supported)
Eagle Flight - (PSVR supported)
X-wing VR Mission - (PSVR exclusive, requires Battlefront)
Everspace

Exploration/Adventure:
Portal Stories VR - (requires Portal 2)
Narcosis - (Horror)
A Chair In a Room: Greenwater - (Horror)
Scanner Sombre
The Solus Project
Obduction
FORM
Detached
Subnautica
Wilson's Heart - (Oculus exclusive)
Edge of Nowhere - (Oculus exclusive)
Lone Echo - (July 20, Final Echo Arena Beta July 6-10) - (PC crossplay)

Novelty/Unique:
Rick and Morty VR
The Unspoken - (Oculus exclusive)
Minecraft VR / Vivecraft
Richie's Plank Experience
Lathe Safety Simulator
Surgeon Simulator VR - (PSVR supported)
Arkham VR - (PSVR supported)
Catlateral Damage - (PSVR supported)
Darknet - (PSVR supported)
Statik - (PSVR exclusive)

RPG
The Mage's Tale - (Oculus exclusive)
Vanishing Realms
VR Dungeon Knight
Fallout 4 VR - (Q4 2017)

Shooters:
Robo Recall - (Free, Oculus exclusive)
SuperHot VR
Resident Evil 7 VR - (PSVR exclusive, Horror)
Hot Dogs, Horseshoes, and Handgrenades - (aka H3VR)
Quell 4D
Pavlov VR
Doom 3 BFG - VR mod
Doom VFR - (Q4 2017)
Onward
Raw Data
Serious Sams
Bullets and More VR - (Free Demo) - Technically designed for PVP but I'm surprised how much mileage I'm getting out of this due to PVE workshop content and the dev keeps adding guns
Arizona Sunshine - (PSVR supported)
Lethal VR - (PSVR supported)
Until Dawn: Rush of Blood - (PSVR exclusive, Horror)
Farpoint - (PSVR exclusive, best bundled with Aim controller)
The Art of Fight/Hover Junkers - are dead? confirm/deny?
Aeon? Compound? Bullet Sorrow? Sairento VR? - not sure if they have the goon seal of approval, have not personally tried much

"Fitness"/Melee/make u sweat:
Climbey - (Free Demo)
The Climb
To The Top
Holoball
The Golf Club VR
Fruit Ninja VR - (PSVR supported)
Gorn - (July 10) - Early prototype still free on itch.io
Gladius
Deus Vult
The Thrill of the Fight
Knockout League

Music/"Videos"
Audioshield
Soundboxing
Rez Infinite - (PSVR exclusive)
Thumper - (PSVR supported)
Fantasynth - (Free)
The Chainsmokers Paris VR - (Free, PSVR exclusive)

Cojawfee fucked around with this message at 17:38 on Jul 10, 2017

EdEddnEddy
Apr 5, 2012



Yay! New Thread.

Let's see if anyone comes here from the other thread unless it gets closed...

Rockybar
Sep 3, 2008

Foveated rendering seems like the thing that 2nd gen headsets absolutely have to have. One video on YouTube has a 4x FPS performance boost, effectively allowing you to double the pixel density of 2160x2400 with no performance hit (assuming processing time per pixel remains constant). It also means that most VR owners could quite easily skip a whole generation of graphics cards.

edit: more like a 2.5x boost

Rockybar fucked around with this message at 17:40 on May 24, 2016

Knifegrab
Jul 30, 2014

Gadzooks! I'm terrified of this little child who is going to stab me with a knife. I must wrest the knife away from his control and therefore gain the upperhand.
Oh hey new thread means I can post again. Thanks!

I'm glad that I could rouse you guys into making a well needed new thread, cheers!

If you want you can straight up copy my games review post.

TomR
Apr 1, 2003
I both own and operate a pirate ship.
Need some truck sim reviews up there.

