It was the tracking that got me... having to sit really still otherwise your screen was jerking around all over the place. I have a similar fear of VR to be honest... I do like things to be relatively stable
Viewing Pleasure Opinion
- Thread starter Skatez69
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It was the tracking that got me... having to sit really still otherwise your screen was jerking around all over the place. I have a similar fear of VR to be honest... I do like things to be relatively stable
A recent update to SteamVR allows you "look" through the front-facing camera on the Vive and presumably the Index as well. It's not crystal clear but good enough for me to see what my cat is scratching on or to find my controllers and so on. I find it much better than the "matrix mode" thing and can be quickly accessed by tapping the button on the side of the Vive.
Another one here giving an almighty great thumbs up for VR. My Odyssey and 1070 give excellent text clarity and general sharpness, I never have an issue identifying other ships etc.
However, VR is very clearly a very personal experience based on so many factors. Comfort, lower resolution than a monitor, lots of fiddling with options to find your sweet spot and a lack of general ease compared to the ease of using a screen. For me, it's well worth it. To the point I'm planning to plough more cash into it for better components.
If you get the chance to try before you buy I'd recommend it.
However, VR is very clearly a very personal experience based on so many factors. Comfort, lower resolution than a monitor, lots of fiddling with options to find your sweet spot and a lack of general ease compared to the ease of using a screen. For me, it's well worth it. To the point I'm planning to plough more cash into it for better components.
If you get the chance to try before you buy I'd recommend it.
I'm a vive user when in VR or a 1440p flat screen.
There are some excellent comments on here, and i agree with just about all of it.
As much as I thoroughly enjoy VR, it tends to work best for certain activities, particularly combat. But that's not what I do most of the time, so for exploring, trading or pottering about I usually go pancake. That way I can have other stuff open, e.g. inara, edd or youtubs.
It may be I'll use VR more when i upgrade to an index, but I doubt it will be the main way I play. It really is something though, no doubt about that.
There are some excellent comments on here, and i agree with just about all of it.
As much as I thoroughly enjoy VR, it tends to work best for certain activities, particularly combat. But that's not what I do most of the time, so for exploring, trading or pottering about I usually go pancake. That way I can have other stuff open, e.g. inara, edd or youtubs.
It may be I'll use VR more when i upgrade to an index, but I doubt it will be the main way I play. It really is something though, no doubt about that.
@Apsley , I agree completely, I'm blown away by the quality of the responses here and thank everyone for their contribution.
Do any other commanders actually have the Valve Index or super-widescreen? My primary concerns with the VR that seems to keep coming up is the resolution so it would be nice to hear from someone who has the actual one I'm looking at. I've not heard from anyone regarding the super-widescreen option and in the interests of balance, I'd really like to (although it is starting to feel like VR might be the way to go)
I'm actually in London all next week for work, so if there are any generous commanders with a VR solution in London that are happy for me to pay them a visit so I can try it myself, please drop me a PM.
Do any other commanders actually have the Valve Index or super-widescreen? My primary concerns with the VR that seems to keep coming up is the resolution so it would be nice to hear from someone who has the actual one I'm looking at. I've not heard from anyone regarding the super-widescreen option and in the interests of balance, I'd really like to (although it is starting to feel like VR might be the way to go)
I'm actually in London all next week for work, so if there are any generous commanders with a VR solution in London that are happy for me to pay them a visit so I can try it myself, please drop me a PM.
i understand your dilemma but vr and flatscreen are just not comparable, totally different experiences. you definitely should try vr out first before spending that kind of money on the index. one option is getting a cheap second hand rift or such, won't cost much more than that tobii thing, it won't have the resolution of the index but the basic experience is the same.
once you know if the experience is for you, except low resolution all other drawbacks have lots of different solutions, and if you get the 'vr virus' in you you won't really mind. for me it's been ed in vr or no ed at all for a few years now. i did use trackir first and i liked it a lot, i tried the tobii eyetracker too and while it's a cool gadget it was of no use for me in ed, its tracking is way too slow. but at the end of the day vr is just a totally different thing, it's being there. trumps everything, imo.
once you know if the experience is for you, except low resolution all other drawbacks have lots of different solutions, and if you get the 'vr virus' in you you won't really mind. for me it's been ed in vr or no ed at all for a few years now. i did use trackir first and i liked it a lot, i tried the tobii eyetracker too and while it's a cool gadget it was of no use for me in ed, its tracking is way too slow. but at the end of the day vr is just a totally different thing, it's being there. trumps everything, imo.
VR!
A bigger screen is just a bigger screen ... VR is a whole new dimension.
A bigger screen is just a bigger screen ... VR is a whole new dimension.
That's an interesting point, and another thing that irritates me with VR.
If you think about, say, driving a car IRL, your head's in a stable position but you move your eyes around to check your mirrors, glance at the dashboard or stereo, locate the controls or whatever.
As a result of this, you retain a stable reference to the view through the windscreen - even if you're not actually looking through the windscreen in your normal "eyes straight ahead" manner.
Since VR tracks head movement, rather than eye movement, your entire frame of reference moves when you move your head and, for me, that leads to a feeling of "not being quite back where I want to be" when I move my head back into the "eyes straight ahead" position.
To me, it feels much more "natural" to have monitors in front of me, displaying the "outside world", and be able to look around me without the view of the "outside world" changing.
With unlimited funds, I think my ideal sim-solution would probably be something using multiple projectors.
That way I could have the tactile experience of a physical "cockpit" and the immersive experience of a gigantic field-of-view.
Course, if I had the cash for that, I'd also have the latest VR wizardry too, just for games where it provides a better experience.
