HTC Vive Excited Like Kids Thread (My Vive arrived)

[RoyMi6]

Interesting to see what these graphics are like. i purposely cancelled the rift because i want the full VR experience. I also heard that neither screens are good enough really for reading text on your ship as well as seeing the track ahead. So my perhaps flawed logic was, well I'll be buying the next gen anyway...so why not get room experience now.

I am not entirely convinced Oculus will support a room experience. Something is fishy i think.

"The graphics" are like any regular game. It's the resolution you'll care about.

With specific references to "reading text on your ship" or "seeing the track ahead" I can only assume you're referring to Elite Dangerous and Project Cars (although Live For Speed is also an excellent racing game)

I address the point specifically this point in my Rift thread (https://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=18726269) that the resolution of the consumer versions (over the Oculus Rift development kits) has finally got over the hump of resolution being an issue.

If you used the Oculus Rift DK2 for playing games, in my opinion, you had to KNOW the game to make it work. Reading menu items was a chore and unless you chose your track wisely (during the day, obviously marked corners) or new the intricate in cockpit menus inside-out; you were always going to have issues.

Today, I'd happily recommend that anyone pick up a Rift, or Vive, and play either of those games from the start in VR.

Every aspect is possible now and to say that you "can't read text" or "see the corners are coming" then that someone has either never actually tried the consumer versions, has bad eyesight, or has higher standards that most.

Yes, neither of them are 4K (I liken it to 720p, which I think is fair)
Yes, neither of them are perfect.

but picking up either headset and playing any Triple A title is a pleasure, and you're missing out.

Also, useless comments like "I am not entirely convinced Oculus will support a room experience" just confuse already well established things. Room scale is a game design choice and is determined by the choice of headset and room setup the game designer supports. The Oculus Rift DK2 supports room scale. You just had to get out your seat and walk! With the Oculus Touch they've already announced that it's coming with a second camera and it supports any physical positioning just like the Vive. There's nothing to be convinced about, you just have tried it.

 

[Liamb2005]

RoyMI6 Many thanks for your unbiased input on the vive and the oculus consumer version you have answered all the questions i was going to ask and some i never thought to ask but should have

I was undecided (even considering both) and your comments about the roomscale and pixel fill you have mentioned has tipped me now completley towards the oculus....i was tipping towards the vive and that was because of this roomscale and the controllers but deep down it worried me that although the idea of walking around a limited area seems great it would only be limited to certain experiences...after all most games you are going to want to move larger distances, go upstairs etc so for now im guessing a seat will be best for that untill some practical treadmill etc comes out anyway.

Thanks for your post and helping me decide going to pre order my oculus now

 

[RoyMi6]

Thanks for your post and helping me decide going to pre order my oculus now

You won't be disappointed - if you've never tried VR the Oculus is such a cracking piece of kit. Once the Touch controllers come out you'll go through all the same emotions as I did moving from the Rift to the Vive. Hand controllers are amazing, and room scale is awesome - it will make it seem like new again

Also, it's funny but you actually hit on a point that I was just talking about today with my friends.

I've moved from a 2m x 1.6m space (which felt restricted) to a 3.5m x 3m space (which feels massive)

Theoretically this makes room scale much more "fun".

However, in practice, this massive amount of space makes little to no difference.

As Liamb2005 touches on; most, if not all, games for the Vive let you walk around in space. They also have areas that you can move around in that a much larger than your typical play space.

Even if you had a 5m x 5m room you would STILL need to use the games built in move mechanic.

As such, with the increased space, you end up actually not moving that much...

It's quicker, and easier, to teleport where you want to go. If anything, the larger space has let me say "Hey, check how far you can walk!? Cool isn't it? Ok, now teleport over there, and everywhere else - because it's faster."

It's a nice gimmick to have an entire room setup for VR, but unless the game is designed specifically for the exact space you have it makes little to no difference compared to the guy with a 1m x 1m standing experience.

This is what I've got now, and I spend most of my time standing in the middle of it

EDIT: Oh! The camera on the Vive - I've actually disabled it for the chaperone. It's too invasive at the edge of your play area. I KNOW I'm near the wall, you don't need to remind me by SHOWING me the wall - I can see the normal chaperone wall just fine thanks.

 

[Liamb2005]

I actually had dk2 for a short while yeah !

Some really good points there. Im sure room scale is great for some experiences but i think i will be seated for most (although itd be nice to have the choice if there ) and like you say unless a game is made specifically for that space irs not going to make much difference.

Ive been reading a lot about the touch sensors bring better than the vive ones as well which again is tipping me more oculus...not to mention the other things like comfort, ease of settimg up etc

Whats your opinion on the better content if the two ? If you had to sell the vive for example what would you miss most ?

 

[Huambo81a]

Fantastic thread, thanks.

