Let's Talk About VR Gaming.

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Sage Asuka
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Re: Let's Talk About VR Gaming.

#1 Post by Sage Asuka »

I don't own one, but I'm at a gaming school with both a Vive and Oculus. You REALLY have to make sure your computer can deliver the proper frame rate with these things. If I remember right that's about 90. First time I used the oculus was on a computer that didn't have enough power to push 90 and I got motion sick within 5 minutes...however it was REALLY amazing while I had it on.
Second time I used oculus was on a stronger computer at a tech fair. I was running a booth for our school and we were letting visitors try this demo https://youtu.be/mWxgy71o5Lo
Which is absolutely amazing with the headset. You can look everywhere and you do feel like you're in the world. So many people who weren't videogame or tech savy were bending backwards to avoid the car and jumped at the end with the robot. Also no motion sickness!

I haven't seen any games for oculus. Headset reacts to how you turn your head and a game a fellow student made utilized a game controller for your basic actions of moving around the world.

We got a Vive later and it looks like a lot of the games use controls to figure out where your hands are. So in addition to you turning your head to look around the world, the game is reading and responding to your hand positions too. One guy attempted juggling in game items with very surprising success. Vive seemed to have a lot of super fun demo games.

Not sure if it's 'worth it' at the moment since I don't know what games both systems have lined up, but it is definitely a technology to keep track of because the interactivity and visuals are beyond stunning.
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Re: Let's Talk About VR Gaming.

#2 Post by nsamok6620 »

Stepping out of my comfort zone that is the ranting board

If price was not a problem I would tell everyone to get a Vive. I live mine. I placed my order as soon as the order forms went live, and actively tracked when people were getting their shipment notifications based on how many minutes after the orders went live that they placed theirs. I got mine in 6 minutes after they opened.

But as stated before you need a rig that can handle it. I have a GTX 960 that is only about a month old when I took it out to make sure my rig could handle it. The 980 TI I replaced ut with cost almost as much as the Vive itself.

I have to say though, the lack of legitimate games is a bit of a downer. The only thing I've been playing on it recently is Hotdogs, Horse Shoes, and Hand Grenades which is pretty much a firearms simulator. The developer is constantly adding new things, and it is slowly turning into a game that you can actually play, as in have an objective to complete instead of just shooting at targets for fun. But everything else has a strong emphasis on multiplayer, which I simply am not interested in.

So it is by far the coolest thing I have ever done in the realm of gaming, but is it worth getting? Probably not yet
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Re: Let's Talk About VR Gaming.

#3 Post by nsamok6620 »

I don't really know anything about the 10XX series cards. I just know that both require at least a 970. So if it is better than that and has at least an i5 (I think that's what they recomend) it should be fine.

Though a laptop will end up costing way more than a tower, just so you know
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Sage Asuka
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Re: Let's Talk About VR Gaming.

#4 Post by Sage Asuka »

Gonna throw it out there that classmates have said Vive is better than Oculus. I haven't tried Vive yet and my oculus situation was less than ideal but it's something to consider.
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Re: Let's Talk About VR Gaming.

#5 Post by Myperson54 »

I had the opportunity to try the Vive recently, and I'll say right away that I've never used the Oculus... but from my experience with the Vive and from my knowledge of what it offers over the Oculus....

Well, I can tell you for sure that the Vive outstrips the Oculus in immersion.

I went to a VR arcade with one of my professors' lab groups - we cognitive science folk are all about device interaction - and we got to play around with a Vive for about an hour. Here's some positive things I noticed:

