Oculus Rift

[TNA]

Any rumours of a wireless, higher resolution headset with no screen door effect?

It seems to me due to a lack of sales they are taking their time as they know not many will pay the asking price for such headset. They need to release the above for £399 and reduce the current one to £249 if they want to get more people to buy.

 

[SupraWez]

Any rumours of a wireless, higher resolution headset with no screen door effect?

From Oculus or in general?

In general there are the Pimax units which have higher res, apparently less screen door and a wireless module in the works.

Oculus have a new standalone unit due out which is obviously wireless, not sure on res though as its run from a low powered mobile platform

There are also 3rd party wireless modules that support both the Vive and Rift but are expensive and can be a pain to get working.

 

[TNA]

From Oculus or in general?

In general there are the Pimax units which have higher res, apparently less screen door and a wireless module in the works.

Oculus have a new standalone unit due out which is obviously wireless, not sure on res though as its run from a low powered mobile platform

There are also 3rd party wireless modules that support both the Vive and Rift but are expensive and can be a pain to get working.

Basically nothing then. Lol. Can’t imagine Pimax being priced competitively and the Oculus you mentioned sounds like one of those rubbish ones. I have a Samsung Galaxy S9+ and could just use that, but it is not what I am after.

I just remembered that there were rumours that valve are making one. I am confident if they were it would be wireless as a standard and have higher resolution. Would be willing to pay a premium for such product

 

[Ravenger]

The wireless Oculus Quest should actually be a pretty good product. Obviously it's not going to give you top-end Rift quality graphics, but it will be heavily optimised and the games on the store will be curated so only good games get released for it. It's basically the first stand-alone console 6DOF VR system.

It remains to be seen exactly how good the graphics will be, but for ease of use, interactivity, freedom of movement, and value for money it'll be hard to beat.

I'm going to get one, and I've already got a Rift and a Go, mainly because wire free appeals to me. I'll be able to play games like Superhot in a much larger area than I can currently use in VR, plus it's portable so easy to take to larger spaces.

 

[SupraWez]

I'm going to get one, and I've already got a Rift and a Go, mainly because wire free appeals to me. I'll be able to play games like Superhot in a much larger area than I can currently use in VR, plus it's portable so easy to take to larger spaces.

Snap

EDIT: I actually really like the GO, also makes it easier for others to try VR as you can easily take it anywhere..

 

[melmac]

Any rumours of a wireless, higher resolution headset with no screen door effect?

It seems to me due to a lack of sales they are taking their time as they know not many will pay the asking price for such headset. They need to release the above for £399 and reduce the current one to £249 if they want to get more people to buy.

Oculus are probably taking their time because the Oculus Rift is still selling well, It sold out in load of places during December.

 

[TNA]

Oculus are probably taking their time because the Oculus Rift is still selling well, It sold out in load of places during December.

It is all relative. It seems to me sales are very slow to what everyone expected before it was released. Have they even sold 5 million units yet?

All sold out means is their projections were wrong and they under supplied. If they had a couple of million units sitting there for the holiday season, I am sure there would not have been a shortage, but perhaps a huge half price sale

CV1 needs to further drop down in price. Been out for ages now. I wonder what the cost of producing it is? Facebook should go break even strategy to stimulate the market. Not enough VR headsets or active users for devs to put the time in to make killer apps.

Sorry if I sound a bit doom and gloom about it all btw

Waiting to see what Valve come out with

 

[Ravenger]

Oculus are focused on the Quest this year. Next year I imagine there will be a Rift successor. Possibly it'll be a Rift S, based on quest technology, but tethered to the PC. Personally I really want higher resolution, wider field of view and wireless all built in. Though that's going to need eye-tracking and Foveated rendering to make it work. I imagine Valve's headset may well be like that, and also supplied with knuckles controllers.

I do know that if Oculus doesn't produce a high-end headset then there'll be an exodus to Valve, Pimax or other high-end headsets.

