Oculus Rift First Impressions
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Just to add another note on here, I've been trying to play Outlast with Tridef+Rift. It's certainly very immersive and the jump scares are outstanding in first person, but the imperfect head tracking (mouse emulation), frequent instances where the game takes control of the camera, Tridef lighting problems and the amount of reading you have to do on a screen that's not good for reading is making it too hard to continue. If nothing else, this really drives home the need for games to be designed with the rift in mind. You can't have a rift game that takes control of the camera too much, and that's hard for games to do. Ladders, doors, physical contact with other characters, gunshots - these all affect the camera, and must be used sparingly so as not to unsettle your immersion. I'd really like to get a feel for this thing by getting in some actual gaming of substance, and at this point it appears HL2 is the most promising candidate for this. I have a Hydra, so I'm hoping the mod linked below will provide a reasonable solution to my issues with combat. http://vrmods.wordpress.com/instructions/
Just to add another note on here, I've been trying to play Outlast with Tridef+Rift. It's certainly very immersive and the jump scares are outstanding in first person, but the imperfect head tracking (mouse emulation), frequent instances where the game takes control of the camera, Tridef lighting problems and the amount of reading you have to do on a screen that's not good for reading is making it too hard to continue.

If nothing else, this really drives home the need for games to be designed with the rift in mind. You can't have a rift game that takes control of the camera too much, and that's hard for games to do. Ladders, doors, physical contact with other characters, gunshots - these all affect the camera, and must be used sparingly so as not to unsettle your immersion.

I'd really like to get a feel for this thing by getting in some actual gaming of substance, and at this point it appears HL2 is the most promising candidate for this. I have a Hydra, so I'm hoping the mod linked below will provide a reasonable solution to my issues with combat.

http://vrmods.wordpress.com/instructions/

Posted 11/10/2013 08:09 PM   
I also had a Rift for about a week and have to agree that 3D projector gaming is currently a far more impressive experience with better FOV, comfort, contrast, resolution, etc. The Rift certainly beats my cruddy passive monitor and I'm still convinced that VR is the future of gaming, but 3D projection is a truly MINDBLOWING tech that is here right now and yet there's so little buzz about it. Something must be done to spread the gospel.
I also had a Rift for about a week and have to agree that 3D projector gaming is currently a far more impressive experience with better FOV, comfort, contrast, resolution, etc. The Rift certainly beats my cruddy passive monitor and I'm still convinced that VR is the future of gaming, but 3D projection is a truly MINDBLOWING tech that is here right now and yet there's so little buzz about it. Something must be done to spread the gospel.

Posted 11/11/2013 04:37 AM   
[quote="Pirateguybrush"]Why? Is anyone /really/ a huge fan of HUDs? The consumer version will be higher resolution anyway, reducing (but probably not eliminating) this issue.[/quote] I prefer my eyes not to bleed and not to become cock-eyed trying to look past something that is burning them because it's not aligned properly :P Have a bird poop on your windshield and try to look past it while driving. That's exactly how it feels.
Pirateguybrush said:Why? Is anyone /really/ a huge fan of HUDs? The consumer version will be higher resolution anyway, reducing (but probably not eliminating) this issue.


I prefer my eyes not to bleed and not to become cock-eyed trying to look past something that is burning them because it's not aligned properly :P

Have a bird poop on your windshield and try to look past it while driving. That's exactly how it feels.

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Posted 11/11/2013 06:54 AM   
It's aligned perfectly well. That's not the problem, it's just low res and hard to read.
It's aligned perfectly well. That's not the problem, it's just low res and hard to read.

Posted 11/11/2013 06:56 AM   
[quote="Shinra358"][quote="Pirateguybrush"]Why? Is anyone /really/ a huge fan of HUDs? The consumer version will be higher resolution anyway, reducing (but probably not eliminating) this issue.[/quote] I prefer my eyes not to bleed and not to become cock-eyed trying to look past something that is burning them because it's not aligned properly :P Have a bird poop on your windshield and try to look past it while driving. That's exactly how it feels.[/quote] I think I know what you mean here. I really struggle with HUD elements at the centre top of the screen (obviously a 2D crosshair is a complete no go). Anything there makes me feel like I am *getting* a migraine. I play on a monitor which means these HUD elements are close to my face. I never played Witcher 2 on hard because that requires buffs which have cool downs at the centre top. I also used a minimal HUD mod for Skyrim to remove the compass unless I enter stealth mode. With 3D Vision, I don't like having HUD elements anywhere but the sides of the screen. I haven't tried the Rift so I don't know how having a screen so close to your eyes will effect this. @Rift users: Presumably there are lenses used so your eyes focus somewhere in the distance?
Shinra358 said:
Pirateguybrush said:Why? Is anyone /really/ a huge fan of HUDs? The consumer version will be higher resolution anyway, reducing (but probably not eliminating) this issue.


