Oculus Rift / Virtual Reality General - Games

[QUOTE=bitches;49019028]Alienware is almost universally overpriced I don't know about Dell, but I've got an ASUS gaming laptop that has performed flawlessly for the last four years [editline]31st October 2015[/editline] with excellent cooling design[/QUOTE] I heard VR doesn't work well with laptops? Do you use VR with yours? And in any case, what model do you have? [editline]31st October 2015[/editline] [QUOTE=dark soul;49019068]You should look on amazon and just buy one that's an open package. You could save a few hundred bucks.[/QUOTE] What do you mean by open package?

[QUOTE=Pvt Anderson;49019112]I heard VR doesn't work well with laptops? Do you use VR with yours? And in any case, what model do you have? [editline]31st October 2015[/editline] What do you mean by open package?[/QUOTE] I do not use VR with my laptop. While its GTX 660M plays many well optimized titles on max, it just isn't cut out for VR. Most laptops with mobile graphics cards use "NVidia Optimus", something that routes gpu video output through an intel processor so that the graphics output can be generated by either the gpu or the processor, depending on whether or not you're currently playing a game, in order to save battery life. The downside of Optimus is that the video output is limited to 60hz, no matter how many fps the game runs at, and VR will require 90+hz outputs. The DK2 currently relies on 75hz which is the bare minimum for VR. If any laptops are deemed 'oculus ready' by oculus, they ought to not have such a "feature", but it pays to be sure about it before purchasing. To ultimately answer the question: Very expensive very new laptops could run VR, with 980M chips (bear in mind that mobile chips are less powerful than their desktop versions, and that performance drops if the laptop gets hot, which is why I'm not saying to get a 970M-using laptop even though the VR desktop requirement is a GTX 970). [B]So... Just don't get a laptop for VR.[/B] I have an ASUS ROG G75VW, which isn't sold anymore, but you don't want to buy this one anyway because it is outdated (but still a very solid machine that after these years, which is why I recommend ASUS). "Open package" Imagine that in a warehouse somewhere full of retail/online products waiting for people to order them, a box's outside becomes damaged. A customer receiving this in the mail would be upset fearing damaged goods, and a retail store receiving this item would be upset because no customers would buy it. Therefore these items are sold online as Open Package items. They should be fine, but most customers are willing to pay extra for the [I]guarantee[/I] that their received product will work properly.

[QUOTE=bitches;49019173]I do not use VR with my laptop. While its GTX 660M plays many well optimized titles on max, it just isn't cut out for VR. Most laptops with mobile graphics cards use "NVidia Optimus", something that routes gpu video output through an intel processor so that the graphics output can be generated by either the gpu or the processor, depending on whether or not you're currently playing a game, in order to save battery life. The downside of Optimus is that the video output is limited to 60hz, no matter how many fps the game runs at, and VR will require 90+hz outputs. The DK2 currently relies on 75hz which is the bare minimum for VR. If any laptops are deemed 'oculus ready' by oculus, they ought to not have such a "feature", but it pays to be sure about it before purchasing. To ultimately answer the question: Very expensive very new laptops could run VR, with 980M chips (bear in mind that mobile chips are less powerful than their desktop versions, and that performance drops if the laptop gets hot, which is why I'm not saying to get a 970M-using laptop even though the VR desktop requirement is a GTX 970). [B]So... Just don't get a laptop for VR.[/B] I have an ASUS ROG G75VW, which isn't sold anymore, but you don't want to buy this one anyway because it is outdated (but still a very solid machine that after these years, which is why I recommend ASUS). "Open package" Imagine that in a warehouse somewhere full of retail/online products waiting for people to order them, a box's outside becomes damaged. A customer receiving this in the mail would be upset fearing damaged goods, and a retail store receiving this item would be upset because no customers would buy it. Therefore these items are sold online as Open Package items. They should be fine, but most customers are willing to pay extra for the [I]guarantee[/I] that their received product will work properly.[/QUOTE] Thank you for your thorough response. The open package thing is interesting, but I'd want to see some statistics showing how often the machine is perfectly functional, and how often they actually are damaged, or perhaps some accounts of people who have bought open package stuff. All in all, I've taken a lot of risks when it comes to buying computers and computer parts in order to save money. I sort of want to be as safe as I can be, and just get a product I know works (along with a warantee), and works exceptionally for the purposes I want. These are the specs for what Oculus considers to be good for a "full" user experience: [B]Video Card[/B] NVIDIA GTX 970 / AMD 290 equivalent or greater [B]CPU[/B] Intel i5-4590 equivalent or greater [B]Memory[/B] 8GB+ RAM [B]Video Output[/B] Compatible HDMI 1.3 video output [B]USB Ports[/B] 2x USB 3.0 ports [B]OS[/B] Windows 7 SP1 or newer I don't have a good enough understanding of hardware to find a computer with these specifications or better. If I did, I'd look for one. But I may just end up looking through the "VR Ready" computers (with ASUS at the top of my list) and compare benchmarks between them to find my top choice.

