I still feel that for gamers, room-scale is what will blow the lid off this shit. Oculus with Touch I am thinking will be best combo. I don't know how good PS VR could be at room scale with only one camera, so I expect it will underperforming there.
I am glad that games are being forced cross-platform. It's PC. The people will do what they want. As for choosing Vive or Oculus, it doesn't seem to matter much. I thought Oculus would be way out front, but the optics seem to be a wash. Both very good. What put me towards Oculus in the end were reports that it was significantly lighter, making it more comfortable long-term. The only real positive I see with Vive, other than having controllers early, is that everyone says it is easier to use with glasses, and I plan to demo to a *ton* of people.
I enjoyed my ten minutes in Oculus but 1. I would have liked to look at the controller beforehand to help me remember where the buttons were and 2. It still seemed really low resolution—not Cardboard + iPhone 5 bad but not good. The VR line filled in 15 minutes on Sunday, so I didn't get to try a Vive.
Vive is lite version of a motion capture environment. I think the biggest concern is the space requirement not setup. Akin to a person who is willing to invest in a flight/ driving sim cockpit. It's likely you're going to dedicate time and money (and a room) to that whole thing.
With motion capture, with my minimal experience. The cameras have to be permanent fixtures. You have to then calibrate the position with a wand. Then you're pretty much ready to go.
However with Vive how do you manage the cables without another person to monitor you? You surely will end up breaking something, tripping up, or going out of bounds.
With Oculus, 99% of the time, you'd be sitting? Kind of simplifies things (a lot).
With the Vive (officially pronounced "vorve" thanks to Tycho), the cables were never a problem. I just stood back and watched: only once among dozens and dozens of demos did someone get even close to tangling themselves, even with vigorous action, and it was a little kid.
I tried both Vive and Oculus Touch this weekend. Cables were never a problem. I wish the Oculus Touch demo had more walking around involved, as I wanted to see how that held up. There's lot of speculation that Vive will have better tracking but VR threads are stuffed with so much of this speculation that I wanted to just try it for myself. I suspect I wouldn't notice any difference between the two.
The Vive was super impressive, and I enjoyed my time playing with Tiltbrush and Space Pirate Trainer much more than the time I spent playing Job Simulator with the Touch, but both were great. It's hard to say one is better than the other when they are both so damn good. I like the ergonomics of the Touch better, but I also dug the track pad on the Vive.
My Oculus came in the day before PAX and I decided to open it and keep it at least until Touch comes out and I can compare the two in-home for a while. I also have a Vive on order for June/July, so I'll roll with both for a bit and then sell one in the fall.
My time so far has been spent on Lucky's Tale, which is an area where I can see Oculus succeeding. I like to play it standing, so I can peek around and look at the levels from different angles. When you are not embodying the character, the lack of Touch doesn't feel like a drawback, so these types of third-person "god mode" games are going to be my jam for a while.
I'm actually not much of a fan of Giant Bomb. I mean, they're OK funny when I end up running stuff for them at PAXes in person, but that's about it. I wouldn't exactly seek them out.
But I did watch hundreds of people use a vorve for the first time with zero prior experience, and not a single person had a problem.
It always seems like they're always getting jumbled up. My hypothesis is that people at PAX who may be being cautious since it's not their equipment, or the likelihood that it's their first or second time using the Vive, might be less likely to test the boundaries or feel comfortable using it. I've never used it so I'm just observing what I've seen.
Watched the Foo show last night. It was actually pretty cool to get to explore the Firewatch tower after having played the game. I could see a VR show like this being a thing I would regularly watch. The only time it got a little freaky was when the host started walking around and he walked through me.
Oculus has been a hit so far. My four year old loves it, and I demoed to some actual adults yesterday (Dreamdeck, Valkyrie, Lucky's Tale, some 360 videos, Keep Talking & Nobody Explodes) and people were blown away by it.
It's nice to see people still having "holy shit" reactions, since I've fully moved into the "this really isn't going to shine until my hands are in the game" territory, after trying both Vive and Touch at PAX. I debated not demoing VR for people until then, but now I am confident there is just "holy shit" level 1, and "holy shit" level 2 will come in the fall.
Still, I'm hesitant to buy too many games. The Climb looks neat, but is it really worth $50 to play it with an xbox controller? This Oculus store really needs demos. I wonder if in a year's time, there will be equivalent of Steam sales in this space.
For $600 wouldnt the 1080 also be decent? I mean the 1070 seems like a killer deal, but the 1080 seems so sick and at not an insurmountable price. I guess for a little more one could sli two 1070 cards? I guess that would run even better except in don't know how that would play long term with VR tech.
I am thinking of either just getting the 1080 the day it has its first price drop (keeping my 770 until then), or getting a sharply discounted 980 and cascading my 770 to Emily (assuming I buy the new PC soon).
Well that makes sense. As is, I don't see getting a 980/980 Ti as worth it until is below 350 dollarinoes, otherwise its still just 1070 or 1080 time. And I don't see 980 cards going quite that cheap any time soon enough to hold out for.
Interested to see how long it takes to get any sort of RMA request through Oculus. I don't envy the task of having to stand up an entirely brand new consumer-facing business while trying to rush your first big product to market.
My Oculus CV1 was defective out of the box. One of the spring-loaded side arms is completely non-functional. It freely slides in and out, which can cause some issues with fit. The unit tends to sit on the face just slightly off-center.
