Rift, Vive, and Virtual Reality

I definitely want to try it out. I think some image quality sacrifices will be worth it if the experience is very convincing (unless they cause nausea).

I'm still not sure this is how I'd want to do anywhere near the majority of my gaming. It's far too disconnecting from the real world. But it would be very cool to use sometimes, or with particular games.
 
Carmack making games on the Unreal Engine? That's some real old testament stuff. Fire and brimstone coming from the skies. Earthquakes, volcanoes! Dogs and cats living together. Mass hysteria!
 
Steam now has a "SteamVR" mode made specifically for the Rift. Apparently in this mode, Big Picture mode becomes a giant floating wall in front of you that you can view naturally by moving your head. Surely the next logical step is to integrate hand tracking and allow you to select with hand movements similar to Kinect.

http://www.extremetech.com/gaming/174661-valve-announces-steamvr-an-oculus-rift-mode-for-steam

Is this just for Steam interface, or any 2D game is displayed in "virtual cinema" mode?
 
Is this just for Steam interface, or any 2D game is displayed in "virtual cinema" mode?

I'm guessing just the interface as ideally you'd want the games to run in full VR in a similar way to how they would run in 3D via 3D vision. In the end it's the same thing except with 2 screens instead of shutter glasses and head tracking.
 
Valve has unveiled their vision of the VR, together with technical specifications that need to be met for true "presence", state in which our brains will accept VR image as completely real. They will share their R&D with other companies. We can expect that Oculus VR will be first to adopt all of this.

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Valve has issued a challenge to the entire entertainment industry, and that challenge has a name: “presence.” Presence is the magic that vr has always promised, and it is what will transform entertainment.

Presence is the new term for a concept most have never experienced, not even those with oculus kits. It is the result of all their research, it is what vr is and what vr does.

Presence is a state in which, due to a variety of factors, virtual reality becomes imperceptible from reality. A number of technological hurdles must be passed before this occurs – 95hz refresh rate seems to be neccessary (but maybe not!). High resolution is necessary. Latency from motion to last photon needs to cross below 20 ms. Pixel persistence of less than 3ms is a must, and is reasonably the upper limit. A wide fov is necessary, at least 85 degrees (the rift is 90). Positional tracking accurate within 5 mm. Much more advanced optics than currently exist. And all this is just for visual stuff, you also need user input, content, etc.

Once all these meld, however, you are in for a wild ride. Once presence kicks in, you cannot stop your subconscious from feeling like it is real. You’ll feel vertigo. You’ll start sweating under the sun. You’ll get goosebumps in the cold. Once these low level functions of the brain are convinced, for all intent and purpose, you are in the game. The holodeck realized.

The demo valve put together here, they believe, is one of the first vr experiences on the planet to approach presence. You’ve read the impressions, people are blown away even if they can’t quantify why. Presence is why. Immersion is nothing compared to presence.

Valve doesn’t intend to produce a vr headset, theirs is an r&d proto. They might, but it’s not in the works. Instead, they’re freely sharing their research with a number of companies who will bring vr to the masses, she they believe oculus will lead the revolution.

“The doom of vr is coming” said abrash, indicating that soon a transformative experience that will define vr is inevitable. Valve sees vr as the most important venture going forward. Out will iterate on pc, and it will change the world. They believe a consumer vr experience that invokes presence will be available by 2015. Today is day one, the rules of vr are being written right now.

Palmer luckey came in doing clean up, preaching what he’s learned about vr development, what works and what doesn’t. That stuff is widely available online, so I wont cover it… yet. But valve issued the gauntlet – bringing vr to the masses will take the joined effort of the entire entertainment industry. This is larger than one single company. When we arrive, and we will arrive, it will change not just entertainment, but computing entirely.

Ready, player one?
http://thesonicreblog.com/the-virtual-reality-revolution/


+ Valve will release VR SDK for steam games, together with VR support for old games. All games will be automatically detected, and showcased either in full VR mode or in "virtual cinema" mode for old legacy titles.
 
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the consumer verison of the rift will hit the majority of these things except resolution. There are no cheap panels capable of 1k/1k per eye right now . I don't think we will see mobile screen capable of it for a couple of more years yet and then even a few more down the road for them to be cost effective.
 
The best we can hope for is 1440p [or 1600p in 19:10 ratio], with lenses zooming and eliminating view to a lot of the screen. But that will bring us a lot closer to 1k x 1k for each eye.
 
What am I missing here? Surely 1K is 1000 horizontal pixels. So 1K x 1K per eye is more or less just half of one 1080p frame buffer per eye. Or specifically 860x1080 per eye.
 
Fair enough. But where is the resolution of that visible area defined and where is it said that a 1k x1k visible cone equates to more that 1600p per eye? I'm not saying this isn't true, I just don't see how "1k x1k" per eye translates to more than 1440p per eye.
 
The best we can hope for is 1440p [or 1600p in 19:10 ratio], with lenses zooming and eliminating view to a lot of the screen. But that will bring us a lot closer to 1k x 1k for each eye.

1440p would be amazing but is anyone even making that ? the s4 is 1920x1080p at 4.9inches

The note 3 is the same with a 5.7 inch screen.

I'm hoping in march when the s5 is announced they have a 1440p or higher screen in that. It would give me hope by the fall we would see it in the rift
 
1440p would be amazing but is anyone even making that ? the s4 is 1920x1080p at 4.9inches

The note 3 is the same with a 5.7 inch screen.

I'm hoping in march when the s5 is announced they have a 1440p or higher screen in that. It would give me hope by the fall we would see it in the rift

SGS5 is rumoted to have 5.2" 1440p, Vivo XPlay 3S has 6" 1440p, Japan Display is making 5.4" and 6", LG is making 5.5".
 
The Samsung one probably will be a pentile amoled display which probably not suited for Rift. Having said that, I do acknowledge that others are making 1440p display. Practically every flagship phone next outing will be using at least 1440p display.
 
I'd expect a noticeable jump in high end PC hardware once Oculus and other VR solution become available since very high resolutions and framerates will become almost essential to a good experience rather than just a nice bonus like they are now. From what Valve is saying, "Presence" which is the ultimate goal of VR may only be possilbe with the highest end hardware in the latest games.

It'll certainly convince me to upgrade to top end hardware - maybe even SLI which should be a perfect match for VR (one GPU per eye).
 
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