Oculus Rift - Dev Kit Discussion [Orders Arriving]
- Thread starter Gowans
- Start date
War Thunder made me feel like I had just gotten off a roller coaster ride on a full stomach. Something about the fast moving+turning and looking around really messes one up. Although there are a lot of factors that contribute to this VR sickness, I think a common denominator I'm noticing is the quick camera moving. Alone in the Rift does a good job of tuning the look sensitivity pretty low with the flashlight & turning when using a 360 controller. I remember trying Alone in the Rift with no Rift and said to myself "god it takes forever to turn with this thing", now I know why.
Also, if IPD and other calibrations are needed to properly have a good experience, why don't more engines/demos use them?
I think they did keep some inhouse, until they apparently accidentally shipped those to some people very late on the order chain, skipping earlier orders, while the earlier orders in the U.S. were held up in customs. =P
When using the Rift I have no problem with doing barrel rolls with a jet around the alps in "Outerra", or the rollercoster demo f.ex., I can spend hours in the thing with almost no feeling of vertigo. But the last few days after having used the Rift daily, my head is messed up and I have somewhat of a constant headache. Is it just a coincidence, did anyone else experienced something similar? Not a big deal, just curious.
Are you using the correct lenses? That would be my guess. I've been using the rift for a couple of months now. Even though initially I was getting nauseated, I haven't had any headaches.
plagiarize
Banned
I think they've been waiting on the standardized settings that the latest SDK brings. these shouldn't be settings in every game. your IPD isn't going to change.
neoexidous
Member
I caved also, although I won't see it any time soon.
Azure Dream
Member
Since everyone says to do the Extended Monitor approach, I'm trying it for TF2, but I'm not sure how to force the game onto the secondary (Rift) Display. -Adapter 1 doesn't seem to do the trick, at least on the shortcut. Any suggestions?
Edit: Got it to work.
Edit: Got it to work.
Who says to do extended monitor? I thought that cloning the Rift, and having the Rift as the primary monitor, was the recommended approach.
Azure Dream
Member
I couldn't work out how to set the Rift as the primary monitor, and I've seen lots of recommendations that Extended Monitor was the way to go.
Edit: Didn't die once (although was fighting against inexperienced players, it seemed), tried several different classes. Really an experience.
piratepwnsninja
Member
I cannot get Vireio working with Skyrim. It loads to the menu fine with the dual vision on the monitor and everything, but then just CTD when I load/start a game.
Joe Ludwig from Valve recommends it. They've measured extra latency when running in cloned mode. Cloning also limits your monitor to 1080p which sucks.
The link to his thread on the official OVR forums should be somewhere north from this post.
I saw that, but then there was a question of whether there was still the issue if the Rift is the primary monitor rather than the secondary monitor, correct? Thanks for the info though. I might go digging for that thread at some point.
A Human Becoming
More than a Member
Every time I see this thread I'm reminded how badly I want one. I'm more excited for it than next gen consoles. Hopefully the consumer version is early 2014. 
The official word is that the 1080p prototype was something that they prepared right before E3. There's no indication regarding if or when they intend to make such units for developers; they might just wait and do an early consumer run when they've got positional tracking locked down for all we know.
piratepwnsninja
Member
Yeah, I actually doubt they'll release a 1080p dev kit. There is no reason for them to. The current dev kit does what it needs for developers to make product for it. Since they have a pipeline in place for the current dev kit, changing that pipeline for a higher resolution version would only take time and money away from bringing an "early consumer model" to the market at 1080p.
I'm not an expert, but "early consumer model" is what I'd put my money on if I had to guess the next Rift release. Obviously devs need to work with the positional tracking system when that gets implemented, and I'm guessing HUD elements (or other kinds of text, pictures, etc., if HUDs are less relevant in the HMD world) would have to be tested on a screen with the actual consumer-ready resolution. Rather than obtain a bunch of holdover panels for a dev kit that adds 1080p and nothing else (even if that is nice to have), I agree that it looks more practical for them to come out with a later release that uses closer-to-final parts.
Chance Hale
Member
Sadly I can't try Mirror's Edge with the Rift. The Perception driver seems to work if I run the program, in that the double image is rendered, but it's so far out of sync the eyes almost seem backwards. More importantly, none of the SHOCT keyboard controls work. Does it require running MirrorsEdge.exe manually instead of launching from Steam? I can't run it manually because I have it installed on a second hard drive, and if you run it manually you get an error because it can't find Steam.
Count Dookkake
Member
.
Late 2014 is a bit more likely, and still a bit optimistic.Every time I see this thread I'm reminded how badly I want one. I'm more excited for it than next gen consoles. Hopefully the consumer version is early 2014.
Diseased Yak
Gold Member
When you say "tunnel vision" do you mean you peripherally see the black sides of the Rift, like you're peering through a scope or something?
Here's my take on this:
With the standard A lens and the Rift smashed up against my face with my eyelashes brushing the lens the peripheral vision is almost as good as holding my palms flat against the side of my face.