Deleted member 182079
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Ah right. There are a number of settings that you can tweak to make it much less twitchy, and smoother. I found it a bit odd at the very beginning but quite quickly found the sweet spot between smoothness and responsiveness (and the level of acceleration relative to your head movement). You can also disable certain axises to avoid tilting, zooming or strafing motions.
You develop muscle memory and get used to it quite quickly though - sometimes I play without TrackIR, and catch myself moving my head in an attempt to move the camera. Odd feeling when the game doesn't respond as expected
Oh cool! I didn’t notice...guess I haven’t used it in a while. Thanks!
well if Steam has a sale I’ll upgrade my headset so maybe I’ll give a report. However I know there are some Vive Pro and Index users out there. I'm also trying to avoid the RTX generation of video cards so we'll see how it works with a GTX 1080. trying to hold off video card purchases until AMD releases their new cards and nVidia has to go to Ampere to compete.
with Vive pro the consensus was “meh”. As in if you already have a Vive the upgrade wasn’t worth it although it was certainly better. The index has been more positive but lower in numbers due to pricing.
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VR acts like real life though, in which you do move your head a fair bit but your eyes remain locked to a particular reference and things appear stable because your brain compensates for it, that's pretty much the entire point of it being VR. You can move you head around all you like and still look at the same object, trackIR is far more sensitive as it has to adjust input to screen ratio so that you can still be looking forwards at the screen. VR is completely natural. The only downsides are the oft mentioned sweet spots, god rays and FoV which come into play when using your eyes to glance at something rather than looking directly at it.
You could throw a 60inch 8k screen and pc to run it at me for elite and I'd still choose to use my rift, everytime.
OK, so a couple of additional questions for the VR peeps... how does it work with output from the game? do you only see the output in the VR headset, or does the computer mirror the output to a monitor? I'm guessing it's only in the VR.
What is lag like, both in terms of display lag and movement lag and what kind of FPS are people getting? I have Elite running at Ultra mode and I'd hope I can keep doing so...
sweet-spot and god-rays have been mentioned... I know what the god rays are as the Index apparently doesn't suffer from them according to the reviews I've read, but sweet-spot, what's that?
What is lag like, both in terms of display lag and movement lag and what kind of FPS are people getting? I have Elite running at Ultra mode and I'd hope I can keep doing so...
sweet-spot and god-rays have been mentioned... I know what the god rays are as the Index apparently doesn't suffer from them according to the reviews I've read, but sweet-spot, what's that?
There is an output to your monitor, it apparently doesn’t take much extra graphical oomph to mirror an image from one of your eyes.
Lag is non-existent, your head movement is mirrored one-to-one in the game - unless you don’t have the hardware to match your settings, in which case you can get stutter. Most headsets have a little trick that allows you to drop to half the headset framerate and still appear smooth. I have pretty much all setting at their highest level, HMD quality set to 1.25, running on an i7 8700 & GTX 1080. I don’t get stutter but I do drop into the graphical trick when things get busy - so I still see 80fps but my computer is only generating 40fps with the Rift “guessing” at the missing frames.
The sweetspot is the area of focus on the lens, in my Rift S it’s pretty much the entire lens with a ring of blurriness around the very outside. It means I can look around in my field of view without having to move my head around too much to focus on things.
There's a screen on the monitor as well. For me, no lag. I have a vive and a pimax headset and neither has any lag. The sweet spot is weird. At the centre of the screen is where it's most in focus, that's the sweet spot. ive stopped noticing it.
Edit:Ninja Arioch describes it better
It mirrors one of the eyes to the screen. Typically in a low-res Window but you can change that if you want to capture video or screenshots. Note that the field of view will seem quite narrow compared to a normal (non-VR) on-screen display of the game tho.
Lag I'd personally say is zero. It's one of the marvels of modern VR. You put on the headset and you just ARE in another world. You look around like it's real, no sense of lag at all. Framerate - I have a 1080 and I tend to get around 90fps (even with AWS turned off).
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Must be somebody close enough to you for a quick try, you'd be welcome here but it's a bit of a trek from Sheffield
I'm not in Sheffield any more, I'm in Norfolk, although next week I'm in London... must get my details updated!Must be somebody close enough to you for a quick try, you'd be welcome here but it's a bit of a trek from Sheffield
I have the Oculus Rift but never use it for several reasons:
There is also the psychological and social side:
It's still an awesome experience and I am glad that I tried it. The game has an entirely different dimension and it's awesome to see how big everything is. It's definitely like a whole new game. If I would live alone I would probably use it more often (which absolutely doesn't mean that people playing in VR are antisocial or awkward in my opinion, it's just that I already am introvert enough).
- resolution too low
- text not sharp enough
- visible borders
- drink / smoke / eat is problematic
- typing is difficult
- can't check other things while playing
There is also the psychological and social side:
- can't talk to my wife / daughter / friends
- I hate the feeling when I don't know what's going on around me (I also hate diving which is a somewhat similar experience including the blurry view )
- I don't like the idea of escaping reality too much
It's still an awesome experience and I am glad that I tried it. The game has an entirely different dimension and it's awesome to see how big everything is. It's definitely like a whole new game. If I would live alone I would probably use it more often (which absolutely doesn't mean that people playing in VR are antisocial or awkward in my opinion, it's just that I already am introvert enough).
I liked my Rift S too. Except for the bit where it ate my Windows USB drivers. Had to go back. I missed it when it was gone.
I'm now contemplating a Reverb. It's not the hundreds of pounds extra for the Reverb that's making me pause. It's the couple of thousand pounds extra for the computer to run it.
I mean I will eventually need a new computer, but had hoped to put it off for a bit. Hence the dalliance with the a Rift S. Oh well. Now where did I leave that piggy bank....