HTC Vive...let's try this VR stuff..

[Bullett]

Yup, i do.

And as iracing isn't supporting it yet I know what I'm doing this weekend.

[SturdyHSV]

Whilst we're doing confessions, during my brief time with a DK2, I headbutted my gear stick.

It was during one of the Dirt Rally replays when the camera is mounted on the quarter panel. I was leaning around looking at the car from different angles etc. and thought I'd go lower to see the wheel... Headbutted the gearstick, like a champ.

The guy I borrowed the DK2 off mainly played Elite Dangerous with it. After taking some fairly serious damage to his ship smoke started to billow out from the cockpit in front of him, which naturally he tried to fan out of the way by waving his hands around

[FourWheelDrift]

Project Cars Vive Vs Rift comparison - http://www.virtualr.net/project-cars-vive-vs-rift-...

[RJames]

I'm planning my next rig build around VR and atm I think the Vive is the way im leaning coupled with a GTX1080. I tested the DK2 and was blown away testing LFS and can't wait until all the major sim titles support Vive to take that experience further.

[MK4 Slowride]

Friend of mine brought his Samsung one round (his phone slid in). Gave me vertigo looking down, also turned my lounge all cartoony. Had a shootout on some space type game which was amazing as you turn to target the cursor and use the pad to shoot. He has some porn on his, they made it so it feels like your the one fking three girls, even made me feel a bit like I was in a brothel lol.

Really impressed with it so am going for an oculus rift to pair up with my PC. I can then watch movies like I'm at the cinema whilst my wife watches her st on tv.

[born2bslow]

As a Sim Racing nut, I'm not all that fussed about moving around the room....and as Rift is cheaper I think that might sway my decision. I'm not 100% certain yet though.

So does anybody with kit have any thoughts/advice/experience in racing games that they'd like to share...most of the YouTube VR guys are creaming over Project Cars in VR, as its my go to game my finger is hovering on the button.

But Vive or Rift? Or is it better to wait 12 months and see how things go? (Honestly not sure I can wait that long as VR looks amazing)

[Digby]

Well, I just tried Project Cars on my Vive (using an Xbox pad) and it's.....novel.

Looking behind is cool and you can become quite immersed, however, the resolution just kills it for me. It's not bad, but coming from 4K, it loses a lot.

I played around and enjoyed it, but I'm not sure I could play it properly with such a lack of detail in the distance etc.

[Guvernator]

Digby said:

Well, I just tried Project Cars on my Vive (using an Xbox pad) and it's.....novel.

Looking behind is cool and you can become quite immersed, however, the resolution just kills it for me. It's not bad, but coming from 4K, it loses a lot.

I played around and enjoyed it, but I'm not sure I could play it properly with such a lack of detail in the distance etc.

And this is exactly why I'm waiting for gen 2 of VR. I'm REALLY keen to get into but I don't want my first experience to be a flawed one. I'll wait till they up the resolution and work out all the kinks\bugs before jumping in.

[born2bslow]

4K to first gen VR was always going to be a drop in resolution. I'm not running 4k, I have recently switched to triple screen for that in-car feel and that was a massive leap forward in immersion after driving through a single screen like a letterbox and bonnet cam for years.

The overall resolution is not the be all and end all for me. If it was I wouldn't have played Live for Speed for so long. I'm more interested in;
1) the effect on my eyes (which are crap already) as a result of extended wear, ease of use with glasses etc.
2) the overall immersion experience, and whether motion sickness is common (or just a random issue depending on user)
3) how comfortable are the headsets if wearing for an hour or so at a time, what are the headphones like to wear etc.

[Steven_RW]

This is why Gear VR (if u have a good Samsung phone..) is the best way in at the moment IMO.

It is cheap and you can get the feel for it and you can enjoy it all without being heavily financially committed. Yes it has the issues with the screen door effect but that only matters in some cases.

4k setup with a weapon of a pc is the way forward for the better experience, but Gear VR is loads of fun and hardly any cost.

Just a shame most "suckers" bought iPhones thinking they were the best ;-)

RW

[Guvernator]

Steven_RW said:

This is why Gear VR (if u have a good Samsung phone..) is the best way in at the moment IMO.

It is cheap and you can get the feel for it and you can enjoy it all without being heavily financially committed. Yes it has the issues with the screen door effect but that only matters in some cases.

4k setup with a weapon of a pc is the way forward for the better experience, but Gear VR is loads of fun and hardly any cost.

Just a shame most "suckers" bought iPhones thinking they were the best ;-)

RW

You can get VR on an iphone too.

[SturdyHSV]

RJames said:

I'm planning my next rig build around VR and atm I think the Vive is the way im leaning coupled with a GTX1080. I tested the DK2 and was blown away testing LFS and can't wait until all the major sim titles support Vive to take that experience further.

Digby said:

Well, I just tried Project Cars on my Vive (using an Xbox pad) and it's.....novel.

Looking behind is cool and you can become quite immersed, however, the resolution just kills it for me. It's not bad, but coming from 4K, it loses a lot.

I played around and enjoyed it, but I'm not sure I could play it properly with such a lack of detail in the distance etc.

