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New Oculus Rift dev kit goes on sale for $350 today, likely ships in July

polygon.com

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Re: New Oculus Rift dev kit goes on sale for $350 today, likely ships in July

#111

Post by Cacti »

itcmcgrath wrote: post #7
dm2 wrote: post #3

Does the latest versions make people sick after prolonged use? How similar does it feel to looking at real far away objects? Is it easy to tell it's not 3D and the screen is flat? If I tied a passed out "friend" up and put on the Oculus Rift glasses and played a movie of them being thrown out of a helicopter from 1st person, would they be able to tell that it was fake or is there a perceived feeling of it being real?

I got the chance to play with it a few weeks ago, along with several others in our office. 1) It didn't make any of us sick, but I could see how it still would for users, particular if they didn't try to move their body in roughly the same direction as they would if it was IRL. If you have ever sat in a vehicle and watched the outside via a mirror - it's like that. 2) For me, while it was immersive (we had several us…

Hrm. That's interesting, I've never thought about the focal point issue before. Do you know of anyone working on this problem or any general status on this in "the field"?

Re: New Oculus Rift dev kit goes on sale for $350 today, likely ships in July

#112

Post by Cacti »

tsenkov wrote: post #82

Has anyone used it for coding?

I'm interesting in this too. My guess is you'd really need good, light, haptic gloves to make this work... certainly you will need the same sort of precision and physical feedback you have now with a physical keyboard, even if you're not primarily using it for traditional typing.

Re: New Oculus Rift dev kit goes on sale for $350 today, likely ships in July

#113

Post by modeless »

lutorm wrote: post #88
modeless wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1. According to media reports, the latest version almost eliminates motion sickness. You can still get motion sickness from e.g. going on a virtual roller coaster that would make you sick in the real world, but you won't get sick just sitting in place (which is why the new demos do just that). 2. Far away objects look pixelated, and very close objects look incorrect because the depth of field is wrong. However, the 3…

By (2), are you referring to the fact that you don't have to refocus your eyes when shifting your view between objects at different distances? I've never tried one, but I'd assume the screen is projected at infinity or close to? This should only be an issue with objects that are closer than 1.5ft or something.

Yes, it's only a problem with objects that are unusually close to your face. It's a small concern and only really relevant for people designing VR content, because with properly designed content users should never notice.

Re: New Oculus Rift dev kit goes on sale for $350 today, likely ships in July

#114

Post by mortenjorck »

necubi wrote: post #107
mortenjorck wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could anyone with more background elaborate on what you think Carmack means with the second tweet? The PS4 already outputs 1080p with (varying algorithms of) antialiasing for several of its launch titles. I'd expect some rendering pipeline shortcuts to cut down on the latency that some operations incur and to achieve a constant 60 FPS, but a generational drop in graphical fidelity seems steep.

Stereo rendering requires rendering the scene twice, once for each eye. Off the bat, this is almost twice as computationally intensive as rendering it once.

It's rendering it twice, but at only half the resolution.

Thinking about this more, the closest analog to stereo rendering would seem to be games with a split-screen mode. Which, in my experience, often does entail a performance hit (though certainly not a generation-sized one).

My guess is that how much a second viewport affects performance is highly engine-dependent. Ironically, the one game I remember having the biggest delta from single-screen to split-screen is the Dreamcast version of Quake III: I distinctly recall the sharp drop in poly-count on the otherwise curvy rocket launcher.

Re: New Oculus Rift dev kit goes on sale for $350 today, likely ships in July

#115

Post by mehwoot »

mortenjorck wrote: post #108
alayne wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How are you going to push twice as many pixels without some quality tradeoff?

That's just it, though. It's the exact same number of pixels. It's a single 1080p screen divided in two.

Number of pixels isn't the primary cost of rendering, unless you are using ray tracing.

Re: New Oculus Rift dev kit goes on sale for $350 today, likely ships in July

#116

Post by nacs »

aculver wrote: post #58

I can't help but laugh with glee a little when watching the video at http://www.oculusvr.com/dk2/ , specifically at the part where John Carmack comes on. I'm still so excited that he joined Oculus VR. When I see him in a video like this, it's like a giant "100% Guaranteed" stamp that this whole thing is going to eventually be everything we could possibly hope for.

I had a similar reaction.

They say in the video that they brought together the "best developers in the industry" which sounds like generic marketing embellishment until they cut to Carmack. Hard to argue that statement at that point.

Re: New Oculus Rift dev kit goes on sale for $350 today, likely ships in July

#117

Post by modeless »

mortenjorck wrote: post #114
necubi wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Stereo rendering requires rendering the scene twice, once for each eye. Off the bat, this is almost twice as computationally intensive as rendering it once.

It's rendering it twice, but at only half the resolution. Thinking about this more, the closest analog to stereo rendering would seem to be games with a split-screen mode. Which, in my experience, often does entail a performance hit (though certainly not a generation-sized one). My guess is that how much a second viewport affects performance is highly engine-dependent. Ironically, the one game I remember having the b…

Rendering the scene twice has overhead, so it would take extra time even if it was the same number of pixels total. But that's far from the only reason VR requires more power.

Due to the distortion caused by the lenses the scene must be rendered at about 1.4x the normal resolution. Then there's a warping step that performs the inverse of the lens distortion, which is an additional cost. Also, good VR requires rendering at 90 Hz, not 60 Hz, so that's another 1.5x. Furthermore, frame tearing artifacts and FPS hiccups are much worse in VR, so you need extra headroom to eliminate them even in worst-case scenarios.

Re: New Oculus Rift dev kit goes on sale for $350 today, likely ships in July

#118

Post by varkson »

berberous wrote: post #92

Maybe a stupid question, but: I'm not a game dev nor even a gamer, but I kind of want to buy a dev kit. How well will it work with a rMBP, and are there lots of fun demos already available?

Judging from my experience with the dev kit, even on my gaming rig there was a little bit of trouble running some of the games fast enough.

Your machine needs to be capable of running your game at 1080p 60fps. Not sure how the rMBP stacks up, but for most of the demos you should be able to play on low.

I found the best demos were more about an experience then games. The novelty wears off after a while, but I think when the real games come out, that's when things are going to get interesting.

Re: New Oculus Rift dev kit goes on sale for $350 today, likely ships in July

#119

Post by lutorm »

modeless wrote: post #113
lutorm wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By (2), are you referring to the fact that you don't have to refocus your eyes when shifting your view between objects at different distances? I've never tried one, but I'd assume the screen is projected at infinity or close to? This should only be an issue with objects that are closer than 1.5ft or something.

Yes, it's only a problem with objects that are unusually close to your face. It's a small concern and only really relevant for people designing VR content, because with properly designed content users should never notice.

I guess I won't be able to faithfully simulate having to put on my reading glasses to read the cockpit instruments in a flight simulator then... ;-)

Re: New Oculus Rift dev kit goes on sale for $350 today, likely ships in July

#120

Post by ezarowny »

incision wrote: post #50

Generally not an early adopter, but after backing, using and being blown away by the original kit this was an easy decision. Interestingly, the checkout page reflected my Oculus Store Credit discount, but the confirmation email I received did not. Can't wait.

How much was your discount?
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