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The High-end VR Discussion Thread (HTC Vive, Oculus Rift, Playstation VR)

I can try. It won't be scientific, but I can wave a bathroom mirror around while moving to see if the tracking goes weird. I'll try it with Rift and Vive and report back.
Tried it with Rift - opened Lucky's Tale, moved around a bit, did the same while waving a bathroom mirror (about 1m x 0.5m) around in various ways where the camera would see both the headset and the reflection. No tracking issues. Now to try Vive.
 

pj

Banned
The pattern only looks symmetrical to the naked eye. When the camera sees it, each LED is individually labeled, like this:
IdentifiedLEDs.png

That's a DK2, but by all indications CV1 uses the same technique. Details on how this works: http://doc-ok.org/?p=1095

There's no possible confusion between a regular and mirror image.

That guy used the individual blinking patterns of the LEDs to identify the LEDs. IR footage of DK2 looks completely different from the footage I saw of a CV1. I have been trying to find the video I saw to show the difference. I will keep looking.

If I can't tell the LEDs aren't right/left symmetrical with my face pressed up to my computer monitor, how is a camera going to do it from 6'+ away?
 

pswii60

Member
Finally tried the Vive at the Microsoft Store. It was a far better experience than I could have imagined, lots of fun with an impressive FOV, but the poor resolution still left a lot to be desired.

I don't see it replacing tv gaming for me any time soon, and it felt good to take the headset off after the 10 minute demo, but it was great fun and incredibly seamless and well implemented. Looking forward to my PS VR later in the year even more now.

Most impressive part of the demo was the 3D painting.
 
Tried it with Rift - opened Lucky's Tale, moved around a bit, did the same while waving a bathroom mirror (about 1m x 0.5m) around in various ways where the camera would see both the headset and the reflection. No tracking issues. Now to try Vive.

Tried it with Vive. Just having the mirror visible in the room made the controller tracking go crazy - controllers floated away from my hand and never really came back. Weird!
Headset tracking was much less affected by it, but still went juddery, especially when I was closer to the mirror.
So my entirely unscientific conclusion - Rift headset tracking completely unaffected by mirror. Vive headset tracking affected by mirror, controller tracking completely fucked by presence of a mirror.

Will be interesting to see if the same correction for reflections that Rift seems to be doing doing for the headset can also apply to Touch or if it might be similar to Vive where the effect is far more pronounced than the headset interference.
 

KingSnake

The Birthday Skeleton
It's entirely fair to point out that mirrors, an entirely normal thing you may have in your room, will have an adverse effect on one of the tracking systems but not the other.
Making space is one thing because there's no way around that whatever the technology is, but if you then have to think about taking stuff off the wall because it might interfere with the tracking then that's definite going to be a negative for some people when the alternative doesn't have that issue.

It's like complaining about the performance of a game when you don't have the minimum requirements.
 

Durante

Member
I guess I don't see much value in a comparison at known failure states.

If you compare a setup which actually follows the instructions of both hardware providers then the Vive tracking is both rock solid and has incomparably larger coverage than the Rift's. And that is for 3 separate tracked objects, not one. (Or 4 of them if you have another Vive controller lying around)
 
I guess I don't see much value in a comparison at known failure states.

If you compare a setup which actually follows the instructions of both hardware providers then the Vive tracking is both rock solid and has incomparably larger coverage than the Rift's.

That's fine. But the point is that one sets another imposition on how the users sets up the room in which you use the system that the other doesn't.
For some, that's not a problem. For others, it might be. But it's a valid thing to note.
 

wonderpug

Neo Member
It's like complaining about the performance of a game when you don't have the minimum requirements.

Yeah, but between windows, computer monitors, TVs, and artwork/photos with glass or otherwise glossy covers, there are plenty of little things that may need to get moved or covered for an optimal experience.

It's a solvable problem but this kind of stuff is a very real part of figuring out how much the potential new market is willing to do to accommodate VR.

In my VR room I've got and old 46" tv in the corner that has a pretty glossy face. I'm planning to use it for mirroring the display for spectators when I demo VR to friends and family, and if it interfered with VR tracking I really wouldn't want to have to cover it up or move it out of the room.
 

