I am around 12 stone in weight, spent most of my life around the 8 mark. An hour or 2 of Robo Recall every other day should help reduce my love handles, aiming for 11.
I'm considering VR
- Thread starter Dirk Diggler
- Start date
I am around 12 stone in weight, spent most of my life around the 8 mark. An hour or 2 of Robo Recall every other day should help reduce my love handles, aiming for 11.
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Indeed, and that's a problem. Grabbing guns or arrows from over your shoulder would be impossible. Glancing to the side while manipulating some control would be impossible. Heck, even in normal play with a game like Racket Nx or Echo Arena / Lone Echo you'll probably be reaching around you. You're probably even going to be obscuring the sensors with your own arms at times.
Aside from that, the gyro's are bound to need resyncing regularly. Lighthouse and Constellation do offer a very stable platform, if a bit restrictive.
Associate
All these headsets are using a Microsoft design that has two main limitations. First, as others have mentioned, is tracking. They use a 'markerless' tracking system that depends on cameras in the headset scanning the surroundings and noticing if the headset has moved in relation to visible objects. Compared to the Rift's external sensors this way is sensitive to the environment; in some places it just plain won't work correctly, and movement/reflections, etc, can confuse the position tracking system. It also requires more processing and thus introduces higher latency. The cameras are backed up with gyroscopic sensors, similar to the ones used in phones, which are notorious for suffering from drift.
Second, the lack of external sensors also imposes limitations on tracking controllers. Nothing like Robo Recall will be happening on these headsets, they're designed for 'wave your hands in front of you' use only. MS have gone down this route for cost and convenience reasons, but it leaves their headsets inferior to the Rift for motion tracking. Just how much is something we'll find out at launch.
If these headsets were £199 I'd be enthusiastic about them, but £399 means they have to be at least roughly comparable to the Rift to be worthwhile. And I just can't see that being the case, not when they're judged as VR headsets. Their prospects for success will probably come down to the attractiveness of AR vs VR. If MS can come up with titles that use AR in a way that really works, that gives a very compelling advantage over the Rift.
The other big issue I see is Microsoft's system requirements. Permitting developers to target integrated graphics and a 60Hz refresh rate is going to result in some ugly games - asking the Skylake iGPU to drive a pair of 1440x1440 panels is going to mean very, very restricted graphics quality. I can understand why MS did this, the big OEMs would freak otherwise, but I think it's going to end up a horrible mess when people buy these things, plug them into a laptop, and end up only being able to run graphically simple games at 60Hz refresh.
Associate
Pretty much agree with what you've said, but on the quoted point - the Rift and Vive also do the same, but you've got things the wrong way round there. The gyros etc are responsible for the moment to moment tracking of the headset, and it's the cameras that back up the gyros to correct for that inherent drift (not the gyros backing up the cameras). The Rift sensors do the same thing, and the lighthouses do it for the Vive (and also allow for the spatial tracking).
The thing with these MS headsets is the portability. Being able to take a decent laptop with one of these HMDs to demo software at another location with the minimum of setup is extremely convenient. For the gamers among us though, well, yeah, they're unlikely to be replacing many peoples Rifts or Vives.
Soldato
That's understandable. There is half a chance it could end up as a novelty that wears off and ends up not getting used too often if you don't find titles and experiences that keep you hooked.
While I can't speak for you, I'd be very surprised if you weren't sufficiently impressed after testing it out with just the free games that everyone in here has mentioned. Whether that leads to regular use is another thing though and only you can find that out for yourself.
Personally, while I have found plenty of games that I enjoy dipping into, where it really shines is with friends/online buddies in multiplayer/co-op. It's just a whole new level of gaming interaction and comedy moments.
So if you have people IRL or in your friends list that have VR, and/or you're willing to get involved with the OcUK VR crowd for example, you'll likely find that it's something you'll look forward to picking up on a regular basis.
I know how the tracking works, not disputing it, but there are plenty of ways to implement over the shoulder and other gameplay features with an inside out tracking solution.
A little bit of creative programming required, but not a huge challenge. Could be a nice simple project to demo, actually.
Portability is a huge boon that easily outweighs the negatives for me. Whatever suits your use case!
A little bit of creative programming required, but not a huge challenge. Could be a nice simple project to demo, actually.
Portability is a huge boon that easily outweighs the negatives for me. Whatever suits your use case!
Associate
Sure, yeah, in a game like Qui'vr or Robo Recall where you need to reach behind you to grab your gun or arrow, you could account for a "hand disappeared in this approximate location so we'll just do that function" type scenario.
