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[plagiarize]

That's the number for a single lens. The text under that table contains the stereo FOV (which was imperfectly measured by Doc Ok's own admission), which is approx 94H x 93V. Also, the shape of the display is such that it's weakest with a horizontal and vertical FOV measurement and best with a diagonal (why isn't that a valid form of FOV measurement?), while the Vive is the opposite.

What annoys me about this whole FOV gate deal is that people still dismiss the validity of the choices made for the numbers that provide a misleading understanding of the situation.

Basically, Oculus went with the shape of the viewable area and the shape of the lens (which impacted the FOV) so as to strike a good balance between FOV, SDE and pixel density. They chose to reduce the FOV so as to increase the amount of pixels used on the screen...

and the result in practice is that the perception of the difference in field of view between the Vive and the Rift is negligible to slight (depending on the person and how far their eyes are from the lens).

As if Oculus doesn't have enough real issues to contend with, they gotta have this B.S. problem of people griping about FOV numbers.

Pretty much. Though Durante is off the hook, since he's never cared about SDE and he's always maintained his preference for a round image.

But another plus of what Oculus are doing is that they actually use more pixels than Vive do (because of their FOV shape). So it's like, slightly smaller FOV, slightly more pixels used and somewhat better SDE. Obviously it was a decision, rather than just an inability to have a higher FOV.

They just didn't prioritize FOV above everything else. Now I'm sure some people do, and it's great that they have the option on the Vive and the Vive is going to be their preference, but everything has trade offs here. I think Oculus struck a great balance and I'm really happy with how my Rift looks.

Will I prefer how the Vive's optics and screens look? Maybe. Shouldn't be too long before I get to try one out.

 

[marc^o^]

It looks like he's trying to lean and lay his hand on the desk. There is no desk.

 

[Durante]

Given competitors are using these metrics then perhaps 100' would be fair: taking into account rectangular shape and a bit of rounding?

If you simply want to compare FoV, the easiest way is to look at this:

Edit: added a circle to the image to show the displacement of the FoV better

 

[Fried Food]

I find it hard to believe that screenshot is accurate. If the difference was that great I don't see how people were ever saying it's hard to tell/difference isn't that big

 

[gmoran]

It's Oculus' choice to not provide any figure for FOV, and they have obviously benefited from this by having it assumed as being 110 (as per the Wikipedia page).

If they don't like the metric they should provide an alternative with explanation.

 

[Durante]

I find it hard to believe that screenshot is accurate. If the difference was that great I don't see how people were ever saying it's hard to tell/difference isn't that big

I just traced it very carefully off the images provided by doc-ok, who performed the measurements using what I would call sufficient scientific rigor.

The resulting image also confirms everything we know:
- the difference is most significant in the vertical
- the whole FoV of the Vive is angled further down, which Valve did specifically after a lot of room-scale testing (and also talked about publicly, so we know that is correct)
- the diagonal FoV is very close between the two

 

[Melon Husk]

I find it hard to believe that screenshot is accurate. If the difference was that great I don't see how people were ever saying it's hard to tell/difference isn't that big

It's all relative.

If we added a 180° circle the difference would look smaller.

 

[Zaptruder]

It's Oculus' choice to not provide any figure for FOV, and they have obviously benefited from this by having it assumed as being 110 (as per the Wikipedia page).

If they don't like the metric they should provide an alternative with explanation.

The situation is complex, not something that can be easily encapsulated with some basic numbers.

The explanation is actually already out there to people that care. To those that don't care so much about the minutiae - the only thing they should be cognizant of are user impressions, which are solid.

I mean what are you going to do? Pull out your calipers while in VR and experiment? Or just use your perceptual system to experience it holistically and make an assessment based off that?

 

[the-pi-guy]

It's Oculus' choice to not provide any figure for FOV, and they have obviously benefited from this by having it assumed as being 110 (as per the Wikipedia page).

If they don't like the metric they should provide an alternative with explanation.

Something they have explained several times is that there is no standard way to measure FOV.

You could have one headset be "150 degrees" and another be "110 degrees" even though the 110 degrees ends up being bigger for most people.

