Valve announces VR-Only Half Life: Alyx. [2020]

[eastmen]

cv-1 is a pretty good way to play the game. I've tried it out with a 3 and 4 sensor setup.

Here are the units I've played it on from best to worse in terms of image quality

Unannounced headset
Index
Reverb
Rift S
Odyssey +
quest
Odyssey
Vive\cv1

In terms of controller I will put it kinda like this

Index
Cv1
Rift S/ quest
Both Odssey headsets and the vive
Yes the Cv1 controllers are beter than the rift s / quest because of how the band wraps your hand.

In terms of tracking

Index 3-4 light houses
Cv1 4 sensors
Index 2 light houses
Cv1 2-3 sensors
Rift S
Quest
WMR

 

[Davros]

Oculus is still officially selling their Touch controller kit at all considering the Rift-only SKU stopped being sold like 3 years ago

It's for people who need replacements they sell left and right seperately

 

[Davros]

Yeah, that would have to be quite an undertaking

Homerdog shipped a Gtx 670 to me from the states to the U.K (or rather he got his minion to do it who wrote $100 value on the customs form and landed me with a £40 bill)
Still it was an amazing act of generosity let's all give him a virtual round of applause....

Unannounced headset

You've got us all curious now, come on spill the beans..

 

[orangpelupa]

Yes the Cv1 controllers are beter than the rift s / quest because of how the band wraps your hand.

according to oculusquest subreddit posts, the quest controllers also more fragile than CV1. It can get cracked by itself right in the plastic ring where you can see the molding joins.

I assume, in the US (and any other country with proper protection law enforcement) Oculus fixed them under warranty tho, because those that were complaining went silent right after oculus CS replied to the thread and asking them to contact them thru oculus support.

 

[hughJ]

It's for people who need replacements they sell left and right seperately

We were specifically talking about the original Touch add-on SKU which includes 2 controllers, an extra sensor, etc, (which is what he would need.) That SKU was released in December 2016, and the following year Oculus had moved to a single combination Rift+Touch SKU. That original Touch SKU is not available on their US site (nor Canada, Australia, Japan, Taiwan, etc), but it is available on the EU region sites. Also note that the US site only shows the 'Left' controller, not the right, so whatever stock they have is probably all there is (for the US).

From Oculus's limited warranty PDF:
"How Long Does Coverage Last? This limited Warranty continues for one (1) year from the date of purchase or delivery of the Product, whichever is later (the “Warranty Period”). However, if you purchase the Product from within the EU or EFTA, the Warranty Period shall be two (2) years."

This is why I brought up differing regional consumer laws as possibly explaining why the EU store would have stock that other places do not.

 

[eastmen]

according to oculusquest subreddit posts, the quest controllers also more fragile than CV1. It can get cracked by itself right in the plastic ring where you can see the molding joins.

I assume, in the US (and any other country with proper protection law enforcement) Oculus fixed them under warranty tho, because those that were complaining went silent right after oculus CS replied to the thread and asking them to contact them thru oculus support.

you can see the quality difference here. Not only that but since the original ring wrapped around your hand it was much harder to hit them into things and the plastic was much stronger

 

[manux]

cv-1 is a pretty good way to play the game. I've tried it out with a 3 and 4 sensor setup.

Here are the units I've played it on from best to worse in terms of image quality

Unannounced headset
Index
Reverb
Rift S
Odyssey +
quest
Odyssey
Vive\cv1

In terms of controller I will put it kinda like this

Index
Cv1
Rift S/ quest
Both Odssey headsets and the vive
Yes the Cv1 controllers are beter than the rift s / quest because of how the band wraps your hand.

In terms of tracking

Index 3-4 light houses
Cv1 4 sensors
Index 2 light houses
Cv1 2-3 sensors
Rift S
Quest
WMR

Out of curiosity. Did you use oculusdebugtool.exe to increase encoding and/or rendering resolution for quest? The default encoding resolution is pretty low. Increasing encoding resolution to 2912 makes a pretty big difference for graphics quality. With fast gpu increasing rendering resolution maes some difference, but it's only useful for very high end cards.

 

[orangpelupa]

Out of curiosity. Did you use oculusdebugtool.exe to increase encoding and/or rendering resolution for quest? The default encoding resolution is pretty low. Increasing encoding resolution to 2912 makes a pretty big difference for graphics quality. With fast gpu increasing rendering resolution maes some difference, but it's only useful for very high end cards.

i use GTX 1660S and it works fine with increased resolution using oculus debug tool (i forgot to what res). Dunno how "fine" it actually is tho, as i didnt overlay the frametime. So it could be ASW that's saving me.

 

[manux]

i use GTX 1660S and it works fine with increased resolution using oculus debug tool (i forgot to what res). Dunno how "fine" it actually is tho, as i didnt overlay the frametime. So it could be ASW that's saving me.

There is 2 different resolutions. One is the encoding resolution and another one is rendering resolution. Encoding resolution should be fine as that is the resolution of stream being transferred and even the slower pascal cards can encode max resolution quest can decode. Rendering resolution on the other hand taxes gpu as it makes games render on higher resolution.

