Rift, Vive, and Virtual Reality

[swaaye]

This is the Resident Evil PC mod effort. RE2,3,7,8.

GitHub - praydog/REFramework: Scripting platform, modding framework and VR support for all RE Engine games

Scripting platform, modding framework and VR support for all RE Engine games - praydog/REFramework

github.com

It's a little quirky but works really well once you get the control scheme figured out, find the height reset within the arm settings menu, and turn off screen space reflections. Works even with everybody's least favorite VR, the great WMR (I used the Odyssey+). Anti-aliasing is entirely disabled in VR unfortunately / fortunately (temporal AA is trouble in VR).

RE2 doesn't approve of actually doing black darkness for some reason. On the upside I guess the OLED isn't gonna black smear.





Forget that RE2 nonsense. RE7 is where it's at.

By the way this looks way better than RE7 VR PS4.

 

[swaaye]

I can not imagine anything better representing the fact that we live in the future than Superman 64 making the....uhhh..leap into VR!

Superman 64 VR! by wackomedia

An homage to "one of the worst games ever made" This N64 port proves that things are just better in VR.

wackomedia.itch.io

PC and Quest

(Optionally view his recent 18 hour video playing it on N64. What a test of constitution! lol)

 

[eastmen]

New HTC Vive headset leaked: Fast, slim and modular

HTC has been hinting at a new VR headset for weeks. Youtuber Brad Lynch claims to have leaked the design and technology.

mixed-news.com

Report: Apparent HTC Leak Reveals Slim & Modular VR Standalone

HTC has been teasing its next VR headset over the last few weeks, showing off bits of the device at a time which the company promises will be “something big… we mean small.” Now it appears the design and some of the specs have been leaked, with the details gathered courtesy of VR analyst and …

www.roadtovr.com

Lynch reached out to industry sources, particularly those in the supply chain, and got his hands on photos of the VR headset. To protect the sources of the leak, Lynch had 3D designer Marcus Kane create renders of the device based on those photos. Lynch has worked with Kane before on his Quest Pro leaks.

The casing is visually reminiscent of the Vive Flow and has pancake lenses like the latter, so the headset itself is rather slim.

Technically, however, the device is much more powerful: It works completely independently like the Vive Focus 3.

Lynch’s sources could not confirm exactly which chip it is. The most likely candidate is the Snapdragon XR2 Gen 2, which is rumored to be unveiled tonight. It could offer up to three times as much graphics performance as the last-generation chip.

HTC Vive “Flowcus” is a full 6-DoF headset, Lynch said. The Vive Focus 3 controllers are used as input devices. Vive Flow was also 6-DoF, but only offered a 3-DoF smartphone controller

Similar to the Pico 4, HTC’s new headset has four tracking cameras and an RGB sensor integrated. The HTC Vive “Flowcus” is supposed to offer color passthrough. The VR headset has two integrated LC displays with a resolution of 1,920 by 1,920 pixels that run at a maximum refresh rate of 120 hertz.

The HTC Vive “Flowcus” adopts perhaps the best feature of the HTC Vive Flow: a visual acuity adjustment directly on the lenses that lets you set your diopter number, eliminating the need to wear a headset or contact lenses.

Unlike the HTC Vive Flow, the lens distance can also be adjusted via a physical slider. For full VR immersion, you can attach a light shield to the casing.

One of the most interesting features of the HTC Vive “Flowcus” is its modular design: The rear part of the head mount, which also contains the battery, can be removed.

This allows the device to be used as particularly lightweight glasses for on the go, which can be connected to an external player (such as a smartphone or PC) via a USB-C cable (see cover picture). In this “glasses mode”, the temples can be folded down like real glasses. The sound comes from integrated stereo speakers.

According to Lynch’s sources, the device will be launched in early 2023 and will have a price tag for consumers.

Since HTC is not known for subsidizing hardware, the headset will probably not be cheap anyway. According to Lynch’s insiders, the price will be less than $1,000. HTC could unveil the device in January at CES 2023.

Could be a pretty nice headset. Not sold on the controllers however

 

[Davros]

Starwars Squadron will be FREE on epic from 24th nov for about a week
supports VR

 

[orangpelupa]

And I keep forgetting to play it....

 

[Davros]

Just a reminder grab STARWARS SQUADRONS from the Epic store
24th November

 

[orangpelupa]

ROFL!

Turns out a stupid lewd game called Galgun 2 is very fun!

Just skip all the visual novel parts and jump straight into the shooting game!

Oh and it looks quite good too!

Edit:

If it looks blurry, try creating a virtual resolution to 8k.

The game incorrectly only able to render with the same resolution as monitor resolution.

It does not have shader stutters despite its an unreal game tho.

While moss 2 got few stutters

 

[hughJ]

So Carmack has left Meta/Facebook and VR.

From his Facebook account:

I resigned from my position as an executive consultant for VR with Meta. My internal post to the company got leaked to the press, but that just results in them picking a few choice bits out of it. Here is the full post, just as the internal employees saw it:

-------------
This is the end of my decade in VR.