For example, look at your monitor. Get really really close to it, it's basically filling up 180 degrees of your vision. Back up from it and now it might only be filling up 60 degrees of your vision. It's not like the monitor itself changed, but the distance changed. And the distance will vary a little bit with the headsets, and when that distance varies a little bit, because of how close the distance is, it could have big effects on how you perceive the FOV.

It gets even more challenging when comparing different shapes.

 

[Melon Husk]

This is what it might look like if the chart went up to 180°.

 

[gmoran]

What I'd like to know, if at all possible, is if the 110' FOV metric that is "out there" for Oculus Rift CV1 is essentially correct or fair?

Anyone?

Thanks

 

[cheezcake]

That's the number for a single lens. The text under that table contains the stereo FOV (which was imperfectly measured by Doc Ok's own admission), which is approx 94H x 93V. Also, the shape of the display is such that it's weakest with a horizontal and vertical FOV measurement and best with a diagonal (why isn't that a valid form of FOV measurement?), while the Vive is the opposite.

What annoys me about this whole FOV gate deal is that people still dismiss the validity of the choices made for the numbers that provide a misleading understanding of the situation.

Basically, Oculus went with the shape of the viewable area and the shape of the lens (which impacted the FOV) so as to strike a good balance between FOV, SDE and pixel density. They chose to reduce the FOV so as to increase the amount of pixels used on the screen...

and the result in practice is that the perception of the difference in field of view between the Vive and the Rift is negligible to slight (depending on the person and how far their eyes are from the lens).

As if Oculus doesn't have enough real issues to contend with, they gotta have this B.S. problem of people griping about FOV numbers.

My bad! Thanks for correcting me. I find the FOV meltdown pretty dumb too, at this point we have concrete data so I'm not sure why people keep arguing.

What I'd like to know, if at all possible, is if the 110' FOV metric that is "out there" for Oculus Rift CV1 is essentially correct or fair?

Anyone?

Thanks

No, that number is incorrect.

Something they have explained several times is that there is no standard way to measure FOV.

You could have one headset be "150 degrees" and another be "110 degrees" even though the 110 degrees ends up being bigger for most people.

For example, look at your monitor. Get really really close to it, it's basically filling up 180 degrees of your vision. Back up from it and now it might only be filling up 60 degrees of your vision. It's not like the monitor itself changed, but the distance changed. And the distance will vary a little bit with the headsets, and when that distance varies a little bit, because of how close the distance is, it could have big effects on how you perceive the FOV.

It gets even more challenging when comparing different shapes.

I think in the future there should be a graph similar to the one I linked above in the tech spec of VR headsets.

 

[Mrbob]

This is interesting:

SteamVR is working with Oculus Rift now

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hn9yPrxsBUw

So why are Oculus being aholes then and not supporting open vr. Every time I remember we have headset exclusive games on PC it makes me not want to pick up either headset. 1400 for the full vr experience stay super niche I guess.

 

[Cyriades]

I'm thinking about getting OSVR v1.4

Is it true v1.4. new OLED screen is full 1080p RGB Stripe?

 

[Nzyme32]

So why are Oculus being aholes then and not supporting open vr. Every time I remember we have headset exclusive games on PC it makes me not want to pick up either headset. 1400 for the full vr experience stay super niche I guess.

I'd assume because that makes it easy for Steam to become the defacto service. If they did, many might only use Oculus Home for the exclusive content, and get everything else elsewhere.

For now they may want to drive their own headset sales via exclusive content and control what competition is easily accessed, with the hope of driving the sales of all VR content in their own store with those Oculus customers. Once there is a greater amount of people comfortable having their primary library of content within Oculus Store, they will probably begin to relax their restrictions

 

[mugurumakensei]

I'm not sure if anyone has mentioned it yet but I saw an article on Gizmodo about the Rift's terms of service that I though was interesting as well as worrisome

http://gizmodo.com/there-are-some-super-shady-things-in-oculus-rifts-terms-1768678169

Do you think it's sensationalist or something to be wary of?

Seems sensationalist.