I prefer my eyes not to bleed and not to become cock-eyed trying to look past something that is burning them because it's not aligned properly :P

Have a bird poop on your windshield and try to look past it while driving. That's exactly how it feels.


I think I know what you mean here. I really struggle with HUD elements at the centre top of the screen (obviously a 2D crosshair is a complete no go). Anything there makes me feel like I am *getting* a migraine. I play on a monitor which means these HUD elements are close to my face. I never played Witcher 2 on hard because that requires buffs which have cool downs at the centre top. I also used a minimal HUD mod for Skyrim to remove the compass unless I enter stealth mode.

With 3D Vision, I don't like having HUD elements anywhere but the sides of the screen. I haven't tried the Rift so I don't know how having a screen so close to your eyes will effect this.

@Rift users:
Presumably there are lenses used so your eyes focus somewhere in the distance?

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Posted 11/11/2013 08:48 AM   
I believe the lens is there to make the screen appear at a comfortable distance, and to ensure it takes up as much of your field of view as possible.
I believe the lens is there to make the screen appear at a comfortable distance, and to ensure it takes up as much of your field of view as possible.

Posted 11/11/2013 09:05 AM   
Hey Pirate, this weekend I got Hard Reset to work with Tridef, it looks great BUT I'm getting 5 fps on my rubbish rig, if you have some sli titans and things like that, check it out, it looked amazing (in slow-mo).
Hey Pirate, this weekend I got Hard Reset to work with Tridef, it looks great BUT I'm getting 5 fps on my rubbish rig, if you have some sli titans and things like that, check it out, it looked amazing (in slow-mo).

All hail 3d modders DHR, MasterOtaku, Losti, Necropants, Helifax, bo3b, mike_ar69, Flugan, DarkStarSword, 4everAwake, 3d4dd and so many more helping to keep the 3d dream alive, find their 3d fixes at http://helixmod.blogspot.com/ Also check my site for spanish VR and mobile gaming news: www.gamermovil.com

Posted 11/11/2013 12:04 PM   
Thanks for the tip, birthright. I'm actually running SLI 660s, and unfortunately Tridef doesn't gain any advantage from SLI. I might check it out, but I'm finding games without native support don't quite work as well as I'd like, for the reasons listed at the top of this page.
Thanks for the tip, birthright. I'm actually running SLI 660s, and unfortunately Tridef doesn't gain any advantage from SLI. I might check it out, but I'm finding games without native support don't quite work as well as I'd like, for the reasons listed at the top of this page.

Posted 11/11/2013 12:18 PM   
Really glad that you're enjoying it, Pirate. Sounds like you've spent some more time with it now than I did, and learnt its idiosyncracies a bit better. [quote="Shinra358"]Going past 1080p is pointless imo. Higher resolution means higher machine power which would mean more expensive specs. If a game was made for native 4k resolutions, you would have no space left at all on your pc.[/quote]lol, no one who's actually tried the Rift would ever say that. You don't know the meanings of the words "blocky" and "fuzzy" until you have. Besides, hardware that keeps going up with "higher machine power" and "more expensive specs" is pretty much a fundamental and mandatory part of gaming, in case you haven't noticed. Unless you're still playing most of your games with your Pentium 4, Playstation 2, or Amiga :P [quote]All I want to know about the rift is: Is there any double imaging when objects get close to the screen and are there hud problems like 3d vision?[/quote]As others have said, ghosting is impossible. That's the beauty of a head-mounted display: no fancy tricks and gizmos like polarisation or alternating shutters to try and push an image into one eye while simultaneously blocking it from the other. The simplicity of the head-mounted display - one screen per eye with a physical 'blinker' over the bridge of your nose to separate the two - means it achieves the separation perfectly every time. [quote="bo3b"] Earlier, I had questioned whether any phone makers would create higher DPI screens, since 350 or 400 DPI does essentially go past what your eye can resolve at arms length. It's expensive, it burns battery power, and you can't see a difference. But that is all irrelevant, because Samsung has announced they are planning to make a 560 DPI 4K screen for phones. 1440p late 2014, 2160p in 2015. [url]http://www.gizbot.com/mobile/samsung-plans-to-launch-phones-with-560ppi-in-2014-4k-phones-in-2015-014417.html[/url] Let's give a shout out to Volnaiskra who argued that they would do seemingly irrational things just for bragging rights. You were right.[/quote]Haha - thanks! :D If I were to guess, I'd say that the race will slow down at about 700 ppi. The resolution on my 441 ppi Samsung Galaxy S4 looks basically perfect, even up close, let alone at arm's length. So I agree that the cutoff for practical benefit must be around here. Apple's so-called "retina" screens still leave something to be desired though. Text is visibly pixellated on the 264 ppi Ipad 4, for example. Realistically, Apple probably only has to go up to 400 ppi or so. But because of the way they've done things till now (double their ppi every couple of generations), I'm almost certain Apple will go with 652 ppi soon enough (for the iphone 6 perhaps, and probably 528 ppi for the ipad 5). And then, out of principle and ego, the Android guys will rush to overtake them with, say, 700 ppi, or maybe 750 ppi for good measure, and maybe then everyone will catch their breath and the whole thing will settle down. If so, the Oculus Rift v3.0 will have some pretty nice screens to work with.
Really glad that you're enjoying it, Pirate. Sounds like you've spent some more time with it now than I did, and learnt its idiosyncracies a bit better.