I've had my Rift on preorder since the 7th of Jan, and it's expected delivery is mid July (Nooo!!!)

My room is tiny, but if i push my chair outside i probably have about 1m x 1.5 m to stand in. Good to know that this may be just enough.

I;m primarily purchasing it for driving sims though, Assetto Corsa (which has just updated VR support) and Project Cars are my first loves, and i CANNOT WAIT to get involved.

Probably getting a GTX 1080 as well to power it all . . .good times ahead.

Thanks again for the thread.

 

[RayzaNC]

I'm excited but my current space is only about 2 x 1 m so i'm slightly concerned it will be a disappointing experience, luckily i'm moving soon so i will make sure i get somewhere with a bigger space.

 

[Mark D]

Also, useless comments like "I am not entirely convinced Oculus will support a room experience" just confuse already well established things. Room scale is a game design choice and is determined by the choice of headset and room setup the game designer supports. The Oculus Rift DK2 supports room scale. You just had to get out your seat and walk! With the Oculus Touch they've already announced that it's coming with a second camera and it supports any physical positioning just like the Vive. There's nothing to be convinced about, you just have tried it.

Mmmmm I'm not sure that's entirely true. My understanding is "Room scale VR" was coined by Valve / HTC as shorthand for walking about with 360 degree tracking.

Oculus made the safe choice. It is likely a choice that was made two or three years ago. They decided to drive through a seated experience. To be honest I could see agreeing with that if I had been in a meeting three years ago. Then they drove both internal and external development to focus on that. As a result IMHO the Vive is at least one year ahead of Rift on this feature.

In a sea of opinion it is fact that Oculus has told developers to target forward facing cameras for the touch. The officially supported setup for the rift + touch leaves an untracked area behind the player where the motion controllers cannot be seen by the cameras.

As such games like fantastic contraception are forward facing only experience on the Rift (so don't expect to be walking around freely and interacting with objects). They have said it over and over. "Rift is a forward facing experience". Oculus have not created an environment that developers can target 360 degree tracking using touch - the officially supported target for devs is that they keep the player facing forward on the rift.

I'm not saying the Rift technically can't do room scale but IMHO (deliberately keep adding that) until it's officially supported this feature won't be as good as the Vive.

 

[subbytna]

You won't be disappointed - if you've never tried VR the Oculus is such a cracking piece of kit. Once the Touch controllers come out you'll go through all the same emotions as I did moving from the Rift to the Vive. Hand controllers are amazing, and room scale is awesome - it will make it seem like new again

Also, it's funny but you actually hit on a point that I was just talking about today with my friends.

I've moved from a 2m x 1.6m space (which felt restricted) to a 3.5m x 3m space (which feels massive)

Theoretically this makes room scale much more "fun".

However, in practice, this massive amount of space makes little to no difference.

As Liamb2005 touches on; most, if not all, games for the Vive let you walk around in space. They also have areas that you can move around in that a much larger than your typical play space.

Even if you had a 5m x 5m room you would STILL need to use the games built in move mechanic.

As such, with the increased space, you end up actually not moving that much...

It's quicker, and easier, to teleport where you want to go. If anything, the larger space has let me say "Hey, check how far you can walk!? Cool isn't it? Ok, now teleport over there, and everywhere else - because it's faster."

It's a nice gimmick to have an entire room setup for VR, but unless the game is designed specifically for the exact space you have it makes little to no difference compared to the guy with a 1m x 1m standing experience.

This is what I've got now, and I spend most of my time standing in the middle of it

EDIT: Oh! The camera on the Vive - I've actually disabled it for the chaperone. It's too invasive at the edge of your play area. I KNOW I'm near the wall, you don't need to remind me by SHOWING me the wall - I can see the normal chaperone wall just fine thanks.

That's some ghetto duck tape tweaking on the racing pedals

 

[RoyMi6]

I actually had dk2 for a short while yeah !

Some really good points there. Im sure room scale is great for some experiences but i think i will be seated for most (although itd be nice to have the choice if there ) and like you say unless a game is made specifically for that space irs not going to make much difference.

Ive been reading a lot about the touch sensors bring better than the vive ones as well which again is tipping me more oculus...not to mention the other things like comfort, ease of settimg up etc

Whats your opinion on the better content if the two ? If you had to sell the vive for example what would you miss most ?

The experience I'd mist the most if I got rid of my Vive is Longbow (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JMBMMQdQy68) and "hotdogs horseshoes and handgrenades" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lnyUB5wuutM)

As a side note, I always use my Rift for seated stuff (because of the better resolution) and Vive for standing - for obvious reasons at the moment!

My room is tiny, but if i push my chair outside i probably have about 1m x 1.5 m to stand in. Good to know that this may be just enough.

I keep forgetting where I post these things but room scale doesn't actually scale that well as you go from 2m to 3m squared.

