I'm sympathetic to the difficulty in demoing VR and I recognize not having laptop support complicates that (I'm sure I'd have given a lot more demos of small projects if it didn't mean having to lug a tower and monitor along), but I would lump that under 'special cases' much the same as those who are working on backpack-style research projects, etc. The ability to conveniently demo VR is important, but I'd never want to hobble the long term evolution of the SDK or hardware in any way just to support that subset of developers that depend on a particular laptop display implementation that will probably end up getting EOLed or superseded with a better alternative in a year or two anyways. Honestly any developer that's willing to freeze or cease their projects on account that their $2000 laptop no longer works with it probably wasn't all that serious about delivering a commercial product. For folks like myself that are predominantly interested in more exploratory research and small projects, I have to recognize that the support I'm given only goes as far as it's practical and not disruptive for Oculus to do so. Another great example of this is the involvement of MS, Nvidia and AMD in the SDK as that is undoubtedly the reason why the source code is no longer made available, and the tighter marriage of operating system and HMD being why Linux and Mac support have been put on the back-burner. That sucks for a lot of people who were tied to those features/environments, but it's not completely unexpected either. This entire endeavor of carving out a VR platform on the PC seemed like a long shot to me a few years ago due to the breadth of hardware configurations and the handcuffs of abstraction involved with a desktop operating system. If there's any sort of proverbial promised-land for VR on the PC, we're not going to get there without a lot of sacrifices.
Rift, Vive, and Virtual Reality
- Thread starter idsn6
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I'm sympathetic to the difficulty in demoing VR and I recognize not having laptop support complicates that (I'm sure I'd have given a lot more demos of small projects if it didn't mean having to lug a tower and monitor along), but I would lump that under 'special cases' much the same as those who are working on backpack-style research projects, etc. The ability to conveniently demo VR is important, but I'd never want to hobble the long term evolution of the SDK or hardware in any way just to support that subset of developers that depend on a particular laptop display implementation that will probably end up getting EOLed or superseded with a better alternative in a year or two anyways. Honestly any developer that's willing to freeze or cease their projects on account that their $2000 laptop no longer works with it probably wasn't all that serious about delivering a commercial product. For folks like myself that are predominantly interested in more exploratory research and small projects, I have to recognize that the support I'm given only goes as far as it's practical and not disruptive for Oculus to do so. Another great example of this is the involvement of MS, Nvidia and AMD in the SDK as that is undoubtedly the reason why the source code is no longer made available, and the tighter marriage of operating system and HMD being why Linux and Mac support have been put on the back-burner. That sucks for a lot of people who were tied to those features/environments, but it's not completely unexpected either. This entire endeavor of carving out a VR platform on the PC seemed like a long shot to me a few years ago due to the breadth of hardware configurations and the handcuffs of abstraction involved with a desktop operating system. If there's any sort of proverbial promised-land for VR on the PC, we're not going to get there without a lot of sacrifices.
Depends on where one sees the vr market and content production going.
I guess if the market is mainly gaming and gamers linux/os x is irrelevant.
On the other hand if one thinks content like movies, sports, virtual travelling(google streetview on steroids), news clips etc. the landscape looks different. What do content creators use to edit and preview their content if the os x machine cannot use vr headset? Or has the content production moved away from apple environment?
Similarly if these lightweight experiences are only available on windows gaming pc's that will either severely limit the market size or push the market to use gearvr like solutions. I would like to see these lightweight content work on any os and any machine capable of reasonable videoplayback.
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For the demoing purposes one could create mobile gearvr version of your experience or use a video that can be played back via gearvr. Not optimal but at least somehow workable and not too expensive. There also is the possibility to build some small gaming pc that is somewhat portable.
More likely that people will shift to laptops with external GPUs if they really need the portability. In any case I think the tradeoff of moving to directmode is a no-brainer. If you want to bypass the Windows desktop compositor in order to draw directly to the front buffer as is done with GearVR (and undoubtedly any fixed platform device (PSVR)), then you can't be feeding your HMD through the optimus daisy chain like it's just another monitor.
I was meaning that framerate cannot be compromised with PCs and OVR. There's talk of rendering at 3k@90fps, so this is when quality comes in. Although not sure how significant a difference in image there will be from a 970 to 780 at 3k@90fps.
I wonder if there is something on 780 on hw or driver level that makes it inherently less optimal than 970 for vr?
Or it just could be oculus thinks of the standard 780 is not good enough and it would be too complex to communicate to customers some 780 is not good enough but some are. There is a pretty big difference from the initial stock 780 to the overclocked gigaherz edition+ cards.
Or it just could be oculus thinks of the standard 780 is not good enough and it would be too complex to communicate to customers some 780 is not good enough but some are. There is a pretty big difference from the initial stock 780 to the overclocked gigaherz edition+ cards.
Multi-res shading is Maxwell-only, but MRS wasn't announced until sometime after the 970 requirement listing and wasn't incorporated into a public GameworksVR release until recently, so I don't expect the potential performance savings from it are factored into the ballpark 970/290 Oculus requirement. If MRS ends up being a graphical setting exposed to user configuration then it's going to play a pretty huge role in managing performance and visual quality (probably more so than any other setting).
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It's not a matter of technology or experience, it's a matter of content. Oculus doesn't have any big publisher/developer behind it.
