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[Maiden Voyage]

I've been waiting to buy a headset because I get super bad motion sickness from first-person games. I went to Best Buy yesterday. They were demoing Oculus w/ Touch. The demo guy told me that I shouldn't pick The Climb since it is their most intense demo. I went for it anyway so I could know. No sickness whatsoever. I wound up picking up an Oculus and my wife bought a Vive for us on her phone while we drove home. We pre-ordered the touch controllers when we got home too.

I fell down the rabbit hole pretty hard.

 

[Paganmoon]

It seems like (at least in the US, haven't seen any here yet) there are now VR-themed Steam gift cards:


Also, The Solus Project got a ~1GB update. I have not been able to find any information on it yet though.

Doesn't one of the devs, or at least someone working with them post here from time to time? Can't recall the name.
Edit: SomTervo (ping!)

Hopefully lots of VR fidelity improvements in it.

 

[Astral/H3X]

I overclocked my CPU to 3.8GHz last night, and Art of Fight was much closer to consistent. It seems that the dead bodies are affecting CPU more than GPU atm.

 

[Padinn]

I notice in Desktop mode that my Vive controllers stop controlling the mouse when I fire up mumble (and randomly at other times). Any idea what's causing that? It won't let me select a channel in the mumble app, that is usually when it stops working.

 

[SimplexPL]

Also, The Solus Project got a ~1GB update. I have not been able to find any information on it yet though.

http://store.steampowered.com/news/externalpost/steam_community_announcements/91592053115564994

VR
VR now also features the explorer diary! Get an overview of all you've found within VR.
You can aim at menu items using the Vive controllers instead of using head aim. Oculus still uses head aim in menus.
PDA now has significant less lag and latency when you move it quickly. The items on the display now correctly follow. Small exceptions left and right might still be possible.
Inability to control the main menu or otherwise loss of input has presumably been fixed, or is at least less likely to occur.
You can now enable Temporal AA via a command or the config files. This may be more pleasant in VR, but it also makes text harder to read, and small bright things like stars blurry. In DefaultEngine.ini r.DefaultFeature.AntiAliasing=1 equals the original FXAA, 0 means no AA, and 2 means Temporal AA. This can also be executed in the console at run time using this same command.
The VR ladder teleport spot in Highpoint Caves to Landing Caves now no longer loops you around.
You can now scale up the resolution scale all the way up to 200 in the VR menu.
In Landing the jet engine particle is less heavy in VR.
Bug where strafing would strafe in the wrong direction fixed.

 

[Zalusithix]

I've been waiting to buy a headset because I get super bad motion sickness from first-person games. I went to Best Buy yesterday. They were demoing Oculus w/ Touch. The demo guy told me that I shouldn't pick The Climb since it is their most intense demo. I went for it anyway so I could know. No sickness whatsoever. I wound up picking up an Oculus and my wife bought a Vive for us on her phone while we drove home. We pre-ordered the touch controllers when we got home too.

I fell down the rabbit hole pretty hard.

Oculus with Touch and Vive? $1680 (assuming 3 sensor Rift) in VR costs before a single piece of software bought. Yeah, that's one heck of a rabbit hole. You probably would have been better off waiting until the 13th though to order the Vive. MS is doing a $100 store credit then, and there's a possibility it'll be matched by other stores.

 

[Auto-Reply]

Figured out how to play Adrift, it's way more compfortable when sitting down, maybe it's even recommended, I don't know. I was standing up the first time and that causes the suit go crazy all the time.

Edit: Also, the Steam VR turorial is graphically glitched since the latest Steam VR Beta update... textures are low res etc. Maybe that's only on my end though.

 

[Durante]

http://store.steampowered.com/news/externalpost/steam_community_announcements/91592053115564994

Nice!

Using the UI with controller instead of head aim should reduce the initial learning curve, which is something the game needs.
Have to play around with combinations of temporal AA and downsampling.

 

[Maiden Voyage]

Oculus with Touch and Vive? $1680 (assuming 3 sensor Rift) in VR costs before a single piece of software bought. Yeah, that's one heck of a rabbit hole. You probably would have been better off waiting until the 13th though to order the Vive. MS is doing a $100 store credit then, and there's a possibility it'll be matched by other stores.

