HTC Vive

the render target for CV1 / Vive is up to 3024x1680
with multi resolution shading and foveated rendering you knock big chunks out of that, plus the next gen of graphics cards, they should easily be able to drive 2k per eye

foveated rendering is being demoed now, if the new headsets are going to be 2 years between releases I would say that's plenty of time to have it in the next gen
 
Gen2 is likely going to have to be cheaper than Gen1 for the sake of better adoption, something that is no longer enthusiasts only, it will be after PSVR has launched and is going to have to compete with its predecessors on value. I expect in the meantime we will see others that are gen1-1.5 where they come along with essentially the same formula with their own take on it, whether it be the HMD, controllers or some other thing we havent seen yet.

im thinking in terms of a 970 and in some cases a little lower has been fine for gen1 and tbh the res of the screens now isn't actually that bad except for where you need to really see the apex of a corner far off, could be improved for sure but its plenty for a good experience now

then you have the fact that for VR to be widespread consumer hardware is going to have to be capable enough, whether its the next gen of xbox and playstation or mobile devices. This means only PC will be bleeding edge and going higher res, most games/experiences will probably still be optimised around being compatible with the mass market hardware, ergo I dont expect it to be 4k per eye next time around. A healthy bump maybe 30-50% better res

What will likely happen however is we start seeing more effects and detail crammed into that res. For me if a 1080 is going to be fairly happy to render most games at 4k on a screen then its likely going to hit the lower bar for the next gen of VR, which lends the question of if a non-ti is the lower bar then a ti should be comfortably capable of handling gen2 res and frame rates, and when its extra effects being shown you can usually turn them down.

Also if the ti is HBM2 then that stands it in good stead, we know from the 970s that ram speeds have a good impact on card performance.

So yeah, I think a normal 1080 even may be good enough for gen2. If we are looking at something that is going to drop in the next 18-24 months, further out is more uncertain
 
Has anyone tried playing in their garden? Is there any good reason not to, like the lighthouses being affected by sunlight? My room is pretty small so on weekends i wouldn't mind taking it outside for a few hours
 
I'd set up some kind of gazebo to play under if you are going to do it. Tracking and stuff is meant to work ok but there is a reason HTC warn not to get direct sunlight on the lenses as this reddit poster found out..

http://i.imgur.com/JqXVscm.jpg

The lenses basically act like a magnifying glass, so any direct sunlight will just burn holes through the screens. I'm also not sure how sensitive the IR sensors in the HMD and controllers would be to prolonged exposure either.

So yeah, it is doable, just be careful with it.
 
The lenses burning sounds like it would only be an issue if you take the headset off and leave it lying outside, I'd be sure to take it inside. My Vive is arriving next week so possibly weekend after next I will give it a go and report back. Kind of wish I got tripods instead of ceiling props now!
 
I've made a thread in General Hardware about my cousin upgrading his PC for the Vive, but thought I'd ask a few questions in here as well since people visiting here may not visit GH.

He currently has:
i5 3550 @ 3.8 (non-K version, can't really overclock it much)
R9 390
8GB RAM

He's getting performance problems in Vive games and is wanting to upgrade his CPU to an i7 6700k (and overclock it). Is the 390 capable of running the current VR games smoothly if he upgrades his CPU? Should he already be able to run most stuff smoothly, and there's a problem somewhere else?

Some of the stuff that doesn't run well (names may not be entirely accurate, you should be able to guess what game I mean though :p):

Brookhaven, I tried this and it had awful input delay, guessing it was like 45fps or something, the delay seemed huge.
Zombie target simulator, This is fine most of the time, but when there's a lot of zombies it can drop frames.
Some Disney video thing lags, but I had a look online and it runs at 30 fps or something? So I guess that feels laggy no matter what?
Tilt Brush, this lags when he makes a big image/scene/whatever you call them.
TheBlu, I think everyone has frame drops with this? so upgrading won't necessarily help?
Job Simulator, runs fairly well now that he has put his heatsink on properly (2 of the feet weren't all the way in so it was overheating and downclocking itself to like 2.6 :D), but it's still not entirely smooth.
Cloudlands Golf, same as Job Sim, runs pretty well, but still not entirely smooth.
The lab, 2 of the games are a bit laggy, not sure which 2, I played the archery one and it was fine iirc, so not that one.
Out of Ammo, runs very poorly (I found out earlier that this is made by Dean Hall, the DayZ dude, so not surprised that this runs like **** :().

