Oculus Rift

Is there going to be a standard interface for VR technologies, so a game will work with either Oculus or Vive, I just hope it doesn't become a one o the other situation.
 
sgavan said:
Is there going to be a standard interface for VR technologies, so a game will work with either Oculus or Vive, I just hope it doesn't become a one o the other situation.
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There is OpenVR(SteamVR) and OSVR, two open standard API's that are working to do this. But it's difficult. VR headsets are not just 'displays' like a monitor or whatever. Add in different motion controllers and it becomes even more difficult.

Basically, the issue right now is that all of this is in a relatively primitive state. We've been able to get VR 'working' already, but to get it to a level where it's stable and consumer friendly for the average person, while meeting the incredibly high standards of performance and latency and whatnot requires a WHOLE lot of 'new' ways of going about things. It also requires Nvidia, AMD and Microsoft all working, doing their part to implement VR-specific support for API's, drivers and integration with the OS, which has taken a fair bit of time and probably accounts for the main reason we haven't seen consumer headsets out yet. It's also why we shouldn't expect consumer-level support for Linux or Mac anytime soon.

Anyways, needless to say, there is no accepted 'standard' yet. OpenVR and OSVR are certainly working towards that, but doing this can sometimes mean slower progress. Oculus seem to want to move forward as fast as possible and dont feel like compromising their goals just to be part of that push(though they are also contributing indirectly by innovating with new ideas and implementations that can be adapted elsewhere). Personally, I think that's fairly understandable when we're months away from the DEBUT of these consumer headsets into the public domain. HTC said that the reason for their delay was due to a 'big breakthrough', but devs working on Vive games have noted that SteamVR was NOT in a state to be released to the public yet, so I'm willing to bet that was probably a bigger reason for the delay than anything else.

In the end, established and open standards will prevail, but it will take a little while to get there. Until then, there will be *some* either/or sorts of experiences(Oculus SDK only works for Rift), but I think the biggest issue will be that an open standard like OpenVR/SteamVR is unlikely to provide an optimal experience for all users early on. It may work great with the Vive, but maybe not so much with the Rift, for instance. And in VR, something not working as well isn't just about accepting lower performance or whatever, it can ruin the experience and make it unplayable or it might simply not work properly at all.

So we'll see. The current situation is not ideal, but it should definitely improve over time.
 
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Good thing there's a few different companies bringing a product out. If there was just one they'd be able to charge far more. Competition should keep price down.
Flip side is the better technology may miss out if they can't price it right and everyone buys something else that's cheaper.
 
D3K said:
I completely disagree. I think they will both be successful and if either wins for the gaming community it will be the vive. Rift will never die with the backing of Facebook, but if need be it will carve out a niche for casual users.
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To be honest it's more a concern based on HTCs current financial state. I'm wary of what happens if this doesn't prove successful. I guess Steam just take what they have learnt and jump to a new hardware partner.

I too hope they do well, including PSVR. The first few generations of this era of VR really needs everyone to pull together to make it work in the long-term. I just think the reach and clout of Facebook backing make the Rift potentially more successful, but yes, the core gaming community which will be at the forefront of this generation will have an affinity already for anything Steam related.

If the Vive turns out to be massively better then I'll have no problem switching, but at the moment I'm all-in on Rift pre-orders even if the Vive had the same release date. I believe initially it will be a richer and more rounded experience and Oculus specific content will be there from day 1.
 
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Seanspeed said:
There is OpenVR(SteamVR) and OSVR, two open standard API's that are working to do this. But it's difficult. VR headsets are not just 'displays' like a monitor or whatever. Add in different motion controllers and it becomes even more difficult.

Basically, the issue right now is that all of this is in a relatively primitive state. We've been able to get VR 'working' already, but to get it to a level where it's stable and consumer friendly for the average person, while meeting the incredibly high standards of performance and latency and whatnot requires a WHOLE lot of 'new' ways of going about things. It also requires Nvidia, AMD and Microsoft all working, doing their part to implement VR-specific support for API's, drivers and integration with the OS, which has taken a fair bit of time and probably accounts for the main reason we haven't seen consumer headsets out yet. It's also why we shouldn't expect consumer-level support for Linux or Mac anytime soon.

