2016 : A Pivotal Year For AMD, Nvidia, PC Gaming And VR

The Vive has a bonus over the Rift other than the camera and that is the controllers. Oculus are holding back till October I believe, so that does give HTC the advantage. Both have their pluses and minuses though but I am sure both will be giving a fantastic experience.
 
Howling said:
From what I've gathered, Oculus beats Vive in sitdown experiences - but Vive has better tracking/range etc for moving experience. Time will tell.
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Yer, pretty much how I am reading/watching reviews. The other worry for me with the Vive is cables and tripping but I am sure owners/perspective owners will have accounted for that.
 
AlamoX said:
not really, Vive gives an additional option allowing movement, doesn't means they suck at sitting down apps, that would defeat the purpose of the headset.
one thing is sure oculus beats Vive at is comfort, oculus seem to be lighter and locks better on your head, the rest of the features will need extended testing by reviewers, once the sets are out.
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The reviewers are pretty much agreeing that the Rift has better sight, whilst the controllers on the Vive give better freedom. Early doors though and I wouldn't mind seeing a few user reviews as most of what I have seen seems to be scripted reviews.
 
AlamoX said:
i wanna throw a bet in there, oculus might move the shipping ahead to february instead of march, and all pre-orders will be billed around 25th feb.
who bets against me ? :p
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I hope you are right. My money is waiting :D

Silent_Scone said:
Bought a DK2 last week and have been playing with it since yesterday evening.

It's really something else, although the resolution on the DK2 is a real issue, but once you look past that and more focus on the concept and experience, it's amazing.

It's really something that you have to experience for yourself. I was pretty blown away the first time I fired it up and tried Crytek's Dino demo. The immersion is simply amazing.

Unfortunately, I'm feeling the motion sickness - a higher refresh and resolution would perhaps aid this, but I am a sufferer in reality so this doesn't come as much of a surprise.
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Shame about the sickness but there is others who are the same. The whole concept for me is amazeballs and no issues to speak of. 90Hz will help I am sure and a better res must go some way.
 
ICDP said:
Just bought a very low use DK2 from a developer who used it to develop drone software. He said that the tech is a not yet mature enough for his requirements hence his reason for selling. He also said that from his limited testing at a trade show the CV1 had only a small resolution improvement over DK2. He is not a gamer but he did say that he tried DK2 with one game (Project Cars) out of curiosity and felt it was very well done.

Unfortunately I have been totally unable to get it working on my Win 10 PC but the guys showed it working fine on his 8.1 build and I tested it on the room demo. So I know it works 100% but can sense a lot of messing over the next few days to get it working on Win 10.

My plan is to use DK2 until the gen after CV1 at which point the upgrade will be far more impressive.

So I am hoping VR will become far more mainstream over the next few years. :)
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If you plan to play things like ED or PCars, install Steam VR with the 0.8 SDK and then enable the HMD via the game options. Do the room setup with SteamVR as well to get it roughly centered.

It can be a bit of a faff about but once you have had a good play, you should be good to go. There is a few decent older deom's that need the 0.5 SDK and I just used a SDK switcher (saves installing older/newer SDK's all the time.

https://www.reddit.com/r/oculus/comments/3psikl/vr_game_manager_update_runtime_switcher_edition/
 
ICDP said:
I can't even get the HMD or camera to install correctly in Win 10. HMD Not detected and no blue light on the camera.
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Have you installed both the runtime and SDK (0.8)?

Use the USB 2.0 slots as well (it was picky for me with 3.0). The blue lights only really came on when the OR was running, so don't worry too much.

Just to clarify, I am on windows 10 64 bit pro.
 
ICDP said:
I just installed Win 8.1 on an old 60Gb SSD I have and the DK2 works fine with runtime 6 I think it was. So at least I am absolutely sure the DK2 works. Maybe worth just sticking with 8.1 for now, it's not like DX12 games are coming out of the woodwork is it :D

Thanks for the advice though, at least I know it is possible to get it working in Win 10.
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Good stuff and no worries. :)
 
andybird123 said:
As I already pointed out, the headsets and controllers don't rely entirely on the lighthouse system for tracking, they have iirc accelerometers and gyroscopic sensors as well

And, well, we'll find out in a few weeks if the Vive is cheaper or not, I'm not holding out much hope it will be £400 or less like people seem to be wishing for
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I would genuinely be shocked and stunned if the Vive came in at £400 and would most certainly be ordering one but just can't see it myself.
 
Just read an article from Taiwan which has the Vive looking like it will cost $1500 on release but still only a guesstimate.
 
KelDG said:
Got debunked on reddit last night, the bad translation was quoting the cost of an Rift and computer good enough to run it.

The article also said

"The Oculus Rift, which has investment from Google" Not correct, Facebook, not Google.