There are a loooooooot of shitty computers sold for insanely high prices out there. For your purposes you absolutely should just buy something that oculus brands 'vr ready'.

[QUOTE=Pvt Anderson;49019112]I heard VR doesn't work well with laptops? Do you use VR with yours? And in any case, what model do you have?[/QUOTE] There's only one configuration of laptop right now that's above spec for VR, which is two 980ms in SLI. Despite that, there might still be other hardware issues. [b]However,[/b] the new laptops with desktop grade 970s and 980s in them are perfectly capable of VR and are being advertised as such. [media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DJeXUKFvcHs[/media] Oh and my laptop is the better model of the same series as bitches, with a 670MX card instead of 660... despite running under heavy load for insane uptimes it's held out insanely well. Seriously agree with an Asus recommendation, and their offering for the 980 laptops is the GX700 which will be the first watercooled laptop unless you count linus submerging part of a macbook in water to try and make it suck less

[QUOTE=Elspin]the first watercooled laptop[/QUOTE] Sweet fuck [editline]31st October 2015[/editline] Gee golly whiz what a time to be alive

[QUOTE=bitches;49023922]Sweet fuck [editline]31st October 2015[/editline] Gee golly whiz what a time to be alive[/QUOTE] I know right [t]https://cms-images.idgesg.net/images/article/2015/10/gx700_vapor-100621068-orig.png[/t]

it's like a governmental angular radar-cloaking device

[thumb]http://imgur.com/2pug4ss.png[/thumb] Messing around with this cockpit got me thinking. How does a developer accommodate for the various sizes and heights of people playing the game? I mean you could probably average it for some decent percentage of the global population - but people will still have varying limb and neck sizes and there will always be extreme outliers -- people whose arms reach nearly their knees or whose legs account for more than 45% of their height - or even people whose necks are twice as long as usual. Will Vive or Oculus ship their sets with user profiles that users can set up and we can read from to custom tailor the in-game avatar/controls? Like what if you're simply too short to reach something on a high shelf in a VR space? Will users feel comfortable inputting that information - will Vive do something like a 'body estimator' where it can fill the numbers in for you? The more I think about these questions the more I wonder just how custom tailored VR games will become in the future. Will we settle for entertainment park-esque 'your body proportions must fit within this range of parameters for an optimal experience' or will we scale the world around the end-user? How would that affect multiplayer experiences - would everyone externally present uniformly or will we be providing different 'body types' for people to slip in to for maximum comfort? There's lots of cool problems to solve. For myself, I'm curious about how a virtual cockpit would be optimally set up for the widest range of possible people which is part of what I'm exploring above. Interfaces you can grab, move around, and lock in place - the chair can be moved forward/back and have its back adjusted down or up. Even the controls sort of 'float in space'. In a more AAA solution would this be more like things on a series of physical rails? Do you adjust all your parameters like the first time you get in to your car? What do y'all think? What should 'physical control spaces' look and behave like in VR?