KingSnake

The Birthday Skeleton
No it isn't. You are not good at analogies.

Yes it is, in this specific comparison. It's one thing to say "Don't get Vive if you have reflective surfaces that you can't cover". That's fair. And it's another thing to say "tracking is worse on Vive because of this specific conditions that the manufacturer advises against".

The same with game X has worse performance than the game Y because game X have bigger minimum requirements than the game Y and we tested on a PC less powerful than those. The negative here would be exactly this: "game X requires a more powerful PC"

It's generalizing from a scenario that is outside the recommended use of the product.

That's fine. But the point is that one sets another imposition on how the users sets up the room in which you use the system that the other doesn't..

Yes, that is a perfectly valid negative point. Not the tracking quality per se.
 

pj

Banned
Interesting results. I hope for other people's sake that valve can improve the handling of mirrors in software. My room is mirror-less so I don't have to worry about it.

Yeah, but between windows, computer monitors, TVs, and artwork/photos with glass or otherwise glossy covers, there are plenty of little things that may need to get moved or covered for an optimal experience.

It's a solvable problem but this kind of stuff is a very real part of figuring out how much the potential new market is willing to do to accommodate VR.

In my VR room I've got and old 46" tv in the corner that has a pretty glossy face. I'm planning to use it for mirroring the display for spectators when I demo VR to friends and family, and if it interfered with VR tracking I really wouldn't want to have to cover it up or move it out of the room.

Mirrors are different than glass
 

Durante

Member
That's fine. But the point is that one sets another imposition on how the users sets up the room in which you use the system that the other doesn't.

I guess. Ultimately I see it a bit like a console vs. PC scenario. One expects you to make somewhat more of an effort in setting it up, but if you do so you can also get a lot more out of it.
 
Yes it is, in this specific comparison. It's one thing to say "Don't get Vive if you have reflective surfaces that you can't cover". That's fair. And it's another thing to say "tracking is worse on Vive because of this specific conditions that the manufacturer advises against".

The same with game X has worse performance than the game Y because game X have bigger minimum requirements than the game Y and we tested on a PC less powerful than those. The negative here would be exactly this: "game X requires a more powerful PC"

It's generalizing from a scenario that is outside the recommended use of the product.



Yes, that is a perfectly valid negative point. Not the tracking quality per se.

All that poster said was that the Rift tracking is less susceptible to interference from mirrors. I just don't see what your issue is, whether or not the manufacturer admits that is irrelevant because it's still a factor people might need to consider when buying either system.
With Rift, it appears that it isn't currently an issue. With Vive, it definitely is.
 

Animator

Member
Who knows, Oculus may surprise us, but I wouldn't expect them to have a chaperone system anytime in the near future. They are very much against the idea that Vive style room scale is what people want this generation of VR. .

Palmer is welcome to visit my house and watch people have a blast.
 

Durante

Member
Palmer is welcome to visit my house and watch people have a blast.
I think he is well aware, I mean he called Valve's room-scale VR demo the "best VR in the world" or something to that effect shortly before the split.

I'm still really thankful for Valve/HTC actually letting consumers make the choice of whether they want room-scale VR, and not discarding it immediately out of viability concerns. It's certainly not the easiest of sells, but everyone who has tried it at my place has loved it.
 
Palmer is welcome to visit my house and watch people have a blast.

Nobody is saying that room scale isn't "a blast". It's amazing, and everyone that tries it thinks it's amazing. Even Palmer
That is not the same as deciding not to build a system around it when the market may be limited due to the space requirements that a huge number of people won't be able to meet. Obviously you can build a system that can do both, Vive is certainly capable of doing seated experiences perfectly well, but Oculus seem to be focused on building one that does non-room scale as well as possible. Fine by me, because that's exactly the type of VR I can see having longer term appeal for me. If others don't, they've got Vive. Everyone wins!
 

wonderpug

Neo Member
Mirrors are different than glass

This is very true, but glass counts as a reflective surface. We know we're talking about lasers here, so anything that would bounce a laser pointer would also bounce a Lighthouse laser.