My eyes don't like contacts so to keep the Rift from smashing against my glasses I have to use the full extension. It's worth noting I wear a size 8 cap, or 25" inches, so the headband is super tight and the frame's side foam crushes into my wide glasses frame. It's a real pain to get on without smudging something. Anyway, the amount of peripheral vision for me in this setup is like I can't see beyond the sides of my eyes. It's similar to wearing safety goggles but with non-transparent sides.
Last night I estimated the field of views by blocking that approximate amount of peripheral vision with my hands and fitting my 120" projector screen in the viewable area. I could stand 4.8 feet back with my palms against the side of my head, a 85 degree FOV. With my palms against the side of my eyes I was 7.5 feet back for a 60 degree FOV. For reference my two seating rows are at 9 feet (52 FOV) and 15 feet (32 FOV). That's the same as a 50" tv at 3.7 feet and 6.3 feet.
On the other hand, the vertical FOV feels much less restricted. There's enough to really feel like peripheral vision. It really highlights the scale of objects and the height of ceilings. NPCs are also phenomenal in the vertical FOV up close. Looking someone in the eye during a HL2 cut scene or looking up or down some to headshot a small or large enemy is so natural and game changing.
Did you try this?
What I did addition to this was close steam. Restart it. Open Perception and started the game from steam. And it worked. It still has issues. You might want to decrease controller sensitivity for it to be functional. There is also overlap of the dot which is annoying.
BTW, now I dont even have to open the perception, just opening Mirror edge ends in rift mode.
BizzyBum
Member
lol.. I'm so afraid I'm going to just lose track of reality if this thing gets popular and supports lots of games.
I mean, 1080p consumer version compatible with something like the next Elder Scrolls? I might have to wear diapers.
Next batch is confirmed for August. That's pretty frustrating. I have order #52xxx and some guys from Finland here on the boards already got their #53xxx orders.
I'm 47xxx, Ireland..
I think because of installing on drive D:, I can't launch Mirror's Edge outside of Steam. But yes once I launch it from Steam, it shows up with Oculus barrel distortion (once with weird quad rendering, but normally the correct-looking distortion). The problem is that the stereo is SUPER out of alignment, nowhere close to other demos, and all of the SHOCT hotkeys like Ctrl-I or Ctrl-* or whatever do not seem to do anything at all, as if the Perception driver is failing to capture them. I tried it without the Steam overlay and they still did not work.
If there were a manual way to set IPD etc. for Perception that might also work but I don't know of one.
Side note about the lenses, I think the really nearsighted one is great for my left eye, but my right eye is better and unfortunately I think it's between two of the cups, so I'll go blind either way. ;_;
FaustsBoon
Member
Are people having that much using their proper prescription glasses in Rift? I just had a dev friend pass the unit around his office, and most folks had no problems using their glasses and the a-cup lens.
I'm 47xxx, Ireland..
Well that doesn't bode well for me, I'm 54xxx and in Ireland, so I've probably got a good while to wait yet.
The Epic Citadel rollercoaster was not surprisingly the first thing that made me feel queasy.
I was trying regular citadel after that, and weirdly, I felt like I was getting some latency. In particular, when turning sideways, even with the Steam overlay off (regardless of desktop extend versus clone I think) it feels like sudden turning motions result in a weird distortion of the view instead of a perfect turn.
It almost looks like the UDK projection is slightly off, because as I would turn the landscape would stretch slightly.
I tried TF2 later on and it actually worked very well. I only played heavy, and I think I got to the top of the scoreboard and won (which doesn't mean much since I think it was a pub server and it was running payload). Aiming independently of moving is great. I could see Half-life 2 potentially being quite good with this.
I am feeling queasy now though. I most recently tried the A cups and wearing glasses, but my glasses are so scratched that they're still blurry. My right eye feels heavy/tired/pinched too, which is probably a bad sign. I'm taking a break and hopefully not going blind.
I was trying regular citadel after that, and weirdly, I felt like I was getting some latency. In particular, when turning sideways, even with the Steam overlay off (regardless of desktop extend versus clone I think) it feels like sudden turning motions result in a weird distortion of the view instead of a perfect turn.
It almost looks like the UDK projection is slightly off, because as I would turn the landscape would stretch slightly.
I tried TF2 later on and it actually worked very well. I only played heavy, and I think I got to the top of the scoreboard and won (which doesn't mean much since I think it was a pub server and it was running payload). Aiming independently of moving is great. I could see Half-life 2 potentially being quite good with this.
I am feeling queasy now though. I most recently tried the A cups and wearing glasses, but my glasses are so scratched that they're still blurry. My right eye feels heavy/tired/pinched too, which is probably a bad sign. I'm taking a break and hopefully not going blind.
Yep, that pretty much describes it. Maybe not as severe as a scope, but it's like looking through a fuzzy circle.
Well I got mine on Tuesday finally and have a bunch of thoughts regarding the demos and stuff I've played. My apologies for this long post, but I know there are people out there who are still waiting or are on the fence about getting one who like reading this kind of stuff like I did.