 

[silvagti]

I'm going to get one, and I've already got a Rift and a Go, mainly because wire free appeals to me. I'll be able to play games like Superhot in a much larger area than I can currently use in VR, plus it's portable so easy to take to larger spaces.

Likewise. I had an Oculus Go for a week but without 6DOF and dual motion tracked controllers it didn't offer the gaming experience I was after. Which was a shame because some of the games I did try were decent and I thought the hardware quality was good.

The oculus quest should address all the limitations of the Go so I'm gonna grab it day one. Even if the visuals aren't up at PC level being portable and cable free will blue than make up for it.

 

[chaparral]

It seems to me due to a lack of sales they are taking their time as they know not many will pay the asking price for such headset. They need to release the above for £399 and reduce the current one to £249 if they want to get more people to buy.

Think the biggest problem that holds back the sales of the rift is the need for a high gaming PC to run it..
Your everyday average gamer not going to own a PC or GPU that can run it

Also the very high prices of highend GPU's these days is not going to help..

 

[TNA]

Think the biggest problem that holds back the sales of the rift is the need for a high gaming PC to run it..
Your everyday average gamer not going to own a PC or GPU that can run it

Also the very high prices of highend GPU's these days is not going to help..

That is true also. Though I have the PC to run it, but am put of by both price and the lack of hardware due to low resolution and it being wired. I only have so much time for gaming and can just about keep up with non VR games, so have been happy to hold of until next gen ones.

 

[Ravenger]

Likewise. I had an Oculus Go for a week but without 6DOF and dual motion tracked controllers it didn't offer the gaming experience I was after. Which was a shame because some of the games I did try were decent and I thought the hardware quality was good.

I mainly got my Go for watching video, with the occasional game, and it delivers that really well. It's an ideal portable media player and casual gaming device.

The Quest will be a much better gaming device, and even the movie playback may look better due to the OLED screens, but it will be bulkier to transport with its rigid headstrap and touch controllers, so its portability is not as good as the Go. You can literally throw the Go in a bag (with lens protection of course!) and take it with you virtually (no pun intended) anywhere.

I'd say they compliment each-other - If I want portable 6DOF gaming then the Quest is the one. If I want to rest in bed watching video or take a device with me on a trip then the extreme portability and simplicity of the Go makes it the obvious choice.

 

[silvagti]

That is true also. Though I have the PC to run it, but am put of by both price and the lack of hardware due to low resolution and it being wired.

I find the logistics are the biggest problems for PC VR. I have a WMR headset (plus a reasonable-ish pc) but I struggle to use my VR headset because my PC is in the smallest room in the house. If I play anything that involves moving about to any degree I'd need to carry my PC elsewhere in the house which is just too much hassle for a quick game.

That's why I'm looking forward to the oculus quest as a mobile wire free VR solution is clearly the way to go.

I mainly got my Go for watching video, with the occasional game, and it delivers that really well. It's an ideal portable media player and casual gaming device.

To be fair it was a lack of judgement on my part as I'm mainly interested in VR gaming and the Oculus Go wasn't really designed with that in mind as it's primary purpose. If you want it for media consumption on the move and maybe the occasional more casual game it works fine. Having seen what Oculus can do with the Go I'm pretty hyped for the quest as it sounds like exactly what I'm looking for in a VR headset.

 

[melmac]

Think the biggest problem that holds back the sales of the rift is the need for a high gaming PC to run it..
Your everyday average gamer not going to own a PC or GPU that can run it

Also the very high prices of highend GPU's these days is not going to help..

That's not really true though. Sure you can get a better experience by getting a better Graphics card, but, the Rift will run quite happily on a 970/290. And with ASW 2.0 coming out it will need even less power to get a good experience.

 

[melmac]

That is true also. Though I have the PC to run it, but am put of by both price and the lack of hardware due to low resolution and it being wired. I only have so much time for gaming and can just about keep up with non VR games, so have been happy to hold of until next gen ones.