Also, from an early Vive manual:
0SwLZgv.png


That was from a year ago, so I think it's a safe bet they've done a lot since then to mitigate the problem. Still, it's lasers. You can't really make them less lasery, so it's a matter of finding other ways to filter out false information.

Palmer is welcome to visit my house and watch people have a blast.

Oh you don't have to convince me, I'm already on the room scale bandwagon. I get where Oculus is coming from. It's a lot to ask to have people drill holes in the wall, clear out furniture, and then prance about the room with their eyes literally blindfolded. The Oculus approach is a lot easier ask. You just put two things on your desk and stay safely near your desk. But as the HTC/Valve has proven, for a lot of people (including me) the reward of roomscale is worth the effort.
 

pj

Banned
This is very true, but glass counts as a reflective surface. We know we're talking about lasers here, so anything that would bounce a laser pointer would also bounce a Lighthouse laser.

The impact is directly related to how reflective the surface is. A mirror is in the neighborhood of 90% reflectivity and glass is more like 10% or less. TVs especially are designed to minimize reflections because of glare from the sun and bright lights.
 

fred

Member
What would your opinions being about getting either a single Pascal card or going for an SLI Pascal setup for future SLI support? I'm willing to spend on the SLI setup if support for dual GPU's is going to happen sometime within the year, but if it's far enough away that the successor to Pascal would show up before any support surfaces I won't bother.

Tbh I'd wait until both Polaris and Pascal have been released and reviews and benchmarks start to appear. AS, DirectX 12/Vulcan and a slightly smaller process could make things interesting for this next generation of cards. Unless NVidia do something about asynchronous shading then a cheaper Polaris could give you ridiculously better bang for your buck, then you'll have no problems running 2 cards in Crossfire with LiquidVR giving you one GPU per eye for a reasonable price.

I'm certainly waiting anyway, and I'm pretty desperate for a new GPU - I'm currently using the iGPU in my 6700K while I wait for both NVidia and AMD to get off their arses and release something.
 

Durante

Member
What would your opinions being about getting either a single Pascal card or going for an SLI Pascal setup for future SLI support? I'm willing to spend on the SLI setup if support for dual GPU's is going to happen sometime within the year, but if it's far enough away that the successor to Pascal would show up before any support surfaces I won't bother.
I missed this initially with all the tracking discussion, but I'd very much suggest a single GPU setup (with the single most powerful GPU you can get) for now. Even when SLI for VR happens, it won't be a "bang all your VR games support SLI now" moment but rather an incremental thing, and it won't achieve perfect scaling either.
 

wonderpug

Neo Member
The impact is directly related to how reflective the surface is. A mirror is in the neighborhood of 90% reflectivity and glass is more like 10% or less. TVs especially are designed to minimize reflections because of glare from the sun and bright lights.

I don't know what you're trying to convince me of. My position is a very weak "reflective surfaces may cause an issue for some people, and future software updates should further mitigate the issue."

I'm also saying that in comparisons like on the Tested video, they have said they found the issue to be more pronounced on the Vive.

If you think I'm an Oculus die-hard trying to crap on the Vive, that's not at all my stance. The week before Vive preorders went live I was convinced I was going to drop my Rift order and switch to the Vive. Just a few weeks ago when Oculus gave me a shipping estimate nearly two months later than my original expectation, I did put in a Vive order. (I've since cancelled.)

As I stare out the window waiting for a UPS guy to arrive with my Rift, I have no problem saying I wish my Rift came with motion controllers, a second sensor, adjustable lens depth, and a front facing camera. If it was a Vive order I was waiting to receive, I'd have no problem saying it's more picky about reflective surfaces.
 

Karak

Member
A bit confused is theatre mode working in steam right now on the vive. I keep reading it is but mine never asks me like everyone is saying. Steamvr beta
 

KingSnake

The Birthday Skeleton
A bit confused is theatre mode working in steam right now on the vive. I keep reading it is but mine never asks me like everyone is saying. Steamvr beta

When you open the Steam interface in VR for the games that don't support VR you have instead of Play button, a Play in theater button.
 

Karak

Member
When you open the Steam interface in VR for the games that don't support VR you have instead of Play button, a Play in theater button.