Anyways, needless to say, there is no accepted 'standard' yet. OpenVR and OSVR are certainly working towards that, but doing this can sometimes mean slower progress. Oculus seem to want to move forward as fast as possible and dont feel like compromising their goals just to be part of that push(though they are also contributing indirectly by innovating with new ideas and implementations that can be adapted elsewhere). Personally, I think that's fairly understandable when we're months away from the DEBUT of these consumer headsets into the public domain. HTC said that the reason for their delay was due to a 'big breakthrough', but devs working on Vive games have noted that SteamVR was NOT in a state to be released to the public yet, so I'm willing to bet that was probably a bigger reason for the delay than anything else.

In the end, established and open standards will prevail, but it will take a little while to get there. Until then, there will be *some* either/or sorts of experiences(Oculus SDK only works for Rift), but I think the biggest issue will be that an open standard like OpenVR/SteamVR is unlikely to provide an optimal experience for all users early on. It may work great with the Vive, but maybe not so much with the Rift, for instance. And in VR, something not working as well isn't just about accepting lower performance or whatever, it can ruin the experience and make it unplayable or it might simply not work properly at all.

So we'll see. The current situation is not ideal, but it should definitely improve over time.
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Thanks for that hopefully everyone will benefit and progress will be quick.
 
Washout said:
Good thing there's a few different companies bringing a product out. If there was just one they'd be able to charge far more. Competition should keep price down.
Flip side is the better technology may miss out if they can't price it right and everyone buys something else that's cheaper.
Click to expand...
Competition hasn't really changed anything for Oculus, pricing wise. It was always their plan to sell their hardware as cheaply as they could. That doesn't mean the hardware is going to be cheap, but definitely a good price for what you actually get. Their business plan was always about the ecosystem.

I do agree that pricing too high(whether for profit or just because it's a premium product) leaves the door open for others to come in and provide something more affordable. I'm actually a little worried about this. Affordable is good, but if the experience provided is significantly inferior to the higher end headsets, it may hurt VR's overall growth if people are unimpressed with these 'more affordable' headsets. Oculus and HTC are not doing premium-level VR headsets because they want to be like Bose or anything, they just feel there is an inherent quality level that VR should meet in order to properly WOW people and have them coming back, using the product over and over.
 
MorleySA said:
I'm wondering if i need to upgrade my PC for this, i'm currently running a i7 4930k with x2 780 GTX's in sli......
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SLI/Crossfire is a big no no. Adds far too much latency.

This might change with the latest SDKs and DX12....but if you want the best VR experience I would absolutely recommend a single GPU.
 
mid_gen said:
SLI/Crossfire is a big no no. Adds far too much latency.

This might change with the latest SDKs and DX12....but if you want the best VR experience I would absolutely recommend a single GPU.
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Yes hopefully liquid VR pulls through and completely gets rid of latency due Xfire by having the GPUs running independently from each other.
 
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Avenged7Fold said:
Yes hopefully liquid VR pulls through and completely gets rid of latency due Xfire by having the GPUs running independently from each other.
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We already know it does. That and VR SLI. Latency is actually improved, along with healthy performance scaling. That's the difference between split frame rendering and alternate frame rendering.

It's just a matter of implementation by graphics engine teams and game developers. That's the big question.
 
Vive breakthrough finally revealed:

http://uploadvr.com/htc-vive-pre-hands-on/

It's basically a sort of way to roughly see your surroundings while still in a virtual space using the camera on the front of the headset. Basically should improve safety by allowing people to actually *see* objects before they run into them rather than just having some grid pop up where you've set your designated limits.
 
Seanspeed said:
Vive breakthrough finally revealed:

http://uploadvr.com/htc-vive-pre-hands-on/

It's basically a sort of way to roughly see your surroundings while still in a virtual space using the camera on the front of the headset. Basically should improve safety by allowing people to actually *see* objects before they run into them rather than just having some grid pop up where you've set your designated limits.
Click to expand...

Thanks for sharing. Not a huge breakthrough IMHO.
 
^ Just saw that, did anyone here back it?

The more they are talking the more it seems they have a massive amount of launch stock.
 
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