Shinra358 said:Going past 1080p is pointless imo. Higher resolution means higher machine power which would mean more expensive specs. If a game was made for native 4k resolutions, you would have no space left at all on your pc.
lol, no one who's actually tried the Rift would ever say that. You don't know the meanings of the words "blocky" and "fuzzy" until you have.

Besides, hardware that keeps going up with "higher machine power" and "more expensive specs" is pretty much a fundamental and mandatory part of gaming, in case you haven't noticed. Unless you're still playing most of your games with your Pentium 4, Playstation 2, or Amiga :P

All I want to know about the rift is: Is there any double imaging when objects get close to the screen and are there hud problems like 3d vision?
As others have said, ghosting is impossible. That's the beauty of a head-mounted display: no fancy tricks and gizmos like polarisation or alternating shutters to try and push an image into one eye while simultaneously blocking it from the other. The simplicity of the head-mounted display - one screen per eye with a physical 'blinker' over the bridge of your nose to separate the two - means it achieves the separation perfectly every time.

bo3b said:

Earlier, I had questioned whether any phone makers would create higher DPI screens, since 350 or 400 DPI does essentially go past what your eye can resolve at arms length. It's expensive, it burns battery power, and you can't see a difference. But that is all irrelevant, because Samsung has announced they are planning to make a 560 DPI 4K screen for phones. 1440p late 2014, 2160p in 2015.

http://www.gizbot.com/mobile/samsung-plans-to-launch-phones-with-560ppi-in-2014-4k-phones-in-2015-014417.html

Let's give a shout out to Volnaiskra who argued that they would do seemingly irrational things just for bragging rights. You were right.
Haha - thanks! :D



If I were to guess, I'd say that the race will slow down at about 700 ppi.

The resolution on my 441 ppi Samsung Galaxy S4 looks basically perfect, even up close, let alone at arm's length. So I agree that the cutoff for practical benefit must be around here. Apple's so-called "retina" screens still leave something to be desired though. Text is visibly pixellated on the 264 ppi Ipad 4, for example. Realistically, Apple probably only has to go up to 400 ppi or so. But because of the way they've done things till now (double their ppi every couple of generations), I'm almost certain Apple will go with 652 ppi soon enough (for the iphone 6 perhaps, and probably 528 ppi for the ipad 5).

And then, out of principle and ego, the Android guys will rush to overtake them with, say, 700 ppi, or maybe 750 ppi for good measure, and maybe then everyone will catch their breath and the whole thing will settle down. If so, the Oculus Rift v3.0 will have some pretty nice screens to work with.