 

[eastmen]

Out of curiosity. Did you use oculusdebugtool.exe to increase encoding and/or rendering resolution for quest? The default encoding resolution is pretty low. Increasing encoding resolution to 2912 makes a pretty big difference for graphics quality. With fast gpu increasing rendering resolution maes some difference, but it's only useful for very high end cards.

yea i maxed out how high i could render it and the highest quality encoding that i could do. This was at work with an unreleased card that is faster than a 2080ti so frame rates were no issue. At home i only have my index as there was no need for me to personally have 3 headsets in a 800 sq foot apartment lol

 

[manux]

Finished chapter 5 yesterday. Pacing of this game works great for me. Battles really picked up nicely and there was some really fun encounters. I also appreciate the lack of cheap scares/deaths. This is noob friendly game.

For me it's super fun to roomscale cover. i.e. peek around corner, physically crouch to hide,... I got similar good vibes from alyx that I got when playing mgs2 for first time.

I can see how some hardcore players might want this to be more scary, more difficult. Not sure if playing in hard would change that or not. I guess not. Perhaps valve could do dlc to enhance the game to have same basic plot/chapters but amp up enemy encounters. Maybe also add melee option.

 

[orangpelupa]

Anyone found a way to increase the contrast? My visual system still can't stand the low contrast look. Headache inducing, and eyes gets sore quickly.

Hmm. Maybe Nvidia buildin reshade can work... Gotta do some googling

 

[eastmen]

Finished chapter 5 yesterday. Pacing of this game works great for me. Battles really picked up nicely and there was some really fun encounters. I also appreciate the lack of cheap scares/deaths. This is noob friendly game.

For me it's super fun to roomscale cover. i.e. peek around corner, physically crouch to hide,... I got similar good vibes from alyx that I got when playing mgs2 for first time.

I can see how some hardcore players might want this to be more scary, more difficult. Not sure if playing in hard would change that or not. I guess not. Perhaps valve could do dlc to enhance the game to have same basic plot/chapters but amp up enemy encounters. Maybe also add melee option.

Hard limits the amount of upgrade components you get and bullets / health. I also believe it increases the amount of enemies you fight

 

[Davros]

the worst thing about Half Life Alyx is it was released at the same time as Doom Eternal

 

[swaaye]

I like how Valve and Arkane have become basically meshed together by Viktor Antonov's influences and the Half Life universe feels a bit like the future of the Dishonored universe and the past of the Prey universe.

And I hear sound effects I recognize. There's one from Dead Space. And there's also the sound of grenades bouncing around that's from Max Payne but it's just used as ambient noise and this bothers me because I keep thinking a grenade's coming. Heh.

It's a pretty awesome VR game. I do find the strangely cozily small areas somewhat bizarrely artificial though. The Walking Dead game is like this too.

 

[manux]

I'm in chapter8 now. I think I can give review of the game and it will not change.

For me this is absolutely amazing vr game and the best vr game I have played. Must have for anyone with vr headset. But as a game in absolute terms it's "only" very good. Maybe 8.5/10. It's not great or all time great game that I will keep returning to years from now. Something like mgs2 I still keep playing every now and then. Things keeping alyx from all time great are small but important things. Things like enemy ai and encounters only being so so when compared to all time great games. Also game mechanics could be deeper and more rewarding but I understand we are not there yet for vr. Melee is missed chance, having more physics based interactions is missed chance etc. Though it's awesome to break windows and cleanup remaining glass with a gun. Sounds in this game are all time great. What an atmosphere they make. Plot seems pretty solid and there is good humor in the discussions between russel and alyx.

Above is just nitpicking, we are still at infancy of vr gaming. Maybe valve will add dlc or expand on their next vr game. Those could lead to all time great game.

 

[swaaye]

It has astonishing popularity on Steam. It seems to have already sold better than anything else VR there.

It's obviously tailor made for VR play. I think they used the technology really well. It wouldn't be very impressive converted to 2D. But I also think a more expansive game like HL2 would work in VR too. I suppose they weren't willing to step up to that level of investment with VR yet.

The writing is great for sure. Funny stuff. They definitely put thought into everything in the game.

 

[Silent_Buddha]

One of the most impressive videos I've seen using Half-Life Alyx.

All possible because Valve attempted to make HL: Alyx as immersive as possible (IE - most things being interactable and working like one would expect).

Also, you know they mostly succeeded when people are getting mad that they can pick up a box of matches, shake it and hear the matches inside, but they can't open the box of matches...take a match out...and strike it on the box to light the match.

[edited with proper link]

Regards,
SB

 

[SlmDnk]

@Silent_Buddha

That's a stolen video. Please replace the link with this:

 

[manux]

Anyone found a way to increase the contrast? My visual system still can't stand the low contrast look. Headache inducing, and eyes gets sore quickly.

Hmm. Maybe Nvidia buildin reshade can work... Gotta do some googling

You might be hitting the dynamic resolution making it blurry. You could try this to force higher resolution:

https://www.reddit.com/r/SteamVR/comments/fr8ojj