First part is basically any mods you distribute through the store can be distributed and redistributed perpetually. In this case, it says user content which in this form basically refers to user created content for software on their services. A game or other piece of software is not considered user content. Software is considered software as throughout the terms of software, software and content are separated out. More importantly, an end-user is not a developer. Certainly, a developer could release updates through the same facilities Oculus Home provides for user mods. Wouldn't advise it though as it would screw up normal build logistics, and the mod would then fall under Oculus's ToS. Better to go through traditional update mechanisms as a developer.

Second part is just standard operating procedure for most computer software these days.

 

[Felix Lighter]

So why are Oculus being aholes then and not supporting open vr. Every time I remember we have headset exclusive games on PC it makes me not want to pick up either headset. 1400 for the full vr experience stay super niche I guess.

It's not about keeping the games headset exclusive but it is about keeping games store exclusive for Oculus. Their proposed solution is to allow Vive support with the Oculus SDK because with OpenVR there is no way to push people to their store. It's a shit situation for the consumer but I get their issue from the business standpoint. Without the store the headset isn't profitable and Valve is in a WAY better position to capitalize on the software side of things. Supporting all headsets in your store is the best situation for both companies, and they want that. Oculus just also wants to force people into their store because they feel they need to. They did not help themselves by skipping key functionality with the initial release of their store. Ideally, people would buy things from the Oculus store because they made it appealing in someway and not because they locked up exclusives but I'm sure they know that's not realistic anytime soon.

From my perspective as a consumer, I want competition for the hardware because that has a long way to go but I'm not looking for Oculus's type of competition for the software distribution. I hope a consumer friendly solution is worked out so the Oculus headset business can be profitable without headset exclusive software.

 

[Zaptruder]

So why are Oculus being aholes then and not supporting open vr. Every time I remember we have headset exclusive games on PC it makes me not want to pick up either headset. 1400 for the full vr experience stay super niche I guess.

Their HMD works on OpenVR, but they want HMDs to use the Oculus SDK for their Oculus Home.

It's an issue of control - ostensibly they need that control to ensure the quality of software and functionality on Oculus Home.

While there's likely an element of truth to that (apparently their stack has lower latency and ATW is a fantastic solution), I wouldn't doubt that there are other more business driven factors at play.

 

[Durante]

People talk all the time about FoV, and SDE, and other optical factors. I didn't care that much about any of those (FoV more than SDE, but still not that much).

Conversely, what almost killed DK2 for me was black smear, and the software mitigation strategies came with their own issues. Has anyone read (or experienced!) anything about that relating to Vive and/or CV1?

 

[And/reas]

Hmmm so a few pages ago I posted that it looks like my Laptop wont support VR, i thought because of optimus, and because the VR test tools said it wont work.

A few things changed since then.
I updated to Win 10 and I found out my lap top does not use Optimus.
It´s a MSI Gt72 with and 980M 8GB. It has an physical switch to switch between onboard Graphics-card and dedicated Graphics-card.

Curious, I ran the Steam VR test again. It is now giving me an 5.8 with no dropped Frames.
Occulus still says that my system in incompatible......

Don´t really know what to do now. I really want to own an VR headset. I can accept that I can run the games only on medium and low settings.....

I think I will wait until I see experiences posted with ppl who have the same setup as me.

 

[Wallach]

People talk all the time about FoV, and SDE, and other optical factors. I didn't care that much about any of those (FoV more than SDE, but still not that much).

Conversely, what almost killed DK2 for me was black smear, and the software mitigation strategies came with their own issues. Has anyone read (or experienced!) anything about that relating to Vive and/or CV1?

From what I've read from impressions, it sounds like black smear is either gone or mostly gone, but black levels have suffered slightly for it in both HMDs.

 

[Cimarron]

easily the most precious thing i've seen in weeks!

Irresponsible parent. That is child abuse he us under the age of 12! :-/

 

[habithipster]

Conversely, what almost killed DK2 for me was black smear, and the software mitigation strategies came with their own issues. Has anyone read (or experienced!) anything about that relating to Vive and/or CV1?