Edit: Link to the truck sim thread http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3761915

TomR fucked around with this message at 17:50 on May 24, 2016

SCheeseman
Apr 23, 2003

Rockybar posted:

Foveated rendering seems like the thing that 2nd gen headsets absolutely have to have. One video on YouTube has a 4x FPS performance boost, effectively allowing you to double the pixel density of 2160x2400 with no performance hit (assuming processing time per pixel remains constant). It also means that most VR owners could quite easily skip a whole generation of graphics cards.

edit: more like a 2.5x boost

I've been banging on this drum for a while now. Eye tracking has a bunch of other neat benefits too, such as being able to maintain eye contact with other users in online experiences. Detecting blinks is another.

Lemming
Apr 21, 2008
Everyone should buy or pirate Chronos, the game itself is pretty good, but the art and atmosphere is really fantastic. Everyone should experience at least the first 10 minutes at least, up until you fight the first enemy.

Zaphod42
Sep 13, 2012

If there's anything more important than my ego around, I want it caught and shot now.
How many VR threads do we need? This is the 4th one now I think?

Taiso
Feb 20, 2002

Crush them now!
Op got any headphones recommendations for me?

The Last Poet
Oct 9, 2001
A (hopefully) quick question for anyone with a Vive and a Nvidia gfx card, does the headset appear as a connected display based off the port it's connected to ? I can't get the headset to connect (permanent red light) and I'm thinking its bust.

SCheeseman
Apr 23, 2003

Taiso posted:

Op got any headphones recommendations for me?

I use these: http://www.corsair.com/en-au/vengeance-2100-dolby-7-1-wireless-gaming-headset

They're good. Have to remember to keep them charged but the battery lasts quite a while. It's nice not having to deal with any kind of cabling too.

Cojawfee
May 31, 2006
I think the US is dumb for not using Celsius

TomR posted:

Need some truck sim reviews up there.

Did they ever make it so you can just do VR from the main game without having to choose a beta build?

SCheeseman
Apr 23, 2003

The Last Poet posted:

A (hopefully) quick question for anyone with a Vive and a Nvidia gfx card, does the headset appear as a connected display based off the port it's connected to ? I can't get the headset to connect (permanent red light) and I'm thinking its bust.

It doesn't detect as a display, no. Make sure the USB is connected (try different ports too).

EdEddnEddy
Apr 5, 2012



The Last Poet posted:

A (hopefully) quick question for anyone with a Vive and a Nvidia gfx card, does the headset appear as a connected display based off the port it's connected to ? I can't get the headset to connect (permanent red light) and I'm thinking its bust.

No it isn't detected as a screen at all.

When you have everything connected, what happens once you launch SteamVR from Steam?
Also did you install the Vive software as well? (think that includes most all the software/drivers needed for the Vive to function)

TomR
Apr 1, 2003
I both own and operate a pirate ship.

Cojawfee posted:

Did they ever make it so you can just do VR from the main game without having to choose a beta build?

Pretty sure you need to use a beta build and set launch options. But they are much more compelling in VR as the act of driving with a wheel and an HMD feels very natural.

KillerMojo
Mar 30, 2007

The knack lies in learning how to throw yourself at the ground and miss.
- Douglas Adams
Great OP, looking forward to VR discussion that hopefully doesn't revolve around purchase justification. The google IO announcements really cemented the fact that VR is here to stay, regardless of the monitor you have strapped to your head. Super exciting times, really looking forward to the software innovations catching up to what's been done with the hardware.

NRVNQSR
Mar 1, 2009

Rockybar posted:

Foveated rendering seems like the thing that 2nd gen headsets absolutely have to have. One video on YouTube has a 4x FPS performance boost, effectively allowing you to double the pixel density of 2160x2400 with no performance hit (assuming processing time per pixel remains constant). It also means that most VR owners could quite easily skip a whole generation of graphics cards.

edit: more like a 2.5x boost

That's comparing "eye-tracked foveated rendering" to "no foveated rendering", though. Developers can do "fixed foveated rendering" with current HMDs and graphics card to realize a lot of that benefit already - they just don't bother because it's hard.

