Why the Virtual-Reality Hype is About to Come Crashing Down

[Pottsey]

“Eh? So most families dont have standing room in the living room? I mean its not like you need a clear view to play a console in the living room or anything and loads of families do that, hence 20 million or so PS4's being sold.” treadmill

In my experience few families have consoles in the living room due to the problems it creates and many of those that do cannot use the consoles much or use multiply social games which don’t work on VR in the living room. Millions of people have consoles in areas that VR wouldn’t work well in. So I don’t see VR going mainstream it will be a small fraction of consoles.

“Wireless VR, it is coming, being demoed now, solves most of your complaints about living room use.” treadmill

Not it doesn’t solve the problem I was talking about. I don’t think you understood the issue or reasons I was trying to describe. Plus wireless adds in more motion sickness.

“You're right in that spreadsheets in space doesnt work in VR, real games do though.” treadmill

What are you on about? I was talking about real games with decent gameplay depth that are worth playing. What has that got to do with spreadsheets? Everything I have seen with Hive VR gaming so far has the same problem as Kinetic/motion style games. No gameplay depth, bad controls only games with a simple interface work and only useful for short bursts or less. Very few real decent games work well or benefit from VR from what I have seen and any games with a decent amount of UI player interaction fail in VR. Racing games work well as you don't move room to room and the UI interaction is low. But add in Room to room movement with more UI interaction and VR falls down.

 

[FrankJH]

Plus wireless adds in more motion sickness.

.

Sorry but this is complete codswallop

Ease of movement isnt badly effected enough currently for the headgear to go wireless to have a more pronounced effect.

If you currently have motion sickness in VR, the same headset but wireless will have the same effect no more, no less.

Saying that Im sure there are ways in Gen 2 or 3 they can decrease /eliminate motion sickness (artificial horizons in some games may help some for example, or strength of vibration in controllers may help the motion sensors in our inner ears / eyes etc believe we are moving in VR more real and less cause for sickness)

 

[Del-Dredd]

I am not sure what his experience with multiple families is anyway, unless a social worker going round hundreds of homes he has no idea what hundreds of families do.

Also what the hell is Hive VR never heard of it, all the game types he mentions no one would even want to play in VR so moot points all round I think.

Not sure he has even tried a Vive or Occulus so does not get it, in any case, saying controllers are not any good just like Wii and Konect just proves the point.

 

[olivier renault]

If you currently have motion sickness in VR, the same headset but wireless will have the same effect no more, no less.

Wireless adds latency. More latency = more motion sickness. Unless we can do wireless 4K+surround audio under a couple of milliseconds, then that'll be OK.

Secondly, wireless means external power. I guess the batteries will have to be worn somewhere, putting batteries on the headset.... sounds like extra weight and heat where you don't want it. GearVR suffers a lot from it.

In any case, consumer VR is here to stay. Mainstream or not, there will always be a market for it. If not Oculus or Valve, then someone else. It's been proven to work, can be made relatively cheap, and adds an extra layer of immersion. Racing, flight, and space sims would be crazy not to take advantage of it. Sims players aren't your casual gamer either, they would have no problem spending £500 to get the VR experience. Same with a few industries I can think of.

As for room-scale, meh, not my cuppa anyway. Sims and FPS, that's just fine by me.

 

[FrankJH]

Wireless adds latency. More latency = more motion sickness. Unless we can do wireless 4K+surround audio under a couple of milliseconds, then that'll be OK. .

Motion sickness isnt really related to latency though

Motion sickness is only to do with when one part of your sensory input (inner ear, vision etc) experience motion but your other(s) doesnt feel it.

Which isnt strictly anything to do with latency (delay in recieving something after it was sent, ie packet of data) - and wireless is good enough these days for that not to be the case here in future headsets when they do become wireless on a big scale at the current resolutions being used.

You wont be getting 4k VR for some time and that certainly wont be viable over current wirless tech without serious amounts of compression or other such methods of decreasing the amount of data required to transmit.

 

[Pottsey]

“I am not sure what his experience with multiple families is anyway, unless a social worker going round hundreds of homes he has no idea what hundreds of families do.”

I work in support in a family of schools made up of 1000’s of students and I lost count a long time ago how many families and how many homes I have been to.

“Also what the hell is Hive VR never heard of it, all the game types he mentions no one would even want to play in VR so moot points all round I think.”