The Device Itself:
The headset is thankfully light and not cumbersome to move around. The lenses themselves will require constant care. A simple spec of dust or hair can be very noticeable and moisture can build up after prolonged use. Also the edges of the lenses can be a tad sharp against your face when putting it on. The may need to round those off a bit somehow. The padding around the eyes makes it very comfortable even when tightening up the head straps. There is a bit of light leakage from below that can been fixed pretty easily with a small, thin cloth but honestly I stopped noticing that pretty quickly.
The connection box with adjustable brightness and contrast settings was nice to have. For some reason I was expecting another HDMI plug in the box to help duplicate the image on my TV. Since I have my PC hooked up to the television and one HDMI port on the PC it was a little annoying to constantly switch cables back and forth between the two. I ended up buying a HDMI splitter to make it easier to switch between the two. Also for you PC TV couch gamers out there, longer HDMI / USB cables is a must. Thankfully I already had those on hand.
I am pretty damn nearsighted so my first time going in I wanted to wear contacts. No issues with the lenses there. I did find when playing the retro games there is a certain "sweet spot" in which I need to adjust the headset to make everything appear sharper. At the end of the second day after I took out my contacts I try to see through the Cup A lenses again but everything was blurry to my eyes. I then put on my glasses, adjusted the screws on the side of the headset to pull the lenses out further and didn't have any issues playing it with my glasses on. I still haven't tested out the Cup C lenses to check if I could see better with my glasses off. I do think they should change the screws to little knobs to make it easier to adjust the lenses on the fly.
As it stands for a developer kit it's a pretty solid piece of hardware. Now onto the demos.
Tuscany:
The obligatory first rift experience. I first hooked the headset up through DVI so I could see it what I'm clicking on my TV before I jumped in. When I was set up I close my eyes, strapped on the headset and when I opened them again I literally said "Holy shit"! Despite the screen door effect (which I quickly started looking past), despite the resolution (that HD version is going to be mind blowing). and despite that having it hooked up to DVI which was causing some noticeable tearing, I was immediately sold on the device. The combination of having a high FOV, stereoscopic 3D, and responsive headtracking really does help sell your brain on the world despite the flaws. The 3D effect here is the best I've seen so far. As opposed to cinema 3D and 3DS I actually was given a good sense of solidness and placement of everything. The simple act of walking up to a giant sunflower and getting a sense of its depth at eye height or trying to instinctually catch a blue butterfly fluttering towards you is something I've never experienced before in gaming. I spent about a good ten or so minutes walking around looking at stuff and once I took it off it felt like I was leaving a dream. Didn't start feeling nauseous. I did notice through later experiments that for some reason having the resolution max out to 1920x1080 ran much more smoothly on the headset than when it was set 1280x800. Not sure why that was.
Riftcoaster:
The second obligatory experience seemed to be Riftcoaster. Seeing it from an outside perspective I felt I wasn't going to have much of a strong reaction when I actually ended up trying it. Inside the headset however, once I got to that peak and got that real sense of depth of looking over the edge right before I drop I could now see why so many people were falling over when trying this. The sensation of speed which encompassed my entire view had me gripping the edge of my seat even though I knew in my head I wasn't really there. Still no motion sickness at this point. Right after this my girlfriend came home and had her try out the two demos I just did. She's not a gamer at all but she was truly blown away by the experience. The way she "squeeeed" going down the Riftcoaster gave me a huge laugh. Unfortunately I didn't think to take any videos at the time, but as someone who is not into gaming she kept wanting me to show her more. The mere act of just being in another environment could find this an audience beyond gamers.
VR Cinema:
Next was VR Cinema. The thought in my head before this was that I was just going to be looking at something that's very similar to how I view my TV. Before I jumped in I had ripped my Evil Dead DVD into an AVI format just to help set the mood. Much like the Riftcoaster observing it from an outside perspective and actually viewing it in person are two different things. Once again the combination of high FOV, headtracking, and 3D depth gave me the feeling of watching this on an enormous theater screen. Even at a low resolution I could find myself wanting to continue to watch The Evil Dead to the end, but stopped because I wanted to test out more! This thing could be a go-to film / tv show viewer for me in the future in the HD version. I would absolutely love to see something similar to this but having a drive-in atmosphere.
Virtual Boy:
Now I wanted to start checking out some retro stuff to see how well it works. I once owned a Virtual Boy many years ago until my place go broken into and it was stolen. So I was very much looking forward to playing Warioland and Teknoboxer once again. Thankfully everything seemed to work pretty well. Even with the lo-res screens everything was sharp and easy to see. The sprites still had that pop effect like they did in my old Virtual Boy. Also there's a nice option to turn everything into greyscale. Yes I know it's not accurate but it's so much easier on the eyes than the old red n' black. Despite not having any kind of headtracking, I was still comfortable with the view staying tuck in one position. If it ever ends up happening, a 3DS emulator on this thing could work very well.
