Premininary thoughts on the Rift.

Discuss Virtual Reality (and I'm not talking about that episode with the bottle of Tequila you drank last night)
Post Reply
User avatar
wvjohn
Posts: 9238
Joined: Wed Nov 22, 2000 7:09 am
Contact:

Premininary thoughts on the Rift.

Post by wvjohn »

I have this mostly up and running, but haven't gone full tilt on it because of space limitations. My wife is going out of town soon for about 2 weeks, and I'm going to "reconfigure" ;) the living room to give myself some full play space.

Hardware. The hardware is pretty good, and the immersion effect is good. The headset is comfortable to me (I have a 7 3/4 head) and I can get decent focus with a little fiddling with the straps. I had double cataract surgery 16 mos ago, so I have fixed lenses set to distance. The touch controllers are pretty cool, because they translate into virtual hands and there is a lot of functionality there. There are a variety of point, touch, squeeze, move and shoot functions available. The Rift headset has built-in earphones, which work for me, but I have terrible hearing. The reviews I've read say they are ok.

The cords are a pain in the a**. I am currently running with 2 sensors for a total of 3 USB and one HDMI cables. When I go the full set up I will have one more sensor and one more USB cable. I've been primarily running stuff where I can sit and you do lose track of where you are in your space and end up with cords wrapped around you. The add-on wireless units that showed up a CES this year will probably be incorporated into Gen2 or 3 of this tech. Right now it seems that there are latency issues.

The native resolution is 1200x1080, which is ok. Obviously not as good as my 32" 1440 monitor, but functional. The "screen door" effect is visible if you look for it, but for anyone who remembers 600x480 it looks ok. I have tried some of the virtual desktop programs, and they really don't work with my eyesight.

Software. I have gotten a lot of software, but haven't looked at/tried all of it. I've read a ton of reviews. On the gaming side, there is a big emphasis and zombie/biter games which I'm truly not interested in. The trend with a lot of these seems to be more in the "tech demo" dept. What could be called the AAA titles like Blu and the Climb are really nothing more than high end demos. I find some of the creative programs, like Tilt/Brush to be more intriguing because they allow you to do things in the virtual environment. There is a new one that was just released that essentially allows multiplayer drawing, painting, and sculpting.

There is a very active hardware software modder community working on the rift/oculus compatibility issues and on software issues in general. A lot of programs require tweaks to run on the "other" box, but they are getting done. As to the VHS/Betamax issues, the pronlords seem to be concentrating on mobile right now. There is some interesting "nature and wildlife" stuff out there but haven't really looked at it.

more later. happy to answer any questions.
User avatar
FlyingPenguin
Flightless Bird
Posts: 32773
Joined: Wed Nov 22, 2000 11:13 am
Location: Central Florida
Contact:

Re: Premininary thoughts on the Rift.

Post by FlyingPenguin »

Strange that they can't incorporate a USB hub into the headset and cut it down to one USB cable.
"Turns out I’m 'woke.' All along, I thought I was just compassionate, kind, and good at history. "

Image
User avatar
wvjohn
Posts: 9238
Joined: Wed Nov 22, 2000 7:09 am
Contact:

Re: Premininary thoughts on the Rift.

Post by wvjohn »

FP - the headset has 1 usb cable and 1 HDMI cable for a total of 2. Each of the sensors requires a separate usb cable. A lot of people ended up installing usb 3.0 pcie cards b/c the headset and the front sensors are supposed to be usb 3.0. The rift uses IR tracking sensors which monitor "dots" on the headset and controllers, while the Vive uses some kind of RF tracking. Vive tracking seems to be superior.
User avatar
Genom
Steely Eyed Missile Man
Posts: 866
Joined: Thu Aug 28, 2014 4:14 pm
Location: Hotlanta

Re: Premininary thoughts on the Rift.

Post by Genom »

The vive uses infrared sensors. The lighthouses put out a laser grid that the headset/controler sensors pick up and based on the room setup config interpret position/rotation.
Post Reply