Yep. I think the wife will be playing the Oculus the most and I will do the Vive. I haven't purchased any software yet. Lucky's Tale has been keeping me busy. I also have a handful of titles on Steam that will keep me busy until the Steam winter sale.

I don't use the Microsoft Store so the $100 wouldn't do me much good.

 

[Makai]

Achievement for getting all secrets incorrectly triggered at 115 found, instead of 118.

I hope they mean they fixed this and this isn't a new feature.

 

[Prat]

I've tried Adrift in VR.... closed it down after 30 seconds, I wasn't able to get a grip on the controls, but that had more to do with the fact that the space suit is bahaving super distracting. Is it supposed to teleport and realign it's position relativ to yourself every 2 seconds? It's always super late to update it's position and that is a dealbreaker, is something off with my game or settings?

I believe I can get a handle on the controls but the space suit is intolerable like this, can you switch it off completely?

Same thing here, the space suit feels like driving a submarine. Also the controllers floating around away from "your" hands is freaking nonsense. I played like 5 minutes trying to "pilot" the astronaut till I gave up completely.

 

[Durante]

Have to play around with combinations of temporal AA and downsampling.

I did, and I have to say that the improvement is massive. The Solus Project suffers from a significant flicker issue, especially with distant geometry, which temporal AA solves almost entirely. This immediately makes everything seem far more solid and real. Of course, when you try it at 100% or even 150% render resolution, it also turns everything into a blurry mess.

At 200% render resolution (which I can just about manage without dropping below 45 FPS -- yes, we are of course in reprojection territory here) it looks absolutely stunning though. The atmospheric effects, the massive scale and great detail of the environments, and finally vegetation without flicker.

A screenshot can not even hope to capture how great this looks in the HMD, but I still took one:

 

[Bread]

man rec room is so much fun, i've met some cool people on there and had a blast with paintball.

 

[Sleeping Lesson]

Wow that looks awesome Durante. I know you've been a Solus Project proponent for a while, I guess I'll make some time to dive into it. It actually seems to have worked out that I waited so long, given these recent improvements.

 

[Durante]

Don't get me wrong, the update doesn't really solve the IQ issue fully -- but at least on very high-end hardware you now have the option to play a version of the game which is both clear and flicker-free. As long as you can live with reprojection.

We need 20 TFlop GPUs.

 

[SimplexPL]

Is it comfortable to play The Solus Project with asynchronous reprojection?

 

[Exuro]

Took a break from my paper and checked out Lazerbait. Pretty awesome little game. Would love to see the concept expanded.

 

[Samemind]

Took a break from my paper and checked out Lazerbait. Pretty awesome little game. Would love to see the concept expanded.

Yup, I just tried this a moment ago and in spite of the amateurish presentation, the core concept is quite nicely put together. I only played the AI on easy but I had still had a blast moving the map around trying to get my guys in strategic positions while whipping my head around to keep an eye on the other guy.

 

[Auto-Reply]

Google Earth VR seems to have a unique effect on people that never tried VR. I let some friends try all sorts of stuff and they were impressed by nearly everything, but they literally struggled to find words when they tried Google Earth VR.

 

[Durante]

Is it comfortable to play The Solus Project with asynchronous reprojection?

Since it's a slow-paced game it's viable, the only real issue with it are the things you hold in your hands.
I can do ~170 render resolution without reprojection, but it just doesn't look as good as 200.

 

[Paganmoon]

Since it's a slow-paced game it's viable, the only real issue with it are the things you hold in your hands.
I can do ~170 render resolution without reprojection, but it just doesn't look as good as 200.

What settings are you on for 170%? last I tried the game I was getting reprojection at the starting location with 150% (GTX 1080, i7-6700k here), and I think I'd lowered most other settings.

 

[Durante]

What settings are you on for 170%? last I tried the game I was getting reprojection at the starting location with 150% (GTX 1080, i7-6700k here), and I think I'd lowered most other settings.

I'm at Ultra for everything but shadows. (Really, at these kinds of resolutions most settings don't even matter that much I've found, at least on my system).