Eye-tracking won't be a huge performance boost on top of that; what it could do, though, is pair up with lens design and much higher resolution screens to create a headset where the image remains sharp outside a central ten-degree ring.

The Walrus
Jul 9, 2002

by Fluffdaddy
Can I use the PS Gold headset wirelessly with the Vive? has a little usb bluetooth dongle that plugs into the PC. Or do I need to use the 3.5mm jack and connect directly to the headset?

Cojawfee
May 31, 2006
I think the US is dumb for not using Celsius
While Valve has some dynamic resolution stuff going on with SteamVR, eye tracking will allow them do it even more. Right now, they lower the resolution on things they think you won't be looking at but with eye tracking, they will know you aren't looking at something and can lower the detail even more.

The Walrus posted:

Can I use the PS Gold headset wirelessly with the Vive? has a little usb bluetooth dongle that plugs into the PC. Or do I need to use the 3.5mm jack and connect directly to the headset?

You'll probably be better off using it wirelessly. While the Vive has an audio jack, you still have to set the vive to be the default sound device in windows. There's ways to do this via SteamVR but doing it that way sends all your computer's audio to the Vive. So if you have wireless headphones, just use those like normal.

edit: I guess I forgot to add audio to the OP, I'll fix that.l

Cojawfee fucked around with this message at 18:33 on May 24, 2016

Paul MaudDib
May 3, 2006

TEAM NVIDIA:
FORUM POLICE
Eye tracking isn't really necessary given how lovely the current crop of HMDs get towards the edges of the images.

Kazy
Oct 23, 2006

0x38: FLOPPY_INTERNAL_ERROR

Speaking of audio, both headsets seem like half of a whole. I want the Rift to have the automatic audio switching off the Vive, and the Vive to have the built in headphones of the Rift.

Lemming
Apr 21, 2008

Paul MaudDib posted:

Eye tracking isn't really necessary given how lovely the current crop of HMDs get towards the edges of the images.

The Rift has a pretty big area where things are still sharp. They're still blurry at the very edges, but I think foveated rendering would help out a lot there, and I'm assuming the optics are only going to get better from here on out.

Cojawfee
May 31, 2006
I think the US is dumb for not using Celsius

Kazy posted:

Speaking of audio, both headsets seem like half of a whole. I want the Rift to have the automatic audio switching off the Vive, and the Vive to have the built in headphones of the Rift.

That isn't a feature of the Vive, it's a feature of SteamVR. You can go into the SteamVR settings and choose whichever device you want to switch to when SteamVR starts. Games launched through Oculus Home already automatically play audio through the rift.

Knifegrab
Jul 30, 2014

Gadzooks! I'm terrified of this little child who is going to stab me with a knife. I must wrest the knife away from his control and therefore gain the upperhand.
Hey man just wanted to say this is actually a good and well done OP!

My only nitpick (and what is a vr thread without nit picking):

Cojawfee posted:

Oculus Home is the proprietary platform for the Oculus Rift. It's very existence is a matter of controversy for some. Many people are upset that Oculus is trying to compete with Steam with what is arguably a worse product. Compounding this is the fact that Oculus store has exclusives as well as HMD specific DRM. In order to play a game with Home, you have to use an Oculus Rift. Some say this is akin to locking a game to a certain brand of monitor. It's currently a hot topic in the VR community. It is also sort of pointless as there are methods for making the games work on the HTC Vive as well.


While I actually really really appreciate what you have posted for Oculus Home, the good and the bad, the criticisms and concerns, I gotta say I don't think the last point is fair. Its not pointless because Oculus is starting some kind of arms race to try and add DRM and block out Vive users. I do think ultimately the hackers will be more clever, as shown in this latest update that added the DRM, but its far from pointless when Oculus is trying to lock people out of a store and only niche in-the-know users will know how to download a third party github program to allow cross-play.

