Occulus Rift + Touch Controller 399... A good deal or not..?

birdtable · Post by **birdtable** » Mon, 10. Jul 17, 22:00

So the Occulus Rift has had a big price drop ... Is it worth buying ,, anyone with experience and where is VR Rebirth ?? ... Is Rift 2 just round the corner or just dumping overstocks ..?

Post by **Santi** » Tue, 11. Jul 17, 02:41

I am set on waiting for second or third wave of VR sets, while £400 is reasonable, there is not really many games out there, Elite and X Rebirth VR are my only candidates, also I think next generation will improve greatly over what it is offered now.

I will like it to be wireless and with proper haptic gloves. Also will need to upgrade the Gtx770, get a proper HOTAS set up and sort out the USB compatibility.

On the other hand I have £200 on vouchers from work that I can use in Amazon to buy a Rift...

pjknibbs · Post by **pjknibbs** » Tue, 11. Jul 17, 08:57

Do you also have the near-supercomputer PC necessary in order to power a Rift, though? It's not just the cost of the device itself, it's making sure your PC will be capable of generating two separate 3D images at a frame rate that isn't going to have you puking inside 10 minutes. That's the main reason why I won't get a Rift, even if they start giving them away for free.

birdtable · Post by **birdtable** » Tue, 11. Jul 17, 09:13

Got the PC to run Rift, not a problem .... just appears to be no software worth spending the 399 on .... When you add up costs as pjknibbs said,, graphic card etc you really need something special on the software side to truly justify that expense....

Post by **linolafett** » Tue, 11. Jul 17, 09:35

If you like simracing, then 400 bucks is not a bad deal!

birdtable · Post by **birdtable** » Tue, 11. Jul 17, 09:44

Have seen some Car Rally software, must admit that looked pretty good,, although I have seen no other form of racing yet in VR... maybe because it is difficult to portray the experience on say.. youtube ... one of those things you have to experience for yourself.... Elite looked pretty good but been there done that.... For simracing you have the extra expense of decent wheel plus maybe the right chair..

red assassin · Post by **red assassin** » Tue, 11. Jul 17, 10:35

I'm quite tempted, and my PC can handle it. I think I'm still waiting for the second generation of devices, though - I've tried a couple of current devices and felt like the resolution wasn't quite high enough to be really impressive.

Morkonan · Post by **Morkonan** » Wed, 12. Jul 17, 07:31

Where are the VR wars?

I expected to see fierce competition, especially for standards and market share. But... nada. It's virtually nonexistent. (Pun intended)

Everyone has their own VR with varying degrees of performance, from cardboard holders for cell-phones with apps to spaceman helmets and full room VR studio trappings so you, too, can fire a blaster at colored blocks while wearing a bucket around your neck to save on carpet-cleaning expenses. (Nausea-inducing stuffs are getting better at not doing that and should continue to improve if products gain more traction)

In short - I like the idea, but the market isn't developed enough for me, yet. I'm waiting to see the world that Microsoft lied about or Skyrim3D or Pr0nLive or some sort of industry collection that gets together and says "Here's standard xxx sdk/api/codemonkeygibberish, go have fun."

Jericho · Post by **Jericho** » Wed, 12. Jul 17, 09:11

Morkonan wrote:Where are the VR wars?

I expected to see fierce competition,

In short - I like the idea, but the market isn't developed enough for me,

I think that they still don't know what VR is for. They've tried just converting existing games (we now have Skyrim and Fallout 4, I wish they'd spend their time on ES6 and Fallout5). The controllers seem to be not really designed for FPS. A lot of games are 3rd person and would be damn peculiar in VR so they haven't converted.

Personally, I think that only if the game is designed from the ground up for VR is it going to work (The exception being driving games.)

I'd like to see head tracking and eye tracking being used to control first person flight...

I think that the current gen, and next couple of iterations, should focuson experiences or that 3d painting thing that is so popular. Flying simulators (not aircraft simulators), diving sims, tours of places that I will never go to. Something like Soarin' at Epcot Center would rock (complete with fake pine and orange scents! I still get that feeling of "ooooh" as I go over the mountain top)

With drone technology so advanced (have you seen the SPEED and maneuverability of the drone racers?!?!) Just slap a camera on that and play it back via VR so I can still turn my head to see the sides. That kind of recorded experience/rollercoaster/tour/ride fits the technology so well, and allows them to find out what it is really capable of, rather than just pumping out yet another 3rd rate FPS with floating hands in front of your face.

pjknibbs · Post by **pjknibbs** » Wed, 12. Jul 17, 09:52

To be honest? I don't see why VR is any more likely to succeed this time around than the previous times it's been attempted. They still haven't fixed the main problem of the platform, which is, IMHO, that it makes you nauseous if used for any length of time. It's also not really logical to use VR for a game which isn't from a first person perspective, and since I play a lot of games like that, I'm not seeing the use case for me at least.