From Tested:

Pure black background is something they have told people to avoid on all platforms (...) The black levels on this, because of the way that the screens are designed, are are bad. So it's the first thing you notice when you put the headset on unfortunately.

https://youtu.be/k9s-gBm5OCI?t=5457

 

[Wowfunhappy]

Basically, Oculus went with the shape of the viewable area and the shape of the lens (which impacted the FOV) so as to strike a good balance between FOV, SDE and pixel density. They chose to reduce the FOV so as to increase the amount of pixels used on the screen...

I haven't been following VR as much as some people in this thread, but it strikes me that if I have the choice between buying two different 1080p TV's which are the same in every way except size, I'm always going to choose the larger TV, even if that means the overall pixel density is lower.

 

[gmoran]

What I'd like to know, if at all possible, is if the 110' FOV metric that is "out there" for Oculus Rift CV1 is essentially correct or fair?

No, that number is incorrect.

Well if Cheezcake is correct on this then Oculus could be seen to be "lying by omission" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lie#Lying_by_omission.

This (Rift FOV 110') is so widely reported that is has effectively become one of its specs, Oculus should have made some effort to remedy the misinformation, they chose not to, this appears deceptive.

In this context the furore over FOV-gate is completely understandable.

I understand that FOV is not a simple measurement, and that Oculus made some engineering choices here in the best interests of their product, that's fine, but they should explain that or choose a metric that they think is representative. As an example look what Sony has done with their resolution spec for Playstation VR:

Panel resolution: 1920 x RGB x 1080​

 

[Durante]

From Tested:


https://youtu.be/k9s-gBm5OCI?t=5457

That sounds very strange. These are OLED screens, so why would the black level be bad? Unless they are running them at not-actually-black all the time in order to eliminate the black smear. Which would suck.

If that is the case, this would actually make the brightness advantage of the Vive a lot more important, since it would also mean significantly higher contrast.

As an example look what Sony has done with their resolution spec for Playstation VR:

Panel resolution: 1920 x RGB x 1080​

Actually, I wouldn't look at that particular example as something to aspire to. It's introducing an entirely new way to write down display resolution for marketing purposes.

 

[gmoran]

Actually, I wouldn't look at that particular example as something to aspire to. It's introducing an entirely new way to write down display resolution for marketing purposes.

It allows Sony to put out truthful information about their product that informs in a an easy to understand manner, and they are also out there explaining why. Its a PR spec. I don't see that as a big deal, its communication.

If I was a Rift customer I'd prefer some information about FOV that explains what I'm getting, rather than letting everyone assume its something it isn't.

 

[libertytoast]

Someone posted a guide of how to play Lucky's Tale without a Rift over on r/Oculus

 

[Zalusithix]

It allows Sony to put out truthful information about their product that informs in a an easy to understand manner, and they are also out there explaining why. Its a PR spec. I don't see that as a big deal, its communication.

If I was a Rift customer I'd prefer some information about FOV that explains what I'm getting, rather than letting everyone assume its something it isn't.

Oculus seems to be following the Nintendo mantra of marketing. That is to say, not telling you anything about the specs. Resolution? Refresh rate? FoV? Nope.

 

[Monger]

That sounds very strange. These are OLED screens, so why would the black level be bad? Unless they are running them at not-actually-black all the time in order to eliminate the black smear. Which would suck.

If that is the case, this would actually make the brightness advantage of the Vive a lot more important, since it would also mean significantly higher contrast.

This appears to be the case. Which is a bummer because it takes away an advantage of using OLED.

I'll be interested to see how the perceived brightness compares when people have both of the headsets. Our eyes do a good job of adjusting so it's hard to get a feel for something like that without using them close together.

 

[pooptacular]

Someone posted a guide of how to play Lucky's Tale without a Rift over on r/Oculus

FUCK YES!!!!!! I'm getting a vive pre in tomorrow and have only been playing Luckys tale on my DK2, I will most def be doing this tomorrow!

edit: balls i just read the rest of that post, they don't have it working on the vive yet but soon I guess.

 

[Zepp Twofist]

That sounds very strange. These are OLED screens, so why would the black level be bad? Unless they are running them at not-actually-black all the time in order to eliminate the black smear. Which would suck.

