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

[swaaye]

The update they released yesterday has made the game unable to successfully load into the missions with my Reverb setup. Just crashes out to SteamVR every time. I tried reinstalling WMR and SteamVR, and did a game validation. I tried starting a new game instead of loading the save too. NV driver is up to date. Hmm....

I see in the discussion area that a few other people are having this problem too.

 

[swaaye]

I fixed it by cranking max Windows swap file to 16GB. There were actually warnings in event viewer about it needing more virtual memory. After playing for about an hour the system has 5689MB allocated page file. I have 16GB RAM.

 

[orangpelupa]

I fixed it by cranking max Windows swap file to 16GB. There were actually warnings in event viewer about it needing more virtual memory. After playing for about an hour the system has 5689MB allocated page file. I have 16GB RAM.

i got 39GB pagefile and i got the memory warning
ill try to crank it up to 64GB.

(i have 16GB physical RAM)

 

[Davros]

Check task manager and see how much memory it's actually using according to valve it needs 12gb
swayee recons 21gb although he never gave a figure for physical ram use

 

[swaaye]

i got 39GB pagefile and i got the memory warning
ill try to crank it up to 64GB.

(i have 16GB physical RAM)

That is a lot of pagefile!

I always get a warning about low video memory for some reason. I have a 11GB 1080 Ti. I figure it has something to do with using a WMR headset or that it's the Reverb with very high resolution causing it. Game runs perfect though. But that warning seems like some kind of false alarm glitch to me.

 

[orangpelupa]

That is a lot of pagefile!

I always get a warning about low video memory for some reason. I have a 11GB 1080 Ti. I figure it has something to do with using a WMR headset or that it's the Reverb with very high resolution causing it. Game runs perfect though. But that warning seems like some kind of false alarm glitch to me.

I multi-task like mad, and with ssd, swapping between ram and pagefile did not have any noticeable performance impact for me.

Finally finished mucking about in excel, gonna try alyx again

 

[swaaye]

I looked at task manager after some playing and saw the game only using about 3GB. System usage around 9GB total. GPU RAM also about 9GB (dedicated,out of 11GB). Not sure how VRAM is used in VR because you also have the desktop mirroring the game in 2D in a window for example.

That was high detail preset with Reverb resolution. The Ultra preset does indeed appear to be lower resolution. High preset uses some of the same individual settings, like maximum texture resolution.

Either WMR captures screens at 1080p or the game is actually rendering 1080p. It's hard to really know for sure. SteamVR is set to full Reverb resolution though. 2208x2160 per eye.

 

[manux]

One reviewer was talking about it being disappointing in alyx how some things are not modeled and it breaks immersion. Things like shaking matchbox makes sound like there is matches in but you cannot open matchbox or not being able to open and read a book. Then went on to say how alyx is amazing and how it would be insanely expensive to make everything as expected and then proposing people sharing assets. Like someone could make perfect matchbox that everyone can use.

I haven't been able to stop about thinking dreams with ps5 in psvr2 after that. It could become something really, really special if sony invests into it properly.

edit. Looking at pictures above it's kind of amazing how much better the experience is in vr. 2d pictures make absolutely no justice to this game.

 

[eastmen]

One reviewer was talking about it being disappointing in alyx how some things are not modeled and it breaks immersion. Things like shaking matchbox makes sound like there is matches in but you cannot open matchbox or not being able to open and read a book. Then went on to say how alyx is amazing and how it would be insanely expensive to make everything as expected and then proposing people sharing assets. Like someone could make perfect matchbox that everyone can use.

I haven't been able to stop about thinking dreams with ps5 in psvr2 after that. It could become something really, really special if sony invests into it properly.

edit. Looking at pictures above it's kind of amazing how much better the experience is in vr. 2d pictures make absolutely no justice to this game.

If valve does have 2 more AAA games in the works for VR then isn't that what they'd be doing ? Creating more and more assets for each game. If we get another half life vr game i would assume it would build off all those assets as well. With how well received this one was i can't help but think there will be another one. Perhaps this was the ground work for a real half life 3 vr game

 

[swaaye]

edit. Looking at pictures above it's kind of amazing how much better the experience is in vr. 2d pictures make absolutely no justice to this game.

Yeah it is fascinating how that works. It's just impossible to accurately portray in 2D what the experience is like with VR games. It's not even just the lack of visual depth, but the complete inability to really share the feelings you have of being in that world. It's strangely frustrating lol.

 

[orangpelupa]

Yeah it is fascinating how that works. It's just impossible to accurately portray in 2D what the experience is like with VR games. It's not even just the lack of visual depth, but the complete inability to really share the feelings you have of being in that world. It's strangely frustrating lol.

Probably the similar frustration experienced by marketing agencies for VR games hahaha

 

[manux]

Fun with headcrabs. I took one of those giant yellow barrels and baited headcrab to jump into one. Then tried to keep it contained in there. That was one very unhappy and difficult to control beast.