I felt the same as Digby, LFS wasn't as bad as I know the tracks really well, but Dirt Rally the lack of resolution made it feel like the crucial area I was focused on was only about 8 pixels worth of detail separated by a black mesh.

It did get very immersive don't get me wrong, and the way it's integrated into the replay cameras was a really impressive surprise.

Based on that resolution though, I wouldn't consider a DK2, and will need to try before buying any subsequent VR device. Especially given their price point!

[Digby]

born2bslow said:

The overall resolution is not the be all and end all for me.

It's not for me, either. Several games / demos I have simply don't need a high res although I will admit they would be better with one. The thing is, it's not because I played Project Cars in 4k that put me off, I would happily play it in 1080 on a pc screen, rather it's the way the Vive displays such games.

The actual Vive res is quite decent, but you can see those blocks you used to see if you squashed your face against a CRT tv as a kid. In a game like Project Cars, it stands out a lot; in other games, you hardly notice or simply don't care. They cause objects in the distance to look blocky and that simply snaps you out of the immersion.

Some of the scenic 'standing on a mountain' type of demos suffer, too. Yes, you can look over the edge and suffer from butterflies, but the distance looks a little 'off' and the res isn't high enough to make what would look ultra-realistic on your pc screen, ultra-realistic.

The wow and fun factors are there and this is undoubtedly the future of gaming, but it will lend itself at this stage to certain games far better than others in terms of realism.

Forgot to add that my friend tried mine with glasses and found it to be fine. There is an adjustment that can be made from the Vive headset which adjusts the distance of the lenses from your eyes and this should cater for all types of glasses in relation to focus.

Edited by Digby on Thursday 19th May 15:38

[Guvernator]

Digby said:

It's not for me, either. Several games / demos I have simply don't need a high res although I will admit they would be better with one. The thing is, it's not because I played Project Cars in 4k that put me off, I would happily play it in 1080 on a pc screen, rather it's the way the Vive displays such games.

The actual Vive res is quite decent, but you can see those blocks you used to see if you squashed your face against a CRT tv as a kid. In a game like Project Cars, it stands out a lot; in other games, you hardly notice or simply don't care. They cause objects in the distance to look blocky and that simply snaps you out of the immersion.

Some of the scenic 'standing on a mountain' type of demos suffer, too. Yes, you can look over the edge and suffer from butterflies, but the distance looks a little 'off' and the res isn't high enough to make what would look ultra-realistic on your pc screen, ultra-realistic.

The wow and fun factors are there and this is undoubtedly the future of gaming, but it will lend itself at this stage to certain games far better than others in terms of realism.

Forgot to add that my friend tried mine with glasses and found it to be fine. There is an adjustment that can be made from the Vive headset which adjusts the distance of the lenses from your eyes and this should cater for all types of glasses in relation to focus.

Edited by Digby on Thursday 19th May 15:38

What you are talking about with the blocky graphics is called the screen door effect and unfortunately it is mostly about the resolution, not because the Vive\OR are low res, they aren't as they run at 1080p but because your eyes are so close to the screen, even 1080p res is not good enough.

They are looking at ways to fix this. The obvious one is to increase the resolution but running two VR screens at 4k just isn't viable yet in terms of the VR lenses\screen tech or the PC power you'd need to run dual 4k screens, add in the fact that you need to run at 100+ refresh rates to avoid motion sickness etc and it's a tough ask at the moment so they are trying other techniques which aim to either focus your eyes away from the centre of the screen, make the bits where you are looking higher res or other trick like using solid colours etc to fool your eyes\brain.

This is why I am waiting. In a year or two the VR\PC's will either be powerful enough to run full 4k or they'll have discovered clever ways to trick your brain into not noticing the screen door. The current gen of VR isn't actually gen 1 it's gen 2. I experienced Gen 1 VR 15 years ago in the big Trocedero arcade in Central London. Screen door, it was more like Barn door back then the graphics were so blocky.

The current gen of VR is still in it's infancy but it's already come a long way from it's crude beginnings so it's a very promising start. If they get this right I can see it becoming one of THE leading technologies of the future.

[Digby]

Guvernator said:

What you are talking about with the blocky graphics is called the screen door effect...

That's the one!

Was trying to think what it was called as I remember reading about it when I had my first projector.

[Altrezia]

Assetto Corsa supports the Rift (and with ReVive the Vive) now, and that's good enough for me - the first real game that I already played, but in VR. Ace.

[Digby]

What happens if I put on my virtual reality headset and someone makes a game where you play as a character who is playing with a virtual reality headset and on that virtual headset, the game loaded is based upon someone playing with a virtual reality headset..?

[FourWheelDrift]

If you have portal 2 (if not why not )

Free Portal Stories VR add on for the Vive - http://store.steampowered.com/app/446750/

[Gr44]

oooo Portal mod, will get downloading that now, thanks!

I tried this earlier, it's free and available on steam, only short but pretty cool!

Steam search for 'Surge'

http://houseofsecrets.nl/?page_id=1213

[Bullett]

So, the Mrs spotted the Vive tonight.
Her "how much did that cost?"
Me "um, quite a bit"

She didn't ask about the gpu though.
Phew.

P.S. Budget Cuts is very good, try the demo.