I'm filing VR into the same "temporary fad" pigeonhole that 3D TVs went in, we'll have to see if I'm right or wrong on that.

Post by **CBJ** » Wed, 12. Jul 17, 11:31

I'm generally a bit of a VR sceptic because I suffer pretty badly from motion sickness; I can get nauseous quite quickly just playing an FPS game on a normal screen if there isn't enough ambient light in the room. As a result I was quite nervous about even putting the headset on, but I have to say I was pleasantly surprised. Not only was I able to keep it on for longer than I expected (in fact I was able to keep it on for as long as I was trying out XRVR, without running into nausea problems) but I also found the whole experience more immersive than I was expecting to. Yes, I realise that is the whole point of VR, but I didn't think the technology had come along as far as it had and was happy to be proven wrong about that.

I still won't personally be rushing out to buy my own headset for non-work purposes, but I can see that for someone with more time to experiment with it in different games, the lower price might well make sufficient difference for it to be worthwhile.

birdtable · Post by **birdtable** » Wed, 12. Jul 17, 13:21

Well I will not ask any leading questions regarding XR VR but I would be interested in a vague (ish) response from CBJ in how the control system works, as I am somebody with sufficient spare time ..

Post by **CBJ** » Wed, 12. Jul 17, 14:03

You'll have to wait and see on that, but suffice it to say that quite a lot of effort has gone into making the control side of things work as well as possible with the VR controllers, so we really hope it will be to players' liking.

red assassin · Post by **red assassin** » Wed, 12. Jul 17, 18:27

pjknibbs wrote:it makes you nauseous if used for any length of time.

I honestly don't think this is true any more, at least for the majority of people. It's been pretty well figured out what the requirements are to be non-vomit-inducing - high enough frame rate, fast enough response, no tracking glitches, and being careful about showing movement without a fixed reference point, primarily. There were definitely nausea problems with the early dev kits in this wave, but I haven't encountered anyone with nausea problems with the production headsets. (I'm sure an unlucky few still exist though!)

It's also not really logical to use VR for a game which isn't from a first person perspective

I'm not sure this is true either, at least in the immediately obvious sense of first person - I've seen some games that worked pretty well with a top-down view of a battlefield type perspective, where it's "first person" in the sense that you're effectively a giant looking down over the environment, but not in the sense that you're to scale with the actors in the scene. Clearly this isn't applicable to every sort of non-first-person game, but there's clearly room for creativity here.

Morkonan · Post by **Morkonan** » Wed, 12. Jul 17, 21:01

red assassin wrote:
It's also not really logical to use VR for a game which isn't from a first person perspective
I'm not sure this is true either, at least in the immediately obvious sense of first person - I've seen some games that worked pretty well with a top-down view of a battlefield type perspective, where it's "first person" in the sense that you're effectively a giant looking down over the environment, but not in the sense that you're to scale with the actors in the scene. Clearly this isn't applicable to every sort of non-first-person game, but there's clearly room for creativity here.

Microsoft's misleading demonstration shows the strengths of third-person VR: https://www.polygon.com/2015/6/17/87889 ... craft-demo

Yes, it is possible to have a value-added experience in non-FPV games with VR. It'll take some time to mature, though, just like any new game genre. For instance, RTS games, when they first began to appear, were often difficult to play until games like Total Annihilation and later incarnations of C&C as well as Warcraft:Orcs and Humans finally began to polish the interface. Third-person ARPG games had their interfaces polished to useability by Diablo just like FPS games owe much of their modern UI to Doom and Wofenstein. Civilization showed how a good 4x should be arranged, etc..

For myself, I sometimes fail to see how VR would be a value-added quality in terms of gameplay for some types of games. I'd have little interest in a VR 4X or RTS game, for instance. I think the game dev industry is also scratching their collective heads in order to find a truly good use of VR for hi-quality games that are more than just a cheap 3D-'sploitation movie.