Got a big black bar through that. Hmmm. This thing may actually be messed up. Its been 23 hours of trying to get it to work on various computers always with some weirdness.
Also of 412 games so far. I have yet to be able to play 1 of I think I have checked 123 so far. 0 of them work in either virtual desktop or in, what looks like theatre mode despite the wonky black bar through it.
Every one of them fails, or turns the headset red, or directx failures with huge listings of data.
 

BigTnaples

Todd Howard's Secret GAF Account
So, when my Vive gets here, how do I get Eve and Lucky's tale, both purchased and running on my Vive?
 

Afrikan

Member
Remember the DK2 thread and all the happy people talking about their awesome experiences? Competition is good for the consumer but damn the VR war is ridiculous.

it was one thing to have warz to justify one's $300 console purchase.... but now we're talking $600-$800 VR headsets here....lol
 

BigTnaples

Todd Howard's Secret GAF Account


Thanks.

So, right now I have the Vive Bundle downloaded, and some games in my cart.

Job Simulator
Tilt Brush
Fantastic Contraption
The Lab
Surgeon Simulator Meet The Medic
Budget Cuts Demo


theBlu
Virtual Desktop
Audioshield
Space Pirate Trainer

Elite Dangerous Horizons I already own.

Any must haves I am missing? Something scary would be nice.


Vanishing of Ethan Carter good? Never played it in any form.
 

Doc Ok

Neo Member
That guy used the individual blinking patterns of the LEDs to identify the LEDs. IR footage of DK2 looks completely different from the footage I saw of a CV1. I have been trying to find the video I saw to show the difference. I will keep looking.

Please do. Identifying LEDs by blinking pattern is crucial to how Oculus' tracking algorithm works. There is no reason for them to have changed that.

There is a simple explanation why footage from CV1 might look very different from DK2 footage, even if CV1 uses the same blinking method: the DK2's camera ran at 60Hz, which is an integer multiple of 30Hz, a typical frame rate for video cameras. Thus, a 30Hz video camera would be phase-locked with the LEDs, and be able to see the blinking pattern -- not the correct blinking pattern, however, as I explain in the follow-up to the article I linked above.

The CV1's camera might run at a higher frame rate that's not a multiple of 30Hz, say 75Hz, in which case it would not be in sync with a video camera recording the headset's LEDs, and the blinking pattern might be much more subtle. It is also possible that the CV1's camera runs at a (higher) multiple of 30Hz, say 90Hz or 120Hz, and that the individual blinking patterns are selected such that all LEDs have the same number of high/low states in each 1/30s interval, in which case the blinking pattern would be completely invisible to a 30Hz camera.
 

Krejlooc

Banned
Please do. Identifying LEDs by blinking pattern is crucial to how Oculus' tracking algorithm works. There is no reason for them to have changed that.

There is a simple explanation why footage from CV1 might look very different from DK2 footage, even if CV1 uses the same blinking method: the DK2's camera ran at 60Hz, which is an integer multiple of 30Hz, a typical frame rate for video cameras. Thus, a 30Hz video camera would be phase-locked with the LEDs, and be able to see the blinking pattern -- not the correct blinking pattern, however, as I explain in the follow-up to the article I linked above.

The CV1's camera might run at a higher frame rate that's not a multiple of 30Hz, say 75Hz, in which case it would not be in sync with a video camera recording the headset's LEDs, and the blinking pattern might be much more subtle. It is also possible that the CV1's camera runs at a (higher) multiple of 30Hz, say 90Hz or 120Hz, and that the individual blinking patterns are selected such that all LEDs have the same number of high/low states in each 1/30s interval, in which case the blinking pattern would be completely invisible to a 30Hz camera.

You finally registered an account here?

/u/TheSonicRetard yo
 

Doc Ok

Neo Member
You finally registered an account here?

/u/TheSonicRetard yo

I registered about a year ago, when I really wanted to reply in some thread. But my registration only got approved a couple of weeks ago. :)

There was a link to my blog from this thread, which is how I ended up here.
 