Snes9x VR:
Naturally I then jump into the only other retro emulator available. Unlike the Virtual Boy one, the SNES9x has headtracking so the image doesn't stay stuck to your view, but similar to that the low resolution doesn't hinder the pixel graphics at all. There is also 3d depth given to the screen so like the VR Cinema it feels like you playing an SNES game on a giant IMAX screen. The neon room skin adds a bit of an effect by putting reflections on the surface from the game screen. Ended up playing some Super Ghouls n' Ghosts, Demon's Crest, Actraiser, and LTTP. My only minor quibble is that there isn't an easy to access menu for the Rift viewer to where I can select my games, but this was just a test project so I'm not going to gripe. Hope other emulators are given this kind of treatment down the road. Much like the VR Cinema I could find myself replaying games like this, especially when the HD version comes out.
City Quest:
Continuing with the retro theme I gave this demo a run. Since the illusion is that you're playing an old computer game off an old CRT monitor the sense of scale isn't like the IMAX sized screen of the SNES9x VR. Playing in an old bedroom littered with nostalgic items has a really nice, calming effect. The proportions of everything seemed a little big to me. I wonder if that was to make me feel like a little kid in his bedroom playing a game. Very cool. Would love to see more like this.
Museum of the Microstar:
Sadly this ran a little choppy on my system (and I have a pretty decent rig). Lots a cool little effects here and this also got me liking the idea of Museum Environments. This also was the start of me feeling that VR nausea everyone keeps talking about. Didn't try this for long.
Proton Pulse:
Awesome little Breakout close which is made specifically for the Rift headtracking. Your head movements control a paddle in your view which is used to bounce a ball back 'n forth, breaking the blocks in its path. Really enjoyed this game and would love to see this evolve some more. Made it to level 15 before losing all my lives. I'd actually highly recommend this as an early test bed when first getting into the Rift. Also a good game to have people play after showing them Tuscany and Riftcoaster.
Bounce VR:
Grabbed this because it looked similar to Proton Pulse. It's more pong-like than Proton Pulse and the clinking ball effect it has is very nice, but I got bored with it fairly quickly. Nice demo but I much prefer Proton Pulse over this.
Delta Draconus:
Very cool and atmospheric demo. Flying the ship around an alien planet and trying to tail another ship was a very relaxing experience. Unfortunately this demo illustrates another flaw with the current Rift screen is that it doesn't deal with dark, drab colors very well. Still recommended though.
Blue Marble:
"Played" this one several times. Basically you're just a lonely astronaut floating through space while your oxygen runs out. Great atmosphere here. There's an option to where you can import your own music which can greatly add to that experience (I chose the soundtrack for The Fountain for this). The effect of looking through a spacesuit is pretty nifty as well. Definitely recommended.
Titans of Space:
Similar to Blue Marble where you are floating around and observing planets and moons. Unlike Blue Marble this was more of a "Museum Experience" where you float from planet to planet learning about each planet and their moons. While Blue Marble had some great atmosphere going for it I think I ended up like this more just for the "Holy Shit" effect of seeing the enormous freaking sun. There is some slight glitchiness where at times the body your in get misaligned with your view (that's a weird thing to type out).
Yunalus:
Mainly downloaded this due to Cinematic Bruce's video. Could care less about the anime girlies but I really wanted to see what a cel shaded environment looked like in this thing. I thought the cartoon world works exceptionally well and was very vibrant and pleasing to the eye (no, not in that way). I think for my Rift project I may go the cel shaded route after trying this and the Cartoon World demo.
Cartoon World:
After my pleasant experience with Yunalus I went through the RiftEnabled list and found this little demo. If you're wanting to see what a cel shaded environment is like in VR and don't want to put yourself through Yunalus, definitely give this a whirl. There's about 5 cartoony environments available (one of which made me feel like I was walking through Maximo), and there's a super jump button that lets you bounce all over the work. Definitely recommended for a different type of experience.
Ocean Rift:
Ran a little choppy in on my computer. Another neat environment to fool around in... but don't fool around too much. o_0
Alone in the Rift
I feel this experience would be much better with the Razor control since you'll be using one of your hands to move around a flashlight. Sometimes it feels the flashlight lighting maybe a little off at times (probably because I was using a controller) and I was getting a little lost moving around pitch black environments. The end is a little creepy, and may have dragged out to the point where I didn't know what exactly I was supposed to do or go, but I'm sure that was intentional since the jump scare at the end got me. I reeeeaallly want to play Amnesia on this thing.
Half Life 2:
It is quite amazing how much different a game I've played many times in the past can all of a sudden feel brand new just by a perspective shift. Being right there in City 17 and looking up at the Citadel disappearing in the clouds is quite a sight to behold. Sadly this was the first game to make me feel stomach churning nausea. What did it for me was the fast movement speed combined with the slight ghosting and low resolution. This got better as time went on. I had to take some extended breaks to sit back and close my eyes for a bit so I can go back in and try again. Also the little health meter at the bottom was bothering my eyes. Felt like the 3d effect on it was a bit off.