I have mixed feelings.

Quest 2 is almost exactly what I wanted to see from the beginning – mobile hardware, inside out tracking, optional PC streaming, 4k (ish) screen, cost effective. Despite all the complaints I have about our software, millions of people are still getting value out of it. We have a good product. It is successful, and successful products make the world a better place. It all could have happened a bit faster and been going better if different decisions had been made, but we built something pretty close to The Right Thing.

The issue is our efficiency.

Some will ask why I care how the progress is happening, as long as it is happening?

If I am trying to sway others, I would say that an org that has only known inefficiency is ill prepared for the inevitable competition and/or belt tightening, but really, it is the more personal pain of seeing a 5% GPU utilization number in production. I am offended by it.

[edit: I was being overly poetic here, as several people have missed the intention. As a systems optimization person, I care deeply about efficiency. When you work hard at optimization for most of your life, seeing something that is grossly inefficient hurts your soul. I was likening observing our organization's performance to seeing a tragically low number on a profiling tool.]

We have a ridiculous amount of people and resources, but we constantly self-sabotage and squander effort. There is no way to sugar coat this; I think our organization is operating at half the effectiveness that would make me happy. Some may scoff and contend we are doing just fine, but others will laugh and say “Half? Ha! I’m at quarter efficiency!”

It has been a struggle for me. I have a voice at the highest levels here, so it feels like I should be able to move things, but I’m evidently not persuasive enough. A good fraction of the things I complain about eventually turn my way after a year or two passes and evidence piles up, but I have never been able to kill stupid things before they cause damage, or set a direction and have a team actually stick to it. I think my influence at the margins has been positive, but it has never been a prime mover.

This was admittedly self-inflicted – I could have moved to Menlo Park after the Oculus acquisition and tried to wage battles with generations of leadership, but I was busy programming, and I assumed I would hate it, be bad at it, and probably lose anyway.

Enough complaining. I wearied of the fight and have my own startup to run, but the fight is still winnable! VR can bring value to most of the people in the world, and no company is better positioned to do it than Meta. Maybe it actually is possible to get there by just plowing ahead with current practices, but there is plenty of room for improvement.

Make better decisions and fill your products with “Give a Damn”!

Me not being a silicon valley guy, I can only assume that the organizational issues he butted heads with would be something that's not unique to Meta/FB, and that he may have had similar issues with any of the other major companies? Or is the engineering culture at Meta/FB appreciably different from MS, Google, Apple, etc?

 

[DavidGraham]

5% GPU utilization? In a VR workload? WTF!

https://twitter.com/x/status/1604105637041885184

 

[swaaye]

5% GPU utilization? In a VR workload? WTF!

Read the quoted letter in hughJ's post. Think more 5% organizational utilization.

 

[orangpelupa]

Yeah, I'm baffled with people that like to cut things out of context, and drawing conclusion. The same thing also happened to bungie dev.

It was quite clear tat it was some kind of analogy /allegory /whatever. But people deliberately took it out of context.

Carmack and bungie also the same thing to clear things up: plainly saying the meaning in plain English

 

[Karamazov]

 

[pjbliverpool]

That's mind blowing! Absolutely insane that you can do that, possibly the best use of VR I've seen yet. Can't wait to give this a try myself. I wasn't clear on whether it plugs into your existing emulators or provides the emulation itself and you just provide the ROMS but I can't imagine it's too complicated to setup.

 

[Karamazov]

it uses retroarch emulator integrated into it,then i dont know how "virtual discs/cartbridges" are handled into the environment.

 

[swaaye]

Lemme tell you that it's a shame that Unreal Engine 1 / 1.5 isn't open source. I would love to try the original Unreal, UT, Deus Ex, DS9, Undying, etc in VR.

I have seen some attempts to bring N64 games into VR. That seems like it would be so surreal.

 

[eastmen]

HTC Vive XR Elite hands

looks pretty good as a quest competitor. Would love to see a dedicated PC version

The built in lenses for glasses wearers is awesome, removable battery is also great.

 

[Silent_Buddha]

For 1,100 USD, it better be quite significantly better than the Quest 2.

Removeable battery is definitely the way to go, however.

Regards,
SB

 

[eastmen]

For 1,100 USD, it better be quite significantly better than the Quest 2.

Removeable battery is definitely the way to go, however.

Regards,
SB

Lol yea. I am still waiting on deckard myself

 

[GhostofWar]

HP pulling out off the VR hardware market. Shame, their headsets were specced reasonably without the extreme prices. With the money meta is burning I would be curious to know how HP's financials for VR look seeing they don't profit from software sales.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1620729001152237569

 

[swaaye]

I figure the consumer G2 came about because they made the Omnicept edition as well and so they could hit two different market segments. The G1 seemed mostly professional oriented instead of consumer because of how they didn't improve controls or tracking compared to their VR1000-100 headset.

I wonder if it really is the end of HP. Twitter dudes looking for hits aren't really convincing to me. But obviously the G2 is getting too old and will be obsolete and not worth trying to sell against competition.