Anyone able to give their opinion on any of these games with similar hardware?

Edit: I can't remember what he's using but he's tried direct mode on and off and reprojection on and off and is just using whichever gives him the best performance, although that may not necessarily be the "correct" mode.

I did see something about how you shouldn't have the window on your monitor overlapping something else, unfortunately he's on holiday atm so I can't get him to see if this is an issue, he's also wanting me to order parts before he gets back :(.
 
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Which games have you tried out of them?

The Out of Ammo thing might be an AMD thing from what I've seen.

Your Xeon is the same performance as my 920 right, clock for clock/core for core? What speed do you have it running?
 
All of them bar the blu and out of ammo. I've clocked the hex core to 4.4. It's quicker than the 920 more often than not, but not significantly so at the same clock speed in apps that use 4 or less cores
 
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Bloomfield said:
So to be clear, you get zero frame drops ever on any of those games? Or you just don't notice them (enough?) to be an issue?
Click to expand...

I run an i5 750 @ 3.4GHz with an AMD 290 and they all run fine. I don't think they all run flawlessly but nothing that is so obviously bad it's unplayable or motion sickness inducing. Haven't tried Out of Ammo though.
 
GBRusty said:
I run an i5 750 @ 3.4GHz with an AMD 290 and they all run fine. I don't think they all run flawlessly but nothing that is so obviously bad it's unplayable or motion sickness inducing. Haven't tried Out of Ammo though.
Click to expand...

See, this is the problem, he'll get a couple of dropped frames and complain about it. Obviously some games are worse than others but with Job Sim for example it'll run at what looks like 88ish, maybe 85 FPS with reprojection off (looking at how often there are frame drops on the SteamVR thing), reprojection on seems to feels worse when there are frame drops, at least on the games that he has tried.

I'm worried that even buying a new CPU will result in disappointment because it's never going to run completely perfectly with zero dropped frames as far as I can tell, which is what he's expecting.

Is there a way to tell fps of games other than just trying to count how many dropped frames there are per second on the SteamVR options thing? We've tried running stuff with Afterburner open and we're not sure what fps that is actually showing, it will regularly show higher than 90fps for example. I think if we have the normal game window open it will show 90 max, if we have mirror open it will show 135 max or something (maybe adding 45 mirror to 90 windows app together or something?). It's hard to remember exactly but it's something like that.

With how close the games seem to run to 90fps (on the games that do run close to 90) I'm not even entirely sure it's purely an fps issue, rather a tracking issue or he's just expecting it to feel like real life and that just isn't how it feels, that it will always feel a bit slower/jerkier than life?

Edit: He doesn't get motion sickness or anything, even when I tried Brookhaven and it was running at like 45fps with insane input delay I didn't get motion sick, it just felt horrible in the same way that playing the beta for FF14 or whatever it was was horrible with it's 0.5 second input delay.

Oh, while I remember, when I tried Brookhaven and it was running at 45fps that was before he seated his heatsink properly, so the CPU was running at like 2.6 or something due to overheating :D. It might be better than that now, but it's still not perfect.
 
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Got some new wrist straps for the wands :D

Bargain @£2.50 delivered next day.

These are locking ones similar to he Wii/U ones and supposed to less prone to snapping as the weak ass HTC ones are (according to reddit posts)
 
My Vive is on its way got shipping notification email from OC. (ordered 4th May)

Not on tracking yet but should be here tomorrow or Friday.

Got email with the Steam code for the software pack as well.


Hope my brothers is on way as well (ordered same day) otherwise he wont be happy.:D

edit: just put code in steam and the bundle items ie Tilt Brush, Fantastic Contraption and Job Simulator are there listed under the Library/SteamVR section, just need installing.

WooHoo
 
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