Minecraft:
Other than the brief time I had with the XB360 demo, this would be the first time I've actually sat down to played Minecraft. For the most part everything works pretty well within the Rift. The 3D menu system is easy to read and navigate in the dev kit's low resolution, and there's plenty of tweaking options available. Since this has been the first time for me getting into Minecraft it has been an excellent VR game for me (much more than Half Life 2). Exploring the world, creating your own home, and the day and night cycles really help immerse you in the simple block world. There are some bugs like the mouse cursor going wonky at times, or if you're pelted with arrows near the head area it can get really jarring to have one of their polygons obscure you vision (a quick save and reset should fix both of these problems). Overall this has been my go-to Rift game.
First thoughts after two days:
Despite low expectations from some of the comments around here about low res screens, screen door effects, contrast n' colors, and ghosting I came away with my expectations well exceeded. Getting nauseous in the beginning is a problem. I've never gotten motion sickness from gaming so this was a first for me. There were periods in the beginning where I had to just stop playing anything for a while just to rest my eyes and brain because I was feeling really dazed. This is something that does get better once your brain gets more accustomed to it. I find it best to keep a bottle water nearby so you can close your eyes and take a drink to help bring things down. I think a lot of this nauseousness comes from the low res screens, the screen door effect and slight ghosting. The HD version of this should help alleviate some of that.
What does need to be worked on between now and then is some quick and easy plug-in play for this and programs. I imagine it will get there, so hopefully once the consumer version comes out it will be easy to just boot up a Rift enabled game or program and maybe adjust a couple of settings to get it working with it. Also having some kind of desktop viewer would be nice for those that don't have an HDMI splitter.
Out of all the experiences my favorites so far are Proton Pulse, Minecraft, VR Cinema, SNES9X VR, and Titans of Space. Playing Cartoon World and Yunalus make me really want a fuller cel shaded experience on this. I think that's what I'm going to work on once I get into Unity. I also feel a push for Museum or Tour Guide experiences will help get this out beyond the gaming crowd. My girlfriend absolutely loved those and kept wanting to go back to them. I recommend if you're going to test this out with people you should try these in this order:
Tuscany > Riftcoaster > Proton Pulse > VR Cinema > Blue Marble
So if you've been on the fence but have an interest in VR I'd say that even as it stands now, low resolution and all, it has been well worth it for me. The feeling that you're being encompassed in these environments, with objects scaled to size and being given depth is something that nothing else out there has given me in gaming, even after playing with things like the Virtual Boy or countless arcade and mall VR machines. Now if you're easily prone to motion sickness then I say hold out for the consumer Rift. The HD / consumer version of this is going to be sick once it releases. Even the early dev kit I'm perfectly happy with and will continue playing with it until the next version comes out and then I will gladly plop down the money for that one too. I know this is high praise, but I haven't had my mind blown in gaming for quite some time so it was only natural to give it that kind of recommendation.
The Device Itself:
The headset is thankfully light and not cumbersome to move around. The lenses themselves will require constant care. A simple spec of dust or hair can be very noticeable and moisture can build up after prolonged use. Also the edges of the lenses can be a tad sharp against your face when putting it on. The may need to round those off a bit somehow. The padding around the eyes makes it very comfortable even when tightening up the head straps. There is a bit of light leakage from below that can been fixed pretty easily with a small, thin cloth but honestly I stopped noticing that pretty quickly.
The connection box with adjustable brightness and contrast settings was nice to have. For some reason I was expecting another HDMI plug in the box to help duplicate the image on my TV. Since I have my PC hooked up to the television and one HDMI port on the PC it was a little annoying to constantly switch cables back and forth between the two. I ended up buying a HDMI splitter to make it easier to switch between the two. Also for you PC TV couch gamers out there, longer HDMI / USB cables is a must. Thankfully I already had those on hand.
I am pretty damn nearsighted so my first time going in I wanted to wear contacts. No issues with the lenses there. I did find when playing the retro games there is a certain "sweet spot" in which I need to adjust the headset to make everything appear sharper. At the end of the second day after I took out my contacts I try to see through the Cup A lenses again but everything was blurry to my eyes. I then put on my glasses, adjusted the screws on the side of the headset to pull the lenses out further and didn't have any issues playing it with my glasses on. I still haven't tested out the Cup C lenses to check if I could see better with my glasses off. I do think they should change the screws to little knobs to make it easier to adjust the lenses on the fly.
As it stands for a developer kit it's a pretty solid piece of hardware. Now onto the demos.