From my experience using the unit with one spring-loaded side arm, the spring feature is still super nice, and it makes taking the Oculus on and off a breeze. After a few times wearing it, I even learned how to quickly remove it without losing my glasses either (which everyone complains about).
Reached out to customer service 10 days ago. It took 6 days to get a reply out, after which they had me film a video showing the problem, and then quickly agreed to send a new unit (someday, no promise of when). It was definitely a first timer having to run through this process though. They kept emailing back with "oh I need one more thing." First it was "what's your phone #" then, "can you verify your address," then another email saying "sorry I was supposed to ask for the serial # too," then "no actually the other serial number" (the individual headset and the whole package are separately ID'ed
I am thinking of either just getting the 1080 the day it has its first price drop (keeping my 770 until then), or getting a sharply discounted 980 and cascading my 770 to Emily (assuming I buy the new PC soon).
No reason to ever consider 980 now with 1070/ 1080 on the horizon. A reminder: the 1080 performs better than 980 SLI/ Titan X. Likewise a 970 out performs a Titan X.
You'll literally will never need to upgrade ever again for 1080@60 stereo triple display. Unless you care about 4k/8k VR, in which case you can just add another card.
There's no running, no hiding. Nvidia wants you to have VR.
Unless you care about 4k/8k VR, in which case you can just add another card.
For the most part, there's no reason to get anything faster than an GTX1080/70 until the price of 4k displays and above resolutions are significantly lower.
Also consider that Ultra HD standards aren't exactly a fixed target at the moment, they're not so consistent across manufacturers, because Ultra HD considers colour gamut and and higher refresh rates. Ultra HD Premium has yet to be adopted.
Most people, I think, will be very content with high performing 1080p graphics.
Comments
I am glad that games are being forced cross-platform. It's PC. The people will do what they want. As for choosing Vive or Oculus, it doesn't seem to matter much. I thought Oculus would be way out front, but the optics seem to be a wash. Both very good. What put me towards Oculus in the end were reports that it was significantly lighter, making it more comfortable long-term. The only real positive I see with Vive, other than having controllers early, is that everyone says it is easier to use with glasses, and I plan to demo to a *ton* of people.
1)Find someone using the vive
2)Pick up one of their "lighthouses" and wave it around.
3)Dodge
The Vive was (at PAX) a more immersive experience, but god help regular old consumers setting it up and dealing with problems.
With motion capture, with my minimal experience. The cameras have to be permanent fixtures. You have to then calibrate the position with a wand. Then you're pretty much ready to go.
However with Vive how do you manage the cables without another person to monitor you? You surely will end up breaking something, tripping up, or going out of bounds.
With Oculus, 99% of the time, you'd be sitting? Kind of simplifies things (a lot).
Teens and up? The cable is never a problem.
The Vive was super impressive, and I enjoyed my time playing with Tiltbrush and Space Pirate Trainer much more than the time I spent playing Job Simulator with the Touch, but both were great. It's hard to say one is better than the other when they are both so damn good. I like the ergonomics of the Touch better, but I also dug the track pad on the Vive.
My Oculus came in the day before PAX and I decided to open it and keep it at least until Touch comes out and I can compare the two in-home for a while. I also have a Vive on order for June/July, so I'll roll with both for a bit and then sell one in the fall.
My time so far has been spent on Lucky's Tale, which is an area where I can see Oculus succeeding. I like to play it standing, so I can peek around and look at the levels from different angles. When you are not embodying the character, the lack of Touch doesn't feel like a drawback, so these types of third-person "god mode" games are going to be my jam for a while.
But I did watch hundreds of people use a vorve for the first time with zero prior experience, and not a single person had a problem.
It's nice to see people still having "holy shit" reactions, since I've fully moved into the "this really isn't going to shine until my hands are in the game" territory, after trying both Vive and Touch at PAX. I debated not demoing VR for people until then, but now I am confident there is just "holy shit" level 1, and "holy shit" level 2 will come in the fall.
Still, I'm hesitant to buy too many games. The Climb looks neat, but is it really worth $50 to play it with an xbox controller? This Oculus store really needs demos. I wonder if in a year's time, there will be equivalent of Steam sales in this space.
My Oculus CV1 was defective out of the box. One of the spring-loaded side arms is completely non-functional. It freely slides in and out, which can cause some issues with fit. The unit tends to sit on the face just slightly off-center.
From my experience using the unit with one spring-loaded side arm, the spring feature is still super nice, and it makes taking the Oculus on and off a breeze. After a few times wearing it, I even learned how to quickly remove it without losing my glasses either (which everyone complains about).
Reached out to customer service 10 days ago. It took 6 days to get a reply out, after which they had me film a video showing the problem, and then quickly agreed to send a new unit (someday, no promise of when). It was definitely a first timer having to run through this process though. They kept emailing back with "oh I need one more thing." First it was "what's your phone #" then, "can you verify your address," then another email saying "sorry I was supposed to ask for the serial # too," then "no actually the other serial number" (the individual headset and the whole package are separately ID'ed
You'll literally will never need to upgrade ever again for 1080@60 stereo triple display. Unless you care about 4k/8k VR, in which case you can just add another card.
There's no running, no hiding. Nvidia wants you to have VR.
But even so, eventually I forsee games that run crap even a gtx 10 series won't handle at any resolution, and you'll need a better unit.
Also consider that Ultra HD standards aren't exactly a fixed target at the moment, they're not so consistent across manufacturers, because Ultra HD considers colour gamut and and higher refresh rates. Ultra HD Premium has yet to be adopted.
Most people, I think, will be very content with high performing 1080p graphics.