The games are always bigger than the space you have and unless made specifically to match the exact space requirements you have then you'll likely always need to make use of the built in movement mechanic. If you have 2m or 3m to walk around in it makes little difference.

Saying that, I'd imagine that going from 1m to 2m squared would make a difference. 2m squared is just enough to let you explore the immediate area around you and only have 1m might feel quite restrictive.

When it comes to the Vive I think you'll find that you'll need to choose "standing room only" rather than room scale as I think the minimum space for room scale is 2m by 1.5m. Obviously try it first though!

Mmmmm I'm not sure that's entirely true. My understanding is "Room scale VR" was coined by Valve / HTC as shorthand for walking about with 360 degree tracking.

Oculus made the safe choice. It is likely a choice that was made two or three years ago. They decided to drive through a seated experience. To be honest I could see agreeing with that if I had been in a meeting three years ago. Then they drove both internal and external development to focus on that. As a result IMHO the Vive is at least one year ahead of Rift on this feature.

In a sea of opinion it is fact that Oculus has told developers to target forward facing cameras for the touch. The officially supported setup for the rift + touch leaves an untracked area behind the player where the motion controllers cannot be seen by the cameras.

As such games like fantastic contraception are forward facing only experience on the Rift (so don't expect to be walking around freely and interacting with objects). They have said it over and over. "Rift is a forward facing experience". Oculus have not created an environment that developers can target 360 degree tracking using touch - the officially supported target for devs is that they keep the player facing forward on the rift.

I'm not saying the Rift technically can't do room scale but IMHO (deliberately keep adding that) until it's officially supported this feature won't be as good as the Vive.

Just because Valve / HTC coined the phrase doesn't mean the Rift can't support it. That would be like saying the Vive can't support seated experiences because that's originally what the Rift targeted and started talking about first.

It's entirely up to the developers on what to support and the fact is that the Vive ALSO has to support a simple standing experiences - it's even part of the setup where you define your room size.

"fantastic contraception are forward facing only experience" - have you actually played this game? The very nature of the game makes it a "whatever you want" experience given that the game mechanics easily allow you to play the game seated. On the flip side, here's the FC devs showing that the Oculus Touch is more than capable of 360 tracking if you take the time to set it up. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zdU_OGCVjVU

Oculus said they were focusing on the "seated experience" before they announced touch. Now they're keen on delivering high fidelity touch controls and one of the mechanics they're promoting is using a pair of forward facing cameras because it gives more durability to the tracking. As a long time user of the Vive I can tell you that 100% tracking accuracy isn't happening when the controller is only covered by one lighthouse. Simple interactions in games like Fantastic Contraption, combined with what appears to be the odd syncing issue between the camera, does mean that it fails every now and again and THAT's what Oculus are trying to avoid.

BUT that doesn't stop the countless other developers not on Oculus Home (we might even get a Oculus wrapper for Vive games - just like we've got a Vive wrapper for Oculus games) targeting whatever they want.

All said, I think we're arguing semantics

Both are very capable devices, both do whatever the hell you want, both depend on the developers delivering the experiences that you want. I'll pick up the Touch controllers and have the two cameras setup just below my Lighthouses - so I'll be able to compare like for like.

That's some ghetto duck tape tweaking on the racing pedals

Funny thing is I fixed this just when I got home today!

 

[Mark D]

....... "As such games like fantastic contraception are forward facing only experience on the Rift (so don't expect to be walking around freely and interacting with objects)." - have you actually played this game? The very nature of the game makes it a "whatever you want" experience given that the game mechanics easily allow you to play the game seated.......

From Fantastic Contraption Dev
"The APIs reflect this, with Oculus' software being geared towards seated experiences. "But it's not limited to that," Moore said. "So we're really excited about room-scale Oculus support. But we understand that most people will have both cameras set up on their desk with the Oculus."

That introduces a problem with room-scale VR in that your body could potentially block the line of sight from the camera to one of the controllers in that situation, which would introduce tracking problems. This is called "occlusion," and blocking the camera and losing tracking on a controller yanks you right out of the game. This called for a change in how the levels of Fantastic Contraption are set up.

"In our game we don't have a sense of forward normally — we drop you in a sandbox and let you do whatever you want," Moore said. They had to change this for the Rift version. "So we spawn the player in the back of the space ... and then you can take a step forward, and turn left and right and build a car and you can see everything laid out in front of you. And that works. And that's what we demoed at the Oculus even just before GDC."

