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DK2 and Nvidia
- Thread starter Gregster
- Start date
Me neither but hopefully we get something solid soon (well not too soon or the DK2 will certainly be an expensive bit of kit for me)
Well having owned the DK2 for a few days, I thought I would do a write up of it and maybe do a video review another time.
Ding dong goes the doorbell and the delivery man hands me a package that is a lot smaller than the pics look but who cares about size? (except women and they do) Anyways, I eagerly head to my den and rip open the happy Birthday wrapping paper (made me chuckle) and open up a brown box with the word DK2 stamped in black. The instructions are very easy and no problems with the wiring. It connects to a camera which sits atop my monitor and the camera and goggles connect to a very small box, which have 2 leads, which are a HDMI and a USB styleee.
After plugging in and pressing the black button on the goggles, Windows 10 makes the connected hardware sound and up pops a small box telling me the DK2 is connected and working (I had previously installed the software and the SDK 0.8 runtime). Fire up the demo scene in the OR box and pop on the goggles. A very boring scene of a table, a monitor, a plant and a chair but everything is working as it should.
Time to have a look and the first thing I fire up is "Back to Dinosaur Island" and WOW!!! totally blown away by the immersion and this is a short but very well done demo that is great for showing others, as you pretty much just sit and look. Anyways, onto Elite Dangerous and the main reason I bought the DK2.....
Fired up Elite and no option for the OR
But wait! I remember reading up the day before about Elite and how the 0.5 SDK was needed and a couple of great guys from the VR community had made a little program to switch between the 0.7 and 0.5 SDK, so done what it said on the tin and within 5 seconds, I was now running the 0.5 SDK and I opned up the display control on W10 and set the monitor to extended and again fired up Elite. Set the OR option and secondary monitor and I was now seeing Elite Dangerous options screen through the goggles but upside down 
So back to CP and flip the extended display and blah blah blah.
Everything set correctly, I press start on Elite and I can see my Anaconda in 3D spinning around while the game is loading, a few seconds later I am in and in a completely empty house I say aloud "Oh my ****ing God" I can't believe what I am seeing. This game was meant for the Rift and my jaw was sitting on my keyboard. I have never felt immersion like it and I finally have that "Tron" moment of actually being in the game. I play for roughly 2 hours and take off the goggles and my eyes do hurt a little but nothing bad and I am still in shock for what I have just witnessed. Speechless is an understatement.
I fire up a few more demo's and a couple really do need a mention for the sheer quality and they are: Sightline the chair, Welcome to Oculus, Don't let go, Apollo Experience and Motorbike. These and many others are fantastic games/experiences and well worth a download. I play ED some more and the next day and the next day
I look through my Steam Library and see PCars and know this is a big OR game, so fire that up and again, immersion factor is incredible and with everything set to max, it runs very smooth on my system which really did surprise me. I decide to watch the replay and I stick my head out the window as I am flying along and all of a sudden, I feel sick, I stop the game and take off the glasses but yer, motion sickness has got me in this for some reason and not sure why. I take the dogs for a walk and 10 mins later I am fine and fire up PCars again and no problems this time but I didn't watch replays, so maybe a heads up there for others.
All in all, it has been a very easy experience with very few issues. The biggest problem the OR faces is pixels and you can clearly see edges when looking through the goggles and they can be a little off putting but stick with it and your eyes will start to block them out naturally and you won't notice them so much if at all. The CV1 will have a vastly improved resolution and this will help big time but as the tech savvy will know, a bigger res will need more grunt and as the DK2 doesn't work with SLI or CF, fingers crossed that the CV1 will have that option.
I would recommend anyone to at least try before writing off this tech and see what is what and if there is more support in games, I can see this being a long term tech. It does need a better res but I have no issues running the DK2 and the one game I bought it for looks incredible and if that makes my gaming experience even better, then happy days.
TL: DR - I love the VR experience and recommend anyone to give it a try.
Ding dong goes the doorbell and the delivery man hands me a package that is a lot smaller than the pics look but who cares about size? (except women and they do
) Anyways, I eagerly head to my den and rip open the happy Birthday wrapping paper (made me chuckle) and open up a brown box with the word DK2 stamped in black. The instructions are very easy and no problems with the wiring. It connects to a camera which sits atop my monitor and the camera and goggles connect to a very small box, which have 2 leads, which are a HDMI and a USB styleee.After plugging in and pressing the black button on the goggles, Windows 10 makes the connected hardware sound and up pops a small box telling me the DK2 is connected and working (I had previously installed the software and the SDK 0.8 runtime). Fire up the demo scene in the OR box and pop on the goggles. A very boring scene of a table, a monitor, a plant and a chair but everything is working as it should.
Time to have a look and the first thing I fire up is "Back to Dinosaur Island" and WOW!!! totally blown away by the immersion and this is a short but very well done demo that is great for showing others, as you pretty much just sit and look. Anyways, onto Elite Dangerous and the main reason I bought the DK2.....