Sorry typo. Vive style VR where you walk around a room. Its not a moot point if games with depth to them and a decent amount of UI interaction don’t work well in VR then how is VR going to go mainstream? Some style of games do work really well like cockpit style games but those style of games are not that popular. Racing, flight, and space sims are not enough for VR to go mainstream. As much as I love space sims the sim market is far too small. The only type of games I have seen or experienced working well in VR are cockpit style games and games with limited UI interaction or simple interfaces with low level interaction. That’s not to say games with a simple interface are bad but it’s a major limiting factor for VR. Most VR games and apps are designed around a short sub 20min play time as its core problem with VR.

“Not sure he has even tried a Vive or Occulus so does not get it, in any case, saying controllers are not any good just like Wii and Konect just proves the point. “

My first VR experience was around 22 years ago and my last Vive experience a few weeks ago. I had the same problem with the Vive controllers as I do with the Wii or other motion controllers. The same VR gameplay problems as 22 years ago seem to still be there in the Vive and Occulus which is why I don’t see VR going mainstream. That and the poor screens which are still not good enough and won’t be for years.

“Sorry but this is complete codswallop”

olivier renault has already explained why it’s not codswallop. But for clarity a wired screen has a sub 2ms latency. A wireless screen has a 200ms or worse latency. That is what creates motion sickness.

 

[andybird123]

In my experience few families have consoles in the living room due to the problems it creates and many of those that do cannot use the consoles much or use multiply social games which don’t work on VR in the living room. Millions of people have consoles in areas that VR wouldn’t work well in. So I don’t see VR going mainstream it will be a small fraction of consoles.

so they have consoles in places where you can't sit or stand?
how many people have consoles in a cupboard exactly?

Plus wireless adds in more motion sickness.

no it doesn't, that is the whole point of them working on low latency wireless that works for VR

What are you on about? I was talking about real games with decent gameplay depth that are worth playing. What has that got to do with spreadsheets? Everything I have seen with Hive VR gaming so far has the same problem as Kinetic/motion style games. No gameplay depth, bad controls only games with a simple interface work and only useful for short bursts or less. Very few real decent games work well or benefit from VR from what I have seen and any games with a decent amount of UI player interaction fail in VR. Racing games work well as you don't move room to room and the UI interaction is low. But add in Room to room movement with more UI interaction and VR falls down.

the 3 games you listed are not the type of games that work in VR, I know several people that really got heavily in to EVE and they spent far more time looking at spreadsheets to work out what to do in the game than actually in the game itself... and even then, they might work fine given some set up, I've not tried.

there are dozens of types of games that work well in VR, what you are saying is completely untrue, there are several non-VR games that I play perfectly fine in VR including interacting with the UI the same as I would on a screen... then there are specifically made for VR games, which again have perfectly funcitoning UI's where you move from room to room and have an inventory you can call up on one hand and pull what you need with the other

it really just sounds like you haven't even tried VR, or tried like one demo and are basing all of your opinions off of one bad game, but some of the best stuff at the moment is in early access or just demo format with the full game being worked towards, so, I don't know... but I play most things in VR and they work well, there's no usability issues for me

I can understand the cost argument, VR is currently expensive, but even that will change over the next few years... all the other objections you are raising are complete non-issues well on the way to being solved

 

[FrankJH]

A wireless screen has a 200ms or worse latency.

This is completely wrong to start with

Maybe one version of a wireless screen does, but this is by no means average or anything that hasnt already been completely obliterated as a reason.

There is no latency inherant in the scale/resolution currently being used to cause motion sickness.

Obviously different people get MS for different reasons not all just related to what I have described above, but for the most part its not for your stated reason

 

[Pottsey]

“Motion sickness isnt really related to latency though
Motion sickness is only to do with when your sensory input (inner ear, vision etc) experience motion but your body doesnt feel it.”

Motion sickness is very much related to latency. The problem with wireless is you turn your head or move and 200ms later the screen updates. That lag between the movement and the visual update is one of the big causes of motion sickness. Your eyes are telling you different from what you feel.

You just said it yourself motion sickness is when your vision experience motion but your body doesn’t. That what latency causes. You move and the vision doesn’t update instantly. Wired screens for most people update fast enough that the vision is close enough to motion so that most people don’t get motion sickness. Wireless screens are something like a factor of x100 worse in latency which is a major problem for motion sickness. Have you every tried to game on a wireless display? Its very hard and you often die due to the delay in what you see happening.