"The Sony PlayStation VR is expected to be priced at US$1,125." Which Sony also said was wrong already, that was amazon Canada putting up a placeholder price.
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Good to hear that. I really do want to see VR take off and if it is massively overpriced, that won't help.
 
C'mon chaps, we are all keen to get on the VR bandwagon and will need to see what is what in prices. I am seriously excited and just hope the Vive is reasonably priced and both do cross vendor support, as I don't really fancy or have the room for 2 units.
 
ICDP said:
I got it working now but am currently trying to tell myself the low resolution isn't a deal breaker. Tried DCS and Elite Dangerous and while the sense of stereoscopic 3D is amazing the low res is making the exercise pointless. Not being able to read cockpit dials in a sim bad for your virtual life :)
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You need the sweetfx and HUD colour change. Helps quite a lot with ED but yer, res is the thing with it but I found the more I played, the less it was a hindrance.
 
With the CV1, the guys who have been lucky enough to have a play and review it have said the res is no longer an issue, which I must confess, I find hard to believe because it is only slightly more than the DK2 but I am hoping it is true.

I did a rollercoaster sim and that did the same for me when it jumped off the track. I only had one go, as I knew another would have me feeling a little sick but it was super low quality and not very well done but still generally worked pretty well.
 
A rather interesting AMA with Palmer Lucky (CEO of Oculus) and some good questions. I like his honesty in truth and here is a snippet when asked about PC requirements.

Will Oculus drive PC upgrades?

User Manoko asked Palmer what his options for VR tech look like, given that his system hardware is “a crappy computer.” Palmer’s response is rather interesting:

“Your crappy PC is the biggest barrier to adoption, which is why we are working with all the major hardware vendors to optimize for VR — if ‘normal’ PCs get good enough to run VR, then the majority of people will be able to buy a relatively cheap headset and just use whatever computer they already own to drive it.”

At the same time, however, Palmer clearly expects Oculus to boost PC sales, noting:

“We have been working with Nvidia, AMD, and Intel since basically the start of Oculus — they know that virtual reality is going to demand better and better hardware, and drive demand for powerful GPUs and CPUs beyond the existing gaming and enterprise market. That extends to PC manufacturers using their components, obviously.

“Most people have not had a reason to own a high-end PC for a long time. VR will change that, much like video-related stuff drove high end CPU adoption.”

In the short term, therefore, Lucky thinks that enthusiast demand for components will increase as VR becomes more popular. In the longer term, however, the goal is to bring those improvements and capabilities down to a larger market. As ExtremeTech’s hardware reviewer and a gaming enthusiast for nearly my entire life, I’m not sure which way this situation will break.

First, the positive: It’s absolutely possible for hardware advances to drive game developers to create new, immersive types of games. The advent of more powerful consumer CPUs made games like Wolfenstein, Doom, and Quake possible. 3D graphics turbo-charged Quake, Quake 2, and every title that followed.

In many other cases, however, the industry has moved more slowly. Multi-core adoption in gaming moved at a snail’s pace past the dual-core mark. Quad cores were available and useful from 2005 forwards, but it took time for the benefits of that purchase to move from the high-end workstation to common consumer software.

In the case of VR, I suspect it’s going to be very difficult to push the technology into low-end PCs. High Bandwidth Memory should give AMD unprecedented APU bandwidth by 2017-2018, but VR targets a constant 90 FPS frame rate — and that’s a very high bar for any kind of mobile chip. There are certain technologies, like foveated rendering, that could theoretically make it easier for low-end graphics cards to deliver high-quality VR experiences by only rendering the area the eye is looking in high detail — but that takes better head tracking than we currently have.

I think Lucky is right when he talks about VR driving enthusiasts to upgrade. I’m much less certain that the technology will prove central enough to drive the entire computer industry towards the myriad technologies that will make VR available on lower-end hardware. But then, as the head of the highest-profile VR company, it’s his job to cast a rosy future for the tech.
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http://www.extremetech.com/gaming/2...rift-spurs-gamers-to-upgrade-their-crappy-pcs
 
andybird123 said:
To be fair though, its cheaper than, and a bit less good, than a DK2, so you could just get a DK2 for cheap

Anyone with a smartphone can try VR to about the same standard by spending £25 on one of those ebay jobbies, particularly with most smartphones now coming with 2560 screens
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Agreed but these are new and not second hand, so a good tempter at least. If I hadn't had the DK2, I would have grabbed that SamsungVR to go with my S6 and by all accounts, it does a reasonable job.
 
My mate has google cardboard and I watched the Titans of Space demo. It did a reasonably good job but in terms of DK2 comparison, not even close. It is a good way to see if you would be interested in VR though, so I wouldn't knock it.
 
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