Fired up Elite and no option for the OR
But wait! I remember reading up the day before about Elite and how the 0.5 SDK was needed and a couple of great guys from the VR community had made a little program to switch between the 0.7 and 0.5 SDK, so done what it said on the tin and within 5 seconds, I was now running the 0.5 SDK and I opned up the display control on W10 and set the monitor to extended and again fired up Elite. Set the OR option and secondary monitor and I was now seeing Elite Dangerous options screen through the goggles but upside down So back to CP and flip the extended display and blah blah blah.Everything set correctly, I press start on Elite and I can see my Anaconda in 3D spinning around while the game is loading, a few seconds later I am in and in a completely empty house I say aloud "Oh my ****ing God"
I can't believe what I am seeing. This game was meant for the Rift and my jaw was sitting on my keyboard. I have never felt immersion like it and I finally have that "Tron" moment of actually being in the game. I play for roughly 2 hours and take off the goggles and my eyes do hurt a little but nothing bad and I am still in shock for what I have just witnessed. Speechless is an understatement.I fire up a few more demo's and a couple really do need a mention for the sheer quality and they are: Sightline the chair, Welcome to Oculus, Don't let go, Apollo Experience and Motorbike. These and many others are fantastic games/experiences and well worth a download. I play ED some more and the next day and the next day
I look through my Steam Library and see PCars and know this is a big OR game, so fire that up and again, immersion factor is incredible and with everything set to max, it runs very smooth on my system which really did surprise me. I decide to watch the replay and I stick my head out the window as I am flying along and all of a sudden, I feel sick, I stop the game and take off the glasses but yer, motion sickness has got me in this for some reason and not sure why. I take the dogs for a walk and 10 mins later I am fine and fire up PCars again and no problems this time but I didn't watch replays, so maybe a heads up there for others.
All in all, it has been a very easy experience with very few issues. The biggest problem the OR faces is pixels and you can clearly see edges when looking through the goggles and they can be a little off putting but stick with it and your eyes will start to block them out naturally and you won't notice them so much if at all. The CV1 will have a vastly improved resolution and this will help big time but as the tech savvy will know, a bigger res will need more grunt and as the DK2 doesn't work with SLI or CF, fingers crossed that the CV1 will have that option.
I would recommend anyone to at least try before writing off this tech and see what is what and if there is more support in games, I can see this being a long term tech. It does need a better res but I have no issues running the DK2 and the one game I bought it for looks incredible and if that makes my gaming experience even better, then happy days.
TL: DR - I love the VR experience and recommend anyone to give it a try.
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Some great points Avenged and reading about, it is annoying to read people stating that it is a gimmick but haven't actually tried it. For ED, for the first time I actually felt like I was flying a space ship and in battle, it is weird leaning forward and looking up and around to see where the enemy has gone. Everything just damned well works and in no time at all, I had lost sight of the bad pixels and only seeing a glorious game.
A few showcases at venues could well change people's minds and a few positive reviews and dedicated games will seriously help push this tech forward. The naysayers who haven't even tried it can do one and my Wife wears glasses and had a play and had no problems at all and she isn't a gamer full stop but kept asking me to put something else on and can she have another go.
A few showcases at venues could well change people's minds and a few positive reviews and dedicated games will seriously help push this tech forward. The naysayers who haven't even tried it can do one and my Wife wears glasses and had a play and had no problems at all and she isn't a gamer full stop but kept asking me to put something else on and can she have another go.
Elite Dangerous Horizons with planetary landings is just beautiful. Really smooth as well but still had to use the 0.5 runtime, even though the 0.8 works (it gave a black border down the left and wasn't centered close to correct).
This is porn and
This is porn and
I did record a video last night of ED but it doesn't really work outside of the Rift
You lose all sense of how big the ship is and the only way I could record was using the SDK 0.8 but the 0.8 doesn't center properly and gives a black bar edge but you get an idea at least.
You lose all sense of how big the ship is and the only way I could record was using the SDK 0.8 but the 0.8 doesn't center properly and gives a black bar edge but you get an idea at least.
Same for me, I am far too fat and lazy to be jumping around and bum firmly in seat please
If VR does take off, I can see both AMD and Nvidia jumping on this in a big way. 3D never really did and I was a bit disappointed, as for the most part it worked very well but compaing 3D to VR is night and day and VR is a mile ahead.
It really does need people to try and buy to really get going though or in my case, just buy
It really does need people to try and buy to really get going though or in my case, just buy
That Virtual Desktop is one of the coolest things I have used. Any film/program runs on the biggest screen ever and you are sitting in the middle of space watching. Sure you lose some quality but it works very well and games are the same but I do find there is some lag. It works with 2D/3D/180/360 films and there is loads of 360 films on youtube that you just paste the url into and off you go.
You have to set the OR to extended mode in the little "O" in your system tray and then select the secondary display on the ED menu, choose 1920x1080 75Hz and off you go. If it is upside down, on your monitor settings, choose flipped (that happened to me).
For the record, 0.8 works fine now as well but you need to have Steam VR installed (not running) and setup the first run for standing and just follow the instructions. That does give me a bit of stutter now and then though and the best experience is still on 0.5 but might be different for you.