It's all the other scenarios where a hand disappeared from view but there's nothing particularly interesting about the location it disappeared from that this lack of tracking would be problematic (not to mention, the hand may not have moved at all, the head could've moved away).
You know exactly the location, positional and rotational velocity when the headset cameras lost the motion controller, and you still get the gyro information. Given the gameplay context and some simple IK like constraints you can make a pretty decent prediction of what the controller is doing. An interesting little design challenge, but not nearly as limiting as some people are making out.
Leaning towards the Dell at the moment, good feedback about the ergonomics and the flip-up hinge is amazing when you're developing VR.
Leaning towards the Dell at the moment, good feedback about the ergonomics and the flip-up hinge is amazing when you're developing VR.
Have you tried VR yet?
Associate
I'm going to be interested to find out the exact details of this once the headsets launch, because my understanding from what I've heard through the grapevine (company I work for is a Microsoft partner, but not directly involved in this) is that the camera-based tracking is primary and the gyros are only used for refining that data. But I could be getting told a load of cobblers, of course. I'd normally say camera tracking isn't accurate enough, but MS has been working on that technology for a very long time now.
Yes, that's very true. Not a huge deal for gaming I don't think, but MS is trying to kickstart a business AR market and portability and ease of use are going to be critical there.
Why would you add him to the ignore list? Do you not like it when people disagree with you?
His question is a valid one, have you actually tried VR? It seems you would be happy with the compromises that you have to make with the mixed reality headsets, others won't. Oculus made the same assumption about tracking and that cost them dearly in market share. They assumed that most people would only want standing/sitting experiences. But, once you get a taste for VR, tracking becomes a priority. There was months and months of frustration from Rift owners. Tracking was ok, it just wasn't great. And with a lot of pressure Oculus finally got it right.
And that's Wrinkly's point. Inside out tracking isn't as robust as either the Lighthouse or Constellations systems. And any solution that requires "a little bit of creative programing" to cover those limitations is going to be patchy.
It's fine to have some new headsets coming along, but they aren't better than the Rift or the Vive. They aren't even that much cheaper. You will still need a powerful PC to run them if you want to game. And if you want the best gaming experience the Rift and Vive still win.
Hopefully, it will help reduce the development time to true Gen 2 headsets.
You can use them with integrated graphics too, but at a nausea inducing 60Hz. I agree with you guys on both points, Portability and setup are the biggest attractions for these headsets. But, for gaming, hmmm, not sure. It's hard enough to get developer just to change the functions of buttons between the Rift and the Vive. What's going to happen when they have to program for the tracking blind spots in these headsets? I am sure it will all come together in Steam eventually, but, it will feel like been in alpha stages for ages.
Yes, I have tried VR. I have owned a DK2, I've developed for VR, I try different VR experiences with different hardware regularly as part of my job as a game developer and side-projects running local game development meetups.
Yes, I am happy with the compromises that come with inside out tracking, it suits my use case.
I just have better things to do than continuing a discussion with someone that just wants to say that their brand of gizmo is 'better' than someone else's. Buy the best headset that suits you, job done.
Associate
In the case of the Rift, the IMU updates in the region of 1000Hz. The cameras only provide 60Hz updates which isn't fast enough for ultra precise tracking, but is easily quick enough to compensate for drift over time.
Coincidentally, DocOk posted a video about how this all works yesterday, and if you watch until the end he explains how the IMU (gyro, accelerometer, magnetometer) is used for precise tracking, and the cameras (or lighthouses in the case of Vive) are used to correct for drift.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-nsylEpgVek
Associate
That was super informative, thanks for posting that.
Sorry mid_gen, I was not trying to fan boy my argument. I simply wanted to point out that these AR headsets are very poor competition to the Rift / Vive and no amount of clever coding will fix that. These are an overpriced experience falling between google cardboard and the Rift / Vive. I feel sorry for people who will get these thinking this is the latest VR experience.
JFYI, I have been writing code for the past ~36 years so I did get a laugh out of fixing the limitations within 15minutes.
The question on whether you have tried VR was genuine.
JFYI, I have been writing code for the past ~36 years so I did get a laugh out of fixing the limitations within 15minutes.
The question on whether you have tried VR was genuine.
I've pulled the trigger, mainly because the feedback is so positive. I'll come back at the end of the week and share my thoughts.
Thanks for taking the time and effort to respond.
Thanks for taking the time and effort to respond.
Associate
You've made a great desicion, I bought mine 2 weeks ago after half a bottle of rum, next morning I regretted it and was all set to return it, I thought I would just at least give it a try. Needless to say, I absolutely loved it! There's no chance in hell I was going to send this wonderful piece of technology back.
Enjoy!