If that is the case, this would actually make the brightness advantage of the Vive a lot more important, since it would also mean significantly higher contrast.

They might have set the display at lower max brightness intentionally to allow for more overhead to do overdrive to mitigate black smear. But then again, you'd think Vive would do the same.

 

[Durante]

This appears to be the case. Which is a bummer because it takes away an advantage of using OLED.

I'll be interested to see how the perceived brightness compares when people have both of the headsets. Our eyes do a good job of adjusting so it's hard to get a feel for something like that without using them close together.

Indeed. That's also why I didn't think the brightness difference was a huge deal. However, if these screens don't have the standard OLED "0" black level, then the maximum brightness suddenly becomes more important in determining the contrast ratio. I'm really curious now to see how this turns out.

I don't think anyone has done contrast measurements yet?

 

[RSP]

We received our Oculus Rift today, and have had a Vive pre in the office for a couple of weeks now, so I was finally able to make a direct comparison.

Hardware related:

- Oculus comes in a very nice box. Everything neatly packed and a very easy setup process. Much less of a hassle compared to the Vive.
- Oculus is much easier to put on. You kind of pull it over your head like a baseball cap. Vive must be put on like diving goggles.
- Having earphones on the device makes all the difference. Another huge plus for the Rift here. I do have to say that I expected that I would be able to rotate the earpieces further than what is actually possible. This makes it a bit more difficult to hear someone next to you talking, but it is very minor.
- The remote works just fine, perfect for navigating the menus.

Software
- I had to uninstall my existing Rift software, but the installer did not do it for me. Super-minor issue, but I thought it was weird.
- Oculus home looks a lot better than Steam VR at the moment. Moving from VR to Desktop and vice versa is a very smooth transition. I have to say that all of my Vive experience is standing up, while I was sitting down most of the time while trying out the Rift today.
- Not having the Oculus Touch here is a huge set back. Pointing with the controllers in Steam VR is just so natural. Now you have to point with your face and confirm with the controller.
- Installation process of software is a bit weird. It just says "Installing" for a while, and you have to keep watching the screen for it to finish before you can start your game.
- I've watched the 360 videos on the Gear VR, and they worked fine. However, they look like garbage on the Rift. Don't bother with these, or keep your eye out for new content.
- The "Dream Deck" left me with mixed feelings. I obviously loved the T-Rex roaring in my face and the Robot arms fighting over a rubber ducky is also a treat. The others are just weird, or very short in general. Would have expected a bit more from a showcase.

And then I started Lucky's Tale.

Wow. This game just looks incredible. I was not really impressed by the screenshots, but the game runs really smooth and plays great. Lovely music, animation and sound effects. To me, it was very similar to playing Banjo Kazooie for the first time.

The intro was very well done, and I feel like I could have played it for another couple of hours before getting any kind of fatigue. I had to stop after a while, but I can't wait to get back into it as soon as I've got the time!

So, I was kind of convinced that the Vive was going to be the better choice, but Oculus is already offering a very polished experience. You cannot go wrong with either device, but if you are getting a Vive instead of a Rift, I really hope there is a way for you to play Lucky's Tale. It's that good.

 

[Turin Turambar]

I find it hard to believe that screenshot is accurate. If the difference was that great I don't see how people were ever saying it's hard to tell/difference isn't that big

Well, isn't the image more blurry and warped in the edges of the lenses with these HMDs? It could be that the part where the image is clear is similar in size in both devices, and the extra area of the Vive is pretty blurry. That would explain why people who tried them didn't notice that much the difference.

Dunno, just giving you a theory.

 

[Dreamwriter]

So why are Oculus being aholes then and not supporting open vr. Every time I remember we have headset exclusive games on PC it makes me not want to pick up either headset. 1400 for the full vr experience stay super niche I guess.

Because Oculus' SDK is better, and is written with native code for very very low latency. They would have to make sacrifices to use OpenVR. It's similar to consoles vs PC - with game consoles developers are able to push them much farther than they can a PC, because they are able to develop directly for the hardware in the console rather than using a middle step (like DirectX or OpenGL) which translates generic calls to native GPU code. Oculus is using their own SDK because it is native and the fastest way possible to access it.