Krejlooc

Banned
I registered about a year ago, when I really wanted to reply in some thread. But my registration only got approved a couple of weeks ago. :)

There was a link to my blog from this thread, which is how I ended up here.

lol yup, that's neogaf in a nutshell. Does this mean you're going to migrate away from /r/oculus? That place has become terrible (as have all the reddit VR channels). Not conducive to discussion anymore, there is too much of a noise:content ratio on them.
 

pj

Banned
Please do. Identifying LEDs by blinking pattern is crucial to how Oculus' tracking algorithm works. There is no reason for them to have changed that.

There is a simple explanation why footage from CV1 might look very different from DK2 footage, even if CV1 uses the same blinking method: the DK2's camera ran at 60Hz, which is an integer multiple of 30Hz, a typical frame rate for video cameras. Thus, a 30Hz video camera would be phase-locked with the LEDs, and be able to see the blinking pattern -- not the correct blinking pattern, however, as I explain in the follow-up to the article I linked above.

The CV1's camera might run at a higher frame rate that's not a multiple of 30Hz, say 75Hz, in which case it would not be in sync with a video camera recording the headset's LEDs, and the blinking pattern might be much more subtle. It is also possible that the CV1's camera runs at a (higher) multiple of 30Hz, say 90Hz or 120Hz, and that the individual blinking patterns are selected such that all LEDs have the same number of high/low states in each 1/30s interval, in which case the blinking pattern would be completely invisible to a 30Hz camera.


I still haven't been able to find it. It was posted on reddit with a title something like "view of rift through leap motion." Someone used a LM as a camera and pointed it at the rift. I understand what you're saying about refresh rates, but that's not what I saw. The blinking was definitely not in sync with the camera and you could see the LEDs periodically. It was an all or nothing thing, either all LEDs were visible or none. It wasn't like the DK2 where you could tell each LED was blinking independent of the others.

Edit: YESSSSSS I found it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BJ9gGVzfrig

Took way too long.

Dk2 for comparison: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iyc-2ujbmxQ

Double edit: better dk2 vid: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O7Dt9Im34OI
 

lmimmfn

Member
So I don't have access to a sixense device for the moment (and wont until they ship out my STEMs, supposedly "the end of this month" lol). Anybody got a razer hydra want to test something out for me?
Whats your requirement? i have CV1 and hydras, if thats what you need i can test whatever you have at the weekend.
 

Krejlooc

Banned
Whats your requirement? i have CV1 and hydras, if thats what you need i can test whatever you have at the weekend.

That should be good enough, I just want to make sure what I'm working on will also work with that exact configuration. Give me a week or so to build out something a bit more, and I might hit you up for some testing on your side. This weekend would be no good for me; a family member passed away this week and I'll be preoccupied.
 

Doc Ok

Neo Member

Notice how the LEDs are off most of the time, and then blink a few times, apparently in unison, and then go off again for a long time. What you're seeing there is temporal aliasing caused by the LEDs' very short emission times (probably a few hundred microseconds) not being in sync with the camera, and changing sync due to the LEDs' and camera's frame rate not being integer multiples. You simply wouldn't be able to see individual blinking patterns in that setup.


That's my video, taken with the DK2's tracking camera itself, fully synchronized with the LEDs via the sync cable. That's why the individual blinking patterns show up crystal clear.
 

pj

Banned
That's my video, taken with the DK2's tracking camera itself, fully synchronized with the LEDs via the sync cable. That's why the individual blinking patterns show up crystal clear.

Haha, well I guess you would know better than me!

Why does the other DK2 vid I posted look different than the CV1 vid? To me it doesn't look like they are flashing in sync the way it does in the CV1 vid
 

Doc Ok

Neo Member
Haha, well I guess you would know better than me!

Why does the other DK2 vid I posted look different than the CV1 vid? To me it doesn't look like they are flashing in sync the way it does in the CV1 vid

The DK2 camera's frame rate (and the pattern frame rate of the DK2's LEDs) happens to be an integer multiple of the video camera's frame rate.
 

Krejlooc

Banned
So Sixense was supposed to ship in April. Given they had never made any updates on their KS page about production, I always thought that was kind of a long shot, but oh well. Now, come the end of april, they say they've filmed a video that will explain the shipping situation to everyone. They were supposed to have it out two days ago, but apparently needed the OK from "big wigs" at the company. They said "absolutely, definitely before SVVR starts."