[QUOTE=Firgof Umbra;49027076][thumb]http://imgur.com/2pug4ss.png[/thumb] Messing around with this cockpit got me thinking. How does a developer accommodate for the various sizes and heights of people playing the game? I mean you could probably average it for some decent percentage of the global population - but people will still have varying limb and neck sizes and there will always be extreme outliers -- people whose arms reach nearly their knees or whose legs account for more than 45% of their height - or even people whose necks are twice as long as usual. Will Vive or Oculus ship their sets with user profiles that users can set up and we can read from to custom tailor the in-game avatar/controls? Like what if you're simply too short to reach something on a high shelf in a VR space? Will users feel comfortable inputting that information - will Vive do something like a 'body estimator' where it can fill the numbers in for you? The more I think about these questions the more I wonder just how custom tailored VR games will become in the future. Will we settle for entertainment park-esque 'your body proportions must fit within this range of parameters for an optimal experience' or will we scale the world around the end-user? How would that affect multiplayer experiences - would everyone externally present uniformly or will we be providing different 'body types' for people to slip in to for maximum comfort? There's lots of cool problems to solve. For myself, I'm curious about how a virtual cockpit would be optimally set up for the widest range of possible people which is part of what I'm exploring above. Interfaces you can grab, move around, and lock in place - the chair can be moved forward/back and have its back adjusted down or up. Even the controls sort of 'float in space'. In a more AAA solution would this be more like things on a series of physical rails? Do you adjust all your parameters like the first time you get in to your car? What do y'all think? What should 'physical control spaces' look and behave like in VR?[/QUOTE] Make the cockpit bigger to allow for bigger people. Don't put (essential) things up high to make it comfortable for smaller people. Implement a sort of centering function to allow for different body types. To expand on that last point, think like a short calibration exercise. ask the user to stand at a comfortable posture (or if they are disabled allow for sitting experience), ask them to reach as far as they can and as far as is comfortable. OR don't even make it obvious that you are doing a calibration. have the measurements done in a tutorial and then adjust the real experience to accommodate.

[QUOTE=GeneralSpecific;49027563]To expand on that last point, think like a short calibration exercise. ask the user to stand at a comfortable posture (or if they are disabled allow for sitting experience), ask them to reach as far as they can and as far as is comfortable. OR don't even make it obvious that you are doing a calibration. have the measurements done in a tutorial and then adjust the real experience to accommodate.[/QUOTE] Or to account for all of this you could make the UI completely dynamic, every section of it resizeable and movable. One thing that would be cool is having like, VR Profiles for everyone which contain data about their height, reach etc, and games/experiences can use this data to scale shit.

[QUOTE=EcksDee;49027582]Or to account for all of this you could make the UI completely dynamic, every section of it resizeable and movable. One thing that would be cool is having like, VR Profiles for everyone which contain data about their height, reach etc, and games/experiences can use this data to scale shit.[/QUOTE] in the oculus config you do specify your height [editline]1st November 2015[/editline] in a profile

[QUOTE=bitches;49027736]in the oculus config you do specify your height [editline]1st November 2015[/editline] in a profile[/QUOTE] im sorry

Surely you can just have the camera at a static location regardless of height - you could always scale the cockpit around them?

[QUOTE=Beacon;49028430]Surely you can just have the camera at a static location regardless of height - you could always scale the cockpit around them?[/QUOTE] Yeah for a cockpit simulator game I dont see why having a static player height would be a problem. I dont even think you would be able to notice if your (completely static) player model was a bit shorter or taller than you are IRL.

[QUOTE=Timebomb575;49028452]Yeah for a cockpit simulator game I dont see why having a static player height would be a problem. I dont even think you would be able to notice if your (completely static) player model was a bit shorter or taller than you are IRL.[/QUOTE] You should account for players moving their heads up and down. To expand on this, there's a guy who does videos of what cockpits in elite dangerous look like when you walk around in vr. The player model remains in the chair and is headless it's p weird.

[QUOTE=bitches;49027736]in the oculus config you do specify your height [editline]1st November 2015[/editline] in a profile[/QUOTE] Gender, height, eye-to-neck distance (though these are usually kept at default), and IPD. Any application that uses the Oculus SDK is able to request this info. Not sure how SteamVR handles it though.