That relatively small design change allowed the player to face forward while playing most of the time, limiting the risk of occlusion while keeping the room-scale aspect of the game. "

 

[RoyMi6]

I'm not sure a post that is just a quote deserves a response... we're obviously interpreting things differently - just because they allow for people to have both cameras in front doesn't mean that it can't do it any other way and they're own video shows this that I linked previously (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zdU_OGCVjVU)

Here's another dev trying out room scale 360 tracking with the Oculus Touch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t2iriq6PFM4

You're obviously in the Vive camp and you mentioned previously that you think the Rift is a year behind the Vive when it comes to hand controllers and tracking volume. However if the Touch is released this year then. in my opinion, it's the Vive that will be behind as the headset itself will be the biggest differentiation between the two. The Rift screen quality, built in headphones and ergonomic fit are what make it the better device.

The Vive camera I haven't used pretty much since I bought it and cleared enough space - although I do appreciate others will find it more useful if they have a multifunctional space that isn't as clear as mine... though I wouldn't advise that either because it's not as if the camera goes it when it detects your about to step on a piece of Lego...

 

[D3K]

The Rift screen quality, built in headphones and ergonomic fit are what make it the better device.

I haven't heard a word said about the difference in screen quality. Care to enlighten?

 

[RoyMi6]

I haven't heard a word said about the difference in screen quality. Care to enlighten?

I mentioned it in my 3rd post (https://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showpost.php?p=29393203&postcount=3) but ultimately while the specs of the two screens are the same the perceived resolution due to the pixel fill being higher and pixel separation being smaller means that small text is more legible with the Rift.

This is most apparent in games like DCS (http://www.digitalcombatsimulator.com/en/) where in it's current state the realistic font size of the physical gauges on the cockpit are pretty legible on the Oculus Rift but only barely so with the HTC Vive.

 

[Mark D]

You have started an excellent thread with lots of useful information.

I own an Oculus HMD myself so I'm not knocking anyones choice. IMHO it is clearly has several features which are better than the Vive. If I was recommending an HMD for a seated game like Elite Dangerous it would be the Oculus HMD.

"just because they allow for people to have both cameras in front doesn't mean that it can't do it any other way"

In my first post I clearly stated "I'm not saying the Rift technically can't do room scale", but the key work is 'technically'.

When Inoton suggested he wasn't entirely convinced Oculus will support room experience you harshly dismissed it

"Also, useless comments like "I am not entirely convinced Oculus will support a room experience" just confuse already well established things."

You went on to say

"With the Oculus Touch they've already announced that it's coming with a second camera and it supports any physical positioning just like the Vive.

That's very misleading. Oculus haven't at any point suggested they support full 360 degree room scale tracking like the Vive - because they don't. Oculus currently only officially supports the front facing 180 degree experiences and developers are adapting games to for that (hence quote from the Fantastic Contraption Dev). And it's not just Fantastic Contraption - 'The Unspoken' developed specifically for the Touch is also forward facing only, 2 cameras in front.. spawn facing forward, teleport and you are facing forward, with enemy's in front and to the side.

https://www.reddit.com/r/oculus/comments/3pnkfi/preview_job_simulator_on_oculus_touch_office/cw7sfh2

With the next generation Oculus will likely improve this in the same way Vive may improve built in headphones and ergonomic fit etc.

5)"people that have tried the touch controllers comment on them being functionally identical to Vive controllers so it's a dead heat in that part."

I'm not saying either of the current HMDs is 'best' - I am saying they have different features and it's horses for courses. 360 degree full room tracking is currently one of those features which is important as people may be using this thread for purchasing choices.

 

[D3K]

I mentioned it in my 3rd post (https://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showpost.php?p=29393203&postcount=3) but ultimately while the specs of the two screens are the same the perceived resolution due to the pixel fill being higher and pixel separation being smaller means that small text is more legible with the Rift.

This is most apparent in games like DCS (http://www.digitalcombatsimulator.com/en/) where in it's current state the realistic font size of the physical gauges on the cockpit are pretty legible on the Oculus Rift but only barely so with the HTC Vive.

I read a few articles running up to their releases that said the screen tech was identical. The only difference was the shape of the overall perceived viewing area.

A quick search turned up nothing to back up your claim. Got a link?

 

[RoyMi6]

I read a few articles running up to their releases that said the screen tech was identical. The only difference was the shape of the overall perceived viewing area.

A quick search turned up nothing to back up your claim. Got a link?

Yeah, it's not hard to find but it's been observed by many.

Obviously hard to get like for like pictures for comparison but there's a series of Rift (http://imgur.com/a/Kb4I0) and Vive (http://imgur.com/a/GMcvR) photos taken by the same guy.

These two show off the issue quite well however:

Rift: http://i.imgur.com/m4Kz2Ap.jpg
Vive: http://i.imgur.com/VHxs4r1.jpg

Look at the pixels in the horizontal lines, or in the fonts. There's much more separation between the pixels in the Vive and ultimately that results in a poorer image quality.

Doesn't make the Vive any less a cracking bit of kit. The experiences speak for themselves but longer-term, when Touch comes, out it will be harder to justify the Vive being the clear winner in some areas.