It's not true, unless you count the 970 as high end? And I think you are having a laugh complaining about the price. £349 isn't expensive for what it is. You are getting two specialised lenses(and you only have to go to ang opticians to see how expensive lenses are) and a decent pair of headphones all integrated into a very comfortable frame. You are also getting two sensors, two touch controllers and £150 worth of games and software.

 

[SupraWez]

It's not true, unless you count the 970 as high end? And I think you are having a laugh complaining about the price. £349 isn't expensive for what it is. You are getting two specialised lenses(and you only have to go to ang opticians to see how expensive lenses are) and a decent pair of headphones all integrated into a very comfortable frame. You are also getting two sensors, two touch controllers and £150 worth of games and software.

Agreed about the price, being an early adopter with Rift and Touch purchased separately the current price is a bargain.

Also agree VR will run on a wide range of specs but think a high end machine is required to get the "optimal" experience, this is a problem for VR as a badly setup system with bad user experience is enough to put folks off for a generation

 

[CGrieves]

I love my Rift, but VR needs to be untethered to break out of the enthusiast demographic, and I don't think the PC is part of that future. I reckon these things will be self contained, and as soon as you have a single platform you can reap the massive benefits of optimisation and economies of scale (look at how good PSVR is considering the power of the hardware). The risk is we'll end up with multiple platforms that are truly incompatible, and it'll be VHS vs Betamax all over again. Still, exciting times ahead I feel.

 

[Zeeflyboy]

Really think they missed a trick by not having a tethered mode on the quest and effectively making that a rift 1.5... although I know Carmack has made some noise about looking into wifi tethering, not sure how that would work given bandwidth/latency issues and he himself says no promises and not at launch.

Would make a very tempting purchase for a lot of people then - stand alone ability for more simple graphics gaming/media/whatever, but a slightly improved tethered experience too in terms of better lenses and resolution, thus appealing to two markets.

That would probably tempt me into buying given the dual use ability and also tide me over until a true rift successor could then be done at viable cost, and also act as a gateway to PC VR for new entrants.

As it is they are potentially going to lose customer base to upcoming competitors like pimax and perhaps the new vive HMD etc while they focus on Quest and stay quiet about their future plans in the PCVR space. I understand why they are doing that, but equally it wasn't a zero sum game... had they made the Quest able to tether they could have killed two birds with one stone.

 

[Zeeflyboy]

I love my Rift, but VR needs to be untethered to break out of the enthusiast demographic, and I don't think the PC is part of that future. I reckon these things will be self contained, and as soon as you have a single platform you can reap the massive benefits of optimisation and economies of scale (look at how good PSVR is considering the power of the hardware). The risk is we'll end up with multiple platforms that are truly incompatible, and it'll be VHS vs Betamax all over again. Still, exciting times ahead I feel.

Just yesterday I managed to stand on the cord when trying to stand up from a crouch in zero calibre and yanked my head back. Really ******* annoying.

Just don't think we'll see integrated graphics capable of driving the resolutions and refresh rates the high end will be demanding any time soon though, so my personal feeling is that the high end will require a PC to drive it for a long time yet. Hopefully wirelessly before too long (and yes I'm aware you can go wireless at the moment, but not without doubling cost).

I honestly think good foveated rendering is the key technology to so much of this. It would allow even self contained headsets to give much higher fidelity experiences, reduce the PC spec required (or enable next gen consoles) for ultra high end VR experiences, and significantly enable wireless tethering through the reduction in required bandwidth.... That's not even considering further benefits such as fundamentally tying into varifocal, gameplay aspects etc. Once we see a good foveated rendering implementation I think the VR experience will rapidly improve, and it's an incredibly important part of the puzzle in my opinion.

 

[CGrieves]

Interesting things to come for sure. Was thinking that LiFi would give the bandwidth required for wireless video. Plug your PC into a LiFi transmitter and have a receiver on the headset, and maybe a small backpack for power.