Do note though that I only tested this at one location. It was outdoors, but it might not be the most demanding one.

 

[Auto-Reply]

A game on low setting but downsampled looks better than a game on high settings but is not downsampled in VR.

Right or wrong?

I have yet to experiment with settings, you guys have experience with this?

Also, when I change the multiplier to let's say 1.5, play in VR and check the settings again, it turned to 1,555555528301 something.... I assume that is normal?

 

[Sleeping Lesson]

A game on low setting but downsampled looks better than a game on high settings but is not downsampled in VR.

Right or wrong?

I have yet to experiment with settings, you guys have experience with this?

Also, when I change the multiplier to let's say 1.5, play in VR and check the settings again, it turned to 1,555555528301 something.... I assume that is normal?

I suppose it's really a matter of preference, but I've certainly found that turning down settings is more than worthwhile for downsampling. A lot of the "detail" you're losing isn't really that perceptible in VR anyway.

 

[Paganmoon]

I believe The Labs Longbow alone is proof enough you don't need high graphics fidelity to make an immersive experience in VR.

Jaggies and shimmering though, instant immersion breakers for me, which is interesting since when doing "regular" gaming on my PC, I want as high fidelity as possible, and if I have to concede any setting, it's most likely to be aliasing, as it doesn't bother me that much on a screen.

So for me, I'd rather loose some effects, and get a supersampled image with little to no aliasing or shimmering in VR.

 

[Durante]

I agree with the general sentiment: as long as IQ isn't solid, settings are secondary.

However, at the same time, often settings don't really change performance much, so you might as well leave them high.

 

[Tain]

New SPT trailer. Doesn't show any new content, but it's probably the best mixed-reality footage I've seen.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xfa9Jqm34b0

SPT is already cool, but I hope they've got a lot of new enemy types in the pipeline. Could be something amazing.

 

[Zalusithix]

New SPT trailer. Doesn't show any new content, but it's probably the best mixed-reality footage I've seen.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xfa9Jqm34b0

SPT is already cool, but I hope they've got a lot of new enemy types in the pipeline. Could be something amazing.

Is that actually mixed reality? Looks more like an animated in game model. I assume they used some sort of mocap and then translated that into an in-engine model.

 

[Tain]

lol, holy shit, you're right. Should have been really obvious considering about all the work that would be involved to hide the Vive, but yeah actually making it a point to look at the dude's body now it's pretty clear.

All the more impressive!

 

[crisdecuba]

QQ: how do you guys handle demoing google earth for folks without much controller dexterity? I was thinking of closing with a bit of google earth space pirate trainer...

 

[Zalusithix]

QQ: how do you guys handle demoing google earth for folks without much controller dexterity? I was thinking of closing with a bit of google earth space pirate trainer...

Since when does Google Earth VR require controller dexterity? SPT I can see, but Google Earth is totally relaxed pointer based movement.

 

[Business]

QQ: how do you guys handle demoing google earth for folks without much controller dexterity? I was thinking of closing with a bit of google earth space pirate trainer...

Try to explain the controls before they put the headset on. Don't put them the headphones until you are sure they can navigate whatever they are doing.

 

[Durante]

That's an awesome trailer. One of the best I've seen for VR.

I really think with that level of production you could do an absolutely breathtaking job at selling something large-scale/exploration-based like The Solus project.

Is that actually mixed reality? Looks more like an animated in game model. I assume they used some sort of mocap and then translated that into an in-engine model.

Full writeup here: http://www.kertgartner.com/virtual-cinematography-for-vr-trailers

Also explains why third person footage actually gets closer to showing how it feels like to play in VR than third-person footage does. I used to question this, but the evidence is compelling.

 

[crisdecuba]

Since when does Google Earth VR require controller dexterity? SPT I can see, but Google Earth is totally relaxed pointer based movement.

The people I am demoing for don't play video games at all. Space pirate trainer is actually easier because a gun comes more naturally to them in terms of how to operate (even if their aim is terrible or they never use the shield)

 

[Durante]

Did you try having them follow the Google Earth VR tutorial (maybe with additional explanations/prompting from you?). That's what worked for me, mostly.