I guess you are not supposed to be able to kill headcrabs by throwing tiles at them? I managed to kill one that way and save some ammo.

 

[orangpelupa]

Fun with headcrabs. I took one of those giant yellow barrels and baited headcrab to jump into one. Then tried to keep it contained in there. That was one very unhappy and difficult to control beast.

I guess you are not supposed to be able to kill headcrabs by throwing tiles at them? I managed to kill one that way and save some ammo.

from DF article, turns out headcrabs can be killed with anything, but easier to shoot them.

btw the throwing physics in HL:A is PERFECT.

no other VR game managed to do that. dunno why.

 

[yoowul]

Well if it isn't the right game to dust off one's old Oculus CV1 . The problem is I'd need to get touch controllers. I've never got them, switched to PSVR for comfort while CV1 was left to gather dust, thought about maybe selling it and upgrading, but none of the later headsets seemed like a grounbreaking update... with today's economy I'm not gonna be upgrading soon anyway. The cheapest I found for Oculus Touch is the Oculus store for 119 €, a.k.a. not exactly cheap, but I guess cheaper then getting a new headset... Anyone knows how this relates to their price history?

 

[manux]

Well if it isn't the right game to dust off one's old Oculus CV1 . The problem is I'd need to get touch controllers. I've never got them, switched to PSVR for comfort while CV1 was left to gather dust, thought about maybe selling it and upgrading, but none of the later headsets seemed like a grounbreaking update... with today's economy I'm not gonna be upgrading soon anyway. The cheapest I found for Oculus Touch is the Oculus store for 119 €, a.k.a. not exactly cheap, but I guess cheaper then getting a new headset... Anyone knows how this relates to their price history?

I would imagine there are many people who upgraded from cv1 and have useless pair of touch controllers. I have 3 sensors and 2 touch controllers I don't use or plan to use anymore. I would give them away but I don't want to go through the hassle of shipping. Maybe you can somehow buy used ones cheaply?

 

[yoowul]

I would imagine there are many people who upgraded from cv1 and have useless pair of touch controllers. I have 3 sensors and 2 touch controllers I don't use or plan to use anymore. I would give them away but I don't want to go through the hassle of shipping. Maybe you can somehow buy used ones cheaply?

I'd gladly pay you for shipping or even buy for a reasonable price, but wouldn't want to force you to go through all the hassle either, especially if you live in the other corner of "Earth" . I've skimmed through both the Polish Ebay and Craigslist equivalent, one offer used for ~130€, wtf, while Ebay proper has one used for ~110€ plus shipping from the UK. Both more expensive then the official store... like LOL, people are out of their minds apparently . Maybe something sensible will pop up though...

 

[manux]

I'd gladly pay you for shipping or even buy for a reasonable price, but wouldn't want to force you to go through all the hassle either, especially if you live in the other corner of "Earth" . I've skimmed through both the Polish Ebay and Craigslist equivalent, one offer used for ~130€, wtf, while Ebay proper has one used for ~110€ plus shipping from the UK. Both more expensive then the official store... like LOL, people are out of their minds apparently . Maybe something sensible will pop up though...

I live in US. The shipping is pretty expensive(and slow) and nobody likes customs. Packages get stuck sometimes :/

 

[hughJ]

Both more expensive then the official store.

I'm honestly surprised that Oculus is still officially selling their Touch controller kit at all considering the Rift-only SKU stopped being sold like 3 years ago, and the Rift itself was phased out last year. Make sure that whatever Touch controllers you get are actually the ones for the CV1 (not Rift S or Quest), and that they include an additional sensor (you need 2 camera sensors total).

 

[yoowul]

I live in US. The shipping is pretty expensive(and slow) and nobody likes customs. Packages get stuck sometimes :/

Yeah, that would have to be quite an undertaking .

I'm honestly surprised that Oculus is still officially selling their Touch controller kit at all considering the Rift-only SKU stopped being sold like 3 years ago, and the Rift itself was phased out last year. Make sure that whatever Touch controllers you get are actually the ones for the CV1 (not Rift S or Quest), and that they include an additional sensor (you need 2 camera sensors total).

That's a good point. I found it under https://www.oculus.com/rift/accessories/. The description says: "Includes: 2 Oculus Touch controllers, 1 Oculus sensor, 2 AA batteries, 1 Rock Band ™ VR connector. Requires the Oculus Rift kit, sold separately." Funnily enough, when I change the locale from EU to USA the link to Oculus Touch dissapears . Either they have some stock left outside the US, or they forgot to update the regional stores.
Meanwhile, Oculus S and Quest seem to be out of stock at Oculus store, with resellers here asking the lowly price of at least 590$/528‎€ with the PLN taking a faceplant due to obvious reasons .

 

[hughJ]

Either they have some stock left outside the US, or they forgot to update the regional stores.

There's also the factor of different regional consumer protection laws regarding providing parts and accessories, warranty, returns, etc.