Oculus Rift

[little P]

Does anyone own one or had a go in one?

Elite: Dangerous has captured me like no other game in the last ten years, I feel like a kid again where you end up thinking about the game when your'e not playing it for whatever reason and are planning what you will do when you manage to get back in there...

It'll be even better when my Rift arrives, can't wait for that. I'm so into ED that it has tipped me over the edge and got me to order the Oculus Rift DK2. I've been trying to hold off for the CV1 but it's been getting progressively harder reading all the comments in the VR section over at the official forums.

I've already got a friend lined up to buy the DK2 off me for a £100 less when I get the consumer version (he only wants it for the cute little games for his kids so not bothered about the higher resolution etc.), so the way I figured I'm paying £100 to get into VR a bit early as there is no official release date yet. I can live with that.

From the comments around re: playing ED with the Rift, it was a no brainer. I can't wait to try it out

I've seen some footage of a custom track in Assetto Corsa made out to be like the open road back in the 60's with the Rift user driving a 60's Aston Martin modded in there, and he was astonished at how real it felt.

I'll definitely be trying that out, and the virtual cinemas are supposed to be pretty good too (looking forward to watching "Gravity" in a cinema aboard a ship orbiting Earth especially).

Oh, and not forgetting native support for Alien: Isolation (enabled through a simple config. file edit) for when I don't want to sleep for, well.... forever.

Just wondered if anyone here has got one or is thinking of getting one either now or when it is officially released

 

[Daunt]

I am more than likely going to get it when the consumer version comes out. I'm amazed at how realistic it feels just watching people experience it in youtube videos (with the two lens images)

I have a wedding to pay for in 8 months so it works out for me, it MAKES me wait for the consumer version. You seem to have a great deal lined up... that seems very worth it to me. I've been holding out on adding more monitors to my setup for this very reason. Muuuuch better and even more cost effective.

 

[little P]

Definitely wait for the consumer version, and I can't stress enough to try one before you buy.

It is the strangest thing with the Rift. Like a lot of people say, it is absolutely an incredible, unique, indescribable experience, but I absolutely cannot recommend you getting one right now.

Some of the things I have experienced have been honest to goodness jaw dropping.

There are things that happen to your mind and your body when inside the rift, it is an eerie, uncanny sensation.

If you open yourself up to it, it is a mind bending device.

Like I said it is a really hard thing to explain, but as an example;

I was in a room in a tech demo/experience thing, and I could sense distance to each object, each wall, the floor, the ceiling. All of it seemed real, to the point where I knocked over a frame on my desk because I was reaching out to touch a pot plant that my mind had been tricked into thinking it was there.

Then it starts moving this pipe towards you, and you instinctively duck out of the way. The ceiling lowers and I felt genuinely uncomfortable. Then, I was dropped off the edge of a cliff, and my stomach turned in the same way it does when you go over the edge and plummet down on a rollercoaster in real life.

And this was just the "welcome to the rift" scene.

I've ridden rollercoasters that make me lean left and right as I'm unconsciously counteracting g-force that isn't there but my brain believes is there. I've felt weightlessness for the briefest of moments on the same rollercoaster ride.

I've watched a 4-D movie on my hard drive in a full size cinema that felt like I was actually there. The size of the cinema screen was akin to an I-MAX.

I've transported into a Mario Kart style game, and instead of feeling like I'm controlling Mario in his Kart, I AM Mario in his Kart.

I could go on and on, but honestly you have to experience it for yourself to understand what I mean.

So far I've tried;

VR Karts - I'm actually Mario, felt like I was transported inside an N64 - Tron style.

Blue Marble - Puts you in the scenario of an astronaut who loses his tether and starts to drift away while slowly running out of oxygen. This one was genuinely harrowing.

Firma - Incredible experience. Basically you are on mars operating a lifter. Again hard to describe but felt like I was actually there.

Rift Coaster - Felt like I was on a real rollercoaster - felt actual g-forces...

Sightline the Chair - The most disturbing experience for me. It is unlike anything made before, and I can't describe it, but felt genuine discomfort and fear for the first time. This one took me a while to recover from.