SVVR started like 6 hours ago. Still no update. Why do you do this to yourself, sixense? Don't set a deadline if you can't keep it.
 

Monger

Member
Thanks.

So, right now I have the Vive Bundle downloaded, and some games in my cart.

Job Simulator
Tilt Brush
Fantastic Contraption
The Lab
Surgeon Simulator Meet The Medic
Budget Cuts Demo


theBlu
Virtual Desktop
Audioshield
Space Pirate Trainer

Elite Dangerous Horizons I already own.

Any must haves I am missing? Something scary would be nice.


Vanishing of Ethan Carter good? Never played it in any form.

Grab the Brookhaven Experiment and Sisters demos for horror. I haven't tried the Sisters demo yet, but it's horror and free.

Irrational Exhuberance Prologue is kind of a cool little demo and is also free.

Otherwise it looks like a good start. When you're ready for more, Final Approach I found to actually be a well polished and complete game and gives you a different environment/feel from a lot of what's out there. It's an unexpected favorite. The Gallery was enjoyable, but really short and doesn't have a ton of puzzles/gameplay. I liked Vanishing Realms a lot, good art style and has RPG elements. You can cheat the combat system, but considering the lack of content out there, why do that?
 

Onemic

Member
I missed this initially with all the tracking discussion, but I'd very much suggest a single GPU setup (with the single most powerful GPU you can get) for now. Even when SLI for VR happens, it won't be a "bang all your VR games support SLI now" moment but rather an incremental thing, and it won't achieve perfect scaling either.

Tbh I'd wait until both Polaris and Pascal have been released and reviews and benchmarks start to appear. AS, DirectX 12/Vulcan and a slightly smaller process could make things interesting for this next generation of cards. Unless NVidia do something about asynchronous shading then a cheaper Polaris could give you ridiculously better bang for your buck, then you'll have no problems running 2 cards in Crossfire with LiquidVR giving you one GPU per eye for a reasonable price.

I'm certainly waiting anyway, and I'm pretty desperate for a new GPU - I'm currently using the iGPU in my 6700K while I wait for both NVidia and AMD to get off their arses and release something.

Unfortunate :(

I would wait for Polaris, but with the Vive shipments ramping up it's very likely I'll receive my Vive up to a month before Polaris finally launches and some benchmarks are available for both cards. I have an R9 270, so I'm under the requirements and wouldnt want to be holding onto what would essentially be a paperweight for a long period of time. Is there any chance that lower fidelity games like titles enabled through Vorpx would work well on my card?(Im talking decade old titles like HL2)

How many games currently have liquid VR support?
 

lmimmfn

Member
That should be good enough, I just want to make sure what I'm working on will also work with that exact configuration. Give me a week or so to build out something a bit more, and I might hit you up for some testing on your side. This weekend would be no good for me; a family member passed away this week and I'll be preoccupied.
no worries, sure gimme a shout when youre ready
 

BigTnaples

Todd Howard's Secret GAF Account
Grab the Brookhaven Experiment and Sisters demos for horror. I haven't tried the Sisters demo yet, but it's horror and free.

Irrational Exhuberance Prologue is kind of a cool little demo and is also free.

Otherwise it looks like a good start. When you're ready for more, Final Approach I found to actually be a well polished and complete game and gives you a different environment/feel from a lot of what's out there. It's an unexpected favorite. The Gallery was enjoyable, but really short and doesn't have a ton of puzzles/gameplay. I liked Vanishing Realms a lot, good art style and has RPG elements. You can cheat the combat system, but considering the lack of content out there, why do that?


Thanks. Downloaded hose demos as well. I'll have to look into those. Is Allison Road coming to Vive?


How is Subnautica?
 

bloodydrake

Cool Smoke Luke
So, when my Vive gets here, how do I get Eve and Lucky's tale, both purchased and running on my Vive?

revive for lucky but Eve has announced a native Vive supported version..I wouldn't buy the Occulus store revision just yet..unless you already have a CV1 and already bought it
 
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