Thirith on 30/4/2019 at 16:42
Perhaps we can try it out one of these Saturdays when we're not playing Arma; it should be easy enough to play together with some of us in VR and others outside VR.
Concerning the issue of smooth locomotion, have you ever tried out the Natural Locomotion demo, henke? NL takes some getting used to, but it's vastly improved my Skyrim VR experience.
henke on 30/4/2019 at 17:38
I have not, but arm-swingy locomotion usually works well for me.
henke on 1/5/2019 at 04:31
Oculus Quest and Rift S prices are also up and they are reasonable. I'm not planning on buying any of them, but here are my thoughts.
(https://www.oculus.com/quest/) Quest: 449€ for 64GB version, 549€ for 128GB, ships: May 22I think the Quest might be kind of a BIG DEAL. Self-contained, easy to use device with lots of great games. If any of these devices are going to take VR mainstream, this is the one.
(https://www.oculus.com/rift-s/) Rift S: 449€, ships: May 22I'm not so sure about this one. A step forward from Rift in some ways, a step back in others. No external sensors means less cables and setup, but it might also mean less accurate tracking, especially when you swing your arms behind your back.
(https://www.valvesoftware.com/sv/index) Index: 1079€, ships: latest June 28thIf Valve are ever gonna release one of those 3 BIG VR TITLES they've been talking about, now would be the time. Not about to shell out of for this one, even though it looks like a decent step forward, but I look forward to seeing what new software comes along with it.
Thirith on 1/5/2019 at 05:51
I like the higher resolution and larger FOV that comes with the Index, but without a solution like foveated rendering the performance hit must be immense. Even though I now have a PC that would probably run okay with the Index, in VR I would prioritise an even framerate over pure resolution.
I have to say I'm kinda surprised that other than standalone devices like the Quest none of the headsets that need a PC to work have gone wireless. From what I've heard, the wireless kits that are available for Oculus Rift and Vive work pretty well but they're a faff to set up; I would've thought that they'd be further along that road by now.
henke on 1/5/2019 at 17:34
Stumbled across this free VR game on itch and gave it a go: (
https://patrickkoenig.itch.io/i-can-gun) I Can Gun. It's basically Receiver but in VR. Y'know, super-realistic and fiddly gun mechanics, one hit and you're dead, sneak around procedurally generated levels and try to find 12 documents while trying not to get killed by robot turrets. It's not bad.
Pyrian on 1/5/2019 at 19:44
Receiver gave me nausea without even being in VR, lol. Still cool, though.
Thirith on 5/5/2019 at 12:22
The MotherVR mod for Alien Isolation isn't perfect, but it already does a tremendous job of making the game playable in VR. It's worth it just for the environments; you'll not get any closer to exploring the sets of Ridley Scott's Alien than this. (It does take a small amount of fiddling, but after a one-time setup of ~10 minutes it worked for me.)
Thirith on 22/5/2019 at 16:00
Okay, I did go and splash out on some VR gear... Here are some first impressions.
Oculus Quest: It is extremely cool to be untethered and to be able to use most if not all of my living room. Setup is simple, tutorials are a nice upgrade and introduction. The visuals are nice, though I can't judge yet what they'd be like in a game that I already know from the Rift. Image quality strikes me as very nice, though the Netflix app seems to stream at a lower resolution than I think the headset would be capable of. In terms of ergonomics, this seems to be very close to the original Rift. Beat Saber worked perfectly with inside-out tracking ("Pop Stars" on Hard) and felt no different to me from what I was used to on the Rift. I also got that Vader Immortal game, and it sucks as a game but is okay as a Star Wars experience. I very much wish, though, that they'd brought the Lone Echo devs on as consultants, because whenever Vader Immortal tries to do similar things, it just does them much less well.
Oh, and Darth Vader needs to hit a gym. I expected him to be tall and imposing. I did not expect him to be quite as... big-boned.
Oculus Rift S: My first impressions are largely very good. Passthrough+ is definitely better than Passthrough, though I'm not going to be using this all that much. (Also, in Passthrough on the Quest, your arms and hands seem tiny!) The sound, I'm sorry to say, won't make anyone happy. It's relatively quiet and thin. I'd very much recommend some sort of add-on headphones. The ergonomics are... odd, but I think that may be a question of getting used to what it's like now. The lenses steamed up a lot at the beginning but were okay after a while. The graphics seem like a step up to me, though it's difficult to say how much of that is the resolution bump and how much is the displays and lenses. Things seem sharper and crisper, even if the darks are noticeably less dark - though not to the point where I'd consider it a major negative. While this is a nonsensical comparison, I'd say that the visual upgrade struck me roughly like the jump from 720p to 1080p. Oddly, while I thought that the FOV was larger, its borders also seemed more noticeable; I can't find a better way to explain it, I'm afraid. The change from 90Hz to 80Hz didn't strike me as particularly noticeable. I played a bunch of games for a very short time, but Lone Echo seems to work fine, as does Superhot. Some games and mods may need tweaking as far as the controls are concerned; Natural Locomotion, which used those visible thumb sensors on the original Touch controllers, doesn't seem to work with the new ones, and Subnautica seems to have kicked my controller setup for the most part. Anyway, I foresee that I'll be very happy with this, after I'd expected something much more disappointing, but yeah, I'll have to do something about that sound.
And I'm very much looking forward to playing Alien Isolation with the VR mod, because with the better visuals it does feel very much like you're walking around on the Alien set. Only once I've solved the headphones situation, though.