Tuscany:
The obligatory first rift experience. I first hooked the headset up through DVI so I could see it what I'm clicking on my TV before I jumped in. When I was set up I close my eyes, strapped on the headset and when I opened them again I literally said "Holy shit"! Despite the screen door effect (which I quickly started looking past), despite the resolution (that HD version is going to be mind blowing). and despite that having it hooked up to DVI which was causing some noticeable tearing, I was immediately sold on the device. The combination of having a high FOV, stereoscopic 3D, and responsive headtracking really does help sell your brain on the world despite the flaws. The 3D effect here is the best I've seen so far. As opposed to cinema 3D and 3DS I actually was given a good sense of solidness and placement of everything. The simple act of walking up to a giant sunflower and getting a sense of its depth at eye height or trying to instinctually catch a blue butterfly fluttering towards you is something I've never experienced before in gaming. I spent about a good ten or so minutes walking around looking at stuff and once I took it off it felt like I was leaving a dream. Didn't start feeling nauseous. I did notice through later experiments that for some reason having the resolution max out to 1920x1080 ran much more smoothly on the headset than when it was set 1280x800. Not sure why that was.
Riftcoaster:
The second obligatory experience seemed to be Riftcoaster. Seeing it from an outside perspective I felt I wasn't going to have much of a strong reaction when I actually ended up trying it. Inside the headset however, once I got to that peak and got that real sense of depth of looking over the edge right before I drop I could now see why so many people were falling over when trying this. The sensation of speed which encompassed my entire view had me gripping the edge of my seat even though I knew in my head I wasn't really there. Still no motion sickness at this point. Right after this my girlfriend came home and had her try out the two demos I just did. She's not a gamer at all but she was truly blown away by the experience. The way she "squeeeed" going down the Riftcoaster gave me a huge laugh. Unfortunately I didn't think to take any videos at the time, but as someone who is not into gaming she kept wanting me to show her more. The mere act of just being in another environment could find this an audience beyond gamers.
VR Cinema:
Next was VR Cinema. The thought in my head before this was that I was just going to be looking at something that's very similar to how I view my TV. Before I jumped in I had ripped my Evil Dead DVD into an AVI format just to help set the mood. Much like the Riftcoaster observing it from an outside perspective and actually viewing it in person are two different things. Once again the combination of high FOV, headtracking, and 3D depth gave me the feeling of watching this on an enormous theater screen. Even at a low resolution I could find myself wanting to continue to watch The Evil Dead to the end, but stopped because I wanted to test out more! This thing could be a go-to film / tv show viewer for me in the future in the HD version. I would absolutely love to see something similar to this but having a drive-in atmosphere.
Virtual Boy:
Now I wanted to start checking out some retro stuff to see how well it works. I once owned a Virtual Boy many years ago until my place go broken into and it was stolen. So I was very much looking forward to playing Warioland and Teknoboxer once again. Thankfully everything seemed to work pretty well. Even with the lo-res screens everything was sharp and easy to see. The sprites still had that pop effect like they did in my old Virtual Boy. Also there's a nice option to turn everything into greyscale. Yes I know it's not accurate but it's so much easier on the eyes than the old red n' black. Despite not having any kind of headtracking, I was still comfortable with the view staying tuck in one position. If it ever ends up happening, a 3DS emulator on this thing could work very well.
Snes9x VR:
Naturally I then jump into the only other retro emulator available. Unlike the Virtual Boy one, the SNES9x has headtracking so the image doesn't stay stuck to your view, but similar to that the low resolution doesn't hinder the pixel graphics at all. There is also 3d depth given to the screen so like the VR Cinema it feels like you playing an SNES game on a giant IMAX screen. The neon room skin adds a bit of an effect by putting reflections on the surface from the game screen. Ended up playing some Super Ghouls n' Ghosts, Demon's Crest, Actraiser, and LTTP. My only minor quibble is that there isn't an easy to access menu for the Rift viewer to where I can select my games, but this was just a test project so I'm not going to gripe. Hope other emulators are given this kind of treatment down the road. Much like the VR Cinema I could find myself replaying games like this, especially when the HD version comes out.
City Quest:
Continuing with the retro theme I gave this demo a run. Since the illusion is that you're playing an old computer game off an old CRT monitor the sense of scale isn't like the IMAX sized screen of the SNES9x VR. Playing in an old bedroom littered with nostalgic items has a really nice, calming effect. The proportions of everything seemed a little big to me. I wonder if that was to make me feel like a little kid in his bedroom playing a game. Very cool. Would love to see more like this.
Museum of the Microstar:
Sadly this ran a little choppy on my system (and I have a pretty decent rig). Lots a cool little effects here and this also got me liking the idea of Museum Environments. This also was the start of me feeling that VR nausea everyone keeps talking about. Didn't try this for long.
Proton Pulse:
Awesome little Breakout close which is made specifically for the Rift headtracking. Your head movements control a paddle in your view which is used to bounce a ball back 'n forth, breaking the blocks in its path. Really enjoyed this game and would love to see this evolve some more. Made it to level 15 before losing all my lives. I'd actually highly recommend this as an early test bed when first getting into the Rift. Also a good game to have people play after showing them Tuscany and Riftcoaster.
Bounce VR:
Grabbed this because it looked similar to Proton Pulse. It's more pong-like than Proton Pulse and the clinking ball effect it has is very nice, but I got bored with it fairly quickly. Nice demo but I much prefer Proton Pulse over this.