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Posted 11/12/2013 03:46 AM   
[quote="Volnaiskra"][quote]All I want to know about the rift is: Is there any double imaging when objects get close to the screen and are there hud problems like 3d vision?[/quote]As others have said, ghosting is impossible. That's the beauty of a head-mounted display: no fancy tricks and gizmos like polarisation or alternating shutters to try and push an image into one eye while simultaneously blocking it from the other. The simplicity of the head-mounted display - one screen per eye with a 'blinker' over the bridge of your nose to separate the two - means it achieves the separation perfectly every time.[/quote]With a small caveat here- the Rift lens are doing a little mumbo-jumbo that is similar to shuttering or polarization. If you put a blinder up between your eyes, you break a lot of your stereoscopy, because your left eye can see past your nose into the right eye's field of vision and vice-versa. Instead of seeing stereo, you'll have mono-vision for anything directly in center, with one eye seeing the blinker. The Rift gets around this by stretching the vision over the blinker as well. But, at the expense of the warping effect that needs to be corrected in software. In terms of the HUD being broken- it's worse on Rift than 3D Vision. Because of that warping, you have to have the HUD in the center of the screen, or you won't be able to see it. Edges are cut off in hard to define ways, so center is the only safe spot. This makes current HUDs broken in lots of funny ways, like you only being able to see half the options. Or the text is too fuzzy to read.
Volnaiskra said:
All I want to know about the rift is: Is there any double imaging when objects get close to the screen and are there hud problems like 3d vision?
As others have said, ghosting is impossible. That's the beauty of a head-mounted display: no fancy tricks and gizmos like polarisation or alternating shutters to try and push an image into one eye while simultaneously blocking it from the other. The simplicity of the head-mounted display - one screen per eye with a 'blinker' over the bridge of your nose to separate the two - means it achieves the separation perfectly every time.
With a small caveat here- the Rift lens are doing a little mumbo-jumbo that is similar to shuttering or polarization. If you put a blinder up between your eyes, you break a lot of your stereoscopy, because your left eye can see past your nose into the right eye's field of vision and vice-versa. Instead of seeing stereo, you'll have mono-vision for anything directly in center, with one eye seeing the blinker.

The Rift gets around this by stretching the vision over the blinker as well. But, at the expense of the warping effect that needs to be corrected in software.


In terms of the HUD being broken- it's worse on Rift than 3D Vision. Because of that warping, you have to have the HUD in the center of the screen, or you won't be able to see it. Edges are cut off in hard to define ways, so center is the only safe spot. This makes current HUDs broken in lots of funny ways, like you only being able to see half the options. Or the text is too fuzzy to read.

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Posted 11/12/2013 03:59 AM   
Yep, that's definitely an issue for non-rift designed games. HL2 gets around this reasonably well by putting the health/ammo counters in a non-central location that's still reasonably easy to see. There's a mod I'm yet to try called HL2: VR that's for use with the Rift+Hydras. It shows your ammo on a holographic readout on the side of your gun - and as your hands are tracked, you can rotate your gun to look at it relatively easily.
Yep, that's definitely an issue for non-rift designed games. HL2 gets around this reasonably well by putting the health/ammo counters in a non-central location that's still reasonably easy to see. There's a mod I'm yet to try called HL2: VR that's for use with the Rift+Hydras. It shows your ammo on a holographic readout on the side of your gun - and as your hands are tracked, you can rotate your gun to look at it relatively easily.

Posted 11/12/2013 05:48 AM   
[quote="Pirateguybrush"]Yep, that's definitely an issue for non-rift designed games. HL2 gets around this reasonably well by putting the health/ammo counters in a non-central location that's still reasonably easy to see. There's a mod I'm yet to try called HL2: VR that's for use with the Rift+Hydras. It shows your ammo on a holographic readout on the side of your gun - and as your hands are tracked, you can rotate your gun to look at it relatively easily.[/quote]Sounds awesome. Like Dead Space's HUD style, but even better!
Pirateguybrush said:Yep, that's definitely an issue for non-rift designed games. HL2 gets around this reasonably well by putting the health/ammo counters in a non-central location that's still reasonably easy to see. There's a mod I'm yet to try called HL2: VR that's for use with the Rift+Hydras. It shows your ammo on a holographic readout on the side of your gun - and as your hands are tracked, you can rotate your gun to look at it relatively easily.
Sounds awesome. Like Dead Space's HUD style, but even better!

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Posted 11/12/2013 05:58 AM   
I never tried the dev rift yet but I did get to try the HD one and it had no screendoor effect but was still too blurry for me. Maybe 1080p isn't enough?
I never tried the dev rift yet but I did get to try the HD one and it had no screendoor effect but was still too blurry for me. Maybe 1080p isn't enough?

Posted 11/13/2013 01:51 AM   
The HD prototype may not have had the best lenses installed for your eyes. It might not have been 100% clear, but it shouldn't have been blurry. 1080p will be enough to start with, but you're basically right though. It will need to improve.
The HD prototype may not have had the best lenses installed for your eyes. It might not have been 100% clear, but it shouldn't have been blurry. 1080p will be enough to start with, but you're basically right though. It will need to improve.

Posted 11/13/2013 02:05 AM   
Ignore fake JimmyJohn, he's putting in malware links. Gotta love these total freakin' losers.
Ignore fake JimmyJohn, he's putting in malware links. Gotta love these total freakin' losers.

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Posted 12/01/2013 12:19 PM   
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