Other than that, and I mean this, this is a rock solid OP. If you wanna grep some of my game reviews from the vive thread be my guest.

The Last Poet
Oct 9, 2001

SwissCM posted:

It doesn't detect as a display, no. Make sure the USB is connected (try different ports too).

EdEddnEddy posted:

No it isn't detected as a screen at all.

When you have everything connected, what happens once you launch SteamVR from Steam?
Also did you install the Vive software as well? (think that includes most all the software/drivers needed for the Vive to function)

Thanks for the responses.

USB is connected and i've been through most of the available ports and done the dev remove all drivers thing many times.

I can run Vive home so i guess thats the software.

When i start SteamVR i get the 208 error which i believe is the HDMI connection error rather than the USB one.

The reason i asked about the monitor was one of the errors in the logs says

"VR_Init failed with HMD detected over USB, but Monitor not found (208)"

and i found a setup video that showed it appearing but that may have been a temporary/old setup.

Cojawfee
May 31, 2006
I think the US is dumb for not using Celsius

Knifegrab posted:

Hey man just wanted to say this is actually a good and well done OP!

My only nitpick (and what is a vr thread without nit picking):


While I actually really really appreciate what you have posted for Oculus Home, the good and the bad, the criticisms and concerns, I gotta say I don't think the last point is fair. Its not pointless because Oculus is starting some kind of arms race to try and add DRM and block out Vive users. I do think ultimately the hackers will be more clever, as shown in this latest update that added the DRM, but its far from pointless when Oculus is trying to lock people out of a store and only niche in-the-know users will know how to download a third party github program to allow cross-play.

Other than that, and I mean this, this is a rock solid OP. If you wanna grep some of my game reviews from the vive thread be my guest.

I meant that it was pointless for Oculus to lock the vive out because there will always be ways to get around it.

The Walrus
Jul 9, 2002

by Fluffdaddy

Knifegrab posted:

Hey man just wanted to say this is actually a good and well done OP!

My only nitpick (and what is a vr thread without nit picking):



no. bad knifegrab. bad.

Knifegrab
Jul 30, 2014

Gadzooks! I'm terrified of this little child who is going to stab me with a knife. I must wrest the knife away from his control and therefore gain the upperhand.

Cojawfee posted:

I meant that it was pointless for Oculus to lock the vive out because there will always be ways to get around it.

Ah fair enough then. I think from their perspective it makes sense because while for the hardcore turbo nerds like us, yeah we could just use ReVIve but there are probably a solid number of users out there that will in effect be locked into that market place who wouldn't ever know or be bothered to deal with ReVive. That number is probably relatively low right now because most people involved are enthusiast but as VR gets more popular the more obstacles you put between a user and content the less likely they will be to access that content, which I think is what Oculus is hoping for.

Squatch Ambassador
Nov 12, 2008

What? Never seen a shaved Squatch before?

The Walrus posted:

Can I use the PS Gold headset wirelessly with the Vive? has a little usb bluetooth dongle that plugs into the PC. Or do I need to use the 3.5mm jack and connect directly to the headset?

I use my Gold headset wirelessly with the Vive and have no issues. IMO it's actually better to use them wireless so that you can use the headset to change volume, instead of having to find a way to change system volume while wearing the VIve.

Knifegrab
Jul 30, 2014

Gadzooks! I'm terrified of this little child who is going to stab me with a knife. I must wrest the knife away from his control and therefore gain the upperhand.

Hungry Computer posted:

I use my Gold headset wirelessly with the Vive and have no issues. IMO it's actually better to use them wireless so that you can use the headset to change volume, instead of having to find a way to change system volume while wearing the VIve.

Huh is there not any delay over those headphones. I'm a lamer and I can't imagine not using wired headphones (I got a custom cable made up just for the vive).

Cojawfee
May 31, 2006
I think the US is dumb for not using Celsius

The Last Poet posted:

Thanks for the responses.

