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Oculus’ New $99 Samsung Gear VR Makes Serious Virtual Reality Affordable

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Re: Oculus’ New $99 Samsung Gear VR Makes Serious Virtual Reality Affordable

#72
post #6

I wonder how effective this VR actually is. It seems that VR heavily depends on high quality screens, with very high resolution, and low latency and persistence. However this works with a screen that isn't optimised for those attributes. $99 may be good, but it seems likely that it will be much worse than the Oculus Rift, I think is targeting ~$400-500, and could be far better. Is it worth it?

The Gear VR requires a phone with a 2560 * 1440 resolution. That's actually higher than Oculus DK2, which is only 1920 * 1080. I have a Gear VR for Note 4 and it's pretty awesome (especially for 360° video)... But there's just no content yet. I'm really looking forward to Land's End , a new Gear VR game from Monument Valley's makers: http://www.theverge.com/2015/9/21/9353235/lands-end-vr-game-...

I've used the Cardboard on my S5 and it is pretty painfully low resolution (1080). 2560x1440 would be fantastic. 2000 vertical lines would be amazing.

Re: Oculus’ New $99 Samsung Gear VR Makes Serious Virtual Reality Affordable

#73
post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Gear VR requires a phone with a 2560 * 1440 resolution. That's actually higher than Oculus DK2, which is only 1920 * 1080. I have a Gear VR for Note 4 and it's pretty awesome (especially for 360° video)... But there's just no content yet. I'm really looking forward to Land's End , a new Gear VR game from Monument Valley's makers: http://www.theverge.com/2015/9/21/9353235/lands-end-vr-game-...

Content is precisely the problem. Carmack even admits as much here: http://uploadvr.com/john-carmack-talks-difficulty-mobile-pos... That guy's pretty outspoken. (And yes, he's referring to live action content; I presume mobile VR will be tilted more toward video streaming etc than gaming, but I could be wrong.)

I'm not a sports person, but your "live action content" made me wonder how awesome it would be to be a sports fan who could view 'the game' from the sideline, or an aerial cam, and to be able to turn and zoom a camera or to switch cameras – as desired! Better yet, to be able 'be the athlete'. Cameras aren't there yet, but imagine being able to watch the scenery as an Olympic down-hill skier as flying downhill - AWESOME possibilities!

Re: Oculus’ New $99 Samsung Gear VR Makes Serious Virtual Reality Affordable

#75
post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any chance you have a URL to a transcript or video of this lecture?

1:35 http://www.twitch.tv/oculus/v/17538854

Direct link for Abrash: http://www.twitch.tv/oculus/v/17538854?t=1h35m30s

Carmack's: http://www.twitch.tv/oculus/v/17538854?t=3h31m10s

Re: Oculus’ New $99 Samsung Gear VR Makes Serious Virtual Reality Affordable

#76
post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow, that's awesome! My 3-year-old video card uses 160 watts of power and roars like a jet engine running CS:GO at 1080p. It blows my mind that we've come so far so fast.

The trend lines showed a year ago that a high end smartphone in about 3 years from now (mid-way through the PS4's lifetime) will have higher paper specs than a PS4 ( paper specs , not necessarily as well-utilized). An Nvidia Shield tablet is on paper roughly equivalent to an XBox360. The Shield set top box is double that. A few more doublings and the prediction will play out.

Sure, but there is no way the thermals will be there.

Re: Oculus’ New $99 Samsung Gear VR Makes Serious Virtual Reality Affordable

#77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The trend lines showed a year ago that a high end smartphone in about 3 years from now (mid-way through the PS4's lifetime) will have higher paper specs than a PS4 ( paper specs , not necessarily as well-utilized). An Nvidia Shield tablet is on paper roughly equivalent to an XBox360. The Shield set top box is double that. A few more doublings and the prediction will play out.

3 years from now, the PS4 will be 5 years old and much cheaper than a high-end smartphone.

yes, but a high end smartphone will always be cheaper than a high end smartphone and a PS4.

the point isn't that phones are cheaper than other things, it's that you need one anyways.

Re: Oculus’ New $99 Samsung Gear VR Makes Serious Virtual Reality Affordable

#78
This is excellent. I know many people for whom this would be cheap enough to just add on to their next phone contract, who otherwise wouldn't have dipped their toes in it.

As an aside, I really wish Google and Oculus could get together and work out how to allow Cardboard apps to take advantage of the extra hardware from the Gear VR if it's available. Using a Gear VR and then trying Cardboard shows how woefully inadequate Cardboard is; but there are some cool Cardboard apps that I'd really love to be able to try with the much much better tracking of my Gear VR.

Re: Oculus’ New $99 Samsung Gear VR Makes Serious Virtual Reality Affordable

#79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, it's significantly better. The headset has MEMS sensors running at 1 KHz (the Note 4 runs at 100 Hz IIRC), which means the head-tracking is perceptually flawless. Add to that the quality of the optics, the high quality screen, the wide field of view, and the difference is substantial; if you haven't tried both, just trust me. They're not even in the same category. Now, the Zeiss headset, that thing is just a high…

Sorry, but there is no screen with this device, correct?

Think of it as an enclosure for Samsung phone that is significantly better than a high-tech Google Cardboard.
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