IMO its chances were based on the pricing aimed at the masses and (consequently) an Indie-friendly development platform.. which would serve to build an user-base big enough to turn the heads over at the offices of EA, Ubisoft, etc.
$630 (or close to $1000 in the rest of the world because they apparently didn't bother to set up a single distribution channel) makes it a luxury product. And a luxury product useful to play a spaceship MMO and a handful of Indie titles. Plus, many of these indies may or may not go forward because their developers are now seeing their prospective audience being cut to a fraction of what they thought it would be.
Sony OTOH has 1st and 2nd parties working on titles for the PSVR. SteamVR/Vive might also have a chance IF Valve decided to become a game developer again and puts their weight behind the tech.
Why? Linux might become something useful for games with Vulkan and SteamOS (though it's Valve's job to support it), but macos is completely irrelevant in that matter.
tongue_of_colicab
Veteran
With all due respect but indie's aren't the ones that can drive acceptance of VR. You need the GTA's, COD's. Skyrim's for that. Same goes for Sony. Even with 1st and 2nd party titles they will still need 3rd party devs on board for mass market appeal in the long run.
Valve is already doing their part IMO. They are developing a device and a software toolkit. Even if they were to release new games in some of their big franchise, with the speed they release games that isn't exactly going to set the world on fire either.
Valve is already doing their part IMO. They are developing a device and a software toolkit. Even if they were to release new games in some of their big franchise, with the speed they release games that isn't exactly going to set the world on fire either.
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I never said that. I said a mass adoption due to low price + early Indie games could bring the attention from larger publishers/studios.
With a $630 US / $900 Worldwide price, the Oculus Rift has none of those.
is there any bombastic action game for oculus other than EVE?
the most touted are more "friendly" games like Job Simulator...
the most touted are more "friendly" games like Job Simulator...
I'm interested in those VR experiences! I think Discovery channel could really take a lot of their IMAX footage and really make it into something interactive and amazing.
Like there are things I want to do but are too reckless, like walking around active volcanoes or tornadoes. Etc. Deserts. Lots of places I'll never be able to visit but might be able to with photogrammetry and VR.
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From higher profile studios you have Edge of Nowhere from Insomniac and The Climb from Crytek.
And then there's the obligatory Star Citizen support, but that's probably not a title for 2016 (if ever).
If you had listened to what oculus has to say you wouldn't be expecting mass pc vr adoption this year. It won't happen until majority of people have good enough pc to enjoy vr and that will take years. Rift being 399 or 599 doesn't change the overall equation much at all. You still need that beefy gaming pc and almost no laptop will work.
I believe that is why oculus has been very involved in gearvr and mobile sdk. That's where the masses will be for next few years and possibly forever. Even morpheus will have hard time getting same penetration as mobile vr. Many and more people will have suitable phone for vr and only some people will have ps4+morpheus.
I guess eventually oculus will ship rift with android and you can have a standalone good quality experience. i.e. not be compromised what sensors and display your phone offers.
I believe that is why oculus has been very involved in gearvr and mobile sdk. That's where the masses will be for next few years and possibly forever. Even morpheus will have hard time getting same penetration as mobile vr. Many and more people will have suitable phone for vr and only some people will have ps4+morpheus.
I guess eventually oculus will ship rift with android and you can have a standalone good quality experience. i.e. not be compromised what sensors and display your phone offers.
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HTC Vive pre-orders opening February 29, shipping in April:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/news/12092607/HTC-Vive-pre-orders-to-start-on-February-29.html
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/news/12092607/HTC-Vive-pre-orders-to-start-on-February-29.html
No, they pretty much changed the narrative at the last moment. It probably happened when someone within the higher ranks of Facebook found out they were only being able to produce small quantities of the consumer version so they should sell it at a big profit -> thanks to all the hype they got from promising an affordable price.
I do not understand this doublethink that only the highest-end/-cost PCs are suitable for the Rift, but that that barrier is fine because the Gear VR is good enough for the prole masses. Oculus has been insistent from the start that their biggest fear is "bad VR" souring the public on the experience, and that "good VR" requires low latency, high framerate, and accurate motion tracking. Yet they have spent the last year heavily pushing a 60Hz peripheral with no positional tracking and CPU/GPU/battery/heat limitations that are severe even in comparison to laptops, a solution locked to a handful of models from a single vendor that does not even bear Oculus's branding in any prominence.
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Their fear of bad VR is only valid for when they're over-charging for their headset.
This is purely anecdotal, but while I've had access to the DK1 and DK2 since their launch, my friends have already spent more time in my GearVR in the last month than the previous two combined. The ability to conveniently share experiences in VR among a group of people carries a lot of value, and in that respect I don't think even the high-end consumer VR systems will deliver what the GearVR can. For what the product is GearVR is surprisingly good - sub-20ms latency, tracking (rotational) that's rock solid and never bugs out, my Note5 has never overheated or run out of battery in a session, and it provides a store/content browser that allows you to conveniently switch between applications inside VR. "Good VR" and "bad VR" are pretty relative. When Oculus first started they would have considered something like the DK2 to be their target for the first consumer VR, but here we are with a phone-holder VR that actually delivers a superior experience to that in a lot of key ways.
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