Delta Draconus:
Very cool and atmospheric demo. Flying the ship around an alien planet and trying to tail another ship was a very relaxing experience. Unfortunately this demo illustrates another flaw with the current Rift screen is that it doesn't deal with dark, drab colors very well. Still recommended though.
Blue Marble:
"Played" this one several times. Basically you're just a lonely astronaut floating through space while your oxygen runs out. Great atmosphere here. There's an option to where you can import your own music which can greatly add to that experience (I chose the soundtrack for The Fountain for this). The effect of looking through a spacesuit is pretty nifty as well. Definitely recommended.
Titans of Space:
Similar to Blue Marble where you are floating around and observing planets and moons. Unlike Blue Marble this was more of a "Museum Experience" where you float from planet to planet learning about each planet and their moons. While Blue Marble had some great atmosphere going for it I think I ended up like this more just for the "Holy Shit" effect of seeing the enormous freaking sun. There is some slight glitchiness where at times the body your in get misaligned with your view (that's a weird thing to type out).
Yunalus:
Mainly downloaded this due to Cinematic Bruce's video. Could care less about the anime girlies but I really wanted to see what a cel shaded environment looked like in this thing. I thought the cartoon world works exceptionally well and was very vibrant and pleasing to the eye (no, not in that way). I think for my Rift project I may go the cel shaded route after trying this and the Cartoon World demo.
Cartoon World:
After my pleasant experience with Yunalus I went through the RiftEnabled list and found this little demo. If you're wanting to see what a cel shaded environment is like in VR and don't want to put yourself through Yunalus, definitely give this a whirl. There's about 5 cartoony environments available (one of which made me feel like I was walking through Maximo), and there's a super jump button that lets you bounce all over the work. Definitely recommended for a different type of experience.
Ocean Rift:
Ran a little choppy in on my computer. Another neat environment to fool around in... but don't fool around too much. o_0
Alone in the Rift
I feel this experience would be much better with the Razor control since you'll be using one of your hands to move around a flashlight. Sometimes it feels the flashlight lighting maybe a little off at times (probably because I was using a controller) and I was getting a little lost moving around pitch black environments. The end is a little creepy, and may have dragged out to the point where I didn't know what exactly I was supposed to do or go, but I'm sure that was intentional since the jump scare at the end got me. I reeeeaallly want to play Amnesia on this thing.
Half Life 2:
It is quite amazing how much different a game I've played many times in the past can all of a sudden feel brand new just by a perspective shift. Being right there in City 17 and looking up at the Citadel disappearing in the clouds is quite a sight to behold. Sadly this was the first game to make me feel stomach churning nausea. What did it for me was the fast movement speed combined with the slight ghosting and low resolution. This got better as time went on. I had to take some extended breaks to sit back and close my eyes for a bit so I can go back in and try again. Also the little health meter at the bottom was bothering my eyes. Felt like the 3d effect on it was a bit off.
Minecraft:
Other than the brief time I had with the XB360 demo, this would be the first time I've actually sat down to played Minecraft. For the most part everything works pretty well within the Rift. The 3D menu system is easy to read and navigate in the dev kit's low resolution, and there's plenty of tweaking options available. Since this has been the first time for me getting into Minecraft it has been an excellent VR game for me (much more than Half Life 2). Exploring the world, creating your own home, and the day and night cycles really help immerse you in the simple block world. There are some bugs like the mouse cursor going wonky at times, or if you're pelted with arrows near the head area it can get really jarring to have one of their polygons obscure you vision (a quick save and reset should fix both of these problems). Overall this has been my go-to Rift game.
First thoughts after two days:
Despite low expectations from some of the comments around here about low res screens, screen door effects, contrast n' colors, and ghosting I came away with my expectations well exceeded. Getting nauseous in the beginning is a problem. I've never gotten motion sickness from gaming so this was a first for me. There were periods in the beginning where I had to just stop playing anything for a while just to rest my eyes and brain because I was feeling really dazed. This is something that does get better once your brain gets more accustomed to it. I find it best to keep a bottle water nearby so you can close your eyes and take a drink to help bring things down. I think a lot of this nauseousness comes from the low res screens, the screen door effect and slight ghosting. The HD version of this should help alleviate some of that.
What does need to be worked on between now and then is some quick and easy plug-in play for this and programs. I imagine it will get there, so hopefully once the consumer version comes out it will be easy to just boot up a Rift enabled game or program and maybe adjust a couple of settings to get it working with it. Also having some kind of desktop viewer would be nice for those that don't have an HDMI splitter.