USB is connected and i've been through most of the available ports and done the dev remove all drivers thing many times.

I can run Vive home so i guess thats the software.

When i start SteamVR i get the 208 error which i believe is the HDMI connection error rather than the USB one.

The reason i asked about the monitor was one of the errors in the logs says

"VR_Init failed with HMD detected over USB, but Monitor not found (208)"

and i found a setup video that showed it appearing but that may have been a temporary/old setup.

SteamVR is pretty buggy so you might need to try a bunch of things. First off is a restart. A few weeks ago, SteamVR would sometimes refuse to recognize I had the vive HDMI plugged in until I restarted. Next is bypass the link box and plug the HDMI directly into your video card. If none of that works, see if you can get it to work on someone else's machine. Last resort, see if you can use a different HDMI cable to plug into the Vive headset. Where top strap is attached, you can slide that bit of plastic forward until it comes off and unplug the HDMI cable and see if you can get a different one in there.

Lemming
Apr 21, 2008

Cojawfee posted:

SteamVR is pretty buggy so you might need to try a bunch of things. First off is a restart. A few weeks ago, SteamVR would sometimes refuse to recognize I had the vive HDMI plugged in until I restarted. Next is bypass the link box and plug the HDMI directly into your video card. If none of that works, see if you can get it to work on someone else's machine. Last resort, see if you can use a different HDMI cable to plug into the Vive headset. Where top strap is attached, you can slide that bit of plastic forward until it comes off and unplug the HDMI cable and see if you can get a different one in there.

If you didn't do the last part and make sure it's connected firmly to the headset itself do that. I thought mine was hosed at first but it turned out it just arrived with the HDMI cable not firmly attached.

Lemming
Apr 21, 2008
Good job forums, thanks for the double post.

Knifegrab
Jul 30, 2014

Gadzooks! I'm terrified of this little child who is going to stab me with a knife. I must wrest the knife away from his control and therefore gain the upperhand.
I have been both cursed and lucky. Cursed because SteamVR fails a lot, like randomly when I start it it says a key component has stopped working and it won't work right. I have been lucky because every time this has happened a reboot has solved the issue.

SteamVR 100% needs work.

Gendal
Aug 3, 2007
The Nvidia drivers released yesterday were crashing all over the place for me with the Vive, anybody else? During one crash I thought the person was going to have a seizure while I was yelling 'shut your eyes, shut your eyes!'. A rollback to the previous version stopped those thankfully.

Oh and yeah, the random SteamVR crap outs are getting old. Rebooting usually fixes the issue but all too often the display will just turn off and not turn back on unless I do a full or steam reboot. Or the lighthouses fall off the radar, etc.

Yesterday the display actually did turn off after not using it for a bit and turned back on when I picked it up, which was great, but that only happened once.

Gendal fucked around with this message at 19:25 on May 24, 2016

Knifegrab
Jul 30, 2014

Gadzooks! I'm terrified of this little child who is going to stab me with a knife. I must wrest the knife away from his control and therefore gain the upperhand.

Gendal posted:

The Nvidia drivers released yesterday were crashing all over the place for me with the Vive, anybody else? During one crash I thought the person was going to have a seizure while I was yelling 'shut your eyes, shut your eyes!'. A rollback to the previous version stopped those thankfully.

Oh good lord, the overwatch drivers?

Gendal
Aug 3, 2007

Knifegrab posted:

Oh good lord, the overwatch drivers?
Apparently - 368.22

Every 5 minutes or so the display driver would crash on my 970s.

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Knifegrab
Jul 30, 2014

Gadzooks! I'm terrified of this little child who is going to stab me with a knife. I must wrest the knife away from his control and therefore gain the upperhand.

Gendal posted:

Apparently - 368.22

Every 5 minutes or so the display driver would crash on my 970s.

drat, I was gonna update when I got home too... now I'm hesitant but I'll probably be playing more overwatch than VR...

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