In essence - It will take some time and some experimentation to get the user's experience controlling and experiencing a VR game to acceptable standards, where general ideas regarding I/O don'tt become a "development" issue and devs can focus more on gameplay quality.

Note: A great many advancements have been done in the past couple of years regarding issues revolving around nausea in VR. I think that much of that will be solved, eventually, but as is with all such experiences, some people will still be susceptible to it.

Jericho · Post by **Jericho** » Thu, 13. Jul 17, 14:06

pjknibbs wrote:
I'm filing VR into the same "temporary fad" pigeonhole that 3D TVs went in, we'll have to see if I'm right or wrong on that.

I kind of lost interest in VR almost as soon as the Occulus was announced.

I still believe that all the initial stuff was faked. They showed it at (E3?) and all these famous gaming faces went on video saying how amazing it was, and that you should really REALLY go and fund it on kickstarter!!! But... They didn't invest in it themselves... Gabe Newell thought it was great and could have funded it easily!!! Instead they begged on Kickstarter.

And then the floodgates opened and all the other companies released better versions to market while the Occulus Rift was going through various prototype releases, each one worse than their original demo kit...

To me, that just sounds very VERY fishy. It sounds like all the other nonsense on the crown-funding websites. I think they would have taken the money and ran if they hadn't of been bought out. It all seems like that raised bus that straddled the traffic in China, and was just an investment scam http://money.cnn.com/2017/06/23/news/ch ... index.html except the Rift got too much publicity and then got bought out, and then they had to produce something, and all the other companies jumped on-board just so they weren't left behind.

VR is all a bit "Internet of Things Connected Toasters and Connected Fidget Spinners" to me.

felter · Post by **felter** » Thu, 13. Jul 17, 18:09

There are other systems out there other than the HTC vive and rift, for example there is the Pimax 4K VR, a lot cheaper than either of the previous two. It has it's drawbacks but seemingly it is pretty darn good, don't believe, here's a review from someone who didn't have high hopes for it either.

Avis · Post by **Avis** » Fri, 14. Jul 17, 11:28

felter wrote:There are other systems out there other than the HTC vive and rift, for example there is the Pimax 4K VR, a lot cheaper than either of the previous two. It has it's drawbacks but seemingly it is pretty darn good, don't believe, here's a review from someone who didn't have high hopes for it either.

Looks quite impressive for a sit down only VR headset.

That said I'm still very hesitant to shell out for another VR headset, I pulled my DK1 back out a couple of days ago, tried it for an hour or so (royal pain in the a(*e to get working under Windows 10) then promptly felt horribly ill for the rest of the day, dismantled it and put it away in it's nice box again..
I really should sell or fob it off on someone I don't like.

I know the DK1 is a million years behind the better units but I'm still very averse to crippling eye strain and headaches.

felter · Post by **felter** » Fri, 14. Jul 17, 16:41

Avis wrote:
felter wrote:There are other systems out there other than the HTC vive and rift, for example there is the Pimax 4K VR, a lot cheaper than either of the previous two. It has it's drawbacks but seemingly it is pretty darn good, don't believe, here's a review from someone who didn't have high hopes for it either.
Looks quite impressive for a sit down only VR headset.

That said I'm still very hesitant to shell out for another VR headset, I pulled my DK1 back out a couple of days ago, tried it for an hour or so (royal pain in the a(*e to get working under Windows 10) then promptly felt horribly ill for the rest of the day, dismantled it and put it away in it's nice box again..
I really should sell or fob it off on someone I don't like.

I know the DK1 is a million years behind the better units but I'm still very averse to crippling eye strain and headaches.

I'm the same, £300+ it's a fair amount of money to spend, just to find out the product just makes you feel ill.

Jericho · Post by **Jericho** » Mon, 17. Jul 17, 09:10

$200/£150 Wireless Oculus on the way!

(Not this is NOT a Rift).

Apparently it "bridges the gap between Samsung Gear and Rift"

It has head turning capability, but not full head tracking... And they are talking to developers now to make games for it (Because, you know, all the best games take a weekend to create)

So it sounds like JUST the sort of thing that I was talking about for experiences and virtual rollercoasters etc, without the need for the full VR that isn't that supported.

Worth reading the article if just for the picture of Jessica Fletcher solving crimes in what looks like 1992 Virtual Reality
https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2017/0 ... ore-460451

egosoft.com

egosoft.com

Occulus Rift + Touch Controller 399... A good deal or not..?

Occulus Rift + Touch Controller 399... A good deal or not..?