 

[andybird123]

Motion sickness is very much related to latency. The problem with wireless is you turn your head or move and 200ms later the screen updates. That lag between the movement and the visual update is one of the big causes of motion sickness. Your eyes are telling you different from what you feel.

You just said it yourself motion sickness is when your vision experience motion but your body doesn’t. That what latency causes. You move and the vision doesn’t update instantly. Wired screens for most people update fast enough that the vision is close enough to motion so that most people don’t get motion sickness. Wireless screens are something like a factor of x100 worse in latency which is a major problem for motion sickness. Have you every tried to game on a wireless display? Its very hard and you often die due to the delay in what you see happening.

you really need to actually read about VR to have an informed discussion on the subject, because all you are doing is spreading FUD

they aren't going to be using 200ms latency technology for VR, that is the whole point of R&D and demoing low latency wireless connections

 

[d_brennen]

Its amazing the amount of numpties poo pooing VR and not interested in it but still visit a VR specific sub forum to vent why its crap etc.

I think everyone is interested, this is a tech forum after all. I'd want to have a play with VR as I've been promised it's just around the corner for years (I'm in my 30s) and now maybe it is viable/within reach... But the additional cost on top of needed top end hardware.

If it were choice between a nice new/additional screen or VR headset? One will be used all the time, the other is a party novelty. I know what I'd buy

 

[FrankJH]

Motion sickness is very much related to latency. The problem with wireless is you turn your head or move and 200ms later the screen updates. That lag between the movement and the visual update is one of the big causes of motion sickness. Your eyes are telling you different from what you feel.

You just said it yourself motion sickness is when your vision experience motion but your body doesn’t. That what latency causes. You move and the vision doesn’t update instantly. Wired screens for most people update fast enough that the vision is close enough to motion so that most people don’t get motion sickness. Wireless screens are something like a factor of x100 worse in latency which is a major problem for motion sickness. Have you every tried to game on a wireless display? Its very hard and you often die due to the delay in what you see happening.

only because you have this mythical amount of time of 200ms , which is completely irrelevant and not based in fact.

There is no reason at all that wireless VR (when its developed fully) can not - with current wireless tech- cant update at the same speed as wired. those figures you are stuck on are total nonsense

 

[andybird123]

I think everyone is interested, this is a tech forum after all. I'd want to have a play with VR as I've been promised it's just around the corner for years (I'm in my 30s) and now maybe it is viable/within reach... But the additional cost on top of needed top end hardware.

If it were choice between a nice new/additional screen or VR headset? One will be used all the time, the other is a party novelty. I know what I'd buy

and how long have you used one for?

 

[d_brennen]

and how long have you used one for?

What bearing does that have on what I posted?

I'm not pooh poohing (so?) anything, just stating what might be behind some people's lack of enthusiasm. Being burned by tech choices too... HD DVD/Bluray for example and remember how 3D screens were ment to be the next big thing...

 

[andybird123]

What bearing does that have on what I posted?

because you stated that a new monitor will be used all the time, where as a headset would be a novelty that hardly gets used... I was considering getting a new monitor, but I got a headset instead, and it gets used every day... its just useful to have a frame of reference as to whether I'm discussing VR with someone who uses it, or someone who hasn't... I certainly understand the concerns that someone might have over getting one, but the cost aside (not to diminish cost as a concern it certainly is a completely valid reason) there are a lot of misconceptions about VR

its not a complete replacement for a monitor (yet), but this thread is about the long term viability of VR as a market, and the improvements they are making generation by generation I can certainly see it happening

if someone is throwing up "what if" type objections then I can try to give my own experience as another point of reference... where as if someone has tried and experienced a VR headset but didn't get on with it, then the conversation is more about the research and development going in to future devices

 

[Pottsey]

“This is completely wrong to start with
Maybe one version of a wireless screen does, but this is by no means average or anything that hasnt already been completely obliterated as a reason.”

Really? Please show me a decent wireless screen that doesn’t have bad latency in comparison to a wired screen. Every side by side comparison I have seen has the wireless screen up to 200ms worse latency. Every wireless screen I tried had too high latency for twitch gaming or VR. I have not been able to find any suitable wireless screens or wireless projectors. EDIT: Please don't show me PR marketing videos as I find real world examples tend to be very different from what the PR marketing videos show. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xBtFsbjQE0Q is an example of my experience in the real world with wireless screens.