 

[Auto-Reply]

QQ: how do you guys handle demoing google earth for folks without much controller dexterity? I was thinking of closing with a bit of google earth space pirate trainer...

I just told them to be careful with tilting/rotating the earth horizontally and flying (I turned compfort mode off) and explained them the 1:1 scaling because that's not really obvious from the start, they learned the rest themselves.

 

[Zalusithix]

I just told them to be careful with tilting/rotating the earth horizontally and flying (I turned compfort mode off) and explained them the 1:1 scaling because that's not really obvious from the start, they learned the rest themselves.

You turned comfort mode off and then demo'd it to people with no VR experience? I don't think that's the best way to do things. =P

 

[Durante]

Yeah, tilting and fast movement in Google Earth VR with comfort mode off even gets me a bit queasy, and I've been using VR for years now!

 

[Auto-Reply]

You turned comfort mode off and then demo'd it to people with no VR experience? I don't think that's the best way to do things. =P

And you are right, one of em needed a break because of too much flying and world scaling, he also sat on the floor all the time. They were surprisingly resistant to motionsickness though, but I showed them nothing but teleportation games/software without camera movement before that. Google Earth VR was a bit of a test into that.

 

[Durante]

I just got an email that the full version of Surgeon Simulator VR (called Surgeon Simulator: Experience Reality) is now out.

I'd be looking at that if I hadn't just bought Arizona Sunshine.
Actually, should I make an OT for that? It should be playable for Vive and Rift owners now, so just discussing it in one thread might not make much sense. And it seems like it might be the biggest VR release of the month.

 

[abracadaver]

I just got an email that the full version of Surgeon Simulator VR (called Surgeon Simulator: Experience Reality) is now out.

I'd be looking at that if I hadn't just bought Arizona Sunshine.
Actually, should I make an OT for that? It should be playable for Vive and Rift owners now, so just discussing it in one thread might not make much sense. And it seems like it might be the biggest VR release of the month.

What is different in the new game compared to the game that came out 3 years ago? There is not even a loyalty discount

 

[Durante]

Well, one thing I assume to be different is VR support
Of course, there should be more than that given the asking price, and I agree that not providing a loyalty discount is fishy if it consists mostly of the same content as the original game.

 

[Onemic]

Arizona Sunshine seems to be big enough to warrant an OT. I'm pretty hyped for tomorrow between that game and The Last Guardian.

 

[Auto-Reply]

I always thought the point of surgeon simulator was the terrible controls which made the game funny. In theory, with the vive controller you can have absolute control over your instruments and pinpoint accuracy because of 3d perception. That would somehow defeat the purpose?

 

[Veritigo_X]

I just got an email that the full version of Surgeon Simulator VR (called Surgeon Simulator: Experience Reality) is now out.

I feel like the entire point of this game is lost with accurate controls.

 

[bounchfx]

Google Earth VR seems to have a unique effect on people that never tried VR. I let some friends try all sorts of stuff and they were impressed by nearly everything, but they literally struggled to find words when they tried Google Earth VR.

i tried a bunch of games and it's still the best VR experience I've had to date

 

[Zalusithix]

Yeah, tilting and fast movement in Google Earth VR with comfort mode off even gets me a bit queasy, and I've been using VR for years now!

Yep, I left it enabled. I don't get puke level sick or anything with it disabled, but it's far more comfortable with it on. Considering how long you can spend flying around and visiting various areas of the world, every additional bit of comfort is welcomed.

And you are right, one of em needed a break because of too much flying and world scaling, he also sat on the floor all the time. They were surprisingly resistant to motionsickness though, but I showed them nothing but teleportation games/software without camera movement before that. Google Earth VR was a bit of a test into that.

Sitting helps a lot. That's one of the first things I noticed in VR with artificial movement.

 

[Durante]

Any good ideas for the Arizona Sunshine OT subtitle?

 

[KingSnake]

Any good ideas for the Arizona Sunshine OT subtitle?

Arizona Sunshine |OT| Arizona Nightmare

or more obvious

Arizona Sunshine |OT| Arizona (Bad) Dream

 

[Paganmoon]

Or continuing the deluge of poor attempts at VR naming puns

Arizona Sunshine |OT| Arizona VReaming.