[url]http://www.gamereactor.eu/news/362413/Tackmania+Turbo+embraces+Oculus+Rift+and+PlayStation+VR/[/url]

[QUOTE=Orkel;49035822][url]http://www.gamereactor.eu/news/362413/Tackmania+Turbo+embraces+Oculus+Rift+and+PlayStation+VR/[/url][/QUOTE] every games company should be embracing vr

[img]http://i.imgur.com/svD89PN.png[/img] I believe this new content when I see it!

Looks like Samsung has updated their official webpage for the GearVR out of the innovators edition and into the real thing: [url]http://www.samsung.com/global/galaxy/wearables/gear-vr/[/url] Hopefully preorders/orders open in the next week!

They just dumped the Oculus Connect 2 developer sessions on Youtube: [url]https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLL2xVXGs1SP4kxSKQsG40PCsItIujwznZ[/url] Includes Carmack's live coding session.

[QUOTE=Zombii;49045256]Looks like Samsung has updated their official webpage for the GearVR out of the innovators edition and into the real thing: [url]http://www.samsung.com/global/galaxy/wearables/gear-vr/[/url] Hopefully preorders/orders open in the next week![/QUOTE] Am I the only one who thinks it's a little crazy to buy what is effectively a souped up Cardboard when the actual headsets are so close to being released?

[QUOTE=Timebomb575;49047159]Am I the only one who thinks it's a little crazy to buy what is effectively a souped up Cardboard when the actual headsets are so close to being released?[/QUOTE] There are significant differences between google cardboard and gearvr. Plus, using vr in places other than your house is p cool. I read a post by somebody who used gearvr during a long flight and he really enjoyed it while the people around him were miserable.

[QUOTE=GeneralSpecific;49047403]There are significant differences between google cardboard and gearvr. Plus, using vr in places other than your house is p cool. I read a post by somebody who used gearvr during a long flight and he really enjoyed it while the people around him were miserable.[/QUOTE] Correct me if I'm wrong, but isnt a Gear just a cardboard with it's own onboard accelerometers to augment the phone's? You can still only use cardboard apps and you still only have the graphical processing power of the phone inside it. doesnt sound like it'd be worth 100 bucks over a cardboard [editline]4th November 2015[/editline] and really, I didnt have any tracking issues at all with my old S4's accelerometers, so I dont really see why you'd want better ones

[QUOTE=Timebomb575;49047454]Correct me if I'm wrong, but isnt a Gear just a cardboard with it's own onboard accelerometers to augment the phone's? You can still only use cardboard apps and you still only have the graphical processing power of the phone inside it. doesnt sound like it'd be worth 100 bucks over a cardboard [editline]4th November 2015[/editline] and really, I didnt have any tracking issues at all with my old S4's accelerometers, so I dont really see why you'd want better ones[/QUOTE] High quality calibrated lenses can be worth a tonne of money entirely by themselves, we have some lenses in systems we've shipped that are over $5,000. It'd be hard to say how much it improves the experience but you really shouldn't underestimate how valuable an improved IMU can be, losses in positioning are constantly building in any system like that, so if you plan on using it for more than 5 minutes it's a huge deal. In other news, all these augmented reality headsets are giving me the major sickness, they're not exactly performing to Rift standards (no surprise there) so using them for extended period of times is harsh

[QUOTE=Timebomb575;49047454]Correct me if I'm wrong, but isnt a Gear just a cardboard with it's own onboard accelerometers to augment the phone's? You can still only use cardboard apps[/QUOTE] You are wrong. First of all, GearVR has kernel access unlike cardboard. Where cardboard has to run on top of android and every other app running, gearvr can use virtually all the power its phone has. Second, gearvr has its own store with made for gear content and can also run google cardboard apps. You really ought to do basic research before you post next time.

Gear and Cardboard are on separate dimensions altogether. Comparing them as if they were the same is terribly ignorant.

[url]http://imgur.com/a/u4jYi[/url] Was up for a little bit and then got taken down. It's confirmed legit [img]https://s3.amazonaws.com/lytro-corp-assets/pictures/camera.png[/img]

what even is that?