- The immediate environment is so much more immersive the instant you bend over or take a step and realize you're in a 3D world. If I was limited to only moving my head, 90% of the things that I did, no exaggeration, would have been impossible or unintuitive. I can't stress enough how moving your body is important to immersion in a virtual world. Seriously, the points where I had to move without my legs (anywhere outside the immediate play area) were the most jarring part of the experience, because I had to move with my controllers and not my body. I got used to the teleportation pretty quickly, but I can't imagine that moving about with a controller, seeing myself walk without feeling my legs move, would feel intuitive at all. The Vive provides great cognitive feedback that way, by letting you use your body as it was intended to.
- The response time was phenomenal. Of course these were very powerful computers, but I didn't find that the "controllers" projected into my field of view were laggy at all, or that there were even any frames dropped while I was moving about. Also, the walls near me weren't always displayed, but they would fade into view if I got too close, and fade back out again when I moved away, leaving me with a decent window to stop walking into walls.
- The gamespace is configurable. I was playing in a hexagon that was about... I'd say 7'x7'. I'm 6'3" and I was able to take two steps in any direction without much issue, but you can set it up to recognize much larger rooms with just as much precision.
- The controllers are really versatile, not just because they're in your hands, but also because the way they're designed means that devs can take a lot of tasks and make intuitive controls out of them. For instance, spinning your thumb on the trackpad to spin the barrel of a revolver, or pulling a trigger to hold an arrow to a bowstring, or squeezing the grips to grab onto a stick. There are technically fewer buttons than a traditional 12-button, two-stick controller, but the virtual nature means that a lot of controls can be contextualized or even changed on the fly for extra versatility.

- I guess this is partly negative and partly positive, but most people aren't quite as responsive as I was to VR. I was unusually comfortable in this thing - I spent almost the entire hour in VR and I could have gone for a few more, but most people take a while to warm up to it and they spend maybe 45 minutes each inside. Again, not sure if this is also a thing with the Oculus, but my guess is that because I could move around and test out my environment, I was very trusting that the things I was seeing were "real". It increases your suspension of disbelief.

Here are some negative things I've noticed:
- It's really bright. This is probably a thing with the Oculus Rift as well, but my eyes had to adjust to room brightness after a bit. Even in dark environments, the headset keeps the LEDs on, so your eyes might get sore after a bit.
- I was sort of disoriented after a while. Maybe it was all the spinning - because you're restricted to a small space, you tend to turn a lot.
- Those computers were $5500 CAD. They had GTX1080s and relatively new Quad-core i7s in them, so they're pretty solid. Probably solid-state drives too, if I had to guess. So yes, it was an immersive experience, but I was told that the arcade's first machine, which had a 960 and an i5 4650 (the minimum requirements) stuttered and had texture issues. So it's something like $6300 CAD total for the entire experience if you want it to be as immersive as possible, sadly.
- I couldn't get the headphones off without someone's help because I had no context for where the cables were and whether I'd break them or not. Maybe not an issue with a home console but something to be wary of.

The thing is, I think the negatives are mostly footnotes, aside from the steep price tag for a good computer. There's probably things I've forgotten to mention, so ask away if you have questions. I'll say right away though, that having used the Vive has made the Rift just look so unappealing to me - it's really apparent that the Vive is just on a whole other level.

EDIT: And (User reference removed at user request - Turaiel), I might have mentioned gaming laptops to you in the past... For all the reasons I'd recommend not getting one, I'd do the same here, but Even more than the normal reasons, I think it's important that a desktop be used if you ever intend to get a Vive. The Oculus can perhaps work fine with a laptop because you're not going anywhere with your body. The Vive on the other hand.... I would want a computer that can be upgraded easily and has enough space to add fans, water coolers, etc... all the things that a desktop offers to let it run cool will be of use with the vive. That's not to mention the fact that the Vive's setup just takes far too long to make a laptop a practical option. Also, using VR on the go.... seems like an odd context for using VR, really. I'm not just saying that cause I don't like laptops - it's seriously a pain in the [censored] to have such limited portability on a "portable computer". Just some food for thought, if you do intend to get a VR-capable computer. I'd go with a desktop and a cheaper laptop for non-vr stuff, personally. It just makes more sense.
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Re: Let's Talk About VR Gaming.

#6 Post by CaptainQuirk26 »

I've had numerous opportunities to try VR and I have turned them all down because I want my first VR experience to be Black Mesa VR, and from what I hear it kinda sucks right now.

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Re: Let's Talk About VR Gaming.

#7 Post by Turaiel »

CaptainQuirk26 wrote: Mon Sep 25, 2023 6:29 pm I've had numerous opportunities to try VR and I have turned them all down because I want my first VR experience to be Black Mesa VR, and from what I hear it kinda sucks right now.
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