UE4 Rollercoaster - Clever rollercoaster based on the Unreal Engine 4 tech demo in the room. Incredible sensations, again, felt like a real rollercoaster and had me ducking and weaving about like a drunken idiot.

Titans of Space - Incredible interactive journey through our solar system, and beyond.

Vox Machinae - Amazing Mech simulator. Actually felt like I was in the cockpit of a hulking Mech. Combat was just amazing, where I looked I could fire, with independent movement controls. Very impressive.

Elite: Dangerous - Wow. This took me a while to set up, it is by no means an easy process, but boy was it worth it. The first time I entered the game, I was no longer playing a game, I was in a spaceship. My ship. The scale of everything is beyond description. I could get up and walk around the ship, the interiors are incredible, things you can't see with anything but the Rift. Normal head tracking only lets you look so far before it hits the stops. With the Rift you can see right behind you, and it is goooood. Playing with the X52 Pro, which is the same HOTAS as in game, it felt like the arms and hands were my arms and hands, very weird, and utterly cool.

Elite: Dangerous blew me away with the possibilities.

You can see the pixels, in all tech demos/games, and when you think you are magnifying a Galaxy Note 3 screen that is strapped to your eyeballs that is no surprise. The only criticism I have is the "screen door" effect, which is basically being able to see the pixels. That will be simple to overcome with simply a higher resolution.

I tried Elite with x2 DSR and it looked SO much better, but unfortunately even an overclocked GTX970 can't run Elite on Ultra with Supersampling twice smoothly. And you need smooth frames otherwise the whole illusion falls apart.

What an amazing experience though, a sign of things to come with the consumer release.

After using the DK2 for a few days now, and getting it all set up correctly (which is no easy task) I can confidently predict this is the future of gaming. No doubt about that. The possibilities are almost endless.

p.s. a lot of fun to watch peoples reactions, I was a bit cruel and put a scary demo on for several different people, all of them screamed at the same points and were genuinely frightened lol :icon_twisted:

I flat out refuse to try it with Alien: Isolation, as I will probably shat my pants

 

[little P]

And I've just tried the new Apollo 11 mission demo. Wow.

It's a rough around the edges demo but by god I just launched from Kennedy Space Centre with Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin sat right next to me...

I felt myself smiling as we launched and when when we separated 100 miles up and a pencil floated past me as I was peering through one window at the Sun and then peered through another at the moon the hairs on the back of neck stood up...

That was one of the most visceral experiences yet, as this kind of VR experience is about as close as I will get to going into space. Born too soon, but I'm so glad to have experienced that. I'm still smiling.

This technology is genuinely amazing...

 

[Wapwap]

That sounds like an amazing experience P! Do you suffer from any motion sickness at all? I remember getting sick from these 360 movie screens.

Have you tried any proper racing game yet with the Rift? That must be so cool.

 

[little P]

Yup Wappy today, I got Assetto Corsa working with the Rift. (Got Euro Truck Simulator 2 working as well) It is an absolute nightmare as you have to really force the damn thing to render to the rift, I won't bore you with the details but it is a major PITA. Once I did though... wow. Felt like I was actually driving a racecar (tried it with a Ferrari GT car). You can lean around, lean into the dash, get really up close to every part of the interior, and the depth of the 3D fools you into feeling like you are in a real car, especially once moving. The sense of speed you get is completely unlike playing on a flat screen, 100mph through a corner no longer feels like nothing, it's genuinely fast and scary to the point where you subconsciously back off. These aren't voluntary reactions it's just your brain going "oh shit we're not going to make this and will most likely crash and be in hospital". It feels like there is genuinely a corner there and the wall will hurt if you plough into it. It's uncanny, really hard to explain but I'm trying lol

However, there is one big downside to all this at the moment, and you have hit the nail on the head Wap, it's the motion sickness.

Now, bearing in mind I do not and have never suffered from motion sickness, vertigo, or anything like that, the Rift has the ability to make you feel physically sick in the stomach and that your head is being ripped apart.