“only because you have this mythical amount of time of 200ms , which is completely irrelevant and not based in fact.

There is no reason at all that wireless VR (when its developed fully) can not - with current wireless tech- cant update at the same speed as wired. those figures you are stuck on are total nonsense”

It’s not mythical it was taken from a test of a wireless screen running alongside a wired screen. If you are aware of good wireless screens please show them. No one else has in any other area managed to get wireless latency remotely close to wired. Why do you think VR developers will be different? The nature of how wireless works means it has worse latency then wired.

“no it doesn't, that is the whole point of them working on low latency wireless that works for VR”

No one that I am aware of has every managed to solve that. Why would VR developers be different? For example wireless projector makers have been trying to get that low latency for years and they never managed it.

“so they have consoles in places where you can't sit or stand?
how many people have consoles in a cupboard exactly?”

The majority of consoles I have seen live in small cupboards and are used in rooms not suitable for Vive VR and walking around.

“then there are specifically made for VR games, which again have perfectly funcitoning UI's where you move from room to room and have an inventory you can call up on one hand and pull what you need with the other”

As of yet I have not experienced any of that. All the motions UI’s I tired have been as bad as any other motion controller. Not found any good games for moving room to room and all the inventory changes by calling up one hand have been fiddly. For example I was on Space Pirate Trainer a few weeks ago & Aperture Robot Repair both had all the core VR problems that put me off buying one. I would love to buy a VR setup for Space SIMS but I don’t feel as though the current gen VR is anywhere near good enough.

“they aren't going to be using 200ms latency technology for VR, that is the whole point of R&D and demoing low latency wireless connections “

It’s possible I missed something. The only wireless solutions I have seen are the inbuilt SoC powering the helmet. But that have an entirely different set of problems from heat to battery life and much worse graphics. What demoing of low latency wireless connections to the PC has there been? I am not aware of anyone getting close to solving that.

 

[smilertoo]

I thought wireless desktop VR was supposed to be looking at lifi to overcome bandwidth/speed problems.

 

[Pottsey]

I thought wireless desktop VR was supposed to be looking at lifi to overcome bandwidth/speed problems.

Lifi cannot penetrate objects and has short range. It is very fast if an object has direct line of site. Not to sure how it would work with a moving VR helm.

 

[andybird123]

No one that I am aware of has every managed to solve that. Why would VR developers be different? For example wireless projector makers have been trying to get that low latency for years and they never managed it.

http://www.roadtovr.com/serious-sim...e-latency-tech-can-make-vr-headsets-wireless/

http://uploadvr.com/nitero-wireless-vr-2016/

to name just two, there are about a dozen companies working on / claiming they have solutions for low latency wireless, roadtovr and uploadvr are littered wtih examples

The majority of consoles I have seen live in small cupboards and are used in rooms not suitable for Vive VR and walking around.

as I have pointed out repeatedly, you only have to have standing room to use most VR games, most people have their consoles in a living room or bedroom, by definition you have to be able to stand up in a living room... I don't know anyone who actually sits in a cupboard under the stairs to play on their games console

As of yet I have not experienced any of that. All the motions UI’s I tired have been as bad as any other motion controller. Not found any good games for moving room to room and all the inventory changes by calling up one hand have been fiddly. For example I was on Space Pirate Trainer a few weeks ago & Aperture Robot Repair both had all the core VR problems that put me off buying one. I would love to buy a VR setup for Space SIMS but I don’t feel as though the current gen VR is anywhere near good enough.

space pirate trainer is not a full game, its a small indie, thrown together tech demo parading as a "released" game, and this is the problem, most VR games are in beta / early access, but people try a couple of tech demos and write the whole industry off without actually trying proper games

 

[Pottsey]

space pirate trainer is not a full game, its a small indie, thrown together tech demo parading as a "released" game, and this is the problem, most VR games are in beta / early access, but people try a couple of tech demos and write the whole industry off without actually trying proper games

But it wasn’t the game that was the problem. The core game was fun at least in short bursts; it was the VR hardware not being good enough that put me off VR. It’s hardly the indies fault the VR hardware isn’t good and I don’t see how a big full released game will be any different.

As for the wireless solutions I was not aware of those and if they work in the real world it will be interesting. My worry is those are lab results in perfect conditions that don’t scale outside the lab. Will keep an eye on them.