VR is gonna be insane once hardware catches up. It’s the natural next frontier imo.
This has been the sentiment for nearly a decade now.
Much longer. We had VR in the '60s.
VR Is Not Dead
21–30 of 68 posts
Re: VR Is Not Dead
#22VR's problem, in my opinion, is that I can get immersed (fully, exactly as the author describes it) in a 2D game just fine - the lack of stereo vision or head-tracking or motion controls is no more an impediment to my immersion than the limited binocular overlap or peripheral vision or lag in a VR headset. And 2D is a heck of a lot cheaper and more convenient (and less nauseating). That's not to say VR can never be s…
I feel that's like saying "I can get just as fully immersed in a book so who needs movies?"
They're different experiences. I don't need Tetris or PacMan in VR. Conversely, Half-Life 1/2 etc are not remotely intense as Half-Life Alyx. In the first 2 you're watching a movie. In the later you're in the world of Half-Life
Re: VR Is Not Dead
#23In my experience in the real word, VR is a lot like racing sims. No one I know owns a VR headset, no one I know talks about it, no one I know is very interested in it at all, but both exist as ticketed experience at places in and around malls. So from where I'm sitting in my middle class suburbs, it's certainly not dead, but it's basically the modern equivalent of those actuated flight sim entertainment experiences f…
As someone who has both interest in VR and racing sims (and other sims), and tried VR and loved it, I am genuinely NOT INTERESTED in owning a headset for the obvious health reasons that come with using one.
There is no way this ever can be close to safe for your health than, say, not using it.
Re: VR Is Not Dead
#24[deleted]
Re: VR Is Not Dead
#25VR's problem, in my opinion, is that I can get immersed (fully, exactly as the author describes it) in a 2D game just fine - the lack of stereo vision or head-tracking or motion controls is no more an impediment to my immersion than the limited binocular overlap or peripheral vision or lag in a VR headset. And 2D is a heck of a lot cheaper and more convenient (and less nauseating). That's not to say VR can never be s…
I like VR and immersion in theory. I like being able to look around, but I absolutely hate the movement controls.
I know some people complain of motion sickness, but that doesn't bother me. I just want controls like Mario or Zelda on a regular joystick. Why can't this be done?
It doesn't even have to be first person. I'd play a third person game like Mario or Zelda with a VR camera tracking them. I just want that kind of movement.
Pushing a button to teleport in short hops is annoying as hell. I hate everything about it.
I gave up trying in frustration.
Re: VR Is Not Dead
#26IMO this blog post can be summarized as "Even if nobody actually wants to use VR for extended periods, it's cool so it will be coming in the future eventually!!"
VR is the perfect metaphor IMO for how "the tech industry" at large has lost its way. It's no longer about using technology to solve long standing human problems, it's about how tech firms can find ways to insert themselves in the fabric of human existence so they can suck their rent indefinitely.
I actually think VR is very cool, and I thoroughly enjoy playing VR games like Beat Saber. But building a really fun (short term) gaming platform, or finding some dedicated VR use cases in specific environments like construction, was never going to be enough for big tech. They wouldn't be satisfied unless all of us had goggles strapped to our faces for 8+ hours a day. Everything Meta talked about made this clear - they only invested a ton of money because they saw it as the new "platform" after desktop and mobile that they could own and control. And it's obviously why AI is commanding so much investment now, as companies are scrambling to own the means of production in human society for years to come.
I agree that VR is not "dead", whatever that means, but I do find some joy that tech companies haven't found yet one more way to own the basics in societal existence.
Re: VR Is Not Dead
#27With AI, VR is even more promising. I have been working on a Gaussian splat renderer for the Quest 3, and by having Claude and ChatGPT read state-of-the-art papers, I have been able to build a training and rendering pipeline that is getting >50 fps for large indoor scenes on the Quest 3. I started with an (AI-driven) port of a desktop renderer, which got less than 1 fps, but I've integrated both training and renderin…
You might be interested in a new experimental 3D scene learning and rendering approach called Radiant foam [1], which is supposed to be better suited for GPUs that don't have hardware ray tracing acceleration.
Re: VR Is Not Dead
#28VR's problem, in my opinion, is that I can get immersed (fully, exactly as the author describes it) in a 2D game just fine - the lack of stereo vision or head-tracking or motion controls is no more an impediment to my immersion than the limited binocular overlap or peripheral vision or lag in a VR headset. And 2D is a heck of a lot cheaper and more convenient (and less nauseating). That's not to say VR can never be s…
I feel that's like saying "I can get just as fully immersed in a book so who needs movies?" They're different experiences. I don't need Tetris or PacMan in VR. Conversely, Half-Life 1/2 etc are not remotely intense as Half-Life Alyx. In the first 2 you're watching a movie. In the later you're in the world of Half-Life
The frequency of choosing to go out to the movies is also about how often I think "I wish I could do this in VR".
Examples:
- Before going on a trip, pre-visiting the destination in Google Earth with VR is very spatially informative & makes directional intuition memorable upon arrival at the real world destination.
- Virtual role-play with environmental cues that cause make-believe to be ever more real.
But most people don't need this very often. Picking up a book or throwing on some earbuds to listen to a book are far more frequent and compatible with simultaneous other activities. VR feels the same--a high-demand focused experience that is infrequently worth the effort.
Re: VR Is Not Dead
#29VR's problem, in my opinion, is that I can get immersed (fully, exactly as the author describes it) in a 2D game just fine - the lack of stereo vision or head-tracking or motion controls is no more an impediment to my immersion than the limited binocular overlap or peripheral vision or lag in a VR headset. And 2D is a heck of a lot cheaper and more convenient (and less nauseating). That's not to say VR can never be s…
I feel that's like saying "I can get just as fully immersed in a book so who needs movies?" They're different experiences. I don't need Tetris or PacMan in VR. Conversely, Half-Life 1/2 etc are not remotely intense as Half-Life Alyx. In the first 2 you're watching a movie. In the later you're in the world of Half-Life
The giant advantage regular games have is that I've yet to smash my hand into a wall playing them.
I think that the relatively low living space area for most of the world is a huge strain on VR adoption.
Re: VR Is Not Dead
#30The biggest impediment for VR is the fundamentally asocial nature of it.
If there are fewer headsets in a room than there are people, it’s going to be awkward for at least one person. Trying to help someone debug something in their headset without me being able to see what they see is a problem (granted, this could be solved by software).
Having to share headsets sucks. You have to faff with head straps, adjust IPD, focus. I’ve had exactly one evening where everyone had a headset and things worked well for everyone involved. I’ve had dozens if not hundreds of events filled with awkward moments, setup issues, problems, where everyone is continuously taking the headset off and need to figure something out. And this was while working for a VR company where everyone was quite computer and VR literate.
Reflecting on it, it felt kind of like 90s and 2000s LAN parties, before the days of DHCP. Randomly copying values around, IP conflicts and not understanding subnet values. Good times.