This is down to a few things, the IPD adjustment being out (there is a tool where the rift measures your eyes and interpupillary distance etc.), and the actual program itself being the main contributors.

If the measurement is out for the IPD it's rip your brain apart time as your eyes desperately try and focus (a losing battle), and if it's the program it can make you feel very sick, very quickly.

The worst ones for this are when you don't have a point of reference, ie. any instances where you are walking around or moving freely.

It's not too bad when you are static in your seat like Elite or Rollercoaster type situations, or mech/driving sims etc. but still, I can't stay in the Rift for too long.

Someone gave me the advice that once you start to feel sick take the Rift off, don't try and fight through it as it will only get worse. Turns out he was right!

From all the info I've seen it's common knowledge that it takes some time to get used to being in the Rift. The brain has to learn how to deal with it.

From spending hours in it over small periods of time I can confirm that. The way things are right now I'm not sure I can adjust to it. Everyone is different apparently. Some can't spend 30 seconds in there without being physically sick, whereas some can spend hours in there.

I'm going to give it another week and see how I get on. If the situation doesn't improve (motion sickness wise) I will have to sell it on. Which would be a shame as the experience it gives you is like nothing else.

 

[Fireblade]

I've played around quite a bit with the oculus rift. It's really neat, however leaves you extremely tunnel visioned, per say, I think. They need to make one where the screen wraps around inside of the unit to give you peripheral vision of some sort, rather than being stuck with a standard 70 degree fov.

 

[little P]

I agree FB was thinking the same thing. I get the tunnel vision thing quite badly. It's even there when you close your eyes :/

It definitely needs some work. I can't see them releasing it this year can you?

 

[Daunt]

New news following last weeks release "timeframe" of early 2016:

https://www.oculus.com/blog/the-rifts-recommended-spec-pc-sdk-0-6-released-and-mobile-vr-jam-voting/#ftag=YHF6738a5f

Recommended minimum specs:

For the full Rift experience, we recommend the following system:

• NVIDIA GTX 970 / AMD 290 equivalent or greater
• Intel i5-4590 equivalent or greater
• 8GB+ RAM
• Compatible HDMI 1.3 video output
• 2x USB 3.0 ports
• Windows 7 SP1 or newer

 

[Daunt]

http://variety.com/2015/digital/news/oculus-accidentally-leaks-images-details-of-consumer-device-1201515378/

Image leaks of the Rift. We'll know a lot more after the press release / conference Oculus is holding on Thursday.

 

[Daunt]

Seems the minimum requirements got leaked as well:

• 4 GB RAM
• Nvidia 9800 or AMD 4870 graphics card with 1 GB dedicated RAM
• 2.4 GHz Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 CPU or 2.4 GHz AMD Phenom 9850 Quad Core CPU
• 65 GB HDD

 

[Daunt]

1 more hour until preorders start!

 

[Daunt]

$600 bucks?? Holy hell where did that come from??

 

[ElektroVodka]

That's without any tax as well, i was about to order one and then i came to the part where to ship to.... price changed from $599 to €699 without shipping. Total was at €741... fakkayuuu OR!

I remember the quote "consumers can expect figures in the ballpark of $350"

 

[Daunt]

There are plenty of quotes. There was defintely a reason they hid the price until today from everyone.

I was ready and willing for a 400-500 range but I thought 500 would be too much.

 

[Daunt]

The wife was going to pick this up for me for my upcoming birthday present, she admitted, but no way when it's $600.

 

[Jerad]

over $900 CAD once conversion and shipping is taken into account. I have the DK2 and was only luke warm about it. No way am I paying more than $400 for the CV.

 

[Daunt]

I didn't know you had the DK2. Do you never use it Iron?

 

[Jerad]

I didn't know you had the DK2. Do you never use it Iron?

I used it a little bit when I got it but my eyes don't seem to like VR. 15-20 minutes and the eye strain was too much. Eurotruck simulator and iRacing looked awesome in it the immersion factor is huge but could never wear it long enough to do a race.

 

[Daunt]

You think it has to do with the resolution? I'll buy it off you! My Arcade Simpit NEEDS Oculus so bad.