 

[Durante]

Because Oculus' SDK is better, and is written with native code for very very low latency.

Do you have measurements for this?
I mean "written with native code" seems like straight up FUD to me. Obviously they could also implement native OpenVR support if they so desired.

It's similar to consoles vs PC - with game consoles developers are able to push them much farther than they can a PC

"Much farther" is highly debatable, especially these days.

 

[artsi]

Because Oculus' SDK is better, and is written with native code for very very low latency. They would have to make sacrifices to use OpenVR. It's similar to consoles vs PC - with game consoles developers are able to push them much farther than they can a PC, because they are able to develop directly for the hardware in the console rather than using a middle step (like DirectX or OpenGL) which translates generic calls to native GPU code. Oculus is using their own SDK because it is native and the fastest way possible to access it.

I'm getting a Vive, but I don't see any reason why Oculus would want to rely in OpenVR considering their direct competitor is in control of the whole thing.

If it was a neutral 3rd party with nothing to do in the storefront / HMD business, or some kind of open consortium to develop an unified API (I believe it will happen at some point), then yeah, maybe.

 

[VlaudTheImpaler]

You cannot go wrong with either device, but if you are getting a Vive instead of a Rift, I really hope there is a way for you to play Lucky's Tale. It's that good.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Vive/comments/4d6ql7/the_first_rift_circumvention_in_the_wild_lets_you/

 

[UrbanRats]

Is the fov of the vive or cv1 larger than the gear vr? The gear vr's isn't too bad, but it's kind of limiting immersion for me, resolution too.

 

[Zalusithix]

Oculus comes in a very nice box. Everything neatly packed and a very easy setup process. Much less of a hassle compared to the Vive.

Minor nitpick, but the retail Vive comes in a nice box too. You can't compare the CV1 Rift to the Pre Vive there. Can't really comment too much on your setup comment as I have no idea if you're talking about the hardware only or hardware and software. Hardware only I can see the Vive being a bit more work for initial setup, but that's only because the Rift doesn't do room scale right now. Setting up both like for like, then the Rift would be the more difficult of the two due to having to route everything back to the PC.

 

[Durante]

Is the fov of the vive or cv1 larger than the gear vr? The gear vr's isn't too bad, but it's kind of limiting immersion for me, resolution too.

According to most reports, the FoV of CV1 is at least slightly larger than Gear VR.

A comparison of the FoV of CV1 and Vive looks like this:

So combining that, I think it's clear that the Vive FoV is significantly larger than the Gear VR FoV.

 

[taco543]

Someone posted a guide of how to play Lucky's Tale without a Rift over on r/Oculus

https://www.reddit.com/r/Vive/comments/4d6ql7/the_first_rift_circumvention_in_the_wild_lets_you/

Fucking EXCITED to hear this, been really wanting to play it. Will more than definitely pick it up and play it.

 

[RSP]

Minor nitpick, but the retail Vive comes in a nice box too. You can't compare the CV1 Rift to the Pre Vive there. Can't really comment too much on your setup comment as I have no idea if you're talking about the hardware only or hardware and software. Hardware only I can see the Vive being a bit more work for initial setup, but that's only because the Rift doesn't do room scale right now. Setting up both like for like, then the Rift would be the more difficult of the two due to having to route everything back to the PC.

You're right about the packaging. It was just something that really stood out.

Hardware setup:
- Rift does not require additional power, Vive does
- Rift plugs right into the PC, Vive has an additional box
- Vive had us turning the hardware on / off a number of times to install all drivers. Rift did it in one go (may be due to operating systems, but worth mentioning)

Software setup:
- Rift requires you to stand up, it "scans" you and you're done. No way to see how far you can move in either direction other than a small circle on the floor that is not displayed after the setup process. The setup process however is entirely in VR.
- Vive setup process is a bit longer, and has more steps. Defining the boundaries of your VR space works really well, but it is difficult to tell if you're creating an area that is too big (in our first try, we drew a rectangle with corners exactly underneath the lighthouses. Setup said it was OK, but in practice, it did not work well. Then we made a new rectangle, about a foot smaller, this worked just fine)

I'm super impressed by both devices. I still think I like roomscale VR better than the sitdown experience, but both devices are just really impressive.