Out of all the experiences my favorites so far are Proton Pulse, Minecraft, VR Cinema, SNES9X VR, and Titans of Space. Playing Cartoon World and Yunalus make me really want a fuller cel shaded experience on this. I think that's what I'm going to work on once I get into Unity. I also feel a push for Museum or Tour Guide experiences will help get this out beyond the gaming crowd. My girlfriend absolutely loved those and kept wanting to go back to them. I recommend if you're going to test this out with people you should try these in this order:
Tuscany > Riftcoaster > Proton Pulse > VR Cinema > Blue Marble
So if you've been on the fence but have an interest in VR I'd say that even as it stands now, low resolution and all, it has been well worth it for me. The feeling that you're being encompassed in these environments, with objects scaled to size and being given depth is something that nothing else out there has given me in gaming, even after playing with things like the Virtual Boy or countless arcade and mall VR machines. Now if you're easily prone to motion sickness then I say hold out for the consumer Rift. The HD / consumer version of this is going to be sick once it releases. Even the early dev kit I'm perfectly happy with and will continue playing with it until the next version comes out and then I will gladly plop down the money for that one too. I know this is high praise, but I haven't had my mind blown in gaming for quite some time so it was only natural to give it that kind of recommendation.
JetBlackPanda
Member
My god I want one so bad. When I think back to how much cash I spent on that plastic instrument craze $300 doesn't seem so bad.
Enk, definitely try Team Fortress 2 as well. But make sure you bring up the developer menu and run vr_calibration to set up the green lines at the edges of the screen before you start. See http://wiki.teamfortress.com/wiki/Oculus_Rift_User_Guide for more info.
After running some more, I think the VR Cinema definitely does not converge perfectly for me. I tried manually entering the TF2 IPD in the new Oculus SDK configuration utility, but I think the VR Cinema may not use that value and I do not know a way to edit IPD or lens cup settings for the VR Cinema.
Presumably as a result, if I turn my head in the VR Cinema the seats appear to move slightly instead of keeping still, and I suspect that is true for a lot of Unity demos.
Presumably as a result, if I turn my head in the VR Cinema the seats appear to move slightly instead of keeping still, and I suspect that is true for a lot of Unity demos.
finally received rift!! i was sent the incorrect tracking number twice, but it finally showed up. messed around with a few demos and it felt great. everything working well after doing the IPD exercise a few times to get it feeling right.
however, when i tried last night to get minecraft to work my PC shit the bed. i feel like i followed the instructions to a T, but every time I got to "building terrain" the head tracking would get choppy, hang, and then the "out of memory" message would pop up in game. changed all setting to their lowest and still no luck. I have 16 gig ram and a GTX 680. what am I doing wrong?
looking forward to playing HL2 this weekend. more space sims or driving games a must.
however, when i tried last night to get minecraft to work my PC shit the bed. i feel like i followed the instructions to a T, but every time I got to "building terrain" the head tracking would get choppy, hang, and then the "out of memory" message would pop up in game. changed all setting to their lowest and still no luck. I have 16 gig ram and a GTX 680. what am I doing wrong?
looking forward to playing HL2 this weekend. more space sims or driving games a must.
I recommended animated 3d trailers for demoing VR Cinema. The low resolution works much better on CGI material and the natural stereo feels great.
The Despicable Me one is quite good because it showcases some blatant in your face type of 3d effects. Here's a KeepVid link to download it from Youtube as a 720p 3d mp4 file.
The Despicable Me one is quite good because it showcases some blatant in your face type of 3d effects. Here's a KeepVid link to download it from Youtube as a 720p 3d mp4 file.
plagiarize
Banned
I ripped Tron Legacy from my 3D Blu-Ray. That's a great demo for it, imho. It's a shame I can't just stick it any of my 3D blu-rays without faffing about first. Paranorman I partially ripped and that was really good too.
Just a heads up that some Rift enabled games are deeply discounted on Steam. Doom 3 BFG Edition and Surgeon Simulator 2013 support the Rift with some tweaking, and Strike Suit Zero is going through Rift testing right now and should hopefully be available next month.
Thanks for this. Will definitely try the IPD calibration tool before I jump in next.
Thanks for this. Will definitely try the IPD calibration tool before I jump in next.
Yeah I grabbed antichamber in hopes of future rift support. A dev commented on possibly including support about a month ago, in response to modded in rift support, so I thought I'd go ahead and grab it, will save it until i get my consumer rift if support does get added.
e: dear esther is $2.50. I've already gone through it but don't own so got it perchance it gets modded or official native support. Would be a fantastic little experience for VR.
Maybe this is interesting for some people 
http://www.oculusvr.com/blog/the-latent-power-of-prediction/
http://www.oculusvr.com/blog/the-latent-power-of-prediction/
I'm thinking that might partly be why stuff like some of the UDK demos were feeling so weird when I would sit still and then turn my head -- maybe the prediction being off.Maybe this is interesting for some people
http://www.oculusvr.com/blog/the-latent-power-of-prediction/
Although I'm still also convinced that the 3D projection is wrong for VR cinema, and I don't know what option to change or how to change it (IPD?).
StickSoldier
Member
I havent ordered one but really feeling like I want to. I fucking love VR stuff, but I don't know if it's worth ordering this one and then buying another one when it's officially released... I'd really like to see this work on Wow though, that'd be cool.
It means that Oculus was able to charge you for your order. The next "good sign" is when your order switches to "Processing" in the next couple of months, meaning they're getting ready to ship you a Rift.
Have you seen this video yet?