Thirith on 13/1/2021 at 12:22
I'm definitely curious to hear what others say about this. It may be specific to certain models - or it may just be that this is something I'm not aware of nor sensitive to. As I've said: I did notice a similar kind of effect (things at the edge of my vision moving differently than they should based on my head movements) with VorpX, but not with games developed for VR.
woah on 13/1/2021 at 16:35
Quote Posted by Anarchic Fox
When I tried a VR headset I couldn't get over the way everything curved in my peripheral vision. Adjusting the headset didn't help things. Is this a model-specific problem?
Distortion is something caused by several things and that varies widely between different models and how the headset is adjusted on your head (centering, tilt, eye relief). It's also affected by the trade offs chosen by the manufacturer--if you want something that is easier to throw on and doesn't need to be fine tuned, you may tolerate worse distortion overall instead of something that can look better but needs to be fine tuned. All *current* consumer VR headsets suffer from some degree of this through something called pupil swim (which is a source of discomfort and can't be fully corrected without eyetracking) but there are significant differences between headsets. So far the best I've experienced when it comes to this is the Valve Index and the worst would be some lower end WMR headsets (but Pimax is probably the worst here--it gets even harder to avoid this when you try to achieve higher FOVs). Something like the StarVR One might be even better than the Index because it's apparently using eyetracking to correct for pupil swim.
But even assuming an equivalent configuration and adjustment, it's also affected by one's individual sensitivity. There are some people that don't notice distortion under extreme conditions (e.g. Pimax) and others that do. I'm personally on the more sensitive side and you may be as well if it had such an impact on you.
Anarchic Fox on 13/1/2021 at 17:22
Thanks for the information! After searching my memory, I think the one I tried was from Oculus. Funnily enough, it affected my regular vision too. Within the VR games, it was as if parallel lines curved away from each other; after adjusting for a couple of hours, with the headset off it looked like parallel lines curved towards each other. It sounds like I should wait until the technology develops further.
Also, it's a treat to see a "New Member" who registered a decade and a half ago. :joke:
woah on 13/1/2021 at 17:40
Quote Posted by Anarchic Fox
Thanks for the information! After searching my memory, I think the one I tried was from Oculus. Funnily enough, it affected my regular vision too. Within the VR games, it was as if parallel lines curved away from each other; after adjusting for a couple of hours, with the headset
off it looked like parallel lines curved towards each other. It sounds like I should wait until the technology develops further.
Also, it's a treat to see a "New Member" who registered a decade and a half ago. :joke:
It may have been the original Oculus Rift, which was rather poor when it came to pupil swim. Going back to it from the Index actually makes me feel rather ill now. Modern HMDs also use LCD displays with much lower persistence so they are much more comfortable. You might want to consider a Quest 2 as it has decent geometry stability and it's cheap--if you don't like the Facebook login you can create a fake account, block the updates, and then just use it as a PCVR HMD. Boom, a decent HMD subsidized to $300 by Zuck.
And yep, I've been a Thief 2 fan for a long time and registered a while ago, though I'm mostly active at The Dark Mod forums. On that topic I think a well done Thief game with Half-Life Alyx's level of polish on interactivity would immediately sell any Thief fan on the technology. In terms of immersion, interactivity, melee combat and bow mechanics, pacing, and the depth with which it allows the user to engage with an environment, I think many taffers have yet to realize that this is their dream technology. Though the technology could still use major improvements in some ways, mainly varifocal, wireless and more advanced motion controller feedback (EDIT: and better black levels, OLED suffers from blacksmear which means they need to clamp "black" to a dark gray that exacerbates mura, and LCD is ... well LCD. Maybe MicroLED will do it).
Renault on 18/1/2021 at 21:43
Just finished Dreadhalls, a (sorta) stealthy dungeon game that I actually found it to be pretty scary. You navigate a series of dungeons, looking for specific items, and avoiding monsters. I can't really explain why I liked it so much, the visuals are average at best and the game itself is really simple (You have no weapons, just a lantern). But it was effective, and it left me wanting more.
Anyone have any other good recommendations for VR dungeon crawlers? I played a little bit of A Mage's Tale on PSVR, that seemed decent. There's a demo out for Ancient Dungeons, which is a kind of Minecraft style dungeon crawler (reminds me of another game called Delver), and it seems promising. I found several others on Steam, but they were hard to tell apart, they all looked so similar and samey.
Renault on 3/2/2021 at 19:52
So, a friend just picked up a Quest 2, and he's a Mac guy. Has anyone had any luck using the Q2 with a Mac? I don't even know if there's any compatible software, but I thought someone here might have had experience with it.
woah on 3/2/2021 at 21:57
Quote Posted by Brethren
So, a friend just picked up a Quest 2, and he's a Mac guy. Has anyone had any luck using the Q2 with a Mac? I don't even know if there's any compatible software, but I thought someone here might have had experience with it.
SteamVR dropped support for MacOS and I'm pretty sure the Oculus PCVR application doesn't work on MacOS either (and I wouldn't count on it being updated for MacOS--or really much of anything anymore for that matter). It was once rumored that Apple was working with Valve on a VR HMD but not too long after that Valve announced they were dropping support for MacOS. Probably because Apple decided to go do its own closed walled garden thing again. They're not even supporting Vulkan.
If your friend isn't on one of the new M1 chips then he can probably install Windows 10 on an intel Mac via Bootcamp and run PCVR games that way (assuming he's got a decent GPU--not familiar with GPU options on Mac hardware). But running Windows on Mac hardware seems like it won't be a thing in the near future with all of their products shifting to Apple Silicon. Even if they get the ARM version of Windows running on Apple Silicon the PCVR games/applications would still be compiled for x86 and performance cost from emulation would likely make VR games unplayable.
According to rumors (
https://www.macrumors.com/2021/02/03/apple-vr-headset-may-launch-in-q1-2022/) , Apple appears to be readying up to launch their own VR hardware in early 2022. However it will be decidedly prosumer (i.e. super expensive, possibly >$1000). But unless they have some ground breaking technology in there that actually makes people want to use it for something other than gaming past the novelty phase, I have no idea what kind of use cases it will have. Maybe they just want some form of presence in the market but don't feel it's ready for mass adoption yet. EDIT: More recent reports indicate that it's basically a VR headset with AR passthrough that will largely function as a dev kit for a future AR device (the display technology for the AR headset doesn't exist yet--much harder problem)
Renault on 11/2/2021 at 17:18
Is anyone playing (
https://www.oculus.com/experiences/quest/2462678267173943/?locale=en_US) Walkabout Mini Golf for the Quest? This game is tons of fun, 5 full courses, and a harder night mode for each course. A great hang out, chill game with friends too. Would be cool to get a TTLG game going with some of the folks around here.
[video=youtube;YoEC_A_FY9A]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YoEC_A_FY9A[/video]
Thirith on 28/2/2021 at 08:36
For anyone who's been wondering about cableless VR on PC and/or getting an Oculus Quest 2: it is now very easy to use the Quest 2 as a wireless PC VR headset. Virtual Desktop, which sells for somewhere around US$15, can now be used natively, i.e. without Sideloading modifications, to stream VR content from your PC to your headset wirelessly. Apparently it works really well too - provided you have a router that isn't too ancient (5GHz is preferable, apparently). If you've got a first-gen Quest lying around, you can also use that, though the Quest 2 obviously has the advantages of higher resolution and refresh rate, even if those also mean you need a beefier PC.
I might try this out with my first-gen Quest at some point to see what it's like. I don't *hate* the cable, mainly since I don't have that much space for VR gaming, but it is definitely a factor that keeps reminding you that you're still hooked up to a computer.