I'm taking both with me to demo for a potential customer. Really curious to see what they like best as I'm pretty sure it will be their first VR experience.

 

[mrchampipi]

Something they have explained several times is that there is no standard way to measure FOV.

You could have one headset be "150 degrees" and another be "110 degrees" even though the 110 degrees ends up being bigger for most people.

For example, look at your monitor. Get really really close to it, it's basically filling up 180 degrees of your vision. Back up from it and now it might only be filling up 60 degrees of your vision. It's not like the monitor itself changed, but the distance changed. And the distance will vary a little bit with the headsets, and when that distance varies a little bit, because of how close the distance is, it could have big effects on how you perceive the FOV.

It gets even more challenging when comparing different shapes.

Oculus had no problem giving FOV mesurements for the DK1 and DK2, don't you find it interesting that they only now serves us with this "no acurate way of mesuring it?"

 

[Durante]

RSP, I think Zalusithix' point is that you are not comparing like-for-like in terms of setup.

With Vive, you are setting up an entire room-scale VR playing field with tracked controllers. With CV1, you are setting up a HMD and a camera.

Obviously the latter is less work than the former. But if you wanted to set up an equivalent experience (in the future, when Touch is out with the second camera) it would also by necessity be more involved. Probably more complicated, in fact, than Vive setup, considering you'd need to run USB from the corners of your room to the PC.

 

[Monger]

I'm getting a Vive, but I don't see any reason why Oculus would want to rely in OpenVR considering their direct competitor is in control of the whole thing.

If it was a neutral 3rd party with nothing to do in the storefront / HMD business, or some kind of open consortium to develop an unified API (I believe it will happen at some point), then yeah, maybe.

What does rely on really mean? They could support both OpenVR and the Oculus SDK on their storefront if they so desired and wouldn't be relying on anyone for support of their own hardware. All they need to do is add a disclaimer for non Rift owners if they're worried Valve would try to screw them over, but considering OpenVR supports the Oculus SDK and plans on adding support for Touch as well, this seems awfully far fetched.

If the issue is that they can't control which headsets have access to Home through openVR then I would say who cares? This idea of them being a gatekeeper to what is VR and who should have access doesn't make any sense to me and is quite off putting.

Let's say AMD rolls out this amazing 4K per eye headset that blows the Rift away in terms of quality in 1-2 years. I could be stuck with a games library that may not be accessable due to an artificial software barrier? It's something I absolutely hate about consoles and software becoming obsolete when the next generation rolls around. Sure, Valve could decide to not support it with OpenVR but this also seems far fetched considering previous actions.

 

[Durante]

Let's say AMD rolls out this amazing 4K per eye headset that blows the Rift away in terms of quality in 1-2 years. I could be stuck with a games library that may not be accessable due to an artificial software barrier? It's something I absolutely hate about consoles and software becoming obsolete when the next generation rolls around. Sure, Valve could decide to not support it with OpenVR but this also seems far fetched considering previous actions.

Even more important than their previous actions are their interests.
I don't "trust" any companies, but the great thing about Valve in this context is that they don't want to control the hardware market.
If 50 companies create OpenVR-compatible headsets, from cheap Chinese clones to ultra-high-end equipment, they'd be ecstatic.

 

[RSP]

RSP, I think Zalusithix' point is that you are not comparing like-for-like in terms of setup.

Ah, right. My intention was not to do a direct comparison, just to provide a list of remarks from my first experience with the CV1

 

[VlaudTheImpaler]

- Rift plugs right into the PC, Vive has an additional box.

That additional box is going to be a god-send for a lot of VR gaming rigs out there. Especially the ports.

Last thing I want is for a port to go bad because I constantly pull on it accidentally. Or even worse send my rig flying off the desk because I was too immersed and didn't pay enough attention